Saturday Noon and Homemade Cards

After a flurry of card-making earlier in the year I fell off this wagon, mostly out of forgetfulness.  Also for some reason I have many friends with January, September and November birthdays.  Anyway, I'm back on the wagon, although for this card, I am relying less on cutting things out with bits of paper and just drawing instead. I was a little nervous about drawing straight with a pen (instead of pencil first and then tracing) but my ferret turned out quite well.  Mr. Walrus (the tiny figure on the right) looked odd, but I didn't have a good picture to rely on so sort of approximated him from memory.  In any case, the recipient was pleased, which is all I hoped for.

I never posted this one (made quite some time ago), but this was one of the best cards I ever made (I thought).  I think for the rest of the cards this year I will continue to lean more on drawing, for the simplicity of it.  But overall I'm enjoying this much more than buying cards and it is certainly very cost-effective (not that Hallmark cards were draining my bank account or anything); I also think they are appreciated far more than store-bought cards so it's all worth it.

New Wall Decorations - Fat Red Bird

I'm really pleased with how my sofa wall is progressing.  Yesterday I added two more pieces, a knitted blue fabric in white frame and a painting of a fat red bird.  I'd been knitting that piece off and on; it came together very quickly.  I left the plastic cover off the frame so you can touch the fabric if you wanted to.  It is all about the texture.

Because this turned out so well, I was immediately inspired to make another piece for the wall.  Hauling out my long forgotten painting supplies, I decided that a spot of red on the wall was in order.  And so, very carefully, I painted out a fat red bird.

I really love this bird, it turned out exactly the way I imagined (which never happens).  I think the wall is getting close to done; I don't want to overcrowd it with things.  Maybe two or three more touches is all it really needs now.

More Crafts!

I don't think you can consider crocheting a NEW hobby exactly since I've been knitting and this is a yarn related craft.  Also the only reason I'm crocheting in the first place is to make cute toys for the baby bean.  I stumbled onto Creepy Cute Crochet back in December when I was busy looking for knitting projects for the bean.  While I was instantly smitten, I hesitated to buy the book because I didn't know how to crochet.  This was quickly solved by the purchase of a beginner's crochet book by Klutz.  I think if you know how to knit, crocheting is not too hard because you have some degree of yarn sense.  It took me about a day to feel comfortable and to make a couple of the projects in the book.  I forgot to take pictures of my crocheted flowers and Tony is sleeping over one arm now so I won't be able to remedy this, but here you can see a picture of the soap bag I made.  The tension is not quite even throughout the bag, but you can't really tell  with the soap inside.  This is a bar of my lemon milk soap.  I wasn't sure if I would be into the idea of using a soap bag (sort of like a washcloth wrapped around your soap), but I gave it a whirl last night and it was nice! I think it's especially nice for the soaps that I didn't add texture to (lemon milk and the recent almond cybilla).  

And speaking of soap, I just whipped up another half pound batch.  I used my basic milk recipe and the oatmeal milk and honey fragrance oil from Brambleberry.  This scent actually seems quite subtle, I'll have to see what it smells like over the next few days.  At trace, I added...oatmeal milk and honey.  The oatmeal was roughly ground with my mini food processor and I added just a couple of dollops of honey.  I'm not sure if it was the oatmeal or the honey, but I didn't hit immediate trace with the addition of milk as in previous batches. I ended up stirring this for a while until it looked pretty thick to me and then I poured it in the mold.  We'll see if there are any color changes with this batch.

Card for the Bean

Here's the card I made for the baby bean (I guess the bean in care of the Bunnies).  I couldn't figure out to cut out more relevant pieces for the front so I threw those hearts on to fill up space, haha.  Perhaps not my most inventive card to date.  By the way, it is a onesie on the front, not a headless man.  I didn't think it was necessary to clarify this but apparently one must (at least, if you are Ferret or Tortoise, I'm happy to say that Bunny never thought it was a headless man).

I really can't wait for the bean to arrive!  So many months away, I have a lot to do!

Almond Cybilla Soap

So I really thought I was going to confine all my soap related posts to the Soapmaking Database but now I realize that I like to babble about stuff and soap is not exempt. I'm not sure Ferret would really care for my ramblings in the Database so perhaps it's better if I do it here. So this soap is a half pound batch of my usual recipe. After my tremendous (in my mind) success with the Lemon Castile Soap (Recipe 2), I saw no reason to mess with a good thing. The process was same as before; with less water initially, the soap mixture reached light trace quite fast and once I dumped in the milk I hit trace instantly really. I'm making a mental note to add the fragrance first and then the milk next time, because it really got thick so so fast. I love it. Now about the fragrance, I used the almond cybilla fragrance oil from Brambleberry's sampler kit and nearly died the second it went into the soap. Almond makes me think of clean and cream and that's completely what this smelled like. Swoon. This is certainly going to be a fragrance I use again. My whole house is still permeated with it even though I've stashed the box into my laundry room.

