Well I havent blogged in a while

I was going to do a killer piece on Necklace and accessory organisers, and I was going to mention my good friend Jen’s brilliant idea, but I wanted to also include the storage/organisation concepts I came up with. However, I have been procrastinating with the tidy-up of the cupboard that is adjacent to the accessory organiser – and I am too much of my mama’s girl to take pictures of it when the cupboard is in such a mess. My mama would simply hang her head in shame and I would feel bad about embarrassing her.

In my attempts at procrastination, I have however been really busy in the Melt & Pour department and have turned out batches and batches of soap. I am super pleased with my latest conquest – that of the troublesome non-sticking layered soap variety. But I think I have finally managed to get it down and am loving the end product. I made rainbow soap!!! I borrowed the layering technique from Anne-Marie at Soapqueen.com, and then borrowed the embedding technique from her as well, and this is how these babies turned out in the end – I was exceedingly pleased. Fortunately for me, I sort of had a week off, and yes – I could’ve tidied the cupboard, but the lure of soap was way too strong and I fell off the tidy wagon, right smack into a frenzy of soapcrafting. These included bugs in soap, Honeycomb and Jelly soap, colour pop soap, marble rock soap, leaves in a brook soap and then a variety of Cold Process Soap (soap made up from scratch). Here are a few of my favourites below.

So anyway I have made loads more soap than is actually necessary, but I have been having a blast. I also made a Brown Sugar and Oatmeal bar, Peppermint and Rosemary, Cranberry Crush (with 100% Pure Cranberry Juice, and a beautiful Lavender swirl with crushed lavender and Kaolin clay and added. But my all time favourite right now ia a sinful chocolate loaf with a real vanilla choc soap spiral in the

middle and it even has a little peepy hole through it. Not only am I loving the design, but it smells so chocolatey that I keep having to convince myself not to take a bit out of it. Well I did kinda lick it, it did taste terrible

- what can I say – I am a slow learner……well that’s it for today, hopefully I will clean up the cupboard someday.

Styrofoam Happy-(Warning long post and jumping all over the place)

 

 

 

So last week we were sort of otherwise occupied with the Open Day at work.   I work at a rural University in a rural part of South Africa.  Being one of the poorest and underfunded Universities – we often have to make do with very little and often if one has a great idea for something, that great idea is usually funded through one’s own pocket.  I really wanted our teeny stall to be a little more than the regular bare bones appeal as evidenced by the stand next door to us in the pic above.  So I decided that in order for us to appeal to potential students we needed to introduce a little colour and texture to our stand, but that meant that I would have to take everything home as work supplies are limited to a stapler, a stick of glue and red pens.    I could go on and on about this but to cut a long post down, Open day was a resounding a success. cool,- yeah but for me the best thing about the Open Day was my journey into the world of Styrofoam.  Anyway, I had salvaged these big ol’ boards of Styrofoam from the archival grunge that our University’s Stores Dept has on offer as “teaching aids”(???) for our display.  By fortune’s blessing the big ol’ board wouldn't fit in the boot (trunk), so I kinda had to snap off chunks to get it decently portable.  I saved the chunks.  I

did that because I wanted to try one of my mad pseudo-scientist  experiments [which was that I had  read somewhere that Styrofoam is notoriously unbiodegradeable, but that you could melt it with orange rind oil and I had some neroli oil –  wanted to see if that worked]. 

Anyhow I brought the boards back to the pseudo-scientists lab/studio/saponifactory, home-sweet-home and I got working on the displays for the Open Day.  So I still had a whole rectangle of snapped board and so I decided to paint sort of a tree on it – the concept was a tree of knowledge type of deal.   

And then all the Styrofoam balls

started dropping…. I loved the black and white textured contrast on the tree and was thoroughly impressed by the Mujii/Mr Price Home art deco look of it.  I became even more hyped when I realised that it was light enough to be mounted with a minimal amount of effort – regular mirror tape held it up good and well.  Insert EUREKA moment there.  I have been feeling rather sad for myself at being too stretched to buy canvas to paint and decorate my little townhouse with.  Styrofoam on the other hand presented a cheaper, generally cooler option – especially being  that I get

tired of my art and usually shake it up and throw it out when I get bored with it. I am about to raid all the recycling boxes in the garage for more Styrofoam packaging. 

