Gifts from Lovely Friends

I have received some wonderful gifts from friends who are all wishing me well for my forthcoming hospital stay – so thoughtful and caring!

One friend gave me the pretty little bag, filled with all sorts of thoughtful goodies and girlie things to make me happy and comfortable in hospital. There’s a puzzle book and a pen in the shape of a purple teddy, and lots of little bottles of nice things to keep me fresh and fragrant. A pot of sparkly red nail varnish and tissues and wipes, all in a nice small size to take up very little room – there’s never very much space to put things in hospital.

Sitting on top of all these goodies in the bag was a dear little bear with the softest fur. He is called Horace. He will accompany me to hospital, along with my special little platypus Humphrey, who was a gift from my hubby during my last major surgery twenty years ago, and Nursie Bear, who belongs to my hubby, and has accompanied many people to hospital over the years, to take care of them and nurse them back to health again. Her favourite phrase is, “Nursie Knows Best!” She does have that look about her, doesn’t she. You don’t mess with Nursie. Will there be room in the bed for me, I wonder?

Two other friends have given me little angels to keep me safe! The one on the left is a little pin with a stone in my favourite dark red colour, which I am going to pin on the lapel of my dressing gown, and the one on the right is a tiny glass jar with an angel charm, with slips of paper for wishes for your guardian angel! I know that the Lord will keep me safe, and surround me with His angels during this difficult time, and these little gifts are a reminder of that.

Aren’t people kind and thoughtful? I shall take these gifts in with me and think of all my lovely caring friends when I use them and look at them.

I am overwhelmed also by the huge number of good wishes and love sent from friends around the world, on blogs, forums and emails, and by the ever-growing collection of beautiful cards, all of which will be kept safely as a reminder of the love that surrounds me.

As I face the coming ordeal, I am cheered and comforted by the love and thoughtfulness of my many friends. You know who you are. May God bless you all.

Finally, my Big Black Blob that Nita so kindly drew on my tummy to indicate the position of the stoma, has been fading badly, so I’ve been going over it with my own permanent black marker so that they don’t have to go through the whole process of siting it again. I thought I would have some fun with it.

(Don’t worry, I’m not going to show you a photo of the stoma itself lol!! That would probably be TMI for most of you…) What with this and my multi-coloured hair, I think Mr. Pullan is going to have a fit!!

Misc Christmas Soaps Pt 2

Here are the remaining photos of the soaps I’ve made for Christmas presents.

Turned out of the moulds. You can see the brown cameo to the right of the lavender soap.

I was wondering how to highlight the cameo a bit, and then remembered I’d ordered some cosmetic-grade mica powders for my soap making, and used some of the white. I put the cameo onto the top of the soap and drew round it with a scriber, and then with a modelling tool I gouged out some of the soap. I filled the cavity with the melted soap base, scored the base of the cameo, spritzed both surfaces with rubbing alcohol and popped the cameo in place. There was a bit of leakage of the melted soap base but I was able to get most of this off. Unfortunately I lost the pristine shiny surface of the soap straight from the mould but once wrapped, this didn’t matter quite so much. I did a bit more touching up with the mica powder once the cameo was in place.

Here it is, wrapped.

I made a label for the base. All the labels were written with my sepia Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen and embellished with distress inks. In the case of the lavender soap I used Milled Lavender and a touch of Dusty Concord on the lavender flower paintings, and the leaves were painted with Mowed Lawn.

Here are the rest of the soaps, all wrapped in cellophane and labelled. For the gardener’s soaps, I put the main label on the top, and added a small label giving the ingredients on the bottom, as this was a more complicated soap, and I thought the recipients might be interested to know what went into it, making it so suitable for garden and workshop use. The lemon soaps just had the label on the bottom, with the information about how this soap removes onion smells from one’s hands. The gardener’s soap labels were coloured with Spiced Marmalade distress ink, and the lemon soaps with Wild Honey distress ink.

The gardener’s soaps. The orange Stickles glitter glue doesn’t show up on the photos at all, but it is a nice echo of the speckled orange rind on the surface of the soaps, as is the label border.

