Jolly Lolli-Days !

I hope you had a great Christmas and still enjoying the festivities with your loved ones. Grumps and I brought the kids on a roadtrip to East Malaysia; kindof like a family tradition - Grumps used to take me on such trips when I was just a little gal ♥

The kids were fascinated by the story of the missing Jim Thompson during our last holiday to Bangkok, so we thought it would be pretty C-O-O-L to continue this little adventure to Cameron Highlands where he was last seen.

First stop was at one of the numerous Strawberry Farms...we had lots of fun picking our own strawberries but they were SO SOUR !!

then the Butterfly Farm...



Rose Centre which spans an entire valley ! So many species of roses and lots of other flowers too.

Rose Center Valley

oohhss & aahhhsss at the Boh Tea Plantation...



 

And I definately want to stay at the Lakehouse during our next visit !



Lakehouse

Treasured Treats This Christmas ~ CLEVER & NICE !

I am so pooped! The best Christmas pressie for me this year would definately be a Good-Nite's Sleep.

Have I told you that it's a blast to soap against the weather? (over the weekend, my orange slices a.k.a Sunshine Tangerine refused to set despite sitting pretty for more than 6 hours! gggrrrrr....) Such fun I had - gift-packaging, making deliverys and gobbling down "One-for-One" pizzas with the kids on route in the car.

I am still marvelling at how I have so far survived being on my feet almost 20 hours a day; for the last 2 weeks. Driven by humbled pride and a sense of satisfaction perhaps? to be able to create gifts that will bring joy and love to the intended recipients during this festive season of love and giving.

A cheeky dose of my favourite cassis liqueur, now and then, helped tremendously in calming those cranky sleep-LESS  nerves; I must admit! 

Amongst my surrounding madness, a girlfriend very cleverly picked out items from my haphazard photo albums on Facebook to put together personalised hampers for her loved ones. I handcut gable boxes, lined them with matt gold tissue and topped with a festive ribbon and gift-tag.

Aahhhh.... N-I-C-E ♥



Orenji Set



The kids have packed their "Strawberry Milkshake" scented soapy favours, leftover from MeiMei's birthday party, into their lil travel bags...I am so looking forward to my mini "Strawberry Milkshake" get-away with the kids and Grumps during Christmas.

That's a sweet treat I will treasure and reminisce in years to come.

What treats have you chosen for your loved ones this Christmas?

Twinkle Fairy Magic

My lil princess turned 5 and we had a Fairy Twinkle Magic celebration at McDonalds :)

I think I have found myself ze best cake-maker! Fairy princess was pretty sure about what she wanted on her birthday cake and this lovely lady accomodated her requests to a T !



Cake by Bake-A-Log



♥ Twinkle Fairies ♥



It was a wee bit difficult to decide on the party favours that would appeal to both the girls and the boys. We were sure that Twinkle Gems would be perfect for our lil fairy guests...



"Twinkle Gems" for the girls



then GeGe suggested that I use a newly purchased mold and beautiful antique gold mica...

"BeepBeep Robot" for the boys !

Everyone loved the "strawberry milkshake flavour" ♥  Y-U-M-M !!

Found the perfect pressie ?

A girlfriend posted on her Facebook that she is looking for the perfect pressie. Have you found yours ?

Local handcrafter mummy of Sparkle Thots invited me to be a part of her first mini Gift Guide. I am both honoured and super-duper excited! Check out her newsletter for special discounts.

Come see our Little Treasures for this Christmas!




Christmas Tree Soap Centrepiece



Cinnamon Bundle Table Centrepiece



Sunshine Tangerine Soap



Gingerbread Man Soap



Strawberry Cupcake Soap with Cherry-on-Top !



Dark Chocolate & Vanilla Cupcake Soap with Cherry-on-Top !

Perfect as stocking suffers! Sweet Peppernint Candy Cane Soap



ohh so yummy ... Green Apple Candy Cane Soap



White Tea GInger Scrub-me Soap



Roll-on Perfume

 
Do check back often as we will have more coming up real soon! at the meantime, I am working to get my lil Esty store up and running ! Rush-Rush :P

Please email me at natureslittletreasures@gmail.com if you would like to place your orders, have any enquiries or would like your orders customised :)

psst ... we are at The Garden Shop !

FINALLY ! After months without a retail space proper, we are thrilled to announce that Nature's Little Treasures can now be found at The Garden Shop.

A new range of soaps, specially created for this season of love and gifting, marks the kickoff of a renewed retail presence.