My head is buzzing with possibilities.  My first project was to create a temporary hot-plate sort of thingie – I needed something to place my piping hot-water glass pot insulator (that is affectionately referred to as my HoWPoGI ) which I use to keep oils and stuff from resolidifying when I make soap. Worked like a charm, and the the piece of styrofoam under the object in the pic above serves the purpose of hot plate/work-surface.  In my quest to find ways

to recycle Styrofoam  I also reckoned that I could “build” a little mini stand for my soap enterprises with all the broken bits of Styrofoam. 

Yep, so the addition of Gypsum and Grout to sort of plaster the “stair ruins” soap stand was the best decision I made all day. 

I am pleased with how it all turned out. 

Of course this has my mind going off in all kinds of directions

on what else to build with Styrofoam and plaster – a nice laptop/writing table so that I can take my work to bed perhaps…..until later!

Just like a hot stone massage!!

As it comes to the close of every day, I find myself fantasizing about lying on a white fluffy towel and having some expert therapist administer one of those divine hot stone massages. But I live in a rural part of South Africa, and while stones seem to proliferate at an alarming rate on the road that I take to work everyday and back, willing administrators of Hot Stone Massages don’t…..well not unless I sell my car or something big.

So I began to wonder if I could come up with something that I could use to work out the knots in my neck and this is it how it turned out.

I took a basic lotion bar recipe and tweaked it so that it would be a tad bit firmer , dense enough that it doesnt melt instantly and finally solid enough to hold the pebbles.

I used a knubbly mould and filled, poured, filled, poured. It takes a longer time than regular M&P setting time to set up. But it is worth it – these babies rock (pun intended). To use, you simply run the bar all over you, after showering/bathing. It’s a 3 for 1 deal, you get the heat, the massage and moisturiser in one go! I’m totally loving it. These instructions are bit weak….but I hope you get the picture!

MAKING MOO M&P SOAP and editing in Live writer

I am well stoked about this blog editing application and I cant stop myself from checking what it can do.  I must add that I only found Live Writer through a very sweet and generous soul called Switcher who has an equally great site called SOSwitcher (click it!).  You can find a link to the download page of the programme in my last post or by going to the Windows live site. 

Moooving along , I have been wanting to post this “tutorial” for a while now anyway, so I guess it’s 2 for 1 deal, I play with live writer and post the TINCAN HANDMADE project of the day:

MOO SOAP!

Moo Soap is a relatively more complicated project than your average M&P effort.  It’s a whole lot easier than Cold Process Soap too (making soap from scratch).  These little moo babies are so cute that I cant stop showering with them.  This tutorial assumes that you have had some basic M&P experience before and doesn’t go into detail about exactly how to melt and pour soap.

Here’s what you will need:

• 3 separate melting jugs/vessels/pots
• stirring implement
• knife
• scoring/designing tool to etch design (I used a teaspoon)
• mould to pour you soap in
• M&P Soap/ 1 part clear + 2 parts opaque
• Fragrance Oil
• Witchazel in spray bottle
• patience

Here’s how you can do it.

• Fill your moulds to half way up the cavity with water and pour out into measuring jug.  This way you will be able to roughly calculate how much melted soap you are going to need for the black soap.
• Melt enough opaque soap to match that quantity and add in your black colourant (and a wee bit of fragrance) to the shade of black that you want (note it will be grey tinged).  Use whatever you are stirring with and stir well.
• Pour into your mould to half way up the cavity – leave to set.
• When set unmould and carve your moo bits pattern into the face of the soap,  I used a round teaspoon.

Carve up the soap with the knife.  Placing it on cutting board an cutting out the shape is the easiest way to do it.