Single gardener’s soap.

Label on base of gardener’s soap.

A pair of gardener’s soaps, tied with an orange ribbon.

Lemon soaps.

Lemon soap label.

The three teddy soaps, tied with ribbon, with applied decorative bow. Each soap is individually wrapped. They are definitely too small for everyday use, and I shall be sourcing a larger teddy soap mould online.

Three teddy soaps, side view. I had to put the middle one face down because they are not uniformly thick.

All that remains now is to finish packaging the honey soaps I made before. I want to make tags for these, using honeycomb-embossed card and my large bee stamp. I am a bit annoyed that the medium bee stamp is still out of stock, and I have been waiting for some time for an email notifying me that they have arrived – the large stamp is a bit too big for this but I can make something of it, no doubt.

After Christmas being a total non-event this year, everybody will have to put up with their presents being late! This week, I also have to make a bee birthday card to go with some of the honey soaps, and hope I shall retain enough energy to get that done, or it will be another late arrival.

Misc Christmas Soaps Pt 1 and WOYWW 290

I wasn’t going to join in WOYWW this week, but since I ended up doing a blog post, I decided to after all – even if rather late in the day!

I’ve had a bad few days with a horrible flu bug that involves a bad cold, temperature and vomiting. I spent Monday in bed, asleep most of the day and feeling very cold. I am now feeling quite a bit better but still rather fazed and no appetite. Fortunately we have postponed our Christmas meal till the beginning of January so I’ve got a few days to recover.

As a result of all this, I’m terribly behind with all the things I’d planned to do in the days running up to Christmas. I spent this evening in my ARTHaven making soap – when I’d much rather have been resting, but if I’m going to have anything physical to hand over as presents tomorrow, it had to be. I still haven’t done the ironing… Yesterday, as I was pulling the clothes airer up again after taking the last lot of washing off it, the rope broke and the whole lot came down, hitting me on the back of the shoulder! It could have been a lot worse if it had been heavily laden with wet laundry! My hubby went out and bought a nice new washing line and re-hung it for me and it’s lovely again.

This will be part 1 of two posts about the soaps, because I haven’t finished – there are still some waiting to turn out of the moulds, and I’ve got more wrapping and labelling to do, and little baskets to make up of mixed soaps/bath melts/bath bombs.

Recently I found an interesting soap recipe on the Internet, for a soap suitable for after workshop time or gardening, and wanted to give it a try – one for the friend we’re sharing “Christmas” lunch with and one for my hubby. The recipe wasn’t that specific and in my more than usually brainfogged state I couldn’t be bothered to do a lot of calculation (which would have been beyond me!) so I just bunged in the amount of additives she said, for the amount of soap base I wanted to use – probably too much - as a result of which, it has come out quite oily and probably more strongly fragranced than it might have been – the next time I do it, I will adapt the recipe somewhat – but once it is dried out, it may be fine.

Here are the materials laid out for making this soap. The only thing I forgot to get out at this stage was my little spray bottle of rubbing alcohol for dispersing foam on the soap surface.

Back row: olive oil; good basic six-cavity rectangle soap mould (which, thank goodness, arrived from Ebay a couple of days ago – been waiting for it for ages!); clear soap base. Middle row: kitchen spoon; shea butter; glass bowls containing a) grated rind of 3 oranges, dried in 30-second increments on a plate in the microwave and b) two tablespoons of ground cloves. Front row: electronic scales; sweet orange essential oil; pourable natural Vitamin E.

To make 3 bars of this soap (60g soap base for each soap) I mixed a total of 180g clear soap base, and 1 tablespoon each of shea butter and olive oil. I melted this in the microwave in a plastic jug in 30-second increments, and poured a little into the bowl of ground cloves and mixed to a paste, which I then returned to the jug and mixed it well. I added two teaspoons of Vitamin E and 30 drops of orange essential oil to give a good fragrance. I mixed it all together well and poured it into three moulds, and sprinkled the grated orange rind on top, and left it to set.

