Soaps I made sometime last month.  They smell really yummy.

Olive Oil, Coconut oil, Crisco, some white mica colorant, FO (Oatmeal stout from Brambleberry), and crushed up oatmeal.  i didnt quite have enough for breakfast so into the soap it went.  =)

I soaped last week.  The scents are Oatmeal Honey and Milk and Orange Dreamsicle.

The Oatmeal Honey was made with Brambleberry's scent.  It's natural colored by the discoloration.  It was really soap and crumbly when i cut it so i ended up rebatching half of the 5 pound log.  =/  Its cut into little guest sized bars.  smells wonderful.

The Orange Dreamsicle is made with an FO from some company who's name i've misplaced.  Its colored with annatto which makes a lovely orangey yellow.  I seeped my annatto seeds in olive oil for like a week.  It was 3/4 of a vitamin water bottle.

Both soaps are made with crisco, olive oil, and coconut oil.  Please ignore Yhetti in the pictures.  He's a Little Visitor who helped me with the soap making.





I'm making a few more batches of soap right now.  Well, i have a rebatch batch of the oatmeal honey and i have a loaf of oatmeal stout (BB) in.  That one is one i'm really excited about.  I used leftover guinness stout at my liquid.  BTW, even with leaving the open bottle out for 3 days, refridgerating it for a week and then nuking it in the microwave, it still wasnt 100% flat.  Make sure your beer is really really flat if you use beer as a liquid.  I had a bit of a volcano isue.  Luckily, i used a tall pitcher for my lye mix.  lol.  I'll post that one up when its ready for slicing.

So I'm having an Alice in wonderland tea party for my birthday in April.  I'm going to be making soaps as the favor but i have no clue what scent to use!

I was thinking a rose/flowery scent.  I have a lovely gardenia FO at home already.  But I was trying to come up with other scents i can use since there will be gentlemen at my party and well, gardenia isnt a nice smell for guys.  lol.

Anyone have any suggestions?  I'm at a loss.

This year, I've decided to make everything for celebrating Valentines AND my four-year anniversary with my fiance.  (We call it VALENANNIVERSARY!) =P

Anyway, there's a little hook that he hangs his keys from so i made a little piece of embroidery to hang there for him.



I got the idea from somewhere else...it was a bunch of loops with the couples name in the middle of the loops.  I can't remember where i saw it though.  If you know, please tell me.

I lied!  I saw it here on craftster!  emmaline made that awesome teapot found on the best of 2010! - http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=341297.0

I also decorated some plain white plates and bowls for the dinner i'm cooking him and made him a scrapbook.  I'll upload those into the Valentine's folder after valentines.  I'm worried he'll manage to find it.

Hope ya'll like it!

So I decided to make meringues.  My coworker makes so pretty amazing ones and she gave me her recipes.  I tried hers but didn't like the way they came out so I tweaked them and made my own.  I can't stop eating them now.  =)



Here's the recipe:

3 large egg whites at room temp
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon raspberry extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon red food coloring

1)Preheat oven at 225 degrees F.
2) Mix the egg whites and cream of tartar until it forms soft peaks
3) Add sugar gradually and beat for about 8 minutes until it is no longer grainy and smooth
4) At this point, you may choose to do one flavor or two as I do.  If you choose to do one color, you need one teaspoon of that extract.  You can forgo the food coloring if you want.  If you are doing two flavors, split the egg white mix in two bowls.
5) Add the almond extract to one bowl and mix in well.  Do the same to the other bowl with the raspberry extract and food coloring.
6) Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper.  Spoon two inch diameter mounds of meringue onto the sheet pans, evenly spaced.  they won't expand so don't be afraid to make them close to one another.
7) place the pans in the oven for 2.5 hours.  Don't peek!  I know you want to, but if you do, you end up letting the hot air out and changing the temperature in the oven.
At the end of the 2.5 hours, turn off the oven and leave the meringues in there overnight or for at least 2 hours.
9) Remove and nom.  =)

this recipe made about 30-32 meringues.  To change the flavor, replace the extract with the extract of your choice.  Frankly, i chose raspberry and almond because i had a small tiny bit of almond extract left and wanted to use it up. =)  Some of them, i mixed the flavors to see what would happen.

I'm not sure how many people this will effect but due to the recent issues with attempts to ship explosives to the US via UK postal services, Japan has put a ban on packages over 16oz as of November 17th. .  This ban effects air mail and EMS shipping.

DHL has also put up a notice about shipping.

I'll update this post if I see any changes.

I'm not sure if we have many swappers from Japan but I'm fairly annoyed now.  Lol.  I get a lot of stuff from etsy from japan.  =/  Plus all my Lolita clothes...=(  I anticipate the prices of Loli brands going up if the restrictions last long...

Australia just implemented an extra charge to people using their postal system to mail to the US.

http://auspost.com.au/apps/international-post-guide.html

"Articles over 453g and all ECI and EPI services will be subject to an additional $9 security surcharge and may face transit delays of up to 48 hours."

I've just orders some lye and fragrances and as soon as they come in, i'd like to get started attempting my first soaps.

My plan is to do a non-scented, non-colored batch first.  I'll rebatch it later for scents and colors.

But i have a few questions.

1) I've read in a couple of places that i should always use stainless steel.  then i've read glass.  and i've read that plastic is ok.  I've also read that I can use a rubber spatula.  Can someone clarify this for me?  because if i can use plasticware, it would be far cheaper for me to round out my supplies as most of my stuff is plastic at home.

2) is Pomace oil okay?  its a super low grade olive oil.  I ask because in chinatown, i can get a gallon for like $8.  way cheaper than anything else. found my answer for that

3) And just out of curiosity, could you soap with peanut oil?  I probably won't do it because i know a lot of people with peanut allergies but i see a lot of peanut oil on sale lately for deep-frying turkeys... and that

Thanks for your help, guys!

So i am on a rather strict budget that leaves me with approximately $20 a month for crafting.  I really want to try my hand at soapmaking (thanks maremare for really kicking up my urge with your yummy soaps.  lol)

Here's my question, would it be best for me to save up my $20 a month for a few months to get a kit like this:

http://www.brambleberry.com/Cold-Process-Soap-Kit-1-kit-P3294.aspx

or should i look to get things one at a time, slowly with my $20 a month?

Pros and cons to a kit?  Ideas?  tell me to get over it and use the money for something else like my fabric addiction?

This is icebyrd67's sister.  We (the family) were not aware that she was still involved in swaps otherwise we would have come and checked sooner.  (thanks to mirthfairy for the heads up)

Jules was taken to the hospital about 5 weeks ago due to complications of a nature that she doesnt want discussed.  she wont be released for another 3 weeks at minimum.

i'll talk to her tomorrow when i go see her and see if she has any packages that were late and are ready to go.  other than that, i suppose i'll just have to discuss with people specifically to see what we can do to rectify this.

sorry again for all the problems.

~the "icebyrd" family

Gallery for the ladies!

original thread

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=119509.0