(Please note the gigantic amount of coconut oil in the background.  I bought 7 pounds of the stuff from Brambleberry for a really good price and was startled to find it in that baggie thing.  Once I put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes though, it came out of the spout quite easily without muss or fuss).

And now the box. I think several posts back I might have mentioned harvesting other people's trash from the recycling. This box was one of the things. Look how completely perfect it is! Not only is it adorable, but it serves a completely legitimate function in my crafting enterprises. Tomorrow after the soap is set I'll snap the lid down and let it cure away.

Since my soaps are now reaching real trace I think I'll reduce my curing time from 6 weeks to 4.  I used some 4 week soap recently with no irritation.  I do like having texture in my soaps though, so I think next time I'll use a little foresight and have something ready to add in.  Or not.

Update (2/6/11): Over the first few days the soap darkened first to a pleasing almondy color (tan) and then to an alarmingly brown color.  The scent is still fantastic but I'm dubious about the color.  It looks like fudge, rather than anything like almond...I'm not sure if it was the fragrance oil reacting or if the milk had anything to do with it.  Although when I think back, my lemon milk soap never turned such a dark brown so I think it must be the FO.  Here is a picture, I tried to make it appear vaguely artistic.

Another cushion to round things out

All week I would look at my sofa and think there was something missing and I finally realized it needed a spot of bright color somewhere.  I like my colors to be neutral and serene for the most part, but touches of something red are a must for me to feel happy.  Fortunately, I'd acquired some rosy fabric from Joann's when I was in San Diego over Christmas and it was just the thing.  I thought I had enough fabric to make two covers, but alas there was only enough for one.  In the end, I think that's ok because two might have been too many for one sofa.

I also acquired an ugly end table from the sidewalk yesterday.  I only dragged it home because 1) I needed an end table and 2) I needed one that was narrow enough for the space between sofa and window.  My lamp had been sitting on the windowsill since I moved in and it's nice to have it on another surface so I can close my blinds.  I have to sort through my available fabrics to find something to cover over it, until then, no photographs!

Living Room Decorating

When I was in LA for a day over Christmas holidays, I asked my mom to turn out her fabric stash for me. She'd acquired a bunch of random fabrics from an Indian neighbor of hers who moved away. I turned the numbby velvety blue stuff into fresh sofa cushion covers, which is a nice update from the red ones I'd made ages ago. Now it doesn't look so matchy matchy with the red file cabinet that I'm using as an end table and the red wastebasket.

The wall above the sofa (which looks gray here but is actually a very pale sea-green) is also super big and kind of curved so I'd been at a loss for what kind of wall hanging would be most appropriate without breaking the bank. I finally recalled a white Ikea frame I'd had lying around forever and thought that several of these sprinkled across the wall would look nice. It's not evident from this photo, but the frame is quite deep and has a nice 3D aspect to it (although technically everything in real life is 3D). I will fill them with various fabric swatches for easy decorating. This is just the first one, filled with fabric from my mom's Indian stash.

Birthday Card

Perhaps science is not really my calling after all since I've spent this entire weekend crafting and cooking. Here is a card I made for a friend's birthday, with some of the cardstock I got on sale at Joann's. The paper looks white but is actually a pale silverish gray, very pretty I think. One of my resolutions this year is to be better at sending cards and to only send homemade ones.

Making Soap

Because I'm a girl with a lot of hobbies I decided the only thing to do is to add to the list. I made my first batch of soap yesterday using the following recipe that I devised with the aid of this very nice lye calculator and the instructions at the simple dollar:

70% olive oil (11.2 oz)

20% coconut oil (3.2 oz)

10% crisco (1.6 oz)

handful of ground oatmeal

handful of lavender buds

Melt oils together (not too much, try not to exceed 120 degrees or it takes forever to drop back down) and then toss in the oatmeal and lavender. In a separate bowl combine:

2.2 oz lye

6.1 oz milk (previously frozen and then broken up into a bit of a slushy)

(Note to self: I found this mixture reached near 120 degrees)

Once the temperature of both reaches near 100 degrees, combine lye mixture into oil mixture (NOT the other way around) and then stir for a million years with a spoon or spatula until it becomes thick. Then pour into molds (any kind of container really) and leave somewhere to cure for a few days (I'm not sure how long yet, it was certainly still too soft today) and then remove from mold and cut up with a knife. Then leave to cure for 6 weeks before use.

Obviously, use some common sense with the lye and don't re-use anything that has touched the lye for food. I highly recommend looking at the tutorial on the simple dollar since they provide very detailed instructions and have pictures to boot! I was watching a baseball game at the same time and could not be bothered to take pictures of this process.

Update 12/4/10: I've started using the soaps and am enjoying it a lot. I do feel it could use more lather though so next batch I will try 70% olive oil, 25% coconut oil (4 oz) and 5% crisco (0.8 oz). I will also not use milk (to see if the soap will be white) but will retain the lavendar buds and oatmeal for texture. I have to say I've been looking forward to my showers just for an opportunity to use soap. Once my bathroom sink soap is done I will replace with a homemade bar I think.