Melt & Pour Soap Making: Sweet Treat Soaps

These sweet little cookie soaps look good enough to eat (and easy to make). You will need white melt and pour soap base for the cookie and drizzled area. The chocolate is clear soap colored with chocolate brown. Mold Market's cookie mold was used.

This short video clip shows how to use the soap injector tool to drizzle on the raspberry colored soap. If using multiple colors the injector tool will need to be cleaned before using the next color.

Keep a bowl filled with hot water at your workstation. Empty the syringe tube of any leftover soap. Then place the tip of the injector into the hot water and pull back on the syringe. Press down on the plunger to release the hot water. Continue this process until the the injector tool is free of soap.

It's handy to have several injector tools on hand when using several colors of soap. When you're done with one color, empty the injector of any soap and just drop in the bowl of hot water to soak and grab a clean injector. It's a time saver.

You can clean all the injectors once your project is complete.






Soap Injector Tool

You can purchase the soap injector from GoPlanetEarth. It is sold as a single unit or in packs of 10 or 50 count.

Handmade Valentine's Day Cards

 

Every year the grand kids look to me (NeeNee) to come up with their Valentine cards for school. They all want theirs to be different from their siblings. Imagine that! Nine-year old Carson, is going with glow sticks on a string. This means no candy, but the kids will certainly enjoy the glow sticks much longer than candy.

First grader, Olivia, is giving organic, gluten-free watermelon suckers.

 

 

 My littlest buddy is gifting his pre-school friends with a magnifying glass. He's a candy freak so we might have to include a Pixi Stix candy straw with his cards.

 



 

However you celebrate Valentine's Day, make it special & fun for the little peeps in your life. Make Valentine soaps, cupcakes or cookies. Decorate with hearts and crepe paper. Make heart shaped pancakes for breakfast with red colored syrup and red sprinkles.

 

And, of course, share plenty of hugs and kisses to those you love. Afterall, that's what Valentine's Day is all about.

 

 





Sealed with a Kiss Valentine Envelope Soap

I love, love this new Valentine soap. It soooo easy to make and makes a statement. The lipstick kiss was an afterthought and I'm glad I did it.

Mold Market's Basic Square mold was used for the envelope and the edges trimmed with our wavy cutter. Trimming the edges added more interest to the shape.

The envelope flap was poured in the same square mold, but just a thin layer of soap. Remove and cut into triangle shapes and trim to fit the square.

The heart from the mini-cutter set was used for the heart seal. You can use any shape you want. If you happen to have a envelope sealing stamp lying around in a desk draw, it could prove to be an awesome embellishment.

Wax Heart Stamp

Melt and color a small portion of clear soap, color red and pour a round blob of soap onto wax paper. Let it set-up until slightly hardened and then use the wax heart seal to make an impression. Peel off the wax paper and apply (glue) to the envelope soap with clear clear melted soap.

Heads up on a few things when making this soap:

1. Tip the mold when applying the glitter. We coated the envelope flap with clear soap and then brushed on the glitter using one of our mica brushes.
2. Set the glitter application (once dry) with a light spray of hairspray to keep the glitter from falling onto the envelope area.
3. Use clear melted soap to adhere the envelope flaps the the heart seal.
4. We used smear-proof lip color to kiss our soaps and then lightly sprayed with hair spray to seal the color.

Product Used:

Liquid gel colors are always our first choice. A very small amount of Neon Bright Pink was used in white soap base for the envelope.

Hot pink glitter mixed with white glitter was used to glaze the envelope flap. The small red heart is colored with Tomato Red liquid gel and stamped out with the mini heart cutter.

Sure hope this gives inspiration to your Valentine soaping projects!

Melt & Pour Soap: 3-D Floral Tutorial

I recently had a new desktop installed in my office which required the services of our tech people. One of my favored programs could not be transferred to my new computer. I purchased an upgraded version and, holy sugar, it was a pain to learn.

