Tutorial: Making Silicone Molds

I love to decorate the tops of my soap with swirls, curls, and textures. Some of my favorite bars of soap are topped with soap embeds, like my Lemonade soap and my Green Grass soap. I've had loads of great ideas for embeds, and I've finally perfected my silicone mold-making technique, and I have started making new designs for my soaps!

To make your mold, you will need:

• One package of polymer clay (to make your own designs) OR any hard object you want to make a mold out of
• One bottle of silicone caulking (try to find the outdoor kind)
• One caulking gun
• Corn Starch

1. Start off by making your objects in clay. 

2. Once you are satisfied with your clay objects, bake them in an oven or toaster oven using the directions on the packaging. The clay I used called for 275 degrees in the oven for 20 minutes. Bake your clay and let it cool fully.

3. Pour about 2 cups of corn starch into a separate bowl.

4. Open your silicone caulk and load the caulk into the caulking gun carefully. Squeeze out some silicone caulk into your corn starch, then fold the silicone into the corn starch until it is no longer sticky and has the consistency of clay. You may want to wear gloves!
5. Now, gently press your object (in my example: my clay owl!) into the silicone and set it aside to allow the silicone to dry out.

6. Once the silicone has dried (I gave mine a few hours to be sure), remove your object! 

Keep a couple of things in mind:

-- These molds are not suitable for edibles, like chocolate or candy. 

-- You can also buy silicone putty in craft stores under the Sculpey brand if you are not interested in using the caulk. Make sure to follow their instructions!

-- Store your new mold in a cool, dry place. After each use, wash your mold with soap and warm water, then dry thoroughly. 

Craft Tutorial: Homemade Notepad from Recycled Paper

If you are like me, you take notes on everything, but it always seems like you never have a notepad around! I'm always thinking of new things to do or try, or making lists of things I need to do for my business. So, I decided to put together a quick and easy notepad for my desk out of old, used paper!

You will need:
-Used paper with one blank side
-Binder clips
-Elmer's glue
-Scissors

Cut up your used paper. I found that cutting the papers in fourths made for the most convenient notepads. Face all of the blank sides facing up.

Put your binder clips along one side of the stack of paper. 

Along where you placed your binder clips, pour a thick layer of glue.

Let the glue dry completely, then remove your binder clips and boom! You have a brand new, ready to use notepad! Super easy project that recycles old paper... love it!

Christmas Eve Craft Tutorial: Salt Dough Ornaments

Cutting out stars

With the holidays upon us, and my two year old up to his neck in the Christmas spirit, I thought it would be a fun idea to get him into the Christmas crafting spirit as well! After much careful thought, we decided to make up some salt dough and personalize some ornaments made by Benjamin to add to our Christmas presents! He had a blast making and decorating them (and getting a little messy in the process!) and I know that the grandparents are going to adore them!

Making holes

Here's what you will need:
-2 cups of flour
-1 cup of salt
-1 cup of water (approximately... I needed a little more)
-Mixing bowl
-Wax paper
-Cookie cutters
-A pencil, pen, crochet needle... Something to poke holes with!
-Baking sheet
-Paint (we used the acrylics that we had lying around the house!)
-Ribbon or twine

1: Combine your flour, salt, and water in a mixing bowl and mix together until you get a dough consistency. I needed a little more water than 1 cup.
2: Put your dough on your wax paper with a dusting of flour and work it out until it no longer sticks to your hands!

Painting, toddler style!

3: Use your cookie cutters to cut out shapes and use your pen or pencil to make a hole. I used a crochet needle to make my holes and it worked great. Bake in the oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes, then flip your ornaments and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Let them cool before decorating.
4: Time to decorate!! We were super simple and just used acrylics and finger tips, but you can get really creative with glitter, markers, more paints, or ribbons and buttons to glue on!
5: Add a ribbon for hanging and you have the perfect ornament, stocking stuffer, gift tag, or homemade gift for a grandparent!

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I hope you have a safe and happy holiday!

Easy tent weights!

This week, I made my first tent weights! I thought I would share them with you...

You will need: 4 buckets, a small (read: 50 pound bag!) bag of Quikrete, Eye hooks, washers, and nuts.

What you will need!

Start by attaching the washer and nut tightly to the eye hook. This gives the eye hook something to hold on to, and your tent will not pull the hook right out of the concrete!

Next, fill your buckets about 3/4 of the way full of Quikrete. Make sure to wear eye protection and a face mask! Once the dust fades, bury your eye hooks in the Quikrete and just add water! No need to stir! (So easy, a toddler can do it!)

The Quikrete will dry in about an hour! Just add some strong nylon rope and voila! You have home made, fairly inexpensive tent weights for your craft shows!

I have about $16 in these weights, which is WAY cheaper than buying them for $40 at a big box store! I bought my buckets at the Dollar Tree for $1 each, the Quikrete was $5 at Lowes, and I bought 6 eye hooks for $6 at Lowes. I already had the nuts and washers on hand.
All in all, it was a fun, easy, fairly quick project! And best part: I will not have to borrow Jeri's tent weights any more! Ha!

