Archives for April 2010
Bramble Berry’s Building Bridges
Here we are making a game plan.
This is my team’s bridge that came in second place holding 25.8 lbs of soap.
This was the winning bridge holding 85 lbs. of soap and citric acid. Their bridge was so sturdy, we had to scramble to find more weight to put in the hanging bucket below. Well played, team!
Is This Because I Didn’t Sign Up?
Soapylove Tutorial: Sweet and Pretty Parfait Soaps!
There’s no doubt that desserts are enjoying a huge come back. Cupcakes, cookies, chocolate fountains… you name it. We love watching people make them on TV (thank you, Food Network!) and soaking in the incredible food photography all over the internet. And of course, we excitedly put that sweet tooth excitement into our soap creations, too! What’s better than enjoying a dessert with no calories or guilt?
Well here’s a dessert soap that is just perfect for a summer party favor, a show-stopping craft table display, or a sweet treat for your bathroom counter. Let’s get started, my friends!
Supplies:
1 lb Naturally Clear Soap Base
1 lb Bright White Soap Base
Jewelry Box Colorant Set
Candy Jar Fragrance Oil Set
Scalloped Round Mold
Knife, cutting board, spray bottle with rubbing alcohol
1. Melt 6 ounces of white soap base. Stir in 1 drop of Ruby Red and 5 drops of Sunshine Yellow. Stir well.
2. Pour a thin layer of peach soap into each cavity, about 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick. Allow to harden and unmold (a few minutes in the freezer will speed things up).
3. Cut each round in half, then cut a half circle.
4. Score “segment” lines into soap with tip of knife. Put soap scraps back into your cup and save for later.
5. Melt 12 oz of clear soap base. Color with 5 drops of Sunshine Yellow and 1 drop of Ruby Red. Add 1 teaspoon of any fragrance you like from the kit. I used a combination of Lemon and Tutti Fruity (if you have the Delectable Desserts fragrance set, Orange Sherbet would be an awesome choice as well). Stir well and fill molds 1/2 way with clear orange soap.
6. Let soap cool and get thick in the mold. Spray orange wedges with alcohol and carefully place them, scored sides down, overlapping in the soap. We want the soap to be cool and thick so the wedges don’t sink to the bottom. We’re trying to fake gravity here.
7. Once soap is hardened, spray soap with alcohol and just cover wedges with more clear orange soap. Allow to harden.
8. Reheat leftover opaque peach soap, allow to cool to 120 degrees. Spray set soap in molds with alcohol and top off with opaque soap. Allow to harden overnight and unmold.
TIPS!! Since the bottom layer and the orange wedges are colored with the same mixture as the clear soap, the color bleeding won’t show. In the strawberry version I used Bramble Berry’s non-bleeding red with some Ruby Red. If you make molded fruits like I did, you can “glue” them to the top of your soap with a drop of melted soap.
Have fun!!
Debbie, Soapylove
(Psst! The new Spring issue of Let’s Get Soapy is now available here at Bramble Berry!)
New Soap Queen TV series – CP Soap
You asked for it and I listened! There have been numerous requests for a video on how to make Cold Process Soap. But the Cold Process soapmaking process is too complicated to show in one 5 minute video. So I have broken down the basics into a 4 part series. Once you’ve seen all 4 videos you will be ready to make a safe and successful batch of CP! Of course, if you just can’t wait you can always buy the DVD I made a couple of years ago. 🙂
Without further ado I present you “How to Make Cold Process Soap: Lye Safety and Ingredients, Episode 1″
How to Make Cold Process Soap : Lye Safety & Ingredients, Episode 1 from Soap Queen on Vimeo.
In this episode, I show how to safely handle Lye or Sodium Hydroxide by wearing gloves, goggles, long sleeve shirt, and pants. I also give the poison control hot line number (which is 1-800-222-1222) with a reminder that you should always call 911 first in any emergency.
I briefly show the free Bramble Berry Lye Calculator for soap as well as our nifty iPhone app. I also talk about some of my favorite soapmaking books like The Everything Soapmaking Book and The Soapmaker’s Companion.
Next, I go over some of my favorite soapmaking oils like Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Palm Oil, Jojoba Oil, Castor Oil, as well as butters like Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Sal Butter, Lanolin, and Avocado Butter.
Special guest Cold Process soap samples purchased from: Arcadia Aromatics, Ltd., Sherri’s Scents & Soys, Sagegold Soaps, SV soaps, Intentions soap, and KB Shimmer. Making this series was such a great excuse to go shopping and sample some new soapmakers as well as some old favorites. Everyone’s soaps arrived carefully packaged and looked as good if not better than the pictures on their websites.
Remember, this is a basic building block video so if you’re rarin’ to go and don’t want to wait for the last episode to put all of the knowledge together, you can buy the The Everything Soapmaking Book and The Soapmaker’s Companion or Basic Cold Process Soap DVD here.
