Meet Dotcom Design – this is my ‘other job’ – what l do when l’m not making soap.
I’ve never mentioned it here because l’ve never really thought of doing it before. But it struck me that l have done a little bit of work for some soapmakers in the past, and that there might be someone out there who needs a website…a new store template…or a logo designed. Maybe your website needs a makeover.
I’d love it if you would consider me.
I’ve built websites for 8 years now, and Simply Soap is my test site – if there are new modules out that l need to trial, or a new template to play with, then Simply Soap is the guinea pig. You may have visited the other day and found my blog sidebar living in the centre of the page – um yep, that was me mucking around with things in the background LOL. As well as online stores, l build blogs and small websites. As you probably know l also take photos. Sometimes l design logos and labels and those animated advertising banners.
(my friend Sherie sent me this photo of her new banner that l designed, because l mentioned that l don’t often get to see the designs in real life unless they are websites…isn’t it lovely!)
Anyway, l’ve just reworked all of the Dotcom Design website with new pricing and packages. And I’ve also re-opened the facebook page. Even if you don’t need a website or a logo or an advertising banner, please could you ‘like’ my facebook page or even forward this post to someone. You might have a friend or a relative who *does* need those things, and l really need to get myself out there and network a bit more!
Thanks so much!
Dotcom Design on Facebook
Hahaha l love Monkey Farts soap, it must be the immature kid in me but l still get a laugh out of reading the label and scent description every single time. Last night John and l made 3 batches of soap, and this was one of them. I am still terrified of crackling, but yet again l kept it cool, soaped more s.l.o.w.l.y…reduced the water, and banned too much titanium dioxide. I’m paranoid.
But we were rewarded with three beautifully smooth logs of chocolate coloured Monkey Farts scented soapy goodness. In the background of this shot you can see the green Hello Myrtle soap batch that John was allowed to make all by himself. I managed not to dither in the background too much this time LOL 
Doesn’t it look YUM 
Is it just me being hungry, or do these look like chocolate brownies?
Hope you are having a good weekend! I’ve got a to-do list as long as my arm and have managed to achieve none of it, but at least l got to faff around and post soap pics LOL.
I’m loving autumn this year. In my street, and all over the town there are lots of old oak trees as well as plenty of other deciduous trees that are all beginning to lose their leaves. The colours are amazing!
It’s one of the things l really love about photography…capturing the colours of nature, and all the little things that often go unnoticed and unrecorded in daily life. The water drops on that autumn leaf above – l love things like that.
Georgia and l went for a drive a few nights ago after school into a nearby town where people have very big and grand gardens. This was the view into someone’s front garden. Let me assure you that our front garden looks nowhere near as impressive LOL.
The other thing l’ve been learning about with my photography is using photoshop to improve and correct photos. I try not to be too heavy handed, because l’m not really sure of my style yet. I don’t really like the ‘overdone’ look, so l am trying to be restrained. But if you mouse over the photo above, you’ll see a corrected version of it…l challenged myself to take a fairly boring photo and then come home and ‘fix it’. In this case it was all about straightening it so that the horizon was level…sharpening it a little, and then boosting the colour.
Other photos don’t need any correcting at all – this leaf had hardly anything done to it. I’m always very relieved to get photos like this, because l hate the thought of photography just being a case of taking a mediocre photo and photoshopping the heck out of it every time.
I submitted my Module 3 assignment a few days ago, and quite frankly, was really scared. The technical aspects of photography really do stretch my brain cells in ways l’m sure they were never meant to be stretched LOL. But once l broke down the assignment into smaller sections, l just plugged away at each little section to the best of my ability, and typed it all out. I was absolutely AMAZED to get 10/10. Like seriously, there was happy dancing involved *g*. I’m a little too scared to admit to my tutor that l’m not 100% sure it was all retained. I really need to practice, practice, practice and just keep taking photos.
(in the interests of staying on topic as a soapmaking blog, here are some token soap photos from the past couple of days LOL!)
After my last post talking about my soap crackling, l took on board every single comment and suggestion. I narrowed my issues down to a combination of all of the following possibilities:
- too much water – l normally soap at a 20% water discount, and had stopped doing this so that l had a better chance of swirling.
- soaping too hot – my inability to wait for things to cool down long enough is the reason why things go badly and also why l generally do terrible swirls – even a 20% water discount should still leave me long enough to swirl, except that l need to soap cooler to stop everything from taking off on me and setting in the bucket. I’m sure l’ve mentioned this about a gazillion times here before, you think l’d have learned by now.
- a new fragrance that l hadn’t tried before (so it was bound to misbehave and l really shouldn’t beat myself up too much about it), combined with soaping too hot.
- possibly – just possibly, the Rice Bran Oil. I’m going to make some non swirled soap with it today and see what happens. One of the crackled batches is my ‘meditate’ soap so l am going to try a new batch of it…soap it cooler, use the RBO and see what eventuates.