I conquered the software, but it took time. Here is one of my newest tutorials using that software. Hope you enjoy! Thanks to Gabby for taking my idea and running with it.

Gabby

The colors used in the above design are:

Neon Bright Blue (perched bird)
Neon Yellow, Flower Child Rock Me Raspberry, Lavender (flowers)
Neon Green (leaves and border)
Flower Child Tye Dye Orange (winged bird)
Brown Oxide in clear soap (branches)

The are so many design options for this soap. Use a plain oval, square or rectangle shapes to create an entirely new floral look.

I was a bit concerned how this soap would wrap, but there were no issues. I cut the stretch wrap to size, gently pulled it around the soap, taped the back side and used a low setting on my heat gun for a snug fit.




Purchase the new silicone border mold we used here. Everything needed for this project is available online at www.GoPlanetEarth.com.

How to Color Hair with Chalk - Hair Chalking

Yesterday, I had a cut and color. While at the salon, I had a conversation with my stylist (who is also a long-time friend) about hair chalking. She offered tips on the technique and chalk options.

I tested the suggestions on the grand kids. My daughter was dubbed the "chalk specialist". It was truly a fly by the seat of your pants project. We made a few batches of our own chalk colors using GPE's (GoPlanetEarth's) powder colorants. My granddaughter, Olivia, volunteered to be our first client. She opted for pink and purple (surprise, surprise??).  The above picture is the finished result.

For best results:

1) Separate the hair strands you wish to color. Liberally spray the strands with water. You want to really saturate the hair.

2) Use rubber gloves to rub chalk over the wet hair strands. The color can stain clothing and hands. To avoid staining, work with an apron and gloves. We place a old towel around the neck of grand kids to avoid staining clothing.

3) Once the chalk is applied to hair strands, use a blow dryer to set the color. Blow dry until the hair is completely dry. A straight iron can be used after the sectioned hair is dry.

The color will last for 1-2 days. Take note chalked hair will stain bedding, furniture, cushions or pillows. Once the hair is colored, style with mousse, gel or hairspray.

 





 

 

Hair Chalk Recipe

 

1 teaspoon arrowroot powder

1/2 teaspoon kaolin clay

1/2 teaspoon water

1 tablespoon witch hazel

2 tablespoons powder colorant

Mix the clay and colorant in a small mixing bowl or large glass measuring cup.  In a smaller bowl or glass measuring cup, mix the arrowroot powder and water.

Add the witch hazel to the clay and colorant. Mix well (using gloves).

Add the arrowroot/water mixture to the clay/colorant mixture. Squish and mix until you have a clay consistency.

Shape the mixture into any desired shape and let air dry for 12-16 hours.

 





 

My nine-year old grandson opted for a green color. He wants to color his hair for St. Patrick's Day.

 

 

Melt & Pour Soap Making: St. Patrick's Rainbow Soap

 

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner. Time to get your soaps ready for the celebration. One of our newest molds from Mold Market is this rainbow. It takes a bit of patience to pour each layer of the rainbow (use our injector tool with this mold), but it looks awesome once it's done.

 

The soap pictured was done by our girl, Gabby. She's still learning the tricks of the soaping trade, but as you can see, even as a novice, her soap turned out well. For you die-hard soapers, working with this mold should be a breeze as long as the soap injector tool is used.

 

This isn't the only soap mold offered for St. Paddy's Day. The Celtic Round and Four-Leaf Clover are two other popular molds.

 

 

 

 

Melt & Pour Soap Making: Wedding Soaps

 

This is one of the newest molds from Mold Market. Use it for soaps, jello or chocolates. If you partially fill the mold cavity (1/4 of the depth) it will produce a nice size chocolate bar.

 

I love how the border and I DO text can be color themed. It is best to use the GPE injector tool to fill the letters and border.