Are you a blogger? Please feel free to embed this video on your blog. If you need any help just let us know! [email protected]
New! New! New!
Bramble Berry just received two brand new fragrance oils that you’re going to LOVE: Papaya Coconut and Blue Man! I was squealing with excitement when I found out they were finally here. You’ll also want to check out the new Soapmaking Goggles, Surplus Blue Labcolor, Tractor Mold and Ice Cream Mold!
Papaya Coconut Fragrance Oil: Take a tropical vacation with a Papaya Smoothie and Caribbean Coconut. Get lost in the fruity notes of White Nectarine, Mango Juice, Mandarin Balm and Yellow Starfruit. Vanilla Bean adds a sweet note that you can’t resist. Discolors to a light brown and does great in cold process.
Blue Man Fragrance Oil: This is a duplication of the popular men’s cologne, Aquolina Blue Sugar. The base note of Black Patchouli blends perfectly with Orange Peel, Sparkling Mandarin, Coriander Leaves, Star Anise and Venezuela Tonka. It’s surprisingly sweet and majorly masculine. Discolors to a light brown and does great in cold process.
Working Overtime: Christy Rose of KBShimmer
I recently finished filming 2 advanced cold process episodes of Soap Queen TV with special guest, Christy Rose of KBShimmer (see blog post here). These video tutorials are going to be amazing! She is such a talented soap artist and was a joy to work with. We had a blast on set. I’m so thrilled that Christy was recently interviewed for the Etsy blog. It’s a must read article if you’re in the mood for a little inspiration. Christy can do it all!
Christy Rose
Working Overtime: Christy Rose of KBShimmer
“Sometimes you’d like to quit your day job, but life gets in the way. We asked Christy of KBShimmer to share her story about her struggle to carve out creative time despite the realities of everyday. Christy is a member of three Teams on Etsy (SAFE Team, Crafting In Color Team and the IN Crowd Team) and says that the support of Teammates has been one of the reasons why she enjoys selling on Etsy. Currently working in real estate, below is the story of why she has chosen to balance both a full-time job outside the home, and running her company, KBShimmer.
I think deep down, most artists would like to quit their day job. Thoughts of leaving the daily grind behind and working for no one but yourself dance among dreams of the next painting, the next photo, the next batch of soap. Nonstop sales, steady earnings, supporting yourself on nothing but income from your art is positive proof that the world appreciates your skills and values your art.
I know those thoughts have danced in my head. Sometimes though, those dreams do have to wait.
KBShimmer began even before I realized it. When returning from a trip, my mother gave me a simple bar of soap. I loved the way it felt — creamy bubbles, soft scent, and when it was gone, I wanted more. Poring over books, I found a recipe, located supplies and made my first batch. Years later, long after that soap was gone and that batch forgotten, I walked into a bath and body store, and again fell in love. “You can make that,” said my husband, and I knew he was right. I could, and this time, I knew that it was more then a passing fancy, this was a passion; a passion I knew I wanted to turn into a business…”
Read the entire interview on Etsy HERE
This is one of the soap batches Christy made on the set of Soap Queen TV.
Although this episode won’t be ready until this summer, check in this Thursday for our first installment in our in-depth Cold Process Soapmaking Series.
Beautiful KBShimmer Soap piled high!
Chocolate, Scrubs & Soap
One of the best parts of my Bramble Berry life is teaching and interacting with customers who want to reach the next level in their business. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with Erin of CottonTreeChocolate.com on a special project that is near and dear to her heart. She has a chocolate company that manufactures chocolate in Belize. Her passion is in working with local farmers and providing jobs for women who might otherwise have an opportunity to work. Cotton Tree Chocolate works towards economic, environmental and social sustainability for both their own company and also the local community in Belize. She brought a friend, also named Erin, with her. I had fun calling Erin #2 “Friend Erin” all day.
In the chocolate manufacturing process, there are a variety of chocolate related products – from cocoa, to cocoa butter, to cocoa nibs, to chocolate. Erin has a passion for being environmentally sustainable in her entire supply chain and she came to Otion to design custom formulations to use all of this chocolate (yummy!) product in bath and body products.
We had a jam packed day making all kinds of goodies. We made solid scrubs and stamped them to give them a sophisticated and unique look.
We made emulsified scrubs and oil based scrubs.
We made two different types of soap. First up was Hot Process soap.
Our favorite was definitely the swirled cold process soap. We loved the natural chocolate coloring in the soap and used a heavily colored titanium dioxide white soap to provide contrast to the textured, dark soap.
Erin does chocolate tours to Belize (of amazing scuba diving renown). If you’ve ever wanted to know how chocolate is made (literally picking the beans yourself and making your bars of chocolate from scratch and wrapping it by the end of the week), she does 7 day tours that sound absolutely heavenly. If you’d like to learn more about the tours or her single batch, single origin bars, check out her website here or email her here.
