A New Toy

Not new soaps, but newly wrapped.

Soapmaking is fun, we all agree on that. I think most of us would agree that packaging can be the biggest pain in the keester. I've been trying to figure out the most cost efficient but effective way to wrap my soaps since they're prone to glycerin dew. I've read about how many soapers like the sealer from National Shrinkwrap, but I thought Holy Hannah, I can't afford that, my soaps aren't worth that much.

Well turns out I can. Or at least the husband thought so (or he got tired of me grumbling about glycerin dew and seeing it for himself). His rationale is if it looks professional, then it will sell. So after much hemming an hawing, I took the plunge and bought it.

The new toy with samples of various poly.

So guess which bright person read this, laughed and then forgot it a few hours later and proceeded to remove the teflon tape?

I love this!

The sealer set up on the kitchen counter.

Do you enjoy figuring out what to do for packaging, or is it just something you have to do to keep your soaps looking good? 

Happy Memorial Day long weekend to my American friends!

Expanding my horizons

It's good and bad to read blogs by other soapers: good because I get so inspired by all of you, bad because you tempt me into trying new things.

During my last visit to Otion, in a temporary moment of insanity (wait, that's wrong, it's usually moments of sanity. Well never mind) I went and bought some citric acid to make bath fizzes. Why is this wrong? Because I'm so not a bath person! When I want to get clean, I want to do it quickly, not sit around in a tub until the water get cold.

I'm sure someone will enjoy these though. I used the star mould as well as the beach mould to make these and scented it with Exotic Fruit Smoothie from Brambleberry. I guess I didn't mix the colour in well enough but I don't mind the spots of concentrated colours.

Oh, and I learned something this weekend, some techniques (well probably most) that work for CP soaps doesn't translate well to MP soaps.

Apparently, stamping doesn't work quite as well on MP soaps, even when you try and make it sparkle with glitter.

It's the Victoria Day long weekend here in Canada, so happy extra day off to my Canadian friends. Hope everyone has a great week.

Happy Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we took my mother and father-in-law out for brunch. Thankfully we got there shortly after the restaurant opened and it wasn't too busy. I'd say the brunch was as much for me as for them since it's a rib place and I'm such a carnivore.

During lunch, my mother-in-law mentioned that she was cleaning up her house and was getting rid of a lot of things, including her baking tools. Of all her kids and grandkids, I'm really the only one with enough kitchen space to house a lot of pots and pans and I love to bake. So, afterwards, we went back to their place where she proceeded to load me up with all sorts of baking pans, including one that was from a bakery in San Francisco.

It's a beautiful book, full of lovely pictures. I'd love to say I'm going to try out each one of those recipes, but I'm no Julia Powell of the baking world.

I hope all of you wonderful mothers are being spoiled rotten and that you in turn are telling your mom how awesome she is.

Bold Blocks of Colour

Sounds more like a fashion statement doesn't it? "This season, designers are going with big blocks of colour. See it everywhere, men, women, even dog apparel."

In this case, the big blocks are literally, big blocks. Building blocks, that is. My lovely sister sent me her building block mould, which is fabulous! It definitely makes a statement, and I can almost hear the ad for it in my head:  (deep male voice, like the ones they use for truck commercials) "These building block soaps are made for big boys who need to get clean, and don't want to use girly soaps with floral scents."

I used BB's Mango and Melon FO for two of the soaps and  Crafter's Choice Morning Rain and Sun Ripened Cherries FO on the other two. I think they're gender neutral enough scents, don't you?

For perspective

Speaking of men, I had to kick this guy out of the lightbox before I could use it.

"Make sure you get my good side, okay?"

As an aside, after taking so many photos of the blocks, trying to figure out the right angle and all, they started to remind me of family portraits. Not necessarily my family, but they all seemed to be looking in all different directions, strutting poses, and acting goofy. I think I need to get out and socialize more, these voices in my head are doing way too much talking. :P

Have a great week.

