My Swirl Soap

I tried this soap swirling method from the Ellen's Essential website


It looks a bit like mille-feuilles my mum used to make (without the pink, and the black was chocolate! LOL!). It didn't quite turn out like I expected it to, but if I don't think about it too much I can love this soap!! Here are the cut bars:

It looks like cheesecake on the inside (though, not too sure what flavour the black stuff would be)



I used the lid of an A4 box of paper which I lined with freezer paper. I undid the lid so the flaps would be on the outside. Which also makes it easier to line.
I think next time I'll try a simple two colour swirl. This one (though you wouldn't know) had three colours added to the cream base.

For the first time I used macadamia oil in a soap! It's considered a luxury oil! I can't wait to see if I see a difference!!

Other than that I'm signing up for a third month of boot camp training with Fit For Health it's been hard but fun. My plantar fasciitis is behaving itself, which is wonderful news after so many years of feet pain and not really knowing what it was. I had my cortizone shots almost two years ago (21 months) and it's still good, but I do have shin splints at the moment, mainly in my right leg, but while I walk while others jog and I shuffle (jog as impactlessly as I can) while others run, I figure doing what I'm doing is better than not doing anyting at all. I had a nice surprise yesterday when the lab coat I wear once in a blue moon at work (mostly during Winter months) buttoned around the hips! It had never buttoned up and the one time it did, it snapped as soon as I sat down! Now, the scales may not show much progress, but buttoning up a lab coat, that's exciting!!! (well to me anyway!)

I'm trying the Flock browser at the moment, and while it's a bit over my head with all the "social networking" aspects of it, I find it's great to add pictures to this blog, or to forums, really handy. I really love Maxthon as a browser as some of the add-ons are just fantastic, but it doesn't co-exist very well with Vista (I love some parts of vista, but there's other that make me cringe!!).

It's been almost a year since I've done any serious rubber stamping, and a bit less since I've done any serious polymer clay. Time just flies. I want to do stuff, but with everything else going on (just regular life stuff) and this soap making, and making my own shampoo, and not wanting to do takeout more than once a week -- it's our Friday treat, the girls get Maccas and Hubby and I get Subway (I get the healthy veggie one!) but the bonus is that one of the Woolworth's I go to (Woolworth in Australia is a food chain, btw, as is Coles, nope, not a bookstore chain here!! though they do sell magazines!!)... anyway, one of the Woolies here has coupons for Subway on the back of their receipts, so when I'm lucky and I buy enough stuff (read: Groceries for the week) I get one, sometimes two coupons for Subway. The coupon is "buy one 12" sub and a drink, get one 12" sub free" so, even though we never drink the whole drink, it's still a 2nd sub for the price of the drink, which is less than $3, so that's a really neat savings, and I don't have to make dinner, which is always very much appreciated on a Friday... they also have coupons for pizza and other things, but the Subway coupons is what we like!!!

Well, here you go, my soap progress, boot camp progress, and how to live frugally tip all in one!!

Oh, btw, Sulea, you won that soap a few months ago and I just remembered you never emailed me back, I'll go pester you on your blog, I have a nice selection to pick from now!!! :)


Images in this post shared with Flock - The Social Web Browser http://flock.com/

When you feel your craft is letting you down

Have a look at this funny blog where people post their craft failures. I probably have a half dozens I could add, if I remembered them. I try to forget about my failures (craft or cooking) but try to remember the lesson learned! :)

I made another batch of soap this week, with my own home made oat milk (milking those little flakes of oats takes patience and dexterity! LOL!) - more on this a bit below.

First off, the coconut soap from the previous post didn't really change much. The colours are a bit more uniform, and not such a big change from the pic below. So I won't bother posting a pic but you can see one here, the brown is a wee bit less brown, but really, not much of a difference.

A few days later I decided to shred all my bits of soap (the ones from the ends of the log, or leftover from when I thought it would be nice to cut small samples for people, etc) and make what is called "confetti" soap... I used a plant based colourant called Alkanet (it's a root, ground up) which is supposed to turn to purple/mauve but yeah, it looks mostly grey... doesn't matter, it'll still wash nicely:

well, at least it's a not-so-girly looking soap!!! :) Funny thing though is the round one gelled and the crinkle cut one didn't, and I can't see a colour difference. Alkanet is supposed to react differently gelled or not.... this is the same recipe divided in two moulds. Strange. Maybe time will tell a different story!

