Blog Profile: Rebecca's Soap Delicatessen

I'd like to introduce you to Rebecca Dillion of Rebecca's Soap Delicatessen.  Rebecca has an Etsy shop but is slowly moving to her own website.   As a Fine Arts student of Roanoke College, Rebecca's varied interests found her in many classrooms, which reads like a who's who of fun: photography, pottery, 3-D art, drawing, painting, and quite a few others.  Today she continues to study art while maintaining her handmade soap business, a fabulous blog, and her life as a single mother.  

1. Where/when did you learn to make soaps?
I am a self taught soapmaker. Having been a crafty girl growing up and then graduating from college with a fine arts degree, it seemed only natural to me to learn to make the one thing I'd really fallen in love with - handmade soaps. I bought the book, The Soapmaker's Companion, did a lot of online research, got hold of a how to video and had it. After some trial and error I eventually came up with my own soap recipes that I fell in love with and now sell in my handmade soap shop.

2. What are some of your favorite scents/flavors?
I am ridiculously allergy prone and most florals set me to sneezing, so I tend to favor fruit scents and food scents. Some of my current and past favorites have been Pomegranate Cream, White Tea, Red Velvet Cake, Hot Doughnuts, Lemon Meringue Pie, and Mango & Papaya. 

3. You sell goat milk soaps. Do you raise your own goats? How much fun is that?
I think owning a goat would be fun, but no I don't own goats. I live in the city and it's illegal for me to own goats in the city. When I sold my handmade soaps on our local city market a few years back though, there was a regular goat that would visit with his owners tagging along behind, leash in hand. I believe he still visits from time to time. Here's a photo from my facebook page of that very goat kissing a local market vendor, Dave, who recycles glass bottles to make spoon rests and party trays:www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=111896521018&set=a.111896301018.116998.5...

4. You make lots of different soaps. Are there ways to use your soaps other than for the obvious bath? What are some of the other personal products you sell?
My soaps produce a nice, rich lather therefore they make excellent shaving soaps. You can also use them as facial bars. And many of my customers also use them as shampoo bars.

In addition to selling shea butter soaps, I also offer goat milk lotions with shea butter, honey, and aloe along with a line of fabulous non-greasy, non-messy solid shea butter sugar scrub cubes. 

5. At one time you also sold note cards and such on Etsy--love those birds! Do you still dabble in paper? What are some of your other handmade interests?
I am a spring cleaner and every year I always get rid of whatever I have not used for at least a year and donate it. No matter what it is. My scrapbooking papers I somehow managed to keep around a lot longer than that sure I'd get back to them. About two years ago I finally got around to getting rid of them all. Now I'm in the mood to dabble again but don't have the funds to invest in the papers! I did recently purchase a few papers to create a tutorial for making your own wedding soap favors. You can find that project here: www.soapdelinews.com/2011/06/handmade-soap-wedding-favor-tutorial.html

I also just completed a tutorial on how to make your own art collage note cards that you can find here: (Will post to soapdelinews.com on 6/28 - link available then.)

I do like to play with chalk pastels - I have done a few drawings within the past few months - and I love watercolors. I have a brand new box of liquid watercolors and brushes waiting to be played with, but so far I haven't found the time. I also love pottery, though I don't have a natural talent for it. I did take pottery in college though so I have a huge appreciate for good potters and am in the process of replacing all my dishware with handmade, one of a kind pottery.



6. Is there anything else you'd like others to know about yourself or your shop?
I am a single mother to a teenage son who just discovered what "real" kissing is. I try not to worry too much about him though. He has his first "real" girlfriend who's super sweet. As for myself, I have my first "real" boyfriend since getting divorced in January. He's a bass player for a local bluegrass band, and I love to go out to hear him play when it doesn't interfere with work. Additionally, I also love the occasional karaoke night, dancing to local music, eating sushi as often as possible, reading paranormal themed books, and any and everything handmade. 

Shop: www.soapdelicatessen.com
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/soapdeligirl
Facebook: www.facebook.com/soapdeli
Twitter: www.twitter.com/soapdeli
Blog: www.soapdelinews.com





7/8/11
Edited to add link for tutorial on the collage art note cards: www.soapdelinews.com/2011/06/diy-tutorial-how-to-make-handmade-art.html

LSU Rural Life Museum

I have more photos from the Rural Life Museum.  We saw photos of textiles and textile machines yesterday, so let's take a look at some of the architecture.

