Ooooh Nooo I've been Tagged

So one of the many people that I look up to in regards to thier art (RagTree) Tagged me.

Now I have to give up 6 secrets. I would have posted sooner but I had to spend some quality time with my mom. She lives in Malaysia and I only get to see her once a year. Plus I was avoiding the deep dark secret thing. Like Ragtrees sewing machine I keep those skeletons in the closet.

Here They Are.

1.) I was never as artsy or creative until I quit smoking (1 year ago day after thanksgiving. Now I am Obsessed by arts and crafts.

2.) I am a bit of a obssesive person (now anyway since I quit smoking, see above). I get an idea in my head and I can't wait to lock myself away working on it. The most recent thing is the shopping bags.

3.) I love country life. I wish I could just live off the land (Not have to work for anyone but myself, although I love my Job). It seems so pure and simple. Work hard eat, don't work hard don't eat.

4.) Strangest Job I ever had was reptile populations studies in Mississippi. Catching snakes and hiking. Also my favorite job (not the best pay though).

5.) I have a burning desire to start and brick and motar buisness (not related to my soaps.). A Computer repair and ect. type store.

6.) I secretly envy everyones elses art. The envy does lead to inspiration so I embrace it.

Wow kind of feels good to get that off my chest. Whoo I feel free now.

Now everyone go look at Ragtree's site and check out the latest envy I have her Art Cards. She is the one who tagged Me

This time some sewing and soap

So I hadn't really been sewing much lately.   But Now I have the bug . I found this site that gave me the idea of using a plastic shopping bag for a pattern. I spent all last weekend sewing and making soap. 

Both my honey and my little man were out of town for the weekend so I was able to totally mess up the house spreading out all my crafts. I had soap in the kitchen and the dining room table was taken over with my serger and sewing machine. I had fabric strung out through out the entire living room. I really just took over the whole house. I was in complete heaven. 

The first Shopping bag that I made has many mistakes, But the rest of them turned out pretty good. See I can learn from my mistakes (or at least some of them).  So all of the bags I made are with recycled fabric.  The first one I am giving to my mom since it was fabric from her table cloth that she has me hem.  I really like the fact that they can be turned into their own pocket for storage.  They hold a lot also the one has a Huge jug of orange juice and gallon of milk in it

One of the bags is actually a trick or treat bag for my son.  He picked out the fabric.  It looks like it has webs and spiders hanging off the sides.

I also made a few soap bags. I am running low and I am going to have to 

pick up the pace if I am going to be ready for the craft show.

I also made soap. Lots of Black Mesa wine soap. Wow their wine is really good. I like their whites and blushes. I have always been a blush wine drinker more that a red wine. But thier red wine is really killer also. I am also making them some small hand soaps for samples and to put in thier bathroom. Due to the nature of wine drinking your supposed to smell the wine. So I had to celophane the soaps. I hope that that doesn't cause a problem down the road.

I am having a sale on organic Palm Kernel Oil

I am running a 10% off sale on Palm kernel. If you are buying 1LB increments enter 1LBPALM, and if your buying 5lb increments enter PALMKERNEL in the promo box. Normally my palm Kernel runs around 3.50 a pound if buying in 1 lb increments and 3.25 a lb in 5 lb increments. Visit me at www.abodynaturalsoap.com

Wow what a week

This last week seemed to last forever.  I think I either have a cold or allergies.  I feel like crawling into bed.  Can't do that though I am to busy at work.  We have the budget year end and so there is so much to tie up so that we don't have any carry over.  Today we also have a chance to do some maintenance on the laser area which has been needed for a long time.  For those of you that don't know I am a Laser Tech.  We have a few large lasers and experimenters from around the world come to use our equipment.  

Anyway, I also spoke with the Black Mesa Winery and they loved the Soap I designed for them.  I will give them the 10 bars I have, and then this weekend make around 50 more.  Yay soap.  I also am going to make some small sample soaps that they can place in their bathrooms.  I will show those as I make them toward the end of the weekend.

Wow the owner of Black mesa is quite a artist  if you have a chance you really should browse their web site.

I guess this weekend is Wine, soap and dancing ( If these allergies let up).

Something Other Than Soap - Play-Doh

So my son asked to make Play-doh today and I thought what a great idea. Homemade Play-doh is a easy thing to make and even young kids can get in to the action. The recipe I like requires the stove but I do have a no cook recipe.

Recipie 1

1 cup of flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons tartar
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup water
food coloring

Make dough

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large pan
2. Cook the ingredients on medium heat for 3 minutes or until consistency is that of mashed Potatoes
3. let the dough cool then kneed it tell smooth and add color. Trick with the food coloring in not dying you hands is to poke a little hole put the drops in and then pinch the hole close. Fold the dough several times before really kneading it.
4. Store bag in resealable bag or covered dish and keep in refrigerated

The no cook recipie is

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
13/4 cups warm water
food coloring

Mix and kneed for 10 min
refigerate

cupcake soap pics

OK I am not the best camera person but this time

 i tried to take a progression of images.  Any way here is the cupcake soaps.

