I only make soap when the kids are asleep – during their afternoon nap or at night. I usually prefer to work in the afternoon because the natural light allows me to see the actual colour of the soap plus I don’t feel like I might wake my son up if I make too much noise.

If Nil is at home, he knows not to bother me when I’m crafting. It has been like this since I started my handdyeing business in 2008. You could say that he’s well-trained to leave me alone and with good reason. We don’t live in a huge place so if there are two people in the kitchen – where I soap – it’s crowded and crowded spaces means increased risks of accidents. With dyeing, it means things like spilled powders which are fine and toxic if inhaled in large quantities. With soapmaking, it’s caustic burns from the lye and those are n.a.s.t.y. Search the Net for images of these burns and you’ll see what I mean.

Having said that, he’s a gem – always reminding me to put my health first by keeping things safe – read: wear gloves, goggles, mask, apron, shoes.

My supplies are arranged in boxes/plastic baskets under the table in the kitchen and Eva knows that she can’t go around poking her hands and nose in them. It’s training from her days of being an infant crawling everywhere around the apartment in Singapore. I allow her free access to the kitchen BUT she needs to learn to obey one thing – stay away from the cabinets. It is something she carries with her till this day. (She even knows that soap for the dishwasher is meant for the dishwasher and not for eating. Soap for laundry – soapnuts – is soap and not for eating.) My utensils are high up and out of reach and so are my soaps while they are curing.

Ventilation is an issue as I don’t have fans installed so when I’m mixing lye with water, I open the windows. It’s freaking cold when soaping during winter when temperatures are around 1 or 2°C like today and I had to stand in front of the window (you cannot just dump 90 over gms of lye into 200 gms of water – unless you want a volcano-like eruption – so that means gradual mixing and constant stirring). It’s okay by me. Lye fumes are toxic plus they are stinky so I’d rather it be stinky outside and me a bit cold than the fumes staying in the house.

When I start soaping, I’m organized – training from my days baking and cooking. The laptop sits on kitchen counter to give me the recipe and exact figures and no distractions from movies, music or things like dark magic yoyo. I start boiling some water and once that is done, pour them into a large plastic basin that contains my hard oils – coconut and palm (if I’m using them). This is to help them melt – especially important with palm oil as stearin sinks to the bottom as the oil cools.

Then I measure out ingredients for the lye and water/liquid first. Once the solution is done and is cooling, I move onto the additives and fragrances. After this I prep my mould and start with the oils. Once this is done and the oils are heating on the stove bain marie style, I clear the table of my weighing scale, oils, fragrances and things I don’t need anymore. Now, an old T-shirt takes its place on the table together with my handheld blender, containers for my spatula and and whatever else I need. Even the stool on which my mould will sit on needs prepping – an old towel for insulation.

Then I start soaping.

One thing awesome about making soap is that the cleaning up doesn’t take place immediately. Because fresh soap batter is very caustic (don’t ask how I know), it is best to leave all utensils aside for at least 24-48 hours. Once the batter has finished saponifying, then you can start washing up. Ain’t it grand for us folks who don’t like washing dishes and such? Hehehe.

The weather has been awful of lately. No sun, foggy, wet (either it rains or drizzles!) and well, just awful. To add some cheer to the house, I thought of getting some flowers. It was a thing I did at a whim, really.

You see, what happened was I went to the store to buy groceries for Friday’s meal with Eva and Noah in tow – can’t leave them at home, y’know. And despite the drizzle and being “charmed” by reviews on mobile computer carts, I braved the weather. At least we got out of the house.

We reached the store, walked around and just as I made my way to the cashiers, these lovely bunch of tulips stared right back at me. Eva went “Look, flowers!” and I was sold. I paid less than €5 euroes for twenty stalks of tulips and for a few days, the house looked cheery enough.

Flowers…nice way of bringing some colour and cheer into a bleary winter week.

Hover over the image for more info and prices.

Fiber

Yarn

NOTE
All fibers have been carefully stored in my non-smoking, no pet home.

Unless otherwise noted, prices do not include shipping, but I do charge just the actual shipping costs and do my best to keep it as low as possible.

If the price information is missing on something that you are interested in, please do not hesitate to contact me as everything in this section is available for purchase.

Payment via PayPal only at this time.

International buyers: I really do understand that duty/taxes on parcels can cost quite a bit, but please do not ask me to change the value on the customs forms or mark the contents as a gift, as this is in violation of US and international regulations.

Missing/lost items: I cannot be held responsible for missing/lost items in the post so if your area or place is notorious for your postal service pinching stuff, do consider registering the parcel and contact me for a revised shipping quote.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please do contact me at [mabelteoh@gmail.com] and I will do my best to help!

Gong Xi Fa Cai
Congratulations and be prosperous…

Wanshi ruyi
May all your wishes come true…

Nián nián y?u yú
May each year bring you more and more bounty & surplus…

Love,
Mabel, Nil, Eva & Noah

I miss my guitar. Heck, I even miss looking for unique guitar picks for my dad’s old guitar. (I wonder where it is.)

The trouble with all this relocation is that my music sheets and books are with me but my tools – piano and guitar – are back at home. My parents have donated or given away my piano while I was still in Switzerland and of lately, I’m rather tempted to get a keyboard or guitar because Eva seems to be more musically-inclined – if her singing is any indication of things to come.