- still being unsure about how long and hard to let the soap gel. I watched last night’s batch like a hawk. I normally let it go for the full on ‘hot translucent gel’ effect, where you can actually see the gel forming from the centre of the soap and spreading outwards to the edge of the mould. I suspect this may be a bit too hot? Last night this batch of hippy chick (above and below) was very hot, in fact still warm this morning, but l didn’t let it gel to the point where l got that ‘hot patch’ that spreads. I think just underneath the top surface of the soap it had still fully gelled, but l uncovered it before it got any hotter. Of course then l was scared of incomplete gelling and the ‘bullseye effect’ which l also dislike. l just can’t win!
But…it turned out perfectly. Like the title of this post says, you just wouldn’t read about it. I was SO NERVOUS last night, and almost too scared to get out of bed this morning and slice it.
But l am totally in awe of the smoothness of colour…and complete lack of crackling. Not one little crack, anywhere. Maybe the soap fairies were just feeling sorry for me.
Before l made the Hippy Chick last night, l also made this lovely yellow Passionfruit soap. It’s hot process, ie: cooked in the crockpot. Yes, l was so nervous of making cold process soap last night that l resorted to the failsafe and trusty crockpot to make a batch. l guess l really needed the reassurance of knowing *something* would work, and hot process is pretty bulletproof. This one has rice bran oil in it. I think there might be a couple of HP batches coming up, because l have a heck of a lot of RBO to get rid of, and if this is the only way l can do it safely without risking the crackles, then so be it.
It smells so good, and if l had a bigger crockpot, and three arms to help me empty hot heavy soap into the mould, l would be very, very tempted right now to only ever make HP soap. I’ve always loved it. Might go and make another batch now!
It’s probably only been about a week since l blogged, but it feels like a decade LOL. You know how when you have heaps to say…and no time to type it out…and then suddenly it doesn’t really seem that important anymore. That’s where l’ve been at. Oh, and terribly sick, without trying to sound like a drama queen. Most of last week was spent in bed with a fever of 39.9 celcius. I’ve never had a thermometer so l don’t know much about fevers and what normal body temperatures are meant to be, but apparantly it was bad. It was a sweaty, hot, cold, shivering, menopausal, sheet twisting, pillow eating kind of week last week. One of those weeks where l couldn’t sleep, eat, or get comfortable at all, one of those weeks where l literally didn’t know what to do with myself l was so out of sorts. I had heaps of books to read, knitting to do, quilting to catch up on…and l just glared at it all and stomped off to bed.
I’m so glad it’s over. I hate being sick. I get so bloody grumpy with myself.
Somewhere in all of this SIXTEEN new fragrance oils arrived for me to play with, and l made two of the worst batches of soap l’ve ever made. Great for the confidence – not! There was Pink Chardonnay which went in the bin yesterday, and then Grapefruit and Lime which l was sure l was going to love, but god help me it turned out awful – what was meant to be a pretty swirl turned out a disgusting muddy mess of orange, yellow and green. I healf heartedly took a few photos but they just made me feel even more depressed LOL.
Thankfully the Pomegranate and Sage turned out beautifully, because otherwise all of my soapmaking equipment was going in the bin l was so grumpy with it all.
And l made some lemon scented goats milk soap too which thankfully must have known it HAD to turn out acceptably:
Something strange has been going on recently and l am tearing my hair out over it.
Many of my soaps lately have been ‘crackling’, quite badly. Not just crackling either though – there are definite ‘clear’ lines in the soap where you can see attempts at swirling. See the top left one below? That was the first.
This soap below is the Pink Chardonnay that went in the bin, and it had big streaks all though it, but no swirls to speak of.
I am doing the same things with my soap that I’ve always done – the same amount of titanium dioxide, mixed the same way…in fact it’s probably the same batch that l’ve used for the last 6 months, l try not to use too much.
The only things l can think of are:
- that while experimenting with non-palm oil recipes, l’ve started using Rice Bran Oil a bit. Could it be that? I guess it’s the one consistent change, but surely just swapping one oil wouldn’t do all this? It’s only ever a third of my recipe.
- maybe l am using too much colour/clays in the batch (but it’s never been an issue in the past)…
- that l am overheating the soap (but again, my soap has gotten way hotter than these ones before without this crackling)…I’ve even forced it in the oven without all of this happening…
- that l just need to give up LOL.
I would love some advice. I thought l was experienced, but l am not feeling that way at the moment. Just very frustrated and annoyed at how even after more than 5 years of soapmaking l can still get it so wrong.
Two photos taken earlyish this morning as l was trying out the ‘Sunny f16′ rule.
