SALE!

I'm having a sale on select soap over at the shop, to clear out some inventory for new scents and yummy new stuff.  30% off!  

Get 'em while we got 'em!  :)  http://www.alifedeliberate.etsy.com/

Better to light a candle, than curse the darkness....

So I've been threatening to make candles for ages now.  Who doesn't love a candle?!  A while back, after much research and brain frying, I settled on a soy paraffin blend and ordered up some supplies.  Tonight, the experimenting begins...

The vast choices of waxes will make your head spin.  Soy, paraffin, palm, mottled, beeswax, gel wax....and on and on.  Don't even get me started on wicks!  Much like the art of soapmaking, the more I research, the more questions one has.  I suppose that's part of the fun right?  The journey?  This is 25lbs of fun:

Try lugging this sucker up and down the stairs several times.  My next house will be devoid of all stairs, trust me when I tell ya.

I'm making container candles and tonight's jar is a pretty standard 8 oz. colonial.  I started by sticking my pre-tabbed wick into the jar with a glue dot and then warming the jar in the oven, on it's lowest setting.  This, they tell me, assures better wax adhesion to the jar wall and helps control wet spots.  I'll take their word for it.

First thing I'm noticing is that the heat from the oven is making my wick limp (insert joke here) and melting the glue dot.  Hmmm....maybe I should wick it after I heat the jar.  Next time.  Mental note.

Next, I scoop out 8 ounces of wax and put it into my metal pour pot in a pan of water, to act as a double boiler, and heat until melted.

Pardon that yellow cheese-like substance, above.  The handle broke off my pot almost immediately after I bought it, and I had the bright idea to Gorilla Glue it back on.  Do you see a handle in the picture?  Umm, no.  :)  The first run through the dishwasher and it fell back off, but left some hardened shmutz behind.  Don't worry though - the stuff wouldn't come off if you lit dynamite.

Anyway...

So after the wax is melted (stir, stir, stir) I added some color chips (stir, stir, stir).  I chose a light lemon yellow because I'll be scenting it with a lemon squares scent that will rock your sox.  Smells just like the real thing!  I poured in about .8 ounces of fragrance once I took the pot off the heat, and when the temps were about 175-185, I poured...

The melty glue dot problem made the wick tab come unstuck from the bottom of the jar and it began to float around a bit so I had to reattach it.  Not too big of a catastrophe but that's something I need to fix for next time.  I know some chandlers use glue guns so maybe I'll go that route. 

Ya like my wick holder?  I need to order some wick bars (or get some popsicle sticks) but this worked for now.  The main thing is that you get your wick centered and keep it from falling over while your wax cools.

Jack was highly intrigued...

And that's pretty much it.  I let it cool and popped a lid on.  I didn't have any major dimpling issues or anything.  Looks good, smells good.  Yay!

Now, however, comes the arduous and extensive testing process I always put my products through.  Once this cures 48 hours I'll test out the melt pool, the burn times, the sooting, the flame height, and all of the other things that can go wrong and tweak from there.  I'm pretty excited about adding them to my line though, eventually.  But never before they rock.  :)

Thanks for reading!

A Girl And Her Big Screen...

Any techno-dorks out there?

I'm not a huge electronics person (I can barely work my DVR) but I must admit I like my computer stuff.  A few years ago I bought a Gateway PC with a gorgeous 24" LCD monitor.  Going from a 17" to a 24" is a big leap.  I felt like I was working on a big screen TV at first.  I always buy Gateway stuff because until they started branching out and making low cost PCs to sell to Best Buy etc., they always had great quality and really good customer service.  Now it's a crapfest, to my dismay.  But I digress...

I loved this monitor.  I would walk into my office in the morning, and I swear it would sparkle at me like Johnny Weir in a headband from my desk, and once I think I even heard it ask me how I wanted my coffee.  Tons of features, great colors, like 4 extra USB ports on it, big as buick....loved it.  Well, the sucker crapped out on me after only three years.  Gateway was unapologetic, and the repair chick basically said I might as well use it as a doorstop because fixing it would be as costly as a new one.  Ugh.  Three years?  Really?  Unacceptable. 

