Bath Salts Tutorial--Impatient Craftaholic Series

It's time to move my bath salts tutorial to this blog since my soap shop will be on an extended hiatus until I can catch up with life, kids, and shops :)

My Bath Salts Tutorial has been fairly popular though, so I want it to still be available to you all! Please let me know if this link does not work in any way.

BATH SALTS TUTORIAL


Thanks all, happy salting!
~~mama

Tutorial--Basic Melt and Pour Soap

In keeping with trying to keep free tutorials and how-to's on this blog, here is my attempt at a tutorial on Melt and Pour soap.

Please keep in mind, everyone probably makes soap just a little different, this is how I do it!

Gather Supplies: (I'll provide a few links at the end for supplies)

Melt and Pour Soap Base 

Body Safe Colorant (NOT food coloring)

Fragrance Oils 

Mold

Rubbing Alcohol in a small spray bottle

Latex Gloves

Wax Paper/Protective Surface

Pipettes for Fragrance Oils (or other dropper)

Microwave

Knife

Glass Heat Safe Measuring Cup

Candy thermometer

~~~~

1. Cut your soap base into small chunks and put in the measuring glass cup, such as Pyrex. I generally make a ton of soap at once, so I just fill it up and go for it... measure, schmeasure.

This is a mix of white opaque soap base and goat's milk.

2. Gather your colorants. For this soap we're making a one color soap, so I don't need to use my more costly non bleeding colorants. When making layered soap you need non bleeding colorants (I prefer them from www.goplanetearth.com). When making solid soap you can just use the less expensive soap colorants from hobby stores and soap making supply sites. 

3. Gather your fragrance oil and pipette (dropper). For this one we're using a lavender from Peak's Candle Company. I like Peak's because they are phthalate free.

4. Melt your soap in the pyrex container for 30 seconds at a time. (based on a FULL 2 cup container...heat for less time if melting less soap). ALWAYS err on the side of caution and melt for shorter time periods. If you heat the soap too long you'll cause speckling of the color in the soap. Ask me how I know this.

Stir the melted soap with a spoon or stirrer of some kind. A few unmelted tiny chunks are fine, they will melt as you slowly stir. Generally M&P soap should not be heated more than 140 degrees and you can test this with your candy thermometer.

Some bubbles are fine in the melted soap, we will spritz them away later.

5. Add your fragrance oil with your dropper or pipette. Always add your fragrance first because some FO's discolor the soap, particularly vanilla's. Peak suggests for soap: "we recommend 3-4% fragrance oil by weight. 2% is equivalent to about 1/3 of an ounce per pound. And 3% is about half an ounce per pound".  I generally go by my nose, until it just about 'sniffs right'. Generally you can trust your nose. 

6. Add your colors. Since I was out of regular (bleeding) purple, and I did not want to use my more costly non bleeding purple in a solid soap, I simply mixed together red and blue until I got a purple I wanted!

As with melting and fragrance, go slow on the colors, start with just a drop or two of your color. It's FAR easier to ADD MORE color than to take away! Also if you add too much color it can be too strong in the soap and cause the bubbles (lather) to be colored when they should be clear...therefore staining your tub, etc. Since most soap safe colorants do wash away, that's not really a horrible problem if the soap is for yourself, but not something you want to give away or sell! Less is more!

Isn't that pretty?

Slowly swirled together to create purple!

7. Now you have a purple, lavender scented goat's milk/opaque melted soap! See those bubbles? We'll just spritz them away with a shot or two of rubbing alcohol from your spray bottle.

Squirt, squirt.

8. Now we can pour our soap into the mold! Pour slowly so you get an even pour (this is good practice for when you're ready to do layered soaps!) and you don't get those annoying bubbles.

If you have any bubbles just give the soap a few more squirts of rubbing alcohol...and there you go!

9. Now you have a smooth, pretty, even soap. Let it set several hours, until it is completely hardened. Depending on the weight of your soap it may take longer to harden. Once completely hardened, turn the mold over on some wax paper or parchment paper, (a clean smooth surface) and gently unmold from the mold. The easiest way to get soap out of a mold is to get a little bit of air into the mold by pulling the mold away form the soap just a smidge, then slowly--PATIENTLY--- allowing the air to go all through the mold (you'll see it go over the soap as you're holding the mold upside down on to the wax paper). Then gently ease your soap out of the mold onto your paper, and cut into the shapes you need (if it's a slab or tray mold.) If the mold was a single cavity mold, then just unmold, and package as you wish! :)

