Playing Catch-up

With Mother's Day come and gone, all of my mother's day baskets that were ordered completed and sent out, as well as soap finishing it's cure, I feel I'm playing catch up. Or have been the past few weeks.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are my last finals for the year, and between soaping and personal life I havent had much time for education. Granted, my professors are amazing and understanding, and have been flexible enough with me to where I am still able to complete my assignments, though I still find myself spinning my tires.

The job hunt is going well at least - I interviewed for a job int he copy/print center of Office Depot, which seemed to go well enough, now just waiting to hear back from them, hopefully, by tomorrow.

I've also finished packaging a selection of soaps to take to several stores along Main Street in the next week, seeing if I can;t find some wholesale clients, or even dropping some off at the consignment store in the library (though their rate is kind of balls, if the items are more expensive -- learned the hard way from a slightly-more-than-half cut for one of my pricier handmade journals).

In terms of soapy news, however, I have cut the bars form my latest two batches: the peacock and the coffee soap!

As you can see -- I'm experimenting with outside pictures. Woo!

I entered into Bramble Berry's Instagram contest, #soapcrafting, using the following images. Let's keep our fingers crossed for these!

I'm also trying to find the time to be more health conscious - I wouldn't mind dropping a few pounds, and my OBGYN said it would help over the next few months anyhow, as I'm changing my prescription for birth controlf rom a pill tot he 3-month shots, and weight gain is common with it. My arms feel like limp noodles from all the reps I did in the apartment weight room -- yowza! We'll see how they feel tomorrow, as I need to make a special order cherry soap for a client's husband.

So how was your Mother's day?

Peacocks and Coffee

So today I finally got around to making some soap!

Ten pounds worth, to be exact. I even took some pictures of the "during" to share with you guys. :)

First off, I wanted to make a odor-neutralizer soap for the kitchen sink, inspired by the gardener's soap from Soap Queen. In several books I've read about CP soapmaking, it's suggested to completely replace the water in the lye solution with double- or triple-brewed coffee. Utilizing this technique, while adding the used coffee grounds, I attempt making a kitchen soap. :)

I thought it was cute that my little ball of tussah silk perched on top of my triple-brewed (chilled) coffee. It goes into every batch, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Pouring my (now steaming) coffee-lye mix into my oils to melt them. Room temperature soapmaking is the only way I go, just because I'm too impatient to wait for temps to stabilize.

Mostly melted, only slowly stirring with a spatula. Went ahead and added coffee grounds before stick blending, to make sure it was only a nice exfoliation that was added.

Blending! Random blue tint.

You can barely, BARELY see trace here. Time to pour!

This is after letting it sit several minutes. I wanted a textured top, but my original batter was too thin. I waited, and finally sprinkled fresh coffee grounds over the top of the soap for smell and texture. The soap is scented very lightly with RE's Morning Blend fragrance, a nice, slightly sweet coffee scent. I took a spoon and folded the coffee grounds into the soap batter to make sure they stick, and to add that lovely swirly texture. :)

Onto soap number two!

I've been wanting to do a peacock/boquet style swirl for ages. I tried once, except the scent was a floral and it accelerated way too fast, so I just dumped everything together. My second attempt had the base soap accelerate as well, though my stripes were unscented. It didnt come out as nice as I'd hoped.

I guess third time is the trick, because I certainly succeeded with this one..

Before the bouquet/feather grouping. :) I scented this one using lavender, peppermint, and eucalyptus EO (smart move, they move slower) aaaand a hint of musk. :)

I only scented the base soap again, which is a spatula-swirl style with the blue, green, and purple. Colors from the Conservatorie.

And then the dividers!

I can't wait to unmold these! :)

So, is there any technique you tried and tried at again, or one that was difficult to master?

Website Updates and Life

So I haven't had the chance to make any soap lately. Above is a yummy cherry swirl soap I made with melt and pour bases back when I was just starting out. It still smells yummy, and was my first sell-out soap.

I've been on the job hunt for a replacement day-job, so soap making has slowed, as have sales. I decided to close my Etsy shop, as doing so now means I just break even. It's a wonderful tool, however without a current income (I support my soap making craziness, letting my husband do what he will with his earnings) I just can't bite the bullet.

Being open minded, however, I decided to revamp my website and add a shop there. Totally free! Haha.

