As promised two weeks ago, here are two short videos of the long (thirty minutes plus!) scraping process to get the beeswax spill off our kitchen table. The hand in the video belongs to my father.
Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Filed Under: Tips & Tricks
As promised two weeks ago, here are two short videos of the long (thirty minutes plus!) scraping process to get the beeswax spill off our kitchen table. The hand in the video belongs to my father.
Filed Under: Home Crafts
Crafting with soap and candles is a wonderful family activity. For this Container Candle experiment, my Dad and I took the opportunity to spend the morning crafting and laughing together.
I’ve mentioned my propensity to ruin the kitchen (here and here), much to my husband’s bemused chagrin. This time, it was my Father that betrayed the sanctity of our otherwise clean kitchen.
As I was chattering away, wick centering and placing, my Dad helpfully pulled the hot wax off the stove and gingerly walked over to the table to gently pour the wax into the metal pouring pot. It was a particularly graceful arc of wax that flowed right over the cannister and directly onto the table, where it slowly started splattering on the floor.
Silence filled the room as we both looked at the wax, congealing on the hand-installed cherry wood floors. We both looked at each other sheepishly as the error of our ego and hubris set in; why hadn’t we covered the table with newspaper?
My Dad is a doctor. He’s been stitching people up for over 30 years now. One would assume that he would be able to easily pour with a steady hand. I pointed this out, in a gentle, loving respectful manner (of course). He sputtered back that the viscosity of melted beeswax is different than urine and blood, the two things he most commonly pours. There’s really no rebuttal to that statement so I let him work in silence as I thought up funny ways to tell my husband of this latest mishap.
To clean your wax spill: Freeze the wax to make it easier to scrape.
Find a flat knife, such as putty knife or a baker’s scraper cutter. This is my Dad, scraping away at the wax with one of my best cheese knives.
I have a video to post later tonight of my Dad scraping away at my table. The clean up was slow and tedious. It took approximately 30 minutes until the table was wax free (albeit with nice divots and holes where Dad gouged the wood).
To hide the dark wax stain, we decided to buff and wax the table with a commercial furniture polish. It comes in a yellow can and looks remarkably like Pam, the vegetable oil. After Dad and I finished buffing the table to a shine, we both looked at the bottle in my hands and realized one of us (finger pointed squarely at him!) grabbed the Pam bottle rather than the furniture wax bottle. So, we repeated the entire process – only this time with real furniture wax! My table has never been so moisturized!
We then covered the table with newspaper and started our container candle production line all over again.
Check back tomorrow for pouring and wick straightening tips!
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
This is me and my Dad, after hiking past an avalanche on Mt. Baker
Me, happy to be descending
My crazy husband swimming in a pond surrounded by snow!
My freezing husband shivering dry after his snow pond swim.
After the hike, we had a wonderful dinner at Milanos and took in a sold out Circus Show by the incredibly talented U & I Productions. We finished off a wonderful weekend by making beeswax candles. The Soap Queen blog will focus on our container candle trials this week.
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
This is me and my Dad, after hiking past an avalanche on Mt. Baker
Me, happy to be descending
My crazy husband swimming in a pond surrounded by snow!
My freezing husband shivering dry after his snow pond swim.
After the hike, we had a wonderful dinner at Milanos and took in a sold out Circus Show by the incredibly talented U & I Productions. We finished off a wonderful weekend by making beeswax candles. The Soap Queen blog will focus on our container candle trials this week.
Filed Under: Cold Process Soap
Watch the video for a better example of the spatula swirling method. The movement is a swirling up, down, and around in an “S” shape.
Putting the Sunnybrook soap mold dividers into the mold is easy if you squeeze the outside two plastic pieces to hold the entire puzzle of inserts together.
Gently tapping on the counter to encourage air bubbles to rise to the surface is a good way to make sure you don’t get white bubbles in your finished bars. Remember to keep your eye protection on for this step.
Click here for Day One – Preparing the Color
Click here for Day Two – Pouring the First Layer
Click here for Day Two – Video
Click here for Day Three -Video
Click here for Day Three – Swirling
Filed Under: Personal Ramblings
Norman, my COO in the photo below, says that the Soap Queen blog is getting too business based and that I should start blogging more on crafts. I promise, next week will be more crafty. I’m making some cool soap projects this weekend (frosted salty caramel ice cream bath cupcakes) and painting my stairwell pistaschio green and brown. So, next week will be all about both projects, I promise. By the way, that’s me and Norm, at the cockpit of a non-functional Fed Ex plane. He still is trying to look like he’s in charge (notice the hands on the steering wheel).
But in the meantime, ack! Did you see that our own Seattle brand, Jone’s Soda is being dumped by Starbucks, another local fave? The official word is that Jone’s Soda is being pulled because Starbucks needs to make more room for refrigerated food on their shelves.
But, when you dig a little deeper, Starbucks is not dumping Izze, the Jone’s competitor. Why not? After all, getting rid of a few Jones Soda bottles doesn’t make room for much more than one more lunch item But, dig down a little deeper and find that surprise, Izze is owned by Pepsi. And guess who sits on Starbucks board? A former Pepsi exec sits on Starbucks board. Additionally, Starbucks has a distribution agreement with Pepsi to distribute the pre-bottled Frappuccino bottles that you see in stores.
So, what does this mean to Jones Soda? With their much ballyhooed deal with Seahawks, they were riding the high buzz wave. And, Starbucks only makes up 1 to 3% of their total sales. But, Starbucks was a buzz builder, with lots of foot traffic. And what’s the instricic value of associating with a successful, do-gooder brand like Starbucks?
The analysts are wobbling a little with one saying that the major sell off after the Starbuck’s news makes Jone’s a good buy. At a 83 Price to Earnings Ratio, it’s an expensive buy. I’m still interested though. The management team appears strong, the company has been in business for 20 years and they have strong street cred, which has proven instrumental to bringing the tipping point of favorable consumer habits.
I tried out the myjones.com site and personalized Cream Soda and Blue Bubblegum soda. Those goodies should be coming next week. I’m excited to see how the photo and printing quality is.
Forbes.com did a great 3 part series on the CEO of Jones Soda. The term “series” is probably giving it more credit than it’s due. Each part is about 3 minutes, but it’s still a very informative 3 minutes. Check it out here.
I’m rooting for the local guy to make it past this setback. After all, who else has Turkey & Gravy soda flavor?