Basically it works like this…if it is a sunny day, you can safely have your camera in manual and select f16 as your aperture. Then you match your shutter speed to your ISO setting, and the photo should be correctly exposed. So these were f16, with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second and ISO of 200. It’s supposed to be a quick and easy setting to remember when you don’t want to have to ‘guesstimate.’
There wasn’t quite enough sun out for all of the photos to work, plenty of them were too dark, but it was 8am in the morning and everything hadn’t quite woken up yet. Including me LOL.
Which do you like better?
Over the last week or so l’ve been taking soap photos for Washpool Farm, and have had so much fun. Melissa sent me a huge box full of soap, and seriously, l think l wasted a full day just unwrapping it all, admiring the scents, colours and the attention to detail in every bar. Our kitchen table looked like this for about a week and we had to eat dinner on the couch.
This beautiful purple bar is Positivity, and it was an early favourite. I’m a sucker for soap with ‘bits’ on top and the smell is divine.
Oh, but then this gorgeous green one fell out of it’s tissue paper and arghhhh, l was torn. This is Vitality. It came to live in my bathroom too
And ‘Love’ *swoon* – so simple, but so beautiful.
l was really interested to note that the soaps are much harder than mine…l need to work on my recipe some more l think. I’d love my soaps to be as hard as these.
This one is sooo pretty – it’s called Drift Away.
And Starman – pure eye candy with it’s bold swirls and aniseed scent. I normally don’t go anywhere near aniseed, but l couldn’t stop picking up this bar, and took about 47 photos of it LOL.
I think l recognise the scent in this one *grins* and it’s one of my favourites. Meet ‘Air Kiss’
Finally…Lavender and Oatmeal with two kinds of bits on top – just perfect.
Then this afternoon after a nice long sweaty run l finally cracked and opened one of my Tierra Verde soaps that l mentioned here.
It’s beautiful, just as l knew it would be.
And it struck me that damn l LOVE making soap. I love trying other people’s soap…love taking photos of it…love checking out packaging and websites and ingredients and different techniques. It’s just the best hobby/business/pastime ever. After all these soap photos l am so inspired. I want to throw out all my plans for a strict soap range…grab a heap of essential oils AND fragrance oils…and just have a big PLAY And l’m going to do just that LOL.
Does the addiction ever wane?
I’m in the middle of module three of my photography course, and have been warned that for the remaining duration l must turn OFF every single automatic setting on my camera that l can find. Far out – it is definitely scary, it’s taken me 3 days to even find all the automatic settings on my camera LOL. No more auto anything – no auto light meter, no auto ISO, no autofocus, no auto shutter speed or aperture.
One good thing about having to find all this stuff to turn it off was that l had to learn what it was in the first place.
And l discovered that the camera has a light meter.
You know what?
I’m betting that most digital cameras have a light meter.
I couldn’t believe that l hadn’t realised this earlier. Like seriously, it is so painfully obvious. I have been smacking myself in the head for days. All these years (and years!) l’ve been too scared to take photos on fully manual settings because the results were too light or too dark. I thought photographers were a special breed of people who magically understood the top secret relationship between aperture and shutter speed and how to get a correctly exposed photo. Even when we were at Ayers Rock last year, l thought l was being exceptionally brave by deciding to set my camera to manual. l made myself work out the correct settings for every photo by taking multiple photos in all manner of combinations of shutter speed and f-stops. And the whole freaking time, my camera has been patiently dropping hints left right and centre, right inside the viewfinder. Right in front of my eyes. I didn’t need to guess anything, it was telling me what settings to use, and because l didn’t read the instruction booklet, l didn’t know it was telling me.
I’m not going to rabbit on about it too much more, but l’m telling you…check your camera. Read the instruction manual LOL. You don’t have to know what shutter speed or aperture to use if you don’t want to. The camera is telling you.
The assignment for Module 3 is to create a zone ruler – using an 18% grey card, and by taking all of the photos yourself. I’ve spent about 3 days now stickytaping the grey card to various areas around the house and garden, trying to get the correct results. I still haven’t really nailed it, but here is what my zone ruler looks like, just so l can prove l made one:
Please don’t ask me too much about why l made one or what it does – otherwise my head might explode LOL. It’s got something to do with the tonal range of your camera and knowing how to correctly expose for a photo after evaluating the scene in front of you and deciding what zone everything is in. I don’t think it is a system you’re meant to employ say while shooting photos of a charging elephant in South Africa or something, but if you’ve got the time, it does seem to make a fair bit of sense and l will admit to tentatively using it while taking some photos recently. And yeah it works LOL.
We went camping over easter at one of my favourite places. It was a very eventful weekend with John trying to chop his toe off with the axe while collecting firewood, and then me belting myself in the face with a hunk of dead wood the next day. Needless to say we gave up on the idea of a campfire very quickly LOL.
I took lots of photos (of course!) and caught up on reading. We rode our bikes a lot and l ran almost every day.