While that was happening, I started to make some teddy soaps for my hubby. Some time ago I got a teddy mould from Ebay for him, but unfortunately it is rather small, and not really suitable for everyday soap use, but I thought it would make a fun gift for him. I made three, in different colours.

I measured how much white soap base I would use, but did not calculate that there is always a small amount lost through hardening in the jug when pouring; this isn’t usually a problem, but it is much more noticeable when using a small quantity. I ended up having to return the soap to the jug and add some more – to a total of 25g.

The first one was coloured with three drops of yellow colour.

I was going to make an orange bear with 3 drops of yellow, 3 drops of red and 2 drops of the brown colour I mixed the other day, but the wretched dropper bottles are very unreliable – sometimes nothing comes, then you get a whole lot at once! I put in too much of the brown, so the second bear ended up being the brown one (a nice chocolate brown! – looks good enough to eat!) and after this there was a bit of soap base left in the jug, so I added a bit more, and then added some more yellow, to make a medium brown bear! All a bit hit and miss really! Anyway, he’ll get three bears (but no Goldilocks).

While waiting for the individual teddy soaps to set (having only one mould, this took a bit of time), I started making labels for the gardener’s soap. I used ordinary self-adhesive address labels cut down to the length I wanted, and I peeled each end from the backing paper and rounded the corners using my small corner rounder punch and then stuck them back onto the backing paper. I used a sepia archival Faber Castell Pitt Artist pen to write the text and create the border, and filled in the border gaps with some Spiced Marmalade (appropriate!) distress ink, using the ink as a watercolour. I then used a blending tool to distress the edges with the same ink. The final touch was to add some dots of Orange Peel Stickles (again, appropriate!) glitter glue, which of course doesn’t show up too well on the photo.

By this time, the gardener’s soaps were ready to turn out. This is what they look like.

They look more like flapjack than soap!! They smell great. The grated orange rind will act as an exfoliant, and the olive oil, shea butter and Vitamin E will all nourish and moisturise the skin after the punishing treatment the hands can receive in the workshop or garden.

I also made three natural lemon soaps for kitchen use. These were very straightforward – I used a total of 300g of clear soap base for the three soaps and melted this in the microwave as before. I put a small quantity of turmeric powder in a small bowl and added a little of the melted soap base to it and mixed it to a paste, which I then added back to the jug of soap base and mixed well. I added about 20 drops of lemon essential oil and stirred the mixture, and poured it into the moulds. The final step was to add three dried lemon slices. I made a collection of dried orange and lemon slices a couple of weeks ago, putting them on a baking sheet and leaving them in the top oven for a couple of hours at 50 deg. C, but they were still pretty moist, so since then, they have been in the airing cupboard, and when I have remembered, I have been turning them. The lemon slices are now pretty well dry and hard, but the orange ones are going to take a bit longer.

The lemon soap I made in the natural soaps class had a half slice of lemon on it, and almost as soon as I started using the soap, this came off. It doesn’t matter – it’s only decoration. This soap is brilliant in the kitchen because it really does deal with the onion smell on one’s hands – I even rubbed my chopping board with it and then scrubbed it with a brush, and the onion smell was practically all gone from that too. It’s a very easy soap to make, and one I am sure I shall be making regularly from now on, as and when we need it.

The final soap I made, I didn’t photograph – this will appear in the second of these two posts. It is a plain oval soap made from 130g clear soap base, coloured with ultramarine violet powder, mixed to a paste and added, as before. I was careful to keep this colour fairly pale. I added 5 drops of lavender essential oil, poured the soap and left it to set.

There was a small amount of the medium brown soap left from the final teddy, and I didn’t want to throw it away, so I filled my cameo mould with it. It’s not really the right colour, and I am pondering how to add some highlights to it (maybe with white soap base but not sure how I’ll get it to stick on, and I don’t want to lose definition on the cameo). The next step will be to score the back of the cameo, spritz with rubbing alcohol and adhere it to the top of the soap once I’ve turned it out, using a little melted clear soap base. If this is successful, I shall be making some more lavender soap like this, but probably making the cameo from plain, uncoloured white soap base. Any surface colouring would in any case come off the first time the soap is used.