Christmas Tree Soap Centrepiece

This unique 3-dimensional table centrepiece is sculpted out of all natural soap and deliciously scented with a stimulating blend of cirtrus notes, with hints of fresh cucumber and jasmine and a touch of pineapple, blackberry and champagne - perfect for a tropical Christmas!

The soap sculpture may be dismantled and the individual soap slices displayed in the bathroom as guest soaps to delight your party guests. Each Christmas Tree Soap Centrepiece comes beautifully packaged in a handcrafted gift box with a gift tag, ready to be gifted.



Window display at The Garden Shop



Candy Cane Soap

Sneak these candy cane soaps into christmas stockings as stocking stuffers or hang them onto your christmas tree as party favours! They look and smell just like the real thing, so do tell the little ones not to eat them!

Each candy cane soap is handcrafted from all natural soap and individaully packaged. Available in two "delectable flavours" - Sweet Peppermint and Green Apple !

Candy Cane Soaps hanging on christmas tree

Do look out for more S-W-E-E-T soapy treats this December at The Garden Shop. A 'must-have' to complete your very own Pink Christmas at home or in the office!

 

The Pink Christmas @ The Garden Shop

I just love the visual merchandising of The Garden Shop. A most relaxing ambience to shop in and friendly and professional staff at hand to assist you. Do visit them! 

The Garden Shop is located at the Visitor Centre of Singapore Botanic Gardens, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569. Opening hours : Monday - Sunday, 8.30am - 7.30pm. 

http://www.sbg.org.sg/visitorinfo/fnbgiftsoutlets.asp

psst...did I also mention that Casa Verde (opposite The Garden Shop) serves the most yummilicious pizza? *wink**

Rain Rain Go Away !

It has been raining recently. The weatherman has in fact promised rain clouds all the way till January 2011.

AIYOH!! Now, I was not quite happy with the sweltering heat before the rain came. I perspired buckets as I worked. This lovely cool weather made life so much more comfortable but with a price to pay - my soaps are not quite happy now :(

You see, all natural glycerin soaps (which moisturises the skin as it cleanses) are laden with - glycerin. The rain and cooler weather on our tropical island also meant gross humidity. Glycerin, being glycerin, attracts moisture and my recent creations were covered with hundreds and thousands of droplets of glycerin dew.

My production schedule was disrupted as I struggled to remove the otherwise pretty-looking droplets from every nook and cranny of the candy canes.

Candy canes? Yes...Candy Cane Soaps *grin*



Each candy cane soap is individually handcrafted to look and smell just like the real thingy !



Sneak these candy canes into christmas stockings as stocking stuffers or hang them onto your christmas tree as party favours! They look and smell like the real thing; so do tell the little ones not to eat them!

I am so looking forward to share our little treasures for this Christmas! Our very first 'Little Treasures' brochure will be ready by the end of next week and we shall be ready to take orders officially :) 

Stay tuned !

DIY - Kamen Rider Soap Tutorial

We had a blast celebrating Ryan's 10th birthday with a weekend getaway at the chalet and BBQ with some close friends and family :)

This year's party theme was "Kamen Rider 000" of the famous Japanese Masked Rider series - we decided that Kamen Rider soap favours are thus a MUST for all our party guests.

It is great fun to make your own soapy party favours to compliment the party theme. Below are the ingredients needed to make approximately 22 pieces of 3oz customised soap bars.

Ingredients :-

6oz    Clear Melt & Pour soap base               

68oz  White Melt & Pour soap base          

51ml  Choice of skin-safe fragrance oil - Ryan chose Yuzu which is a sparkling fresh citrus.       

2 sheets of Water Soluble paper 

Equipment needed :-

microwave oven-safe pitchers                   
spoon (for stirring)                                                    
soap cutter                                             
digital scales
soap mold (we used individual soap molds for each soap bar)
Rubbing Alcohol (in a bottle with spray nozzle)
Microwave
Thermometer


Directions :-
1) Print Kamen Rider images onto Water Soluble paper using a colour laser printer. Cut out the images to fit the soap mold.

2) Use soap cutter to cut soap bases into 1-2 inch pieces. Do not use a knife as the soap is slippery and the knife could slip and cause injury.

3) Melt clear melt & pour soap base in a microwave-safe pitcher at 20 sec intervals. Repeat until soap is completely melted.

4) Pour a thin layer of melted clear soap base into each soap mold. (This should cover the entire base of the mold)

5) Place paper, image side down, into the thin layer of soap. Allow to harden.