It was hilarious trying to get a photo of the cockatoos. They are so cheeky! Look at the one on my back checking out the birdseed jar LOL
Such beautiful birds, but they are also quite intimidating, if you don’t give them what they want, they are quite likely to just go ahead and sink that big beak into the nearest bare flesh, and it’s a very strong beak, so we were always on guard.
Some more photos from a friend’s house…
Before l made soap, l used to love scrapbooking. I was a papercrafter for over 9 years, and it was also the industry where l cut my teeth learning to make websites for various papercrafting businesses. So attending Melbourne Paperific is something l love to do! This year l upped the ante a little bit and somewhat naively offered to ‘take some photos’ for Naomi, who owns and runs the Paperific Expos. I was about 2 weeks into my photography course when l emailed her, and decided that by the time the expo rolled around, l would be supremely experienced and 100% confident with my camera.
OMG, whatever was l thinking LOL!
Actually, it was probably the best thing l could have done, because it was a bit of an eye opener.
- I took over 1100 photos in 1.5 days. Just a few too many!
- I learned there is a big difference between taking a photo of something pretty and hoping it will work, and being asked to take a photo of something and having to make it work, on the spot. Often with not the best lighting or background, or time to study the camera and figure out what the heck to do.
- I learned what tungsten lighting is, and also how important the white balance setting is on the camera, because even though l thought I’d gotten it right, when l got home after the first night l realised that all the photos had a distinct yellow tinge that hadn’t been apparant while l was there…because l was standing in the yellow light when l checked. The second day was spent re-shooting most of the photos from the first day, without the yellow tinge LOL.
- I also learned why l should have shot in RAW mode because then it would have been much easier to correct that yellow tinge.. (RAW is the actual raw image data straight out of your camera, it has had no settings applied to it by the camera, and you can edit the exposure, white balance, contrast etc in photoshop afterwards, which gives you a good chance of fixing up stuff ups like getting the white balance wrong – photoshop lets you re-choose with a RAW file)
- I also learned that most people don’t really like having their photo taken. l guess l should have realised this because l’m one of them…but l thought it was just me. However there were very few people who were relaxed in front of the camera, and l think that getting your subject to relax and ignore the camera is going to be a big part of taking photos.
Anyway, here are some of the photos (a very limited selection LOL!) And thankyou so much Naomi for letting me loose on your expo. I had so much fun!
one more thing…this is very hard to write, because however l say it…it somehow sounds contrived…but it’s not meant to.
l was so stunned to hear that the original owner and founder of Paperific – Stacey Apeitos – had passed away from breast cancer. It happened about 18 months ago and l didn’t even know. I guess l was too tied up in my own life issues at the time and had retreated a lot from my normal activities, so l didn’t hear anything about her passing.
I only met Stacey a few times, and my shyness stopped me from getting to know her better. I helped her out with her websites every now and then, and we emailed back and forward a little. I always wanted to get to know her better, but life got in the way, and now it’s too late. I’ve spent so much time since thinking about her and wishing l’d been braver.
Stacey, you were so inspiring. I used to love looking at the rubber stamp designs you made and sold as the owner of Studio Astarte. I still have the one l purchased, it makes me smile. I followed Melbourne Paper Arts which turned into Paperific. And l used to read and watch your work at Go Make Art.
I still can’t believe you’re gone. R.I.P.
I’ve been trying desperately to get back on track after recent life events, where soapmaking and website making got left by the wayside. I’ve had to make (for me) quite a lot of soap to catch up and return stock levels to sort of normal. Well…what am l saying, they’ve never really been normal at all, but it was an aim a while ago to get some sort of production system going, and l couldn’t start using said system until l got the stock levels to a reasonable level in the first place!
The amounts of soap l’m talking about aren’t huge by any means, most bigger name soapmakers would probably make twice as much in a day if not more. But for me, who has been juggling court cases, kids, school holidays, a 12 week exercise plan and study at the same time, it has been a bit of an effort to get *anything* at all done. The last few weeks l’ve felt like the stuffing has been well and truly knocked out of me, and it’s very hard to claw back my enthusiasm.
I’m going to try though.
For the first time ever, l have surplus stock of all of my soap range. (fingers crossed l don’t find any other flavours l’ve forgotten about LOL.) All my labels are up to date with new descriptions. The website is also up to date. I tidied the soap shelves, and I have enough of all the supplies l’m going to need in the forseeable future. I even sneaked in a couple of batches of Mother’s Day soap for a wholesale client. Far out l almost feel organised LOL.
For the soapmakers out there…do you have a structured production schedule? How much do you aim to make and when? Is it something you stick to religiously or are you a ‘make it when you feel like it or can squeeze it in’ kind of person like me? I’d really like to improve in this area, it’s something l need to work on. Having said that though, l also struggle a lot with how much l expect from myself and my little biz and l don’t want to get overwhelmed.
