New Tutorials

The Fresholi Community are so wonderful and there is quite a bank of resources building from their generousity.


Recently, Elaine from Briallen Traditional Crafts submitted a wonderful Crockpot Hot Process Tutorial with clear and descriptive pictures. This tutorial is available to registered Fresholi members.




Also, Kevin from Taonga Jewellery and Homescents has kindly submitted the first of a series of tutorials for creating wax melts and candles.









Sincere thanks to both for your kindness and to all the Fresholi members who contribute so enormously to the lovely community :o)

Back To Normal!!

Oh thank goodness!! It seems that some of the issues have been resolved at Royal Mail and the strikes that were planned in the run up to Christmas have now been called off (until the new year at least). This is such good news, especially for those in Europe, who wish to make small orders.

I rather missed my little chats with the counter staff and have certainly missed my regular bike rides to and from the post office (although I'm not sure how keen I am going to be to use my bike when the weather turns really wintery, brrr.....).

Anyway, the Royal Mail shipping prices have now been put back in place on the site so will be calculated automatically (up to 1.8kg for European parcels and 800g for UK parcels).

My thanks to all those who have showed tolerance and understanding during this awkward period.

Yay! We are back to normal!!!!!

The Postal Strikes - UK and Europe

What's happening at Royal Mail? If you haven't heard already, here in the UK we are experiencing 'dispruptions' in our postal service due to Royal Mail workers taking strike action by staging a series of walkouts.

There was a national strike last week and one is planned for next week and these are set to continue in the run up to Christmas (unless and agreement is reached between Royal Mail and the union). So far, the strikes have caused a severe backlog of millions of parcels and letters so obviously delays (or worse, losses/damages) are inevitable.

Contingencies for UK customers. I have put some contingencies in place to ensure customers still receive their orders quickly and reliably by switching all shipping to courier only (which would remain unaffected by the issues at Royal Mail) and I am able to offer UK mainland courier shipping at a rate much lower than previously.

My European friends. That is all great news if you live in the UK. However, it saddens me deeply that my friends across the channel are presently unable to enjoy the Royal Mail shipping rates for small orders. Nothing stings quite like having charge an overseas courier fee for a small order (which may not even be to the value of the shipping itself). Courier shipping to Europe still works out good value for larger orders though.

What now for orders to Europe? Well, this has all lead to my sitting down and think what else I can do. I am able to offer:

• Reduced courier shipping rates to France, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium for £12.70 for up to 25kg

Royal Mail Strike Dodging for Europe. I am going to make attempts to try and 'dodge' the strikes for European orders under 1.8kg. However, this will be by Airsure (which is a priority service offered by Royal Mail) where it is available. If it is not available in the destination country, then it will be sent International Signed-For. It is worth noting though that orders sent through any Royal Mail system could be subject to delays that would be beyond my control :o(

Hopefully someday soon we can all get back to normal and a happy resolution is reached between Royal Mail and its workers.

Beer Soaps

Elaine Jones of Briallen Crafts has recently introduced a range of handmade beer soaps.

Briallen handmade Beer Soaps are made with beers carefully selected from local breweries in North Wales and include gently refined organic Shea Butter from a Fair Trade project in Ghana. The lather from these handmade beer soaps is absolutely fantastic!


The first of the regular beer soaps is Cwrw Du (The literal translation of "Cwrw Du" is "Black Beer", one of the Welsh names for Stout). The stout used in the making of the Cwrw Du beer soap is Welsh Stout, a bottled stout from North Wales Brewery near Abergele. In the pipeline is another regular beer, the intriguingly named Dark Side of the Moose from the Purple Moose Brewery in Porthmadog.

In the tradition of all good bars there will be Guest Beers in addition to the regular ones and the first is a Guest Beer for Halloween! "Mysterious Myrtle" made with myrtle stout from the Purple Moose Brewery - just once or twice a year Purple Moose brew a stout flavoured with the Bog Myrtle herb.

Visit Briallen to see these wonderful Beer soaps and more.......

Very, very, very sorry :o(

Update! It all seems good now. Thank you to those who sent such kind words of support. I really am terribly sorry - It was just out of our control :o( Thank you all :o)

I am experiencing some difficulties at Fresholi. It seems the server has gone down and it has affected some major businesses, not just Fresholi. This means that at this moment in time, there is no access to the site, the forum nor can I receive or send any emails. Frustrating beyond words. I know that The Melting Pot forum members will also feel rather frustrated at the moment and all I can do is apologise.

The problem is extremely widespread (and there will be many websites down right now - I have checked out the host's forum and boy, are there some majorly unhappy customers, myself included). Please accept my sincerest apologies.

Skype if you need to:





I am ever so sorry about this and hopefully we will be up and running really soon :o)

Soap For Breakfast & The Best Of British

How exciting!! SoapyChica gorgeous Royal Crown soap has been included in an article featuring a range of British products. Well deserved SoapyChica. Royal Crown is just one work of art out of a whole range of visually perfect, stunning soaps.

Also, one of the members on The Melting Pot forum, from Saltwell Soap have put up a wonderful video, Hot Process Soap - The Really Quick Way, that is brilliant to watch. It is cleverly filmed in quick time, so the video is short, sweet and really interesting to watch all the stages in quick succession. Oh please go and have a look if you get a moment, it is great!!

Organic Nilotica and Dark Cocoa Butter

This is just a very quick note to say that I have taken delivery of a new stock of the gorgeous organic, virgin cocoa butter (dark) and the beautiful organic, unrefined nilotica butter. I have had (what seems like) the devil's job getting more of this in but this is of a particularly excellent quality and it has certainly made up for the long wait.