So, the hubby and I went to every store in town to find a replacement that didn't break the bank.  Nothing really jumped out at me.  I tried hooking up an old monitor I had stashed in the closet that weighs roughly 10,000 pounds... and wow....did I really use to use this thing?  Was it back when I was spearing pterodactyls and perfecting my cave drawings? 

Awful. 

I was having serious separation anxiety.  Today I found my new one.

Now, I give my sister crap for buying HP computers (don't even get me started) but I do like their peripherals.  Meet my new 25" best friend.  :) 

Maybe now I can post some decent soap pictures.  I suppose it won't change my photography skills, will it?

Who put dressing in my blackberries?

I'm on a mission to try more scents than I normally choose.  Yeah - I'm one of those.  I'm a citrus girl.  I admit it. I head straight for the kumquats and guavas and starfruits, with the occasional foodie scent thrown in when I'm hungry.  I gotta cut that out, and expand my soapmaking horizons.  So in an effort to make something differen't (and because a customer ordered it...heh...) I made a decent sized batch of blackberry & sage soap.  Yeah, I know....more fruit.  But hey!  There's sage in there too!

Baby steps....

CRS

So I'm getting to that age where little lines are beginning to frame my eyes, my underwear is getting a little higher, sweatpants are becoming my ensemble of choice, and I am aquiring a wicked, searing case of CRS.  (Can't Remember Shit, for the uninitiated)...

A regular customer of mine put in a special order for goat milk soap the other day, and this afternoon I got out my arsenal of pots, pans, ingredients, and molds and set to work on a lovely swirled batch of blues, sages, creams and black - scented with blackberry and sage.  I tell ya though - this sucker just would NOT trace.  I whipped that batch half to death and it's still runny...hmmm...come to think of it, the frozen goat milk took forever to melt too.  And....hmmm....it's in the mold now and it STILL isn't setting up!

Uh....are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?   

Yeah.

Did I forget to add the lye? 

I'm seriously beginning to wonder about myself.  It ain't normal, I tell ya. 

I'll keep ya'll posted on the soap.... (and my hastening brain deterioration) ;o)

UPDATE!:  Oh yeah.....it's a goner.  Complete toast.  Ugh.

As promised...

I did actually make some time to make my soap for an order I got from a sweet lady in Illinois.  She wanted these for a shower that has a color theme of "spring greens and pinks".  I hope she likes it. 

Anyway, she requested pink grapefruit scent, which I happen to love, as well.  YUMMO.  I just poured it, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that the gremlins stay away...lol.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance...

I know I've been a little MIA of late.  Sorry guys.  Lots of changes going on in my life.  Most of them for the better.  My son has gone off to college and my daughter is set to graduate from high school in a couple of months so the hubby and I have decided that it's time to stop living solely for our children and sell our house to move to the country...

:::cue Wide Open Spaces by The Dixie Chicks:::

It's always kinda been a dream of ours and now we feel like it's time.  The Economy didn't get the memo, however.  Right now I live in a very small, albeit doable, home on a patch of grass roughly the size of a chicklet.  It worked at the time we bought it, because it allowed my kids to stay in their schools and near their friends which was the most important thing to us.  Now my son is almost 21 and doing his own thing (thank you, Jesus) and my daughter hopes to attend college in the fall, as well - though she has no problem with moving anywhere we go.  She's easy like that.  That girl just sort of rolls with whatever comes.  She gets most of that from her dad.

So our house is for sale and we're hoping to find some acreage that I can breathe in, be closer to my elderly mother who lives alone in the middle of nowhere - or at least be able to afford to make more trips to check on her, and settle ourselves somewhere we'll be forever.  Someday maybe even add some goats and chickens to share my time with.  I love animals and I've taken interest in a simpler life and simpler things.  Just thinking of it makes me happy.

So, as you can tell by the cobwebs around here, I haven't had much time for creativity and making bath and body products.  I did get a special order tonight for some soap (pink grapefruit) so I'll be concocting that for her this evening and maybe I'll post pictures and share them with you. 

Hope all is well with everyone.  Stay tuned - I'll be around...