Then a week or so after that I played with my Milky Way Moulds... the things which are impossible to unmould unless you use force!!! But there are other tips I've gleaned along the way... Sodium Lactate is your friend, and silicones too!!!
I've used Na Lactate in the soap, and I also sprayed the mould with the detangling spray I make for the girls, which consists of Cyclomethicone and Dimethicone. I was able to unmould my soaps after an hour... Much better than the last batch I'd made in the moulds where some soaps were impossible to unmould after two weeks (When I decided to use brute force!!)

These are my first successfully unmoulded soaps:

These are slowly turning into an "vieux rose" colour, old-fashioned pink, or think of slightly tea dyed pink... hmmm, I must learn to describe colours better!!! :) These will get a pic update at the end of the month I believe!! Colour IS changing! (oh, these are scented with a Karma Kazi FO which is similar to Lush's Karma! I just LOVE it, while some other noses don't... I think the Patchouli is the deciding factor here!)

I was so excited a few days later I tried another one, the soap is quite yellow, it's supposed to mellow (mellow yellow?) over time. I'll post another pic when it's cured if there is a difference (FO here is Rhubarb al Fresco!):


This week I was highly inspired by a post on The Dish to try and make my own oat milk by soaking 'old fashioned' oats (imo the only oats worth buying!) in water, cook them a little to soften them, and collect the liquid... called "oat milk", and made soap with it. An interesting process, the oat milk when mixed with lye was quite thick, but it soaped really nicely. I also tried to swirl in some mica, went about it the wront way, so my soap looks as though it has bruises! The smell is Buttermilk and Honey from Big Tree Supplies (Karen there is really nice, great service! and she has all the Lush type fragrances you can think of!!! YUM! she also has candle supplies, and reed diffuser supplies too!)

Oh, yeah, so here's the soap:

and here's a close up of the grains, they are not lye (as far as I can tell, no "zap"), I believe they are the grains of oats that I squished through the sieve being a bit too enthusiastic in my quest for oat milk.


For my next batch I might try a really neat swirl method I've read about on Ellen's Essentials.

Faux wood, rice pudding, and a preview

I've been having another faux wood/scrimshaw attack... months after I actually made my turtle necklace (see previous posts). A technique can be very addictive when you enjoy it, I try to use it as much as I can!!!
But first, I'll point you towards Julz's Blog as she tried this technique and her results are wonderful. I've yet to bring myself to actually texturise the wood...

Oh, and you MUST SEE Kim Cavender's wood cuff, oh and this one too, they are absolutely gorgeous... When I grow up I want to clay like that!! Have a look at the rest of the cuffs while you're there (and the rest of her work. If you're not familiar with Kim's work, you should be!!).

And these are my latest "faux wood/ivory/scrimshaw" efforts:

I've also done some colourful playing, assembling some casts I'd made a little while ago. I used some oval jump rings for this. I'd probably need to hammer them to make them stronger! I'll get to that eventually. I even made the little clasp but it didn't fit in the picture.

I just love this mould. It's called AM019 Med Etruscan Shield and you can see pricing on this page near the bottom. This is the mould used in the top pendant too. The round pendant was made with AM332 X5Lge 7 UP (prices available on bottom of this page). You can order these moulds through various people depending where you live. If I get myself organised, I plan on bringing a few pendants to the next craft meeting, we're having a pre-loved sale, and a "bazaar" of things we make ourselves, if nothing else, it'll be great eye candy for everyone to see what everyone else has been up to :)

Here's something else I made with the Etruscan Shield:

And with two products I've been wanting to try for a while, some Sheer Heaven Vellum, and Tim Holtz's Adirondack Alcohol Inks!!! I've been using Pinatas, and quite like them (bought them before the T.H.A.A.I. were available) but, like many, I am a sucker for the colours in the Adirondack range! Specially Terra Cotta and Butterscotch!!! *grin* That stamp is one from The Stampsmith, which I hadn't used in a looooong time!!! I think I stamped it in Russet, from the Archival range (also from Ranger).