We are currently offering 15% off this mold until February 3, 2013. Click here for the special discount. The shopping cart will calculate the discount once you click the Add To Cart button.

 

Melt & Pour Soap Making: Decorative 3-D Spring Soaps

In Michigan, Spring is a few months out. But that didn't stop us from creating soap to celebrate the upcoming season. Our newest silicone nature mold coupled with Mold Market's Basic Circle mold produced this beautiful soap.

We will be featuring a short tutorial on the how to recreate this soap. I'm excited to see the many design options that can be done with these decorative soap pieces. Stay tuned for more creative ideas.

 

We also have a buttons & bow silicone border mold. You can check it our here.

 

Magic Christmas Elf Idea: #12

Now here are some jumbo size playing cards! They measure 8 x 12 inches. As  you can see, the elves couldn't even hold them. I'm not sure if they were playing Hearts, Rummy or Euchre. The grand kids loved the over sized cards and can't wait to bring them to our family Christmas party.

And what are Freckles and Dimples doing with ties around their neck?

While the boys played cards, Giggles got a little crazy with ribbon. She had a trail of it everywhere and then decided to show-off her acrobatic skills. Didn't Santa tell her it's not nice to show your panties?

Magic Christmas Elf: Idea #11

Those dog-gone elves found a glass marker last night! The little stinkers had no shame in laying claim to their naughty deeds. In fact, I think they are enjoying being the center of attention.

The grandkids planted their magic seeds in the snow dirt the night before. As you can see, a giant candy cane sprouted up overnight.

Unfortunately, my daughter broke one of the candy canes and had to improvise. She wrote a note from one of the elves on napkins. Instead of a candy cane, the snow dirt produced candies.

The grow a candy cane idea has really caught on with fellow my elf loving friends. One person used sugar instead of the Insta-snow. It was also suggested to grow the candy canes in stages. Start with a mini one, then a traditional size, and finally a jumbo size. I thought that was pretty clever.

Daddy's Boots

I asked my four-year old grandson, Fischer, to put on his boots. Daddy was arriving soon to take him to work with him. My little guy wasn't too happy about the boots he was wearing and said, "NeeNee these aren't work boots. I need boots that are dirty and torn like my Daddy's. That's all I want for Christmas."

Those words were spoken with such sincerity. He wanted to be just like his Daddy. It prompted me to write this poem which I'm gifting to my son-in-law Christmas Eve. My daughter took a picture of "Daddy's Boots" as a backdrop for the poem.

My Assistant is a New Mommy!

My wonderful (and very pregnant) assistant, Jenni, helped me cut and wrap soap for the holidays on Friday. It was her last work day before her anticipated delivery. I received news today she delivered and both mommy and baby are doing well.

Jenni will be off work for the next month. My former assistant, Kaylee (who is currently in nursing school) is filling in for Jenni while she's off for Christmas break. A BIG THANKS to Kaylee.

Please have extra patience while Jenni is on maternity leave. She's my right hand gal and generally the person you communicate with when emailing or phoning the office.

Congrats to Jenni and Jay on the birth of Baby Lance! Lance will be hanging out with us at work in the near future while Jenni gets acclimated to her new motherhood schedule.

Magic Christmas Elf: Idea #10

Somehow the elves found the grandkids tote filled with experiment stuff. They really made a mess of the kitchen, but nearly as much mess as the kids did. They decided to play scientists after finding their elves. Dear me, I don't think I've ever seen so much Paprika on the floor or kitchen sink.

I guess even elves have to wear glasses to read. Freckles borrowed a pair of my glasses to read the experiment book left for the kids.

Not only did the kids' elves make a mess, they solicited the help of the Annabelle elves to open cupboards to find secret ingredients for the experiments.

There was salt, paprika, garlic powder, tarragon... and various other pantry goodies used to fill test tubes and bottles.

 

The kids had a blast this morning and were thrilled to put on their personalized scientist lab coats purchased earlier this year.