Natural line now ready

View Full Album

I am pretty excited.  My signature line is really coming together. 

I have decided that in order to organise my products more efficiently, I have to group them according to themes.  You have already had a preview of the ELEMENTS series about 2 posts ago. This has worked out fabulously – and makes it easier for everyone to find exactly what they are looking for.   

The featured soaps in this post form part of the NATURALS series. They all share a common theme of something “natural” - either botanicals,  milks, teas, honey, extracts or butters.  I usually have  a little story behind each soap that I design, these ones however are created purely for the luxury of it.  I personally love the various kinds for their nourishing, moisturising or healing properties as well as their visual and scent appeal.  The inclusion of the actual plant material makes them great for gentle exfoliation as well. 

To date the soap in this series have been the most popular sellers and I am stoked that they finally belong to their own category.  Click on the Handcrafted Designer Tab at the top of this page for particular details on each variety.

SOAP IS ART

Soap for me is art.  It is a creative process that begins with an inspiration - something that catches my eye or a scent impression that lingers pleasantly in my senses for longer than my direct interaction with it.    From there on, I slowly begin to see the soap-piece in my mind’s eye.  It usually starts to take form physically by way of a sketch, the sketch is then translated into its representation in soap. 

When I discovered soap-crafting , I finally found the artistic medium I had always desired, it allowed me to present my experience of things in the world that I loved in a way that simultaneously stimulated the visual, olfactory and tactile senses.  I love being able to combine colour, scent, textures and working out how to make it all come together into a functional item.

 
I am absolutely in love with a creation I call – Moonlit Dream.  This particular piece was inspired by a recent awesome experience witnessed from my back-porch, of a haloed crescent-moon flanked by two radiant stars, in a clear night sky.  I sat hypnotised for a full hour or so, basking in its ethereal glow.  I was moved by the brilliance of it, awed by the fact that something so natural, so normal, so quotidian could be serendipitously splendiferous over and over again.

I was not content to let the empyreal impression fade into the oblivion, I wanted to recreate the profound wonder  it stirred in me, I wanted more than just a photograph. And so the idea for the soap-piece “Moonlit Dream” was born.  It became an obsession to recreate the surrealism I experienced. 

I played around with a bunch of different designs until I finally settled on this one.  I love the fact that the pearl moon sort of almost pops out of a golden halo in a glittering sky.  I think it smells heavenly too, distinctly floral but with a musky base note.  I love this soap-piece so much that I literally had to put it out of sight, because every time I looked at it or got a whiff of it – I have been struck with an almost insatiable desire to consume it – all of it, the whole supply of it. 

This piece currently forms part of a collection or series called:  WHIMSICAL.   It is a glycerine based soap.  Glycerine is a well loved humectant (draws moisture from the surrounding atmosphere) and keeps your skin all nicely quenched.  Glycerine soaps are great especially during winter months to help fight against dry winter skin.

It is perfect for a little luxurious goody bag for a special lady, it has a distinctly feminine fragrance, without being overpoweringly floral or sweet. 

It is exactly what you would expect a moonlit dream to smell like.

I have been neglecting this blog

I have been thinking about formalising, streamlining and reorganising my soap “business”.  Up until now, soaping has really just been a fun hobby and every now and again I would take my experiments to a local flea market.  What I realised was that there is a decent enough market for it.  However I cant afford to spend my weekends hauling all my stuff to surrounding flea markets. So I am in the process of creating an “online shop” that will be linked eventually to this blog.  Finding the right platform though is a daunting task.   

I also realised that I have to start developing particular ranges and stocking supplies in bulk for those particular ranges.  Up until now I have been experimenting with all kinds of fragrances, designs, techniques and the like.  But anyway to catch you up on what I have been developing recently – this is the first in a range that I plan to sell as part of my signature range.  I am calling this series ELEMENTS – you will see why below:
    

And there we have it – the elements! 

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!