• Smooth sharp edges by rubbing over with a damp cloth.  (A wet wipe is good for this purpose)
• When the the pieces are dry the fun begins
• Melt a small quantity of clear soap, add your chosen fragrance to the soap and pour a thin layer into your mould.  I used a blend of Milk and Vanilla cos I wanted a milkshake type of scent.  I’ve been thinking that a sweet almond or a wheat germ scent will also give it a nice milky, creamy scent.

 

• When it firms up to a firm but pliable,rubbery consistency, spritz your moo bits with witchazel and arrange your pattern – be sure to firmly but gently push the pieces into the the rubbery clear layer or you will get unsightly air bubbles between the two layers. Work from the middle of the bit out.(I hold the mould up to see if the moo bits aren't trapping air). Spritz with witchhazel.
• Melt your white soap – when it is 1 or 2 degrees (Celsius) hotter than your normal pouring temperature, add fragrance, and mix well .  Pour over your moo bits, pour slowly and if it gently starts melt the black soap, all the better the pieces will adhere better and the edges on the black moo bits wont be so sharp.  Let it sit undisturbed until it hardens up and slides easily out of the mould.
• Unmould the soap, and you have got moo soap – keep it all for yourself  or wrap a few up and give away as presents (warning – giving moo soap away is extremely traumatising, you will find a really strong attachment to it!)

 

I downloaded Live writer and I think I’m liking it

Hola amigos - I just found a super cool tool! This is a blog editing tool that you can get for free from Windows called: Windows Live Writer – now if I can only find a cool new 4 column template layout, I’ll be on my way to Blogging Heaven….which means that I am going to have to create more random stuff to create. Seriously though how cool is it that you can edit font, picture layout, tilt, crop, rotate them and add borders etc. I havent played around with it proper yet – but you can also insert tables!!!! YEAY YEAY – I love stuff that allows you to edit to your hearts content! Anyway – if you too would like this super cool editor that I am loving, loving, loving you can download it here.

They have a bunch of new features as well including a newly designed Movie Maker – which I would love to test drive but I am worried that if I download that, it will delete my old Movie Maker. I know things are supposedly better – but I remember really loving Windows Photo Editor and then feeling short changed with MS Office picture organiser.

POETRY for Dummies

Anyone who lives in a rural part of the world may find themselves desperately wanting to recreate variety of activity that extends to more than conversations limited to what is going on the local soaps and rugby (echhhhh), fishing and taking in the not so pleasant aroma of the airborne stinkies generously supplied by the factories surrounding you. I used to love those free-style poetry nights, in dark little venues with beret wearing dreadlockers and angsty-I-wish-I-lived-in-8-mile types.

The TINCAN HANDMADE offering today is going to try and recreate that atmoshere in the comfort of your own dorpie (little town)house.

When I lived in Omura, I had an intensely arty,clever,creative friend called Kristi Woo, who had a set of Fridge Poetry magnets - I admit that I probably drove her insane cos I loved these things and would go over to visit and spend a large part of the time rearranging the words to pretend I was a poet. I got thinking about that again and decided that I wanted some - so off I went to our one mall convincing myself that atleast one of the stores on the two storied, 2 block long mall should have some. Nope, the best I could find were "Go Sharks" or "Go Springbok" (rugby magnets - echhhhhhhh).

Demoralised I returned to my house. I think it may have been the stinky fumes from Mondi's latest experiment in Stinkobility that sort of induced a Peyote type vision. I was given the idea to create a set of Fridge Poetry Magnets. Here is how the project went.

Well the first thing I needed to do was find some magnet paper - I happened to have some (DAISO PLAZA 100Yen Store) that I with great foresight had seen fit to bring with me when I moved from Japan - yes there were people who looked at me strange when upon unpacking produced my magnet paper, but they are all looking at me with envy now (insert MUHAHAHAHHAHA audio track here)! But I did some research online here and there is a company here called Tecnical + General Distributors who will sell you magnet paper in printable A4 sized sheets - and the best part is, you can buy it per sheet!.