The museum has 32 buildings that are situated into three sections.  

The first section is a working plantation.  

This cute little building is a post office.  
Doesn't the tractor in the background  look odd?

The counter inside the post office with mail boxes.  On the left are eight  keyed boxes and
on the right are about 16 boxes behind a glass.  The post master had to hand the mail to the customer. 

The largest out house I've ever seen.  Each door open to a double seater.
That means up to four people could be in the bathroom at one time.
Of course, there was no privacy in this privy!

A cistern for holding water.  Rain water was funneled from the roof of the house into this cistern.
It brings back many memories as my grandmother's house had a cistern.  That one was make of metal, however.

The overseer's house.  There's a compound of several plantation buildings from  1800's.
Most of the houses had two doors in the front and two corresponding doors in the back for cross ventilation.
Windows on the side walls also were lined up so air could easily travel through the house.
Note that porches are very wide and deep to protect the interiors from the heat of the sun.

The kitchen.  The floor is completely bricked and outside the building is a garden with herbs and vegetables.
You can see the garden fence on the left.

The blacksmith's shop.  There are many blacksmithing tools inside and outside the building.
This one building is a great source of antebellum life. 

One of several slave buildings.  This one is set up as a very crude home,
but  another is set up to represent a sick house.

Syrup mill, for turning sugar cane into cane syrup.

The three pots in the syrup mill.  The closest one is the smallest.  The juice from the crushed cane was poured into the largest pot on the distant end, where a large fire was used to reduce the thin syrup and ladle off the brine.  It was then poured into the second pot, to be reduced even more.   Finally, it was moved to the smallest pot, where it was gradually cooled enough to pour into jars.

 The Upland South Section

A corncrib or barn, of sorts, for holding grain and hay.

Pioneer's house  on the right in the back is the corncrib and on the left is the potato house.

Dogtrot house, with the open breezeway in the middle.  One side is set up for a living area, the other
as a bedroom for the entire family. This house held residents until 1976!

One of two barns fully equipped.

A second cane syrup mill, although smaller.

Stoner-Athens house

One of many, many outhouses.

 The final architectural section is the Gulf Coast Region, but I don't have any photos of those buildings since I was exhausted and Rich went on without me.  

I hope you enjoyed this visit to the museum and have come to appreciate the many modern conveniences we have.  I realized the dependence I have on air conditioning!  And we had a beautiful, breezy day with lots of shade trees.

Please leave a comment.  

I read every one and appreciate your thoughts.

LSU Rural Life Museum

Richard and I spent our day enjoying the LSU Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge.  Although we got a late start, we spent hours just wondering around looking at the architecture and artifacts of life in Louisiana before the 20th Century.  I took about 80 pictures and would have taken many more had I been able to keep the batteries charged.  Thank goodness I had the forethought to bring my charger and the people of the museum graciously allowed me to recharge the batteries.  

Since there are so many photos, I'll post a few today and more later in the week.  Today's photos are of textiles and textile machines.  There happens to be a small quilt show occurring in the Museum, so I snapped a few pics of quilts, too.

Case of carding tools, presses, and other items for preparing fibers that will be turned into thread and cloth.

Spinning jenny for turning fibers into thread

Looms for turning thread into cloth.

A slew of sewing machines.  Unfortunately none of 

them are labeled so that I could determine the dates.  

I'd love to look up the serial number and 

try to get more info on them.

These are in a large case, so the photo is especially bad.  They are tiny little machines, only about 10 or 12 inches across.

This has to be one of the oldest machines.  It doesn't
even look like a sewing machine except for the pedal on the bottom.
Richard was able to figure out several things about the machine.  

A couple of ironing boards.  Literally,
boards....made of wood.

Washing machines.  The one on the left has a gas powered motor.
The black on in the back that looks like a barbeque pit is a washing machine.

Check it out.....the tub is made of wood!
Sort of a half barrel with a wringer on top.