Watch this space for how all these soaps turn out, and how I wrap them.

A quick update – my hubby went back to the hospital yesterday with his wrist, and they X-rayed it and said the bone had knit, and they took the cast off. He’s now got a wrist brace, and says it feels quite sore and very vulnerable – it’s amazing how dependent one can get on the rigid protection of a cast! Anyway, he can drive again, but he’s taking care over the next few days when we hope that it will gradually start to feel better. He’s going back in a month to get it X-rayed again, and hopefully all will be well and it won’t require pinning.

First Soap Making Class–Learning the Ropes

Tonight I began my second 5-week course of evening classes this autumn. Since my hubby was doing a 10-week water-colour painting course, and the felt class was only 5 weeks, I decided to enrol for the soap making class. This is being taught by the same excellent teacher who did the felt-making course I finished three weeks ago. This time we have moved from the woodworking room at the school, upstairs to the kitchen, which is a gorgeous big, light and airy space with great facilities. It really is a beautiful school – very modern and very well equipped.

I got so carried away in the class tonight, that again, I completely forgot to take any photos during the class!

What we did tonight was to learn the basics of the melt and pour method of soap making, and we each made two basic soaps. This is an extremely simple technique. We were provided with two bags of lumps of the soap base, one white and the other clear, and all we had to do was weigh out a certain amount, and melt it in an ordinary microwave for 30 seconds or less, add some colour (only a few drops necessary) and some fragrance if desired – this came in two forms, either fragrance oil, which our teacher explained was synthetic, and the more costly essential oils, distilled from natural ingredients.

I decided not to add any perfume to mine, as I can be a bit susceptible to strong smells, particularly artificial chemical-type smells, with my M.E., and also I wanted to try the soap first of all in its purest form. Also, my hubby suffers from allergies and his skin is very sensitive to such things, and always has to use Simple soap to avoid coming out in a rash. I wanted to see if I could make soap which would be suitable for him.

The final step was to pour the liquid into a silicone mould and leave it to set. Any bubbles were dispersed with a quick spray of rubbing alcohol. Because our time was limited at the class, the teacher put the moulds in the freezer to speed up the process, but she said it was better left overnight, especially with the clear variety, which tends to go a bit cloudy if it is set too quickly.

There was a choice of moulds for us to use, including one of a gingerbread man. My hubby is very keen on teddy bears, but there was no mould for one, so I chose the gingerbread man as the closest thing! For his soap, I added some brown, and a few drops of orange colouring.

My second soap was made from the clear base, to which I added some glitter. This is cosmetic glitter, not normal craft glitter. When the soap came out of the mould, all the glitter had sunk to the bottom (a common occurrence, it seems) so it was all at the top of the piece of soap once it had been turned out. I have found some special soap base on Ebay which apparently enables any additives to remain in suspension throughout the soap and I may get some of this. Perhaps if I left it to cool a bit more before adding the glitter, it would hold its position in suspension a bit better, too.

We got on quite speedily at the beginning of the class, to enable the soaps to set enough to come out of the moulds so we could take them home. The second part of the class was devoted to the packaging of the soaps, and the teacher had brought along a big bag of sheets of cellophane, ribbons, labels, etc. etc. for us to play with, including some card, and a basic box template to make packaging for our soaps. My box didn’t turn out well; it wasn’t actually quite wide enough for the gingerbread man, whose arms stuck out too much! Also, there were no rulers, and I only had my nail scissors to cut it out. I can make much more satisfactory boxes here at home with all my equipment and supplies.

The teacher had come up with an ingenious way of matching the soaps to their owners – once they are all in the mould it’s hard to tell them apart. She issued us with small circular coloured stickers which we put on the two bags of soap base. Each one of us had their own colour. When we poured the soap into the mould, we had to add a sticker of our chosen colour to the mould beside the soap that was ours. That way each one was reconciled with its owner once they were removed from the moulds.