Right, so I have the magnet paper and now I need words, lots of them - yes I do suffer from verbal diarrhea, but at this point I had an acute attack of DUH. So I searched for the most used/popular words, verbs and the most beautiful words in the English language and was rewarded by lists of these which I merely copied and pasted into a table in MSWord.

I printed the list and then glued it onto the magnet paper (messy, finicky enterprise as I stupidly used liquid bond instead of regular Pritt.) Then came the laborious process of cutting out each individual word - the magnet paper was too thick to be cut on my lightweight cutter. Well the end result was a success and I now have a very poetic fridge. To recreate the effect of the dark poetry lounge - merely turn your super-bright kitchen light off, light a few candles and recite your poetry to your plates and cups!

Designer DECOR on the Cheap

The times dear friends, are hard....but funky,cool,designer chic home deco need not be the sacrificial lamb. If you live in South Africa, they say that MR PRICE HOME is the average Joelene's Stuttafords or Boardmans - but what happens when you are an over-extended homemaker like myself and even MR PRICE HOME cringes your pocket? Do you give up and make do with Tannie Sanet's crocheted doilies? Lemme let you in on a little secret of mine - I furnish/decorate almost entirely at PEP Home, Crazy Store and those fabulous hole in the wall made-in-China type of places.

Today's TINCAN HANDMADE Project yields delightful designer tealight holders with materials sourced entirely from the stores mentioned above and "a friendly SPAR wherever you are"

I must admit that I am somewhat of a compulsive, impulsive buyer and have been known to purchase whatever grabs my attention. At one of my drop-in at PEP trips I found these beautiful handmade flute glasses. So I bought them. I brought them back to the lair and discovered that my cup cupboard runneth over from similar whim purchases. Besides, they were too pretty and too matched to my Orangey, yellow, green colour scheme to be relegated to some dark crevice of storage. So here is what I did.

I chucked about a capful (+/- 10ml)of Citrus Oil into about a handful of Rock Sea Salt(uniodised) (you can get the salt at the Spar or any supermarket, and the fragrance Oil from the Crazy store or any Health Shop, Clicks, or Pharmacy should carry some essential oil or Fragrance Oil, if you cant find it there - I know of 2 fantastic suppliers of all kinds of Fragrance Oils and you can order online), stir in the Fragrance Oil so that the salt absorbs the scent.

Next - I had some wee little pebbles (another binge buy)that I got from the Crazy store, I have seen them at Mr Price Home as well - and remarkably at Padayachee Bros stationery store. I carefully dropped in a teaspoon of the scented salt and then about 2 teaspoons of the pebbles and layered more salt over that so that it filled the little crevices in between the pebbles. I continued this until I reached the fill capacity that I liked.

I then merely took a tealight candle (available at PEP/CS/MPH or Shoprite/Checkers) and placed it on the top. Looks lovely and very Mr Price Home-ish.

Here are a few random pieces of info for you - salt retains scent really well (think bath salts), when there is heat, the scent is sorta encouraged to disperse.

And there you have it - designer deco on a scrooged budget. Stay tuned!

Blogging is just like Journaling.....

sometimes I do it and am all excited about it - but most times I start making something and forget all about doing it!

Today's exciting news is that I somewhat succesfully swirled soap! That's right - I made soap from scratch and and got the swirl on - see:

I AM SORE and learned something new! ROSEMARY - is not just a pretty name to dress up a chicken!