I'm also hoping to be shown the ropes of Felting, by Kylie Mell who has been playing with felt a bit. I saw her do ONE DOT and saw a gorgeous little calico bag she'd made. It's contagious! I've used the back of one of my calico bags to experiment on, so far, added 3 felt hearts (cut out from Spotlight felt) and even made a freelance flower with a stem, with fibres I felted myself. It's not perfect, but it's satisfying somehow... yup, all I need is another craft! Though, anything that is quick and yields good results is what I prefer these days as my time is limited and evenings are usually spent preparing something for the next day's lunches. My two are a bit ... how can I put it, particular about what they like and don't like, and I can't make anything with peanut butter, due to allergies (I respect that, but it does make my life a bit difficult as pb, but... I'd really hate to be the parent who sent a pb sandwich to school and killed a child!!!)

Speaking of food made me think of this recipe which I quite like on cold Winter weekend mornings: Creamy Rice Pudding, just make a bit more rice than you need for dinner, and you have the perfect excuse to have that the next morning! I made it without the egg the other day as we were all out of eggs, and it wasn't as thick, but it was still delicious. It did have a strange-ish but pleasant taste but that's entirely my fault as I went to pour in some cinnamon (I love cinnamon, I add it and nutmeg to the recipe) and realised, only too late, that I'd put cummin in there! I scooped out as much as I could (I don't think I love cummin in the same quantities as I love cinnamon). I kidded myself that it was an Indian breakfast! I did enjoy it. The girls didn't want to touch it, and by the time DH got up, there was none left ;)

I still haven't received my copy of Altered Arts Magazine, in which a tin I made is published, so I'm giving you a sneak preview anyway:

Hmmm, well, I can't wait til the postie brings this mag home!!!

I can cane!

I originally posted this in my Stampamajiggies blog. But I can't see the point of having two blogs when this one has become such a mish-mash of things around me. So I am moving posts on this blog, to delete the other one. I'm trying to post them by marking them with the date they were originally posted. Fingers Crossed.
This post was originally uploaded on: 16 February 07
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Well, I saw this fabulous idea for a cane on Parole de Pâte and I wanted to give it a go. A neat cane... though I didn't have the same colours, but that wasn't going to stop me. Took what I had, made a semi-skinner blend (i.e. a skinner blend not completely blended) and went with it, oh, and threw some Metallic Gold Leafs in there (i.e. gold in colour, but not real gold) for good measure, and proceeded with the instructions. It was my ...hmmm... third cane? I have tried to cane before, this was the first time I succeeded somewhat better than the other times... so I played!!! I like to think of it as my first cane, as it's the first one that didn't turn out in a muddy mess... though, my jelly roll had a bit of a gap in the middle... maybe that's why they put cream in the middle of edible jelly rolls, so there's no gaps!!!

see, you can see the gap... but given the techniquie requires poking then squishing the piece of cane... that gap didn't bother me too much, but there's something I can improve on.

Below are earrings I made. Cute huh? Didn't even use moulds!! Love my KL Moulds, but it's fun to improvise at times and make something "free hand" so to speak. I love those French Hooks with the flat bit on them too, got those from The Bead Co. here in WA! They had interesting findings! and good prices, imo!!

Now, how much should a pair of such earrings go for??

Then I made some beads.... yup!!! the colours are quite nice, the gold clay I used and the Green Pearl (both Sculpey III) have this mica shifting particles and they shimmer, really nice!!!

The first on the left is done by wrapping a slice of the cane (not a slice like you slice bread, a slice from the side... as in the tute) around a chunk of scrap clay. The other two are done by wrapping slices (a la bread slice) of cane around COSC (chunk of scrap clay?)... I warped the cane for the middle bead, into a triangular shape, that worked nicely too. and on the round bead, you might not see it, but there's even bits of reduced cane there too!!! AMAZING! hehehehehe!!!!!

Hmmm, then, I had a bead that didn't work... so... what do I do? I swirl, of course! and two or three coats of varathane later (Flecto) you have this:

Pretty!!! If I may say so myself.

In a future post I will show you other ways in which I've used some of the cane slices, with Krafty Lady Art Moulds©