I've been gone for awhile

My apologies to any faithful followers out there.   I've been focusing on my now full-time career of teaching art so the crafting side has taken a back seat for the time being.

I'm still brewing up ideas here and there, just don't have buckets of time to work on anything for a bit.


In the mean time I hope everyone out there is happy, healthy and CREATIVE! 

Enjoy your fall!

The Graduate Art Show in photos

Almost a full week of my office room looking like this...

...and this...

 ...and finally at 0600 this morning I put the dust covers and hardware on the back of the last work for my show. 

 

All stacked up and ready for the final labeling and pricing.  Delivery on Wednesday, show opening on Thursday!  

 

Then I'll need a long nap and a housekeeper to find the rest of the house. 

Playing around with soap

I am really starting to enjoy this soap making adventure.

Such wonderfully fragrant soaps make my kitchen smell inviting and delightful.

To see the process for making cold process soap - click here for Part One, and click here for Part Two.

Working on a custom quilt

 

Oh I do so love color.   I love matching and pairing and grouping different colors together.  I can't ever name a favorite since I just love them all.   

What I do have trouble with (occasionally) is working in a color scheme someone else chooses for me.   This is a custom order with colors requested by the customer.  Such a difficult thing for me to stick to!  

 

It's coming together nicely.  One more weekend of work and it will be completed. 

snowday photos for you

 Yesterday during the storm.

Sunset last night.

From my work windows this morning.

Good Thursday morning to you!

    I hope everyone is safe and warm this week and enjoying the winter for what it is. It's cold. I get it. I'm getting sort of tired of it too but it is what it is, right?

     Just wanted to let you know of a quick update I'm working on today. I thought it would be nice to have a little shop open from the website for those of you interested in some of the bath & body products I've been working on. That way you can order your choice of scent and sizes directly with your PayPal account.

    You'll see a page link at the top of the screen beside our Facebook page link or you can click here as well.        --------->  I Make Stuff shop

 I'll see how this works for a bit before posted a great deal of items. I think this will be a nice addition to the ETSY shop, where I have all the big items like quilts and paintings.

8 out of 12

 

Completed stars so far.....  

Baskets!

An unplanned trip to the flea market a few weeks ago gave me this lovely pile of little baskets....

...which I filled today with some bath and body products from my Shop....

... and will feature individually on the Facebook page in the next few days!

This basket is "Tropical Dream" and it includes a 4oz jar of pineapple mango lotion, a 3oz jar of sugar scrub in citrus, and two lip balms, papaya and margarita lime.  Since it is again a negative windchill sort of day, I thought some tropical scents would warm the spirits, if not the rest of us.

$18.00

Email or message through Facebook if you are interested in this or any other basket.

Puppet show puppets.

 That is some sort of zombie thing with a flame sword.   Who shoots blasts (see left side of photo) from his hands like a wizard. 

And she made a pear. 


:)

Happy Monday!

Cold process soap making - part two

Welcome back!   You will remember I am in the middle of my first batch of cold process soap, so let's see where we left off.....

 

After pouring into my soap mold, I put the lid on and wrapped it well in three towels for insulation.  

Then we wait for 18 to 24 hours.   Again, I am impatient by nature so as soon as I woke up after 18 hours or so, I unwrapped the loaf and here is what I have!

It looks like soap.    It smells wonderful!   Like citrus. 

Take off the wingnuts and remove an end, slide the knife along the long edge and pop out the soap.

I peeled back the wax paper and started slicing the bars apart and voila!   SOAP!

I think.   I mean, I still have to wait another month or so until it cures completely.   But it looks nice and even, it smells lovely and I cannot wait to try it out!  

So that is cold process soap.  Now, what scents to try next?.....

Cold process soap making - part one

I have mentioned before in this blog how I like to teach myself new things every year.  I get a feel for a project or process by looking up scads of information online.   I research until I think I have covered just about every angle, then I jump in a give it a go.   (This is my first attempt at cold process so I would appreciate any critique you may have along the way!  Please feel free to post comments so I can tell if I am doing something wrong. )

This year I have soap making at the top of my list.   The kids and I made melt and pour glycerin soaps before for teacher gifts but this time I wanted to step into cold process soaps. 

I ordered a kit from Bramble Berry Soap Making Supplies online and it came with all you see here, all the oils and a few fragrances, plus I ordered a bottle of their lye (which is not included in the kit)  This was the best way for me to get a feel for the process without having to figure out formulations on my own. 

The kit has a recipe included in it.

 So I measured out the ingredients.  Lye, water, and oils all in heat safe, non-reactive containers.  (which I bought just for soap making.   I will not be using them in my kitchen later, obviously)

 I had my pine box lined with wax paper and a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol ready for spraying on the top of the finished soap to reduce the white film that is supposed to develop.

I had the oils sitting on the warming section of my stove.   This is the best feature of my stove too, by the way.  I keep my teapot of water on there and I have hot tea all day.... but I digress.....

I took my lye and water plus supplies down to the landing in the stairwell to my basement to keep the fumes and kids separated.   Mixing them here and keeping the door closed gave me a good spot to not worry about someone getting into the mix and getting a chemical burn.   As you can see, it did get very hot.

Once both mixes were at the same relative temperatures (and because I was impatient to get started) I poured the lye mix into the oil mix and used my stick blender to combine them, trying not to create bubbles with the blender.

This is "trace" (I think)  When the soap dribbled along the top does not sink back into the mix right away.

So I poured it into my lined soap box and crossed my fingers that I did everything correctly!

Did it work? 



Stay tuned tomorrow to see!!