6) Melt 20oz of white melt & pour soap base in a microwave-safe pitcher at 20 sec intervals. Stir well and repeat until soap is completely melted.

7) Add 15ml of fragrance oil to melted white soap base and stir until the fragrance oil is fully incorporated.

8) Allow the melted white soap to cool below 124°F.

9) Pour melted white soap into mold, to approximately 0.5cm from the top of the mold. This will make it easier to unmold and release the soap when ready.

10) Spray with rubbing alcohol to remove air bubbles and allow to harden.

11) When the soap bars have returned to room temperature and hardened, remove from the molds and wrap in cling wrap. Pull tight for extra clarity and to remove plastic wrap ripples.

                                    

I hope you like this tutorial. Please try it using your own images to embed in your soapy party favours and share the pictures of your awesome creations with us!

♥ Loving October ♥

I ♥ October.

I am tingling with excitement as we inch into October proper :- we have a whole new range of  products to be launched for the coming Christmas season and we have exciting news about our new retail locations.

Oh! and not forgetting our holiday workshops, a fun-filled collaberation with PenguinCanDance Studio! WOOHOO!!! PenguinCanDance Studio has recently relocated to Orchard Central along Orchard Road and we have received lots of positive feedback about the new location. N-I-C-E !

I am also looking forward to celebrate my son's 10th birthday next weekend :) wow...he's growing up so fast and soon he will be a young man. I have promised him Kamen Rider soaps for his party guests and I can't wait to get started on them.

hhmmm....yes, I think I shall write a tutorial on making Kamen Rider soaps. They make great party favours! and you can make your own Super-Hero soapy favours too ;)

I so ♥ October.

Three Hundred ! and 300 A-G-A-I-N !!

What can possibly go wrong? I plan meticulously. However, sometimes things just do not happen the way we want them to.

I had envisioned Red, Orange and Gold hues nestled in a lil creamy organza bag and I set out to make 300 pieces of "One-Use" soap leaves with my new soap bases. I was pretty pleased to have everything running on schedule...and I loved how the little maple leaf soaps looked when placed together in a little dish.
 

Maple Soap Leaves - perfect as single use guest soaps


It was past midnight when I started to pack the soap leaves individually into their lil cream organza bags, complete with an insert printed in our signature green swirl....i took a step back after a few leaves and I immediately knew that THIS would not work at all!! er...did I mention that the wedding was a few hours away?!

No time to whine. I snapped into crisis-management mode. I needed 300 wedding favours and I was running out of time!

I rammaged through my 'carry-all' bag and found the lovely invitation card - soft, gentle and feminine. BINGO!

I set a new personal record - 300 soaplets in slightly less than 7 hours. This included the melting, adding of additives, pouring, setting and unmolding; all repeated almost religiously since I only had one mold in each design or shape. The secret - our new soap bases!!



lil Pink hearts and seashells & baby blue stars and flowers



This new batch of soap bases is all natural and "Low Sweat"; meaning they perform very well in our humid weather with little or no formation of glycerin dew on the surface of the soap. Whilst normal glycerin soaps need to be wrapped in cling wrap (kitchen wrap) once unmolded, our new soaps can be packaged as it is or wrapped in paper :)  B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T !

With a little help from mum...loving hands rendered much needed help ♥ Thanks Mummy !





♥ Wedding Favours for my dear friend Johrah ♥



I wish you all the happiness and love that you so deserve my dear friend. Thank you for sharing this special occasion with me and my family. I hope you like my little gift :)

100 lbs of All Natural Goodness !

We are waiting for our newest batch of soap bases to arrive next Wednesday.

Exactly 100 lbs of it! WOOHOO!!!

I believe that I have finally found the ALL NATURAL soap base that performs almost perfectly in our super-duper humid weather! This means no more fretting about glycerin dew forming on the surface of the soaps (little droplets like condensation) and having to wrap each piece of soap in cling wrap to minimise this issue. No more squeeshy-mushy soap!

 

For those who are not familiar with glycerin soaps, the formation of glycerin dew on glycerin soap is a very common phenomenon; only to be accentuated by the humid tropical weather here. Glycerin soaps contain, well, glycerin as a natural by-product of the soap-making process; or it has been added into the formula.

 

Gylcerin is a humectant, meaning it draws moisture to your skin. Due to the high glycerin content in handmade glycerin soaps, these soaps are very moisturising to the skin and are gentle enough for sensitive skin and for children. 