Happy Easter Everybunny!
Rules for a Turnaround
Money Wi$e Honorable Mentions
Yesterday, I announced the winner of the Money Wi$e contest. It was a totally random contest so I didn’t get to play favorites with the answers. I had asked participants to leave a comment on the blog and share their best money saving tips (for our current eh hem, challenging economic situation). There were so many great money saving tips that I had to share a couple of my favorites…
Denette: Budgeting and money management has been a topic on my mind a lot lately and was so excited to see your post about it!! Here are a few tips that have really helped me:
1 – I will echo a few others here and suggest making your own meals including lunch for work. When my husband was in grad school we went 9 months without eating out! This was difficult in the beginning with our “date nights” but once a week I made a special dinner and ate by candlelight. It was really fun to try new cooking techniques and it was quite romantic to boot! Taking the time to develop my skills in cooking/baking not only helped my family during a financial crunch time, I also have these skills that I can teach to my children to help prepare them for the future and help them become more self-sufficient!
2 – Pay yourself first! When pay day rolls around, we take 10% of our net pay and split it into 2 different savings accounts. Two-thirds of that amount goes into one savings account that we don’t dip into unless it is an emergency or until we have enough saved up for our large purchase we are saving up for (right now that would be a down payment on a house!), and one-third of the amount goes into a second savings account that we use for unexpected or less often purchases like car repairs. Most people don’t need to split them up, but this helps us out because we can see the progress we are making on saving up for our home while we still have money set aside that we can use for other purchases.
3 – Save your change! It is a rare occasion that I pay in cash, so I am talking about saving your change from your debit card/checking account. Now, some banks will do this for you, but mine doesn’t so I keep track of it on my own. I have actually been doing this for about 10 years now and it is crazy how fast it all adds up! What I do is I document in my checkbook registry the purchase I made and then in the balance column I put down the amount I spent rounded up to the nearest dollar and then I write down the difference in the deposit column. I write my whole registry in pen and the change in pencil so I can keep it strait. For example: I just paid my cell phone bill which was $56.45, so in the balance column I deduct $57.00 from my balance and I added 55 cents to my running total of change! Over the past month I have saved up almost $17 just in change! Every six months we take the saved up change and make an extra payment towards our debt. If you don’t have any debt you could use that change to treat yourself to something nice like a vacation or extra holiday/birthday money! My parents have been doing this for years and have used this money to build a new deck, take a trip to Europe, and just recently bought two new wave runners!
Financial freedom has really been on my mind a lot lately and I loved reading all the fantastic advice and comments, a few of which I will be implementing into my routine so thanks everyone!
Donna Maria Coles Johnson: Use coupons and cash.
Coupons. Contrary to popular belief, there are coupons out there for healthful food items. You just have to keep an eye out for them. Sometimes, grocers have coupon stickers on items that offer discounts on the spot. For example, yesterday, I purchased two quarts of Organic Valley Farms milk. Each container had a .75¢ coupon stuck to it. The regular price of each was $2.50. Since it was triple coupon weekend at the store, I paid 50¢ for $5.00 worth of organic milk! That’s $4.50 more in my pocket, without even trying — just being on the lookout for the bargain. As you shop, keep an eye out for opportunities to use coupons. If you’re more industrious, clip them in the Sunday paper and in inserts that come in the mail. By clipping coupons, I save hundreds of dollars a year!
Cash. Another tip is to use cash for non-business purchases. Forget using credit cards — we ditched ours years ago and are debt free, except for the mortgage. (No car payments either.)
When I say use cash, I don’t mean a debit card either. I mean green dollar bills. You’ll be amazed at how many more of them you will hold onto if they actually have to slip through your fingers with each purchase. It’s easy to swipe a card, and when we do, it doesn’t feel like we are spending that much, when we really are. But when you have to actually count out the dollar bills, you’ll think twice before putting them in someone else’s hands!
I withdraw a certain amount of money from our checking account each Sunday or Monday. I use it for all of that week’s home-related purchases — food, toiletries, personal items, clothing — everything except home repairs and maintenance. I always take out less than I think I’ll need to really challenge myself. I am rarely out of cash at the end of the week, and I have not even touched the ATM. I hold onto a lot of money this way.
There are only 4 things you can do with money: spend it, save it, invest it or donate it. Because I spend with coupons and cash, I have more left to save, invest and donate!!
Thanks for the opportunity to share, and I hope these tips are helpful. dM
Pedal to the Metal, the Hamster is Driving!
TWO: Melt one ounce of clear soap base and mix in one heaping scoop of Yellow Mica. Then fill in the inside of the tires and stripe on the side of the tractor (the details are up to you).