Spring soap

I did a run to Otion yesterday (well not literally, I don't think I'd even run around the block without hurting myself) and managed not to spend all my allowance in one shot. ;) The only thing I really needed was the 25lb box of clear MP soap, but that didn't stop me from buying some dark chocolate FO (I need it, really!), some stearic acid (Cee and Silvia inspired purchases), citric acid because I keep looking at the bath bomb tutorials and getting all excited, and the aluminum free deodorant base. I think I'm going to have enough to keep me busy for a while.

So after I purchased all those goodies, what do I make? Something with what I've had on hand for a while of course. My sister had given me a lovely 3D dragonfly mould when I first got her stash of soaping supplies, and I never tried it out. Don't ask me why, laziness mostly. Again, I had in mind how I wanted it to look but how it turns out is not quite the same.

One thing I knew for sure is I didn't want the whole thing the same colour, I wanted a pretty sky blue background to make it spring like. The dragonfly, by rights, should be more greenish, but being a purple gal, I went that route instead. The lighting was starting to go when I was scraping off the excess yellow for the stars and moon, and the moon didn't want to come out completely so let's just pretend some clouds are covering part of it, okay?

For some reason, they cornflower blue turned more green than blue, maybe something I had in the soap? For whatever reason, the background turned more greenish than blue, but it still smells nicely of Crafter's Choice Raspberry Kisses. I was going to try Silvia's technique of mixing a floral with a fruit scent, but I got…squirrel! But there's always next time right?

The end result accompanied by a card my sister made with dried flowers from her garden.

Hope you all have a great week.

♫How dry I am, ♬nobody knows♭

My sister says everything reminds her of a song, and it does happen more often than not.

But back to this week's theme. My sister-in-law bought a u-brew place. Need I say more?

I "heart" wine. Get it?

This is why BB says not to use low sweat clear for embeds because it's hard to see them or the green layer below. D'oh!

Originally I was hoping to make more of a cascade of grapes, but the size of the balls weren't conducive to the overall shape of the mould, hence why they look the way they do (as opposed to me having had too much wine prior to making these soaps).

I scented the soaps with raspberry and chocolate, the idea being those are flavours you're supposed to taste in wine. Even though the scent isn't grape, the subliminal effect makes one think it smells like grape. Cool huh? Either that or the original scent is grape, but calling it sun-ripened raspberry sounds way more appealing.

Hope you're all having a happy Easter. Any excuse to eat more chocolate is a good one right?

Mother Forklift!

I got that off a Pinterest humour page. Originally this post was to be titled Cherry Blossom, but I've been hit by the soaping gremlin and nothing's working right.

I always think of spring when I see cherry blossoms. Actually it used to make me think "yay, final exams are coming soon which means campus will be quiet again" but since I'm no longer affected by it, I don't think about spring that way anymore.

Cherry blossoms are quite prolific here and I love walking or driving down streets where all you see are  cherry blossoms in bloom. This is my tribute to them. Again I tried to make layers, hoping it'd show through with thicker layers of clear soap between.

This is the idea I wanted. However, I just *had* to add another layer, which made sense to keep all the "cherry blossoms" in place.

I scented it with a combination of pineapple cilantro and raspberry kisses. Maybe I put in too much of the raspberry kisses, but it turned my clear yellow, hiding the delicate colour of the pink soap (and totally negating my point of trying to make this look like cherry blossoms!) and that's why I put a few more on top, to show off the colour.

Well you can see the tree branches and other layers if you have x-ray vision, and you all have that, don't you?

You can almost see the branches from the underside of the soap. On the bright side, it smells nice. All 3 that didn't turn out.

My final attempt at getting the picture in my head into my soap mould.

If anyone has any ideas as to why my clear soap turned cloudy on me (besides the fact that I've wronged some soaping god), I'd love to hear it.

What is your sign that spring is coming or has arrived? Have a great week everyone!