Soaping is an addictive and fun craft. There are many factors that go into making a great handmade product including oils, fragrances, colors and additives. This week was all about tips, tricks and how-tos to make that process easier. This Sunday Night Spotlight talks about the incredibly versatile sweet almond oil. The lightweight oil is very moisturizing and can be used in everything from soap to shaving cream.
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Handmade Holiday Gift Inspiration
If you are planning on giving handmade gifts for the holidays, now is the time to plan ahead and start creating. Handmade gifts are not only more personalized and unique, they cut down on holiday spending. In 2012, the average American spent an estimated $854 on presents for family and friends…wowza! This year is the year to not only save money, but show your loved ones how much you care with handmade gifts. Not to mention…crafting is fun!
Because cold process soap requires 4-6 weeks to fully cure, soap that is ready to use for the holidays needs to be made now. If you are looking to make a festive and traditional cold process soap, the Holiday Cookie Bar and Holly Berry Cold Process features cheery red and green.
Top left, clockwise: Holiday Cookie Bar Cold Process, Espresso Shot Cold Process, Lemon Poppy Seed Cold Process, Holly Berry Cold Process, Indigo Spoon Plop Cold Process, Black White and Gold All Over Cold Process
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Have a Pedicure Spa Day in 5 Easy Steps
The weekend is almost here, and after a long day on your feet, it’s always nice to come home and relax. Summer is around the corner too, which means it’s time to break out the sandals and get your toes in flip flop shape. To help you out, we’ve put together this handy free instruction sheet that will guide you through how to use the series of tutorials we’ve shown you this week.
Easy Cold Process Soap Rocks – Palm Free!
This post was written by the always talented and creative Amanda from Lovin’ Soap. If you can’t get enough of her creative outlook on soap projects, click here to pick up a couple of her soap E’Zines. They’re practically instant gratification since you’ll be able to download them within a day of purchasing. ~Anne-Marie
The magic of this realistic soap rock tutorial is all in the layering and the mica/oxide lines. You can play around with different shades for the rock using gray, brown or even black and different shades of mica/oxides for the lines. For the mica/oxides lines you can use bright colors such as pink, blue and green to get amazing looks. So let’s get to it! If you are new to cold process soapmaking START HERE (and pay extra attention to the lye safety video). This is probably one of my all time favorite palm free recipes. This recipe is high in olive oil. Olive oil makes for a softer soap upon unmolding but cures into a bar that is as hard as a rock! (pun intended!) The “softer soap upon unmolding” characteristic of this recipe is what gives us the perfect base for squishing, forming and creating our rock shapes.
Ingredients
Olive Oil – 12 oz
Coconut Oil – 8 oz
Rice Bran Oil – 6 oz
Cocoa Butter – 4 oz
Castor Oil – 2 oz
Water – 9 oz
Sodium Hydroxide – 4.4 oz
You’ll also need
2 teaspoons Vintage Gray Mica (since we are out-of-stock of this, you can just use a pinch of the Luster Black Mica)
1 tablespoon Brick Red Oxide
1.5 oz Plum Tea Fragrance Oil
Small Tea Strainer (or jar covered with pantyhose to dust mica)
10″ Silicone Loaf Mold
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Visualize Your End Point
Click here for Day Two: Determine Your Values
Day Three: Visualize Your End Point
Day Four: Chunk Into Goals
Day Five: Stumbling Blocks
Day Six: Public Declaration/Word for the Year (and a wee small contest!)
Have you ever started out on a trip and not gone to your trusty Garmin, or MapQuest or iPhone to figure out what turns to take? If you’re like me, you haven’t. We all love the magic of technology when it comes to actually getting to our destination and without getting (too!) lost. In order to get that accurate road map though, we need to know our final destination. We need to know the exact address of where we’re going.
It’s the same exact way with our goals. We need the final destination in mind. And not any destination. We need the specific address – the very specific final goal. Do you want to live in a new house? Don’t just say you want to live in a new house. Say “I want to live in a new house with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a pond for my dog to swim in and a 5 acre yard for my son to run around in. I want that home to be in this specific neighborhood. I want this home to cost XYZ.”
Do you have a weight loss goal? A fitness goal? A business dollar amount goal? A new partner goal? Anything and everything you want in the future can AND SHOULD be incredibly specific.
For this exercise, we are going to do a free form writing exercise for 20 minutes. The goal is to not let your pen leave the page. Not once. Keep writing. Even if it feels like gibberish. You can write longer if you want but if it feels like just forcing yourself to write each and every word, just give it 20 minutes for me. I want you to answer one very specific question:
In 10 years, when my life is ideal and I have reached all of my goals, this is what my life looks like.
If you read my idealized future essay, it is incredibly specific. It details getting up in the morning, the sheets I have (yes, they’re high thread count), the state of my white hotel-like bathrobe (fluffy and soft!), my polished toenails in slippers, what I see when I leave the bedroom, who is waiting for me at the table (yes, it involves children – plural!), what we eat at breakfast, how the conversation goes, what the emotions are at breakfast (enthusiastic children, loving partner, healthy breakfast food) how I get to work, what car I am driving, where I drop the children off at school.
It’s all the details plus the global stuff – how much we travel as a family, how often we see grandma and grandpa, how my business functions with and without me, how long my staff stay with my company etc… If you read it, it reads like the most perfect idealized life in the entire world. It is absolutely reaching for the stars and more. Much much more. And as kooky as it sounds, just dream with me for 20 minutes. Just do it so you can work on your final destination and get that end point for your personal road map clear.
Ready. Set. Write!