I brought this up as a hint during Christmas but realistically, even though I may love a guitar or piano, we just don’t have the space for those two instruments right now. Perhaps it’ll happen when we get our own place – I hope it will be soon (can’t stand living in rental).

In the meantime, I’ll just go back to surfing the Net and sighing.

I woke up at 3am for a feed and on a whim, took a peek outside the window.

Yup, you’re looking at it.

And Christmas is just around the corner.

Looks like we’re having a white Christmas after all.

While the two kids are asleep, I better quickly do my blogging, especially considering how easy it is for Noah to stir and wake up before midnight!

That was taken this morning about five minutes after we got back home from our trip to the baker near the market. Thanks to Dad, we have a timetable of the bakers nearby and since it’s Wednesday, I decided to drop by the one near the market – she sells fab pastries as well – for some ficelle (very thin and short version of the baguette) and a croissant for Eva’s breakfast tomorrow. I babywore Noah in my meitai after having decided that it would be best to wear him in the mornings – after an awful night yesterday. Initially there was some sunshine but the moment we left, it went back and got replaced with some really strong wind and very very slight drops of rain. But we carried on anyway since it was very mild and on-off. We had initially planned to feed the ducks but upon arriving at the usual spot near the market (thanks to Nil, I discovered that I didn’t have to walk all the way to the river), there weren’t any feathered creatures around except for a raven or two. So we headed back to town and home instead (no thanks to my bladder) and took a slightly longer way.

We reached home in time for me to head to the toilet and after I was done, I got the two kids settled into their playtime routine with Noah on his playgym and Eva doing whatever else she wanted to do. Suddenly it poured!!!! And it wasn’t just rain. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it was hail! It was a first for Eva and after showing her what exactly it was, she decided that she had enough of going out. “Rain rain, cannot go out.” O’well, there is always tomorrow. But really, thankgoodness we were indoors when it hit. Another couple of minutes and we would have been caught in it with a flimsy umbrella! Eeks!

Am wondering if I should do the same with my other blog but I have yet to find the right template. Haiz.

It’ll take about two days or more so don’t fret is something seems broken! It’ll be fixed up in no time.

The trouble with this pre-carte de séjour (resident permit) is that you can only do it OUTSIDE of France and if you try to convert your tourist visa into this long term visa – I read – you may end up going back to where you come from and it most probably will take two months for the authorities to process your application. Eeks! I could have applied earlier but that meant taking a day off work and then extending my last day at work – not a win-win solution for me.

Anyway, we managed to get the papers done up in time – address and all – and they received our application officially on 4 Aug. The wait started – I’d check this site that they have to see if there were any new updates and no, they do not entertain queries via the phone (if you were thinking of doing just that) and neither do they entertain personal visits (camping outside the Embassy will get you nowhere). On Thursday the following week, on a hunch (actually more like a dream the night before), I got Nil to double check the website and discovered that they had finally come back with an answer on my application. So I hurried out, jumped into a cab and dropped off my passport. It was definitely good news then when they told me that I would be able to get my passport back with the visa and all on Monday…and in time for my flight. WHOOPPEEEEE!!!!

Once in France, I am to drop off a form and photocopies of my passport, the stamp dating my entry into France and other necessaries at the préfecture in the town/village/area where I’ll be staying and I have two months to do just that. Once they process my application, I’ll be informed of when to complete my medical check-up, as well as when to meet up with the officers, etc. Total time for me to get my carte de séjour? Three months if all goes well.

Our Singapore apartment and our day out
Initially I thought our handover was nearer to the evening which meant that we could relax and only spend a few hours at the airport. Sad to say, that was not the case. The tenants were told that the handover was at noon – standard, according to our agent (hm) – and as such, we had to move our baggage and clean up the place, etc by 1130am. One thing that peeved me to the maximum was how our agent kept hinting that the place should be cleaner, etc. Come on, the floors have been swept and mopped, all surfaces cleaned, the bathrooms are sparkling, the rubbish taken out, and so forth. It was definitely in better condition by a mile compared to when I first got my place from the previous owner – something which still irks me till today as the previous owner’s tenant had the cheek to tell me that the condition is WYSIWYG. I told Nil that if this time I don’t get the apartment in the same condition as when I left it, we are definitely pulling it out from the deposit.

Anyway, so we were out of the place by 1130am and off to the French embassy to collect my passport. The rain didn’t help at all but we had heaps of time to spare plus a couple of errands to run – this included the bank, the service providers (mobile, cable, Internet), etc. I also got to meet up with an old friend from my secondary/high school days who came along with her little one. The meet-up took up about at least one to two hours and we were back at our apartment by 5pm plus. After a quick shower for Eva and myself, some time to relax – pity my WiFi box was packed up otherwise I could have done a few assignments on iphone 3g cases but never mind. I was pretty beat out actually by then and dying for a good rest, mainly because of my carrot-up-the-bum situation but we still had a while to go.

After meeting up with Nil’s rugby mates who were kind enough to see us off at the airport AND have dinner with us prior to the send-off, we headed off to a quiet spot in Changi Airport in attempts to get some rest. It was perhaps about 10pm plus and really awfully late for Eva. She managed to fall asleep in her stroller while we ourselves tried to nap but to no avail – no thanks to annoying kids nearby (and the rest area was just a few feet away too – how inconsiderate!!!!). By midnight plus, we boarded the plane – didn’t even have to wait in the boarding area and we got to beat the queue thanks to Bubs No 2 (pregnant women and people with kids have priority – YAY!).

To be continued