In the commissary (country store) there's a thread display case.
Couldn't resist .

Sign in the store reads, "Ginghams reduced to 20 & 25 cents a yard."
I want that price!

 Okay, now for the quilts.  Not many pictures.  I took photos of the large bed quilts, but there were a few others that were art quilts.  My batteries were about dead, and we were exhausted!

Thanks for visiting.  Please leave a comment.  I'm curious about which of the items is most interesting to you.

Hope you enjoyed the textiles exhibit!

Don't forget to visit the LSU Rural Life Museum website.

http://appl027.lsu.edu/rlm/rurallifeweb.nsf/index

Waiting and worrying

DREAM

DISCOVER

DESIGN

Shall we try a new mantra?  You know, something like the live, love, laugh only with a creative edge, instead?  

sewing kits in my Etsy shop

I have no idea where it came from.....just popped into my head earlier today.  It's been rolling around in there all afternoon.....rather like the Barney song when you've heard it and can't make it go away.  

Finally, I decided to DO something with it.  Write it down.  Say it out loud.  Meditate on it.  Anything that will allow me to take a nap later! 

Spent the afternoon waiting on Father (the priest, not daddy) to come by.  He wants to talk to me about something.  It's much like waiting outside the principal's door knowing that what waits inside is not going to be pleasant: a finger pointing, questions, phone call home, a paddling.  who knows what awaits.

I'm fairly sure Father wants something.  In fact, I'm fairly sure it will have to do with the upcoming fair.  But until he shows, I get to sit here and fret.  I tried thinking up excuses, but instead I got

DREAM

DISCOVER

DESIGN

I guess it could be worse!

New in my Etsy Shop

I had the idea for these cute little pincushions and storage container for my Etsy shop during the night last night.  I had great fun putting a couple together before leaving for Lafayette this afternoon.  

Aren't they just adorable?  The bottom can be used to store extra pins or even an entire sewing kit.  

And, the lid makes a great pincushion.

And what do you think I did this afternoon while in Lafayette?

Visited my newest fav fabric shop.  Lola Pink is close enough to walk from my son's house to the store!  What kind of luck is that??  Of course, I didn't know when I left for the store exactly where it is located.  But I was determined and smart....and it paid off.  Tomorrow I'll show you the fabrics I bought.

And you can help me decide which one (or two or ten) is perfect for this exact project!

Oh, wait, there's more!  I had such fun that I thought you might want in on the game.  

I made a tutorial for this pincushion and storage container.  

You can find it here or click on tutorials above. 

Please tell me what you think of the tutorial.  

I have plans for more, but I really need to know how this one works for you.  

Otherwise, I'll keep making the same mistakes!  

Oh, and I can take the truth!

Done and Delivered

Today I finished the quilt for the La. Cotton Quilters Guild.  I was close enough, as I mentioned yesterday.  Even with a late start I was able to finish up and deliver the quilt just after lunch.  Donna and I drove over to Mary C.'s  home to visit, have coffee, and deliver the quilt.  She has a beautiful home and lovely sewing room, which is overflowing with projects and some of the yummiest of fabrics.  

Mrs. Mary shared a couple of websites with us for purchasing fabric and embroidery packs at great prices: the Eleanor Burns Fabric Frenzy site and Embroidery Online.  


We also chatted about a new quilt shop that Donna discovered in Lafayette called Lola Pink. Since we're going to visit the kids in Lafayette tomorrow, I am hoping to make a little detour to Lola Pink.  Apparently it's quite close to one son's home.  Now that would be convenient, don't you think?

We've made plans to attend a quilt show in Krotz Springs.  Our guild was invited to visit and to show some our work.  We've been "sister guilds" in that we support each other's shows and fundraisers and occasionally attend each other meetings.  I'm pretty excited since I haven't attend a quilt show in a while.

Here are a few pictures of the quilt draped over my sofa.  It's quilted but not completed.  Mrs. Mary will square it up and sew on the binding, then she and Donna will hand finish it and trim the many threads I left on. This is the Christmas quilt that I showed close ups of in this post.  We are raffling it in the next few months as a fundraiser for the guild.

What do you think?  Won't it make a good fundraiser for our guild?