That is however the only thing I've gotten done lately. But if you'd like to visit my website and give feedback, I'd greatly appreciate it!

http://uniqueuseables.weebly.com/index.html

Soapy Sidetracking: Phoenix?

Okay, so the soapy part of tonight's blog is this: Cut soap pictures! Yay!

The cut bars of Green Tea and Willow. Smells AMAZING, nice woodsy clean spa-type smell. Slight bit of ash on the tops, but I'm going to see how steaming them does with the mica swirl (hopefully well!)

Purple Sandalwood! More ash on these, but I LOVE how the inside swirl did -- this trace was still very liquid in the pour, where GT&W was much thicker. This soap had a higher concentration of olive oil as well -- you can see my cutting marks! And fingerprints. I'll use my planar to clean them up, but it's going to irk me with the longer wait. I'm used to heavy solid oil recipes over liquid ones.

And the SIDETRACKING. Little known fact about me (sort of) is that I used to be an art major. I guess I'm still an artist, my media type has just changed (I consider soap an art form!) and I havent lost the spark, and I occasionally sketch still. My amazing obsession, however?

Phoenix.

Any kind of phoenix.

Like Jean Grey from X-men.

Even Dark Phoenix.

And White Phoenix of the Crown.

And this phoenix tattoo on my thigh.

I adore phoenix. In general, and the person. Mythos-wise, it accurately resembles my life. I've seen things. I've done things, and had them done to me. It hasn't always been easy. I grew up in a cold home, I was in a traumatic accident -- but I never let those things define me. Though Ive had a dark and bitter past, I have recreated and renewed myself for the future. Each horrible thing I encounter and survive through marks a moment in my history where I become reborn. Even as Jean battles with the darkness struggling to consume her, she always finds light in the end. 

So, in homage to my artist "past," enjoy some of my old drawings/sketches. Eye candy just for you viewers!

Dark Phoenix

Joker - Heath Ledger

Alduin - Skryim

Hellraiser Puzzle Box book cover for my hubby

Sketches on Notes

TipTopDog Hundesalon - A commissioned mural that's on a dog salon in Germany where my father lives. :) This was a doozy to paint!

Bahamut from FFX

Painted Phoenix from the first sketch

Amy Lee of Evanescence

More phoenix

Another Amy Lee (her eyes are GORGEOUS)

Self-portrait done digitally

So, what are YOUR other obsessions? Anything you do outside of soaping? Used to do? Would like to do? Let me know after the break!

BREAK :D

Soap gremlins and Mica swirls

So I wanted to try the peacock/bouquet swirl, and the above photo is the soap I got instead.

"But it isn't even close!"

No, I know. Because soap gremlins.

I HATE soap gremlins.

Granted, I was using a fragrance oil I knew accelerated, I just forgot HOW FAST. Tried adding more water, nope. Got stuck in my soap condiment bottles. Ohmygod. Dumped bottles out into soap, layered, hoped for best.

Instead, I got CRAYOLA BARF. Oy.

So I rebatched, sliced the soap up nice and thin, put it in a crock pot (it was still soft and squishy after 3 days from all the water I added) for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Plopped into mold. Still smelled of Freesia, silly white florals, and had a lovely lavender color to it:

Brushed the top with some oil-mica and glitter.

Decided to try a heavy olive oil recipe with my other planned batches for the day, to slow things down a bit. Soaped a green tea and willow silk/shea soap with french green clay, wanting to try the oil/mica swirl again. I was impressed! Soaped well, smelled beautiful, and look at the SWIRL!

This is after drying a bit. Yay!

Wanting to take the opportunity to use the gremlin-free soap time, I started on another. Purple sandalwood, colored with a purple mica and activated charcoal. Smelled yummy and odd, musky. This is BEYOND my favorite mica swirl to date:

SO PRETTY. <3 Finally, after all those tries, I got it. Took me long enough, LOL. Can;t wait to see the inner swirls with the green tea and sandalwood soaps. Exciting! I'll just have to wait longer to unmold due to extra olive oil. Here's another pic of the lovely purple swirls!

So happy with my soap results today. The gremlins were beating me down for a while.

And here's the paradise soap cut!

Love the hanger swirl, just wish the colors had come out brighter. I'll get usage rates down soon! The green and purple seemed to do fine, so we'll see. :)

Thanks for reading, and HAPPY SOAPING!