03 May 2009

Yesterday, a whole bunch of really ripped men with arms the width of my waist were working out at the gym at the same time I was. One of these hulky-types while giving me that "ha-you-couldn't-possibly-ever-do-what-we-do-look" - offered to take the HEAVY weights off of the seated calf-raiser rack so that I could use the machine. Well then, ego severely challenged and fully engaged in the defensive-injured-pride mode, I bravely "instructed" the "kind" Schwarzeneggar that I would be fine if he just left the last weight on there. This ofcourse meant that I did indeed - in a miraculous leap of self-confidence - upped the weight from my usual 10kgs to 20kg (just under 40lbs I think). I figured if I can use my 'superior' leg strength on the leg press machine to push 22.5kg's, this shouldnt be too bad yeah? Now while 20kg's might not sound that impressive to you, for me however, 20kg's (40lbs) is about 2kg's (4lb) less than half my total bodyweight. The moment I pulled the resting lever away I knew that I was going to completely cut off circulation and that in effect, literally trapped me in the contraption. Never-the-less, determined to put straight the incredible hulks, I gritted my teeth through a blood stopping 3 sets of 15reps ritual and well.....eventually had to get one of the staff to lift the machine off of me.

Today I cannot walk, walking causes pain - moving causes pain -I didnt realise that you could actually hurt where it hurts - just above the calf muscle, just under the back of your knee. I have never felt pain there before. I limped through the whole day, hoping that some kind of movement will ease the torture. Nothing doing!!! I then figured - this is all lactic acid buildup and busted out my ol' faithful Bicarb Bucket - drank it neat - yep just like that - still no relief.

Somewhere between February and now, my trusty bottle of Arnica Oil moved out - so I am somewhat in a fix! Okay, all problems have a solution I reckon - I decided to go through some home remedy/herbology books and found out the following:

• It's probably too late to counteract muscle sprain stiffness now (a day later), but there are certain herby things in nature that will help with inflammation and lactic acid buildup. I need to get the blood vessels dilated in order to flush out the acid buildup - apparently cayenne pepper will do the trick, - but my question is - do I have to drink that or apply it? I am not sure Cayenne Pop would be a best seller (Cayenne Pepper and Bicarb cocktail anyone?)
• Topical application of Rosemary will reduce inflammation. Apparently Rosemary has 4 anti-inflammatory properties and is easily absorbed through the skin.
• I also read that topical application of mint, witch hazel and chamomile also help in relieving muscle stiffness and inflammation. From Amma (my grandma), I learned a long time ago - that clove oil is an anaesthetic.
  
• So here is what I am going to do in desperation - it is nearly 1:00am - I am going to take a torch out to my garden and raid my rosemary, peppermint and chamomile plants. I am going to grind all these up in my coffee mill and then add the cayenne pepper . I am going to take 2 teaspoons of Epsom Salts, mill that to a fine powder and mix that up with a little bit of witch hazel and about 3 drops of clove oil to get a paste going. (FYI: Bathing in Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate) is great - baths often cos magnesium helps with achy muscles and cramps).
  
• Now - I am going to mix this in with the herbal mixture.
  
• Then I am going to apply the concotion to the backs of my legs and wrap it lightly with a bandage so that the herb bits are not all over the place.
• And I am going to go to bed -

I will let you know tomorrow if this was helpful!


Report Back: 04 May 2009

I decided to leave out the chamomile in my little poultice, and make tea out of it instead. Chamomile helps you sleep.

• NEGATIVE Clove Oil burns - quite a bit - kind of like how Cinnamon Oil does. POSITIVE smells fabulous (if you like that Chai Tea kinda smell). The next time I am in cold climes (it doesnt ever get below 17 degrees Celsius where I live) - I will remember to take a big bottle of Clove Oil with me - it warmed me up in no time at all. There was sort of a kind of instant relief - right when it started feeling warm, the pain started feeling less intense!
  
• When I woke up and got out of bed, there was a wee bit of stiffness, but certainly not to the degree of torture I was in yesterday. By the end of the afternoon, I am happy to report the pain has completely disappeared.

CONCLUSION -

1. Never try to lift double the weight than you are used to, even if you really think Tankmuscle Man needs a coming down.
2. Home remedy seems to have worked. Rosemary, Peppermint, Cayenne pepper, Clove Oil and Epsom Salts with a touch of Witch Hazel is my new favourite bruised muscle remedy.
3. I will probably go a little easier on the Clove Oil.
4. Next time I am cold, I will remember that Clove Oil warms me up.
5. Chamomile & Chai tea will be boycotting my tastebuds from now on. They dont like to work together it seems, I will make sure that I keep them separated in the future.
   