Here's our lavender soap after I added some goat's milk cubed embeds to it! :)

Wrapped in organza bags and ready to go! :)

Helpful Links:

www.brambleberry.com

www.teachsoap.com

www.goplanetearth.com (be sure to read Denise's Blog from there!)

www.southernsoapers.com (they have a Yahoo group also)

www.papermart.com for bags and wraps

You can pretty much find anything you need to know on soaping from Google! There are also some great soaping books on the market. 

Happy Soaping!

~~Amy

Recycled Crayons Tutorial

I thought I would share some tutorials every month or so! This month's tutorial is recycled crayons. Sure they've been done plenty of times, but I thought I'd give it my own spin! :) Special Thanks to AEBABY for suggesting this one!

Gather your materials, here are my suggested ones:

Crayola Crayons. Do not skimp on this. Non Crayola's will smell, not melt well and not work well.

Exacto Knife

Silicone mold

Plastic Soap Mold (optional)

Aluminum Cans (optional)

Aluminum foil

Baking Sheets

• Peel your crayons. If you don't have a small child handy to do this for you, use the exacto knife to cut a slit down the crayon paper. If it is a pain to pull the paper off, cut the slit, then put the crayons in the freezer for about 30-60 minutes. The paper should pop right off then!

• Break the crayons and put them in the mold. If you are using a silicone mold you can just fill your mold with the broken crayons. If you want a multi colored crayon, mix them together. I'll show you how to do solids or layers in a bit!

• Set your oven to approx. 325-350F. Silicone molds can go directly in the oven, but because of their flexibility, you probably want to put the mold ON a baking sheet for stability. This is particularly important if you are doing layers.
• Melt the crayons in the oven, checking them every 5 minutes or so. You want them melted but not TOO hot. Once you see nearly all the crayons are completely melted, your crayons are done!

• Let the crayons cool until completely hard and then, pop them out of the mold!! If you choose to use a metal pan, you would want to spray the pan lightly with cooking spray so the crayons slide out easier. This is one of the reasons I prefer the silicone molds--plus they come in way more fun shapes!!

Viola!!

• Now say you want to do solids or layered crayons, or use a plastic soap mold? No problem! Gather your aluminum cans (like the ones that hold vegetables). Clean, rinse and remove the paper label. Break your crayons and separate the colors in each can.

• The color you melt in your cans will stain the can, so once you put a color in a can, it's staying that color! So save them for future use!
• Put the cans on the baking sheets (you can do this at the same time you do a silicone mold) and heat for the same time, 5 minutes at a time @ 325-350 degrees until the crayons are totally melted.

• Using your OVEN MITTS pour one color into the plastic soap molds at a time. Allow the crayons to cool SLIGHTLY before pouring, but not so long that they start to harden again. Put your soap mold on top of wax paper, aluminum foil, etc just in case the crayons melt the plastic and it leaks. (Which is why you wait until they cool a little.)

• It's okay if it spills just a tad, you can easily 'carve' the extra off your finished crayon once it hardens. Or get every little use out of it and let your little ones color the extra away!
• Once the colors harden just turn the soap mold over and GENTLY tap the crayons out. If you hold the mold too far above your counter/table they'll crack as they fall out and hit the hard surface. 

And there you go! Solid colored car crayons!

• If you want layered crayons, all you need to do is take a deep mold like a silicone mold. Melt the crayons in the cans as above. Pour a layer in your silicone mold. Let each layer harden before you melt and pour another! The hardest part of layered crayons is to pour the colors very carefully into the silicone mold so it does not splash up. If you pour slowly and carefully you will get clean, uniform, layered crayons!

Feel free to leave any questions, comments or share this tutorial!

~~Amy

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