Tutorial: Homemade Deodorant

Homemade deodorant? Man, Milly must have really gone off the deep end...

Nope! I promise! You are going to LOVE this homemade deodorant! There are no aluminum or any other nasty additives. And it actually works really good! It took me about 10 minutes total to make my deodorant, and I even had some left over... Plus, it is super cheap!

Your Supplies

You will need:
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup corn starch
3 tsp coconut oil (you can use shea butter if you prefer. I havent tried it, though)
1-3 drops of essential oil or body safe fragrance oil
Mixing bowl
Container (I used an empty deodorant container and it's working great)

1. Combine the dry ingredients together.

2. Add your coconut oil and fragrance. I combined them together using my hands, but a spatula would work well, too. The coconut oil may melt a little if you use your hands.
3. When it is fully combined, spoon the mix into your container. Put the container in the fridge for an hour or so to harden your mix.

When using your new deodorant, make sure to apply it lightly. A little goes a long way!

Deodorant! :o)

1-2-3 Sugar Scrubs!

I've recently been looking into expanding my product lines for Second Spring Soaps, and I finally decided to branch out into the world of sugar scrubs! I've been researching different recipes, from scrubs that you scoop into your hand, to cut cubes, to molded cubes... I finally decided on making my sugar scrub into cubes molded in my small silicone cube pan!

However, I felt a little uneasy about using a melt and pour base. I've been working on the side with melt and pour soap base, because the soaps that M&P artisans make can be absolutely amazing! However, when I tried to make sugar scrub cubes with it, I was less than happy with the results. I guess my cold process soap has spoiled me! Well, a little more research lead me to an invaluable post on the Soap Making Forum, and I am in love with the results! (You can read the original post here!)

Here's the breakdown of the recipe... You will need:

-A shredded soap base

-Oil or Butter (I used olive oil)

-Sugar (white or brown or a mix of both)

-A measuring cup or spoon

-Mixing bowl

-Microwave

-Mold (if you want shapes)

-fragrances and dyes (if desired)

The recipe is simple: 1 part oil or butter, 2 parts shredded soap, 3 parts sugar! The best part about this recipe is that you can make small batches or huge batches by just changing the size of the measuring cup or spoon!

1. Add your 1 part oil to your 2 parts shredded soap. Mix in a few drops of dye if desired.

Dough-like consistency

2. Heat your mix in short bursts until mostly melted. I found that 15-20 second bursts were perfect for my microwave.
3. Add your 3 parts sugar and add fragrance. Stir until the mixture acts like dough.
4. Mold your mix and set it in the freezer for a while. The original recipe called for 5-10 minutes, but my cubes did great after freezing overnight.
5. Remove from mold and let them air dry for a day. Store them in an air tight container.

And voila! You have ready to use sugar scrub cubes!

I also made a YouTube video walking through the sets, just in case you area a visual learner!

Tutorial: Handmade Massage Oil

Valentine's Day is less than two weeks away! Time to go pick up that same box of chocolates... Or, that pink teddy bear with the heart that says "Wuv Yoo!"... Wait, did you even remember Valentine's day? Dang, time to make a mad dash for a card... Or, you could pick up a copy of Barry White's greatest hits to go along with a big bottle of handmade massage oil, just for that someone special! 

Here's what you will need:

-A carrier oil (grape seed oil is a great one. It's cheap and can be found in most grocery stores. Jojoba, Avocado and Sweet Almond are fantastic, too, and can be found in health food stores or vitamin shops.)

-An essential oil (Classic scents include: lavender, eucalyptus, tea tree.)

-An amber-colored or blue-colored glass bottle with cap (Can be found in some craft stores, but ore commonly found in health food stores in the Heath and Beauty section)

- 1 tsp measuring spoon

-Dropper

My Lavender Massage oil with

1. Measure 4 tbsp of your carrier oil, and pour into your amber or cobalt blue bottle.

2. Using your dropper, drop 5 drops of essential oil into your bottle.

3. Repeat until your bottle is full!

4. Screw on your cap and gently shake your bottle to mix it all together!

You can dress up the bottle with a few ribbons, or a special label printed on sticker paper!

How to use:

-Put Barry White on your stereo ;o)

-Pour a small amount of massage oil onto your hands and run together to warm them.

-Massage away! (avoid sensitive areas, such as the face and, er, private areas!)

Tip:

For a fun twist, use flavor oils, like these found at Aroma Haven for edible massage oil! You can also use edible essential oils, like lemon, grapefruit, or mint, which are commonly found in health food stores, or in the health food section of some grocery stores. 

(Do not use flavors meant for cooking! These are often water-based or alcohol-based, and will not mix in with your carrier oil! It may smell nice, but it will be a hot mess!!)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!