That's it for today!

Candice

Handmade facial cleanser right from your kitchen!

Hi again

There is only so much that you can write about your love for soapmaking. So today I am going to let you in on a few secret ingredients that you probably do have in your kitchen that I find indispensible when it comes to "handmade" beauty products. There is a lot of really great information on the healing, moisturising and cleansing properties of each of these items. Plus I have a fantastic collection of lots of superb recipes that you can throw together in the time it takes to ignore a tv commercial. But in order to keep the posts within quick, readable length, I will break all of this up into a series of posts, and maybe try to include a recipe at a time on the featured ingredient. But anyway, why would you want "handmade" instead of the easy-peasy, tubed, tubbed, sacheted and gorgeously packaged expensive shop bought beauty products? I am 31, in July I will turn 32. Without trying to bolster my ego, I must brag that I do have fantastic skin for my age, glowing, taut and healthy, no signs of wrinkles (yet), I hardly ever have acne, whiteheads or blackhead breakouts and in fact I often have to convince people with some kind of identification that I am in my thirties and not early twenties. I think the reason I have been able to maintain my skin's excellent condition is because I have always eshewed synthetic products in favour of a more natural approach. I have always had quite an interest in natural ingredients, and when I was a little younger I used to love splurging on products with natural ingredients.

One day I ran out of my "Ground Oatmeal Cleanser" and decided to try and make some up myself, so I had a look at the back of the tube listing all the ingredients figuring that I would be able to whip it up myself if I got the formula worked out. It didnt give me much to go on, and there seemed to be a lot of stuff that didnt seem quite natural to me. I decided to research some more on it and much to my horror I discovered that usually, the concentration of "natural" product in ratio to all the other filler ingredients is less than 2%. In a more in-depth investigation of all he stuff that I was using I realised that I was in fact "cleansing" my skin with more synthetic filler than the supposedly natural extract that was advertised as making the product superior to the others. For instance, did you know that to create that rich, super foamy lather - a lot of products add in a "surfactant", a foaming agent and more often than not - the added surfactant is notoriously drying and an irritant to sensitive skin types.

Anyway, this terrible discovery served as a catalyst in my quest to make the best possible natural products from ingredients I knew to be beneficial, and with the added protection of knowing and controlling exactly how much of what went into them. I only trust my own stuff now, and my skin is a testament to it. Anyway - all the above is probably filler -let's get to the meat of it.

Almost every (particularly South African) kitchens have these ingredients that are indispensible to the homemade spa.

• HONEY (The kind from organically farmed bees is the best)

• OATS (Again, organically grown - but good ol' Jungle Oats or Quaker Oats work just as well in a fix

• LEMON/LIME (fresh organic with pulp is the best - but Lemon juice works as well )

• OLIVE OIL (Extra virgin)

• AVOCADO OIL (slightly expensive but more about the brilliance of this later)

• ROOIBOS TEA

• GINGER ROOT (Fresh or Powdered - I find that powdered is easier to use and store)

• CUCUMBER
  
• 
  
• AVOCADO

• FREE RANGE EGGS

• PLAIN YOGHURT

• BANANAS

• TUMERIC (Yes, you're going to be needing this alot)

• CHAMOMILE TEA (plain powdered flowerheads)

• FRESH TOMATOES (must be organic and not GM)

• NATURAL CANE BROWN SUGAR GOATS MILK (finding Goats Milk in South Africa is difficult - will list suppliers later) UNIODATED MEDIUM GRAIN SEA SALT

• COCONUT MILK

• CORN STARCH/FLOUR

• BICARBONATE OF SODA (not Baking Powder)

• EPSOM SALTS (aka Magnesium Sulphate)

• CITRIC ACID (now go and dust off your sour worms into a nice jar)

Now here is a list of stuff that you may not have - but you should try and get your hands on as soon as you can. These items are regularly available at Health Stores and most Pharmacies.

