Gem Drops!

Here are a few quick and unedited shots of the Gem Drops. The picture above is of a bale, hard to see I know. The bales range in price from $49 to $79 and a lot of them are reversable. There is actually only one $79 bale and you will see why at the bottom of the post.

There are a lot of Gem Drops in natural stone, Rose Quartz, Black Agate and White Agate.

And then some other colours as well. The Gems range from $42 to $89. To get started you need a Bale and a Gem. You can add any Gem to any Bale.

 Heres is the $79 Bale, it holds both a Jewel Pop and a Gem Drop. The Gem Drop I have on here is $45.00. I also comes in white or grey.

I wish I hadn't cut off the bottom of the keys. They are $89 and both are reversable with a clear stone on the back. There's really cute boxes to go with this jewelry as well.I'll try and post more/better pictures by the weekend. If you made it to the bottom of this post thanks for looking!  Hopefully there will be catalogs one day!

Purple & White Snowflakes

Here are step by step instructions on how I made the snowflake soaps for the November newsletter.

I used the Milky Way Snowflake (3 cavity) mold for these soaps. Supplies:

Purple coloured glycerin soap base

Goat Milk soap base

Fragrance

pinch of white mica

Spray bottle of rubbing alcohol

Melt 4 squares each of the Purple and White soaps in separate containers. Add 1/4 tsp of fragrance to the purple soap along with a pinch of white mica, gently stir. Divide the goat milk soap between the three snowflake cavities and then do the same with the purple glycerin. Work quickly, pour the goat milk (white) soap into the snowflakes and then pour the purple in top right away, this will allow the purple to sink through. Let this sit, it will take at least 5 minutes. The goat milk soap will get a skin on it that will support the last layer. Melt 5 squares of the purple soap. When the goat milk soap has skinned up enough that you can blow on the soap and it doesn't move you are ready to pour the purple soap, this will be the last layer. Spray the soaps in the mold with rubbing alcohol and pour the melted purple soap to fill the molds up the rest of the way. Let harden at room temperature and then pop them out. You can experiment with different molds and colours, have fun!

A few notes: Don't overheat the soap. If you are using a microwave its tricky to melt small amounts of soap like this without overheating. Use 15 to 30 second bursts and keep an eye on it. You don't want it boiling or even steaming. You can easily double this if you have more molds. If you want both purple layers to be more vibrant, omit the white mica.

Linked to Kristen's Blog Party

Sunflower Soap

From the October newsletter, forgot to post it here!

Recipe is from The Soapmakers Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch

454 grams Coconut Oil

398 grams Palm Oil

595 grams Sunflower Oil

201 grams Sodium Hydroxide

438 grams distilled water

100 grams pureed carrots

(original recipe has 538 grams of water without the carrots)

5 to 7 tsp of fragrance or essential oil

dried calendula (optional) not in original recipe

2tsp honey (optional) not in original recipe

I added all of the sodium hydroxide to the water and then threw the pureed carrots in to the sodium hydroxide solution once it had cooled. I worked at just under 100 degrees. The calendula petals were ground and warmed with the sunflower oil and the honey was added at trace. The soap was scented with a blend of  Creme Brulee and Pecan Pie fragrance oils.