Here are the two pieces of soap I made. I’m afraid something went wrong with the camera for the first photos – I’ve been having some problems with this on and off, with it not focusing properly, so I’m afraid they are a bit out of focus. The first photo shows the soaps in their cellophane wrappers.

Unwrapped, so you can see them better:

Finally, one of the clear snowflake soap. This one is in focus! I love the ice-blue of this one. It’s really pretty.

This soap is gorgeous to use. It gives a good lather, and is incredibly soft to the skin – my hands still feel really soft several hours after trying it.

In the next two classes we will be continuing with soap making, and in the final two, will be making bath bombs and bath melts.

This first class was really very basic, and apart from choosing colour, fragrance and shape, there wasn’t anything desperately creative about it, as all we were doing was taking some shapeless lumps of soap base and melting them and making them into a different shape!! However, in subsequent classes we will be taking the technique further and learning how to layer differently-coloured bases to create some interesting effects.

One soap the teacher showed us was in the shape of a snow globe. The base of the globe was opaque white, and the top was in the shape of a dome, made from the clear base, and standing up in the middle of this was a tiny soap gingerbread man. There was glitter suspended in the clear soap.

Next week we will be making natural soaps, with different additives such as wheatgerm and loofah. The teacher showed us an excellent book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soaps-Cozy-Elaine-Stavert/dp/1861086458

which has lots of recipes in it, as well as the history of soap making, and some great information about different additives for different purposes. For instance, she explained to us that certain essential oils and other additives are good for different skin conditions, or for different purposes. A soap for the kitchen, for instance, with orange and/or lemon essential oil, will not only smell gorgeous, but will help eliminate the smell of onions from one’s hands.

Our teacher told us how she’d made some dog soap for sale once (called “Dirty Dog” lol!) which contained essential oils for the prevention of fleas, and for a good glossy coat. She also described some gardener’s soap she’d made, which would be lovely to give as gifts in the summer. I recently saw some interesting stuff online about felting around a piece of soap, and a lovely idea of suspending one of these felted soaps over the outside tap so that the gardener of the family (in our case my hubby) can wash their hands before coming in – my hubby always makes an awful mess, with mud all over the taps, and worse, all over my hand towel lol! Men…

Next week we will be making Christmas soaps. One of the examples she showed us was the “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh” soap, with real natural ingredients, including little flakes of pure gold leaf! It was a small bar, cellophane wrapped, with a beautiful band made from gold embossed paper, with a really oriental and exotic feel. What a great Christmas gift that would make! I couldn’t smell it much because of the wrapper, but I am sure it smelt gorgeous.

Soap making is something that has interested me for quite some time. I have been drawn increasingly to the idea of making our own skin products and cosmetics, and household products, not just because they are a lot cheaper, but because you know exactly what’s in them. I am sure that a lot of the health problems people suffer these days are due in part to the bombardment of our systems by harsh synthetic chemicals. Also, anything to help my hubby’s allergies, not to mention the absolute pleasure it will give me to make things for him with my own hands, that he will use and enjoy, is a tremendous incentive! He called downstairs just after he went up to bed, saying that he’d tried the soap and loved it! Let’s hope he has no reaction to it, but I am sure he will not.

I don’t suppose I shall go all out on soap making because I haven’t got the time, with the other creative activities I am involved with, but I shall make enough for our own use, and for presents. Very satisfying!

Washing Machine Time…

 

Our two bears, Winston and Edwina, and my little platypus, Humphrey, have got so dirty recently (too much loving!) that I have stripped off their clothes (Humphrey doesn’t have any clothes) and the three of them have gone in the washing machine together!

Not happy bunnies.

After the spin cycle they have come out cold and damp. Brrrrr! Definitely not happy bunnies.

However, after a nice warm session in the tumble drier (low heat setting – didn’t want their eyes melting lol!!) they feel as if they have had a sauna, and have come out nice and fragrant and fluffy. But oh dear… what droopy ears!

They spent the night in the airing cupboard just to make sure they were dry all the way through, before being dressed again. Their old clothes went in with our normal weekly wash! Time for a change of clothes ready for the summer.

Don’t they look smart?