This is the silicone cupcake holders

Here is the whipped soap mixing.  

After the soap got to a consistency of pudding I put it in the silicone cups.
I then colored and whipped the soap some more tell it was the consistency of Icing
Here are the cupcakes all done.  I added some sprinkles for looks.

Serious soap porn

Etsy :: audieaumbra :: Handcarved sunflowers soap

Wow amazing very talented soap artist. I am in need of this soap.

Soap Cupcakes

So I decided to make a dozen little cupcakes last night after my son went to bed. For some reason it took forever. I normally love working with soap using room temperature lye and oil. Mainly because it gives me time to work with it and be a little creative. Last night though it took forever for it to stiffen up for the icing part (or at least it seemed like it). I took quite a few pics and will post them tonight.

These will be my attention getter's for the craft show. Last craft show I had the cupcakes and a bunt cake soap. They drew people to my stall and ususally they purchased some sort of soap.

I used a 7up pound cake scent from natures garden for these. They deal more with candels but they have fragrance oil for soap also.

Upcoming Show

So I am getting ready for a small craft fair and have been really busy. So far I have only done two other shows and those were a lot of work. This one is a bit smaller and only one day. It also is closer to home and indoors, so that in itself is nice. I really hope to get a little more local exposure.

I'm sure you all seen on The Soap Bar the wish paper. I put in for my free sample and this thursday I am going to order some I think it is the cutest stuff and will go over real well at family holidays.

I am hoping to make a couple of batches of soap this weekend but we also have the statefair and my little boy and Big Boy (Hubby) are really looking foward to the food and rides so it will be a tough fit to do the fair and the soap. I want to make some more oatmeal and honey soap. That always goes so quickly.

I also plan on trying to get a few more listings up in Etsy and my online store

Visit me and give me suggestions on both please. I am great at desighning soap not so much at web sites.

www.abodynaturalsoap.com
Or at etsy user name BodyNaturalSoap

Both are in early phases of developement

Wine Soap 2

OK finished taking pic's of the wine soap. I really like the smell but the chocolate undertones of the wine didn't come through as much as I would have liked. I really needed to add more cocoa than I did. Maybe I will order a chocolate scent. As the soap first started to set I thought oh no I need more color but now as it is curing I am starting to like the color. I added in a Merlot wine scent from Natures Garden It really has the deep grape wine smell but lacking the slight alcohol notes you would expect with a wine. Granted I did not want it to smell much of alcohol. So when making the soap i used half of the liquid for the lye solution (water) and then add the other half Slushy (Frozen, this way the sugars don't scorch) wine once trace started this gave the soap a more realistic wine smell. I did lose the chocolate tones as stated above but I will remedy that next time by adding more Cocoa.

Wine Soap

Ooooh I am really excited I get to experiment with wine today. Now who wouldn't be excited about that.

About a week back I had spoke to one of the owners of Black Mesa Winery about making a soap using one of their signature wines. He found the idea intriguing. We both thought his chocolate wine would be the most interesting. This wines name is Black Beauty and believe me its yummy. It says it all on their web site

" A little chocolate. A little sweetness. A little naughty – could lead to dancing! Black Mesa's best seller.
GOLD Medal winner at 2007 "Wine Tasters Guild International Wine Competition"I will post any results I found including pics in making the soap as soon as possible.

I will now go forth and make soap and if it wasn't so early in the morning I might be tasting my ingredients. Mmmm chocolate wine I already feel like dancing.

Lavander and Rosemary soap

I decided to divide up the lavender and rosemary into two batches. The first batch of soap I decided to go all natural. What I mean by all natural is no additives and colorants. It makes for a plain looking soap but I prefer that. I ground some of the fresh lavender and infused it in my olive oil for 2 days. I Ground some more of it and as my soap was just about to go into the molds I add it and some Lavender EO. After putting the lavender into the molds I then topped it with lavender flowers. I must say the soap smells wonderful. Below is the result.





I also decided to make some whipped soap using a combination of the lavender and rosemary. I like making whipped soap normally because it gives me time to play around with it. The cool temperatures of the lye and the oils create for a slower reaction. One of these days I will try to get some pics of the process and post that.

I did grind up the fresh lavender and rosemary together and add it to the soap as I blended it. I also added colorant and some Lavender and rosemary EO to this Batch. I love the pastel colors of whipped soap. It is still in the mold so All I have is pictures of that and not the cut bars. Will post those later.

I had a little extra as usual and had to put it in to a small square mold.