 

Have you ever wondered why your skin feels dry after using commercially produced soaps? This is because today's manufacturers of soap remove the natural glycerin for use in their more profit producing lotions and creams.

 

Our newest soap bases contain all natural ingredients and the formula has been tweaked such that very little or no glycerin dew forms on the soap surface when exposed to air.

 

I have already planned our next batch of wedding favours with the new soap bases. Stay tuned!

 

ohh....so E-X-C-I-T-E-D !

♥ R-A-S-T-A fiesta ♥

My kids and I were invited to a wedding in August. Since the groom is a member of The Bushmen, a well-known reggae band in Singapore; it was surely R-A-S-T-A fiesta ! We were super excited !

The very beautiful bride had wanted to add that "special" touch and to suprise the groom and her guests with reggae-inspired wedding favours. I was secretly pleased with this mind-boggling challenge *wink**

We agreed that each bar of soap should be individually molded in their Red, Yellow & Green. Not the simple layering technique in a loaf mold. I honestly told the bride that I had no idea how I was going to do it. "I will figure it out", I promised her.

So 40 bars of soaps it was, 3 different scents; in all Reggae splendour, in an elegantly simple yet romantic packaging. My timeline - NINE DAYS. (a very muffled *yikes*) 

The first two nights were greeted with sleeplessness as I grappled with "how to do it...mann" - super scratch-head situation! Eventually I gave up the thinking; did a leap of faith and simply followed my gut feeling. I was running out of time!

Bars and bars of soap...3 different colours...3 different scents !

After lots of cutting up the single coloured bars...molding and re-molding...

We have Reggae Soaps ! Individually molded in Red, Yellow and Green !

P-H-E-W!! Soaps done, now for the packaging. Each box was handcrafted from shimmery pearly white stock cards and lined with NLT's trademark swirls.

Since the highlight of the wedding favours was the beautiful Rasta colours, I used clear stockcards to make clear covers for the boxes and topped off with a satin ribbon.

♥ Raggae Wedding Favours on display during the romantic wedding on 8.8.10  ♥

I was delighted to learn from the happy couple that the soaps were well-received by all their guests! Thank you Lisa and Hairul for inviting my kids and I to your wedding. It was so romantic and touching that I cried happy tears ♥

  



Update:

An additonal batch of Raggae Wedding Favours are on their way to the bride's family in Italy! WOOHOO !!

Cupcakes & Ice cream with lots of L-O-V-E !!

I was about to doze off one night when my best friend sent me a text message : "Jenn would like these soaps for her teachers on Teachers' Day - chocolate vanilla and strawberry cupcakes...watermelon and orange ice cream...do you think you can do it?"

wahhh...OF COURSE LAHH...anything for my god-daughter Jennifer Lynn Teo ♥ !!

It has been months since I last made a cupcake or 'ice cream' soap. Previous attempts were pretty decent but I hated the idea that I had to wrap each cupcake up with cling wrap once done to prevent glycerine dew from forming on the surface of the soap. This pretty much squeeshed the foamy 'cream topping' of the cupcake, causing it to collapse.



Previous attempts at making cupcake soaps



My first 'ice cream' soap popsicles! *blush...so shy**

This request could not have come at a better time as I was in the midst of testing new soap bases; and I knew I had the one that would be perfect for this project! My new cupcake soaps are still chock-full of glycerin but I can now package them like a real cupcake...S-W-E-E-T

I always love a good challenge and this is the reason why I love what I am doing :)...then I heard this "...and could you add a cherry on top? Jenn would like a cherry on top of her cupcakes...can?"

Now...how was I going to craft a cherry from soap?! and to make it look and smell like the real thing? hhmmm...Honesty, that gave me a lil headache! LOL

I was pretty quiet the next few days with lots of cake and ice cream on my mind ♥ Y-U-M-M ♥

Finally ...

Dark Chocolate & Vanilla Cupcake with Cherry-on-top!



Strawberry Cupcake with Cherry-on-top!


I got my latest inspiration for my soap popsicles from one of my favourite artisan soap crafters - Debbie Chialtas of Soaplove. http://www.soapylove.com/shop.php

This is my version of Juicy Watermelon and Zesty Orange Soap Popsicles !
 

Juicy Watermelon Soap Popsicles



Zesty Orange Soap Popsicles





















Jenn-Jenn was mighty pleased with her god-mama ♥ and I got a B-I-G huggie and kiss LEHH !