So as always lots has happened since my last blog post.

For starters I’ve had another article published by the Ragged University.  This one is about living a less toxic life, so it may interest some of you on here.  This is also the topic of the book I’m currently writing and I am in the process of putting together a workshop on the same topic.  Here’s the link to the article: http://www.ragged-online.com/2013/10/living-toxic-life-faith-canter/

And for those of you that missed my last article about palm oil here’s the link to that also: http://www.ragged-online.com/2013/08/palm-oilthe-good-the-bad-and-the-downright-ugly-by-faith-canter/

So me and my friend Lucy have been up to our old tricks and have been making soaps.  Not just any sort of soaps, but natural, organic and palm oil free soaps.  My husband thinks we set up some sort of bomb factory in the kitchen, but I can assure you although it might look like a bomb had gone off in there we were most definitely only making soap!  Here’s a picture to prove it (sort of, ha):

As some of you might know it’s pretty hard to get hold of palm oil free soaps and when you do they cost an absolute fortune, so we’ve been making our own.  It takes 4-6 weeks before you can use them but it’s well worth it, loads of fun, easy once you get going and works out less than a £1 a bar, which is really good for any sort of natural soap let alone palm oil free.

In the below picture you’re looking at cranberry, cinnamon and orange soaps for Christmas, and not cakes (believe it or not). The cranberries turned the mixture into a toffee-looking colour and texture, but they will lighten off a little over the next few weeks.

Bet you can smell them from there?

We also (for some reason) decided to try making liquid soap for the first time.  Now I wouldn’t suggest this unless you have a whole day to spare.  It’s extremely time consuming and I can completely understand why natural liquid soaps are so expensive to buy.  If anyone has a recipe that’s worked for them that didn’t take all day to make then please, please share it!?  Ours was successful (as you’ll see below) but I doubt we’d make it again, well not with the recipe we used anyway!  From now on I’ll be monitoring liquid soap usage in our house, more than two squirts and you’re out, it’s too much like hard work to go wasting it! =0)

Whilst the liquid soap was doing it’s thing we made some natural bath melters and bath bombs.  These are so easy to make, take no time at all, you don’t need many ingredients and look amazing in your own bathroom or as gifts.

Most of you will know I run workshops showing people how to make these sorts of items themselves (and many others) but I’ve been considering making some You Tube videos for people to watch who can’t make it along to my workshops, would this interest any of you?

Here’s a list of the workshops I have running at the moment, but I also am working on putting together some more, so watch this space!

Natural Homemade Products Workshop – Corstorphine – 14.11.13

Natural Eco Teacup Candle Workshop – Corstorphine – 05.12.13

Natural Eco Teacup Candle Workshop – Stockbridge – TBC (Dec 2013)

Natural Dog Care & Treats Workshop – Corstorphine – TBC (early 2014)

Mini Raw Workshop – Corstorphine – TBC (Jan 2014)

Living a Less Toxic Life Workshop – Samye Ling (Scottish Borders) – 26.04.14

If you’re interested in any of these then just let me know and I’ll give you more details, or if there are any workshops you’d like me to do then I’m always open to suggestions.

Lastly I have recently been persuaded over to the darkside, as in I now have a Twitter account, yep shock horror! =0)  You can find me at https://twitter.com/FaithCanter

Bye for now and enjoy your Sunday. I have the open fire blazing, a hot drink and friends coming over. What more could you wish for on a cold and blustery October day?