• TEATREE OIL (absolute must, must, must)

• LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OIL

• EUCALYPTUS ESSENTIAL OIL

• ROSEHIP CARRIER OIL

• JOJOBA CARRIER OIL

• VITAMIN E OIL or capsules

• SANDALWOOD or PATCHOULI (for me these are mainly about how great they smell) COCOA BUTTER (raw form - is great with almost anything)

• CAPE ALOE POWDER

• COSMETIC WITCH HAZEL

Anyway, go dig around your kitchen or cleaning cupboard and I am sure you will find a few of these versatile ingredients kicking about somewhere around the house.

Most people should have the following basic ingredients - HONEY, OATS, LEMON JUICE and OLIVE OIL so I am going to tell you how you can use all of these to make a fantastic cleanser.

If you have a coffee grinder or a mill - grind up as much the oatmeal as fine as you can. How much oatmeal you use is relative - I usually just grab a handful.

Incorporate lemon juice into the ground oatmeal - I like to use about 2 to 3 Tablespoons. The reason why I add the lemon juice first is that - honey can be a bit of pain to incorporate into dry oatmeal, but if you moisten up

Now add about 2 Tablespoons of honey. A handy hint is that if you warm up the honey first, it makes it runnier and easier to blend into the rest of mixture. Try not to nuke it - nuking is terrible and exposes you to unnecessary radiation. Just boil enough water in a kettle, and either pop the honey bottle in there - or measure out the amount into a little container and warm it up that way.

While Olive Oil is an excellent mosisturiser - it can be a bit, well.....oily. I usually just add enough to make the mixture pasty enough to spread. If you are adverse to the Olive Oil, just add more honey or lemon juice, or even a little bit of water (Rosewater is an excellent substitute)

Blend everything together until you get a nice paste, fluid enough to spread, but thick enough to stick. Apply paste to your face - I do the the neck and decollete area as well. Wait for 10 - 15 minutes until it starts to solidify or harden a bit and then rinse off. The worst part of this cleanser is waiting the 10-15 minutes - so do what I do, search a few great articles/blogs on the web and before you know it - the time has passed. I have a friend who is very into Transcendental Meditation, I reckon she would say you could meditate for that length of time.

Alright - that's it for me for now - I am off to take a decadent rooibos, goatsmilk and Epsom Salts bath - the only thing that gets rid of the post-jog ache and phew!

Candice

SOAP SOAP SOAP!!!

I became obsessed with the idea of melt & pour soap last year around this time. Since then, I really havent been able to get it out of my system. I began to obsessively create all kinds of little specialty items. I sit now with a problem - I have made loads and loads of soap, my previously white kitchen counter is a spectrum of dye spills and the like. I have stopped buying clothes in favour of soaping supplies (which mind you in South Africa - is limited to a few places without the great pricing and range of Fragrances, Oxides, Mica's available in the US, Canada or Australia). My house now is filled with soap, my bank balance just above the red line from an unchecked expulsive soap-supplies habit, and my unfortunate inability/fear to expose my product has resulted in an overly perfumed house and a very clean Candice. Everything is ready for the market, the soap is vacuum packed, heat sealed and have cute little labels.....I just cant seem to work up the nerve to approach people. I started giving out free samples, people seemed to love them, a few people generously bought a few bars each. I just couldnt bring myself to call them up again and go "Hey, you need more soap?"

I really love making soap, I love coming up with new designs, I love colour, texture, scent blending and have all these great ideas for Valentines Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day. Problem is - I make them, and they just sit in a box in the cupboard.

I am creating this blog, so that I can atleast showcase my soap and my endeavours to someone other than my cats and myself.

I want to start a little soap shop, maybe online sales will be less threatening than walking up to someone and saying - "Nice weather - wanna see my soap?" I have a little room attached to my garage that kind of serves as my own localised junk/scrap yard. I plan to reorganise, revamp and rennovate it into a soapshop of sorts. And try to write better blogs, I fall short in the prose category. Will keep you posted on the details of the soap shop and the prose.....

Well so long for now
Candice