Picture Clock

I discovered the idea for a picture clock on Pinterest, and it has taken me a few months to plan and gather photos from our family. You only have 12 pictures, so when you have a lot to include you have to wait for an entire family to be together at the same time to get a shot. So finally I have all my pictures, purchased the vinyl saying on Etsy, purchased my picture frames (from Wal-Mart) and clock hands (from Hobby Lobby), we are now ready to roll.....

We laid everything out on the kitchen table to get an idea for spacing, took some measurements, and started with 12 o'clock....

We then added 6:00, 9:00, and 3:00...



It is starting to fill in.....

Pictures are up, now its time to add the wording....

This wasn't hard to do....once we got the hang of it. The scroll letters were harder, and some letters didn't seem to want to stick, but by morning when all was dry everything had adhered nicely, so it just takes patience.

 

And here is the finished project!

(well almost finished, 2 photos I need to reprint)

I am so happy with how this came out, The Hubs and I cannot stop admiring it.

What do you think? Do you have a fun creative way to display family photos?



Oil & Glycerin Swirl Challenge

This is my second try at the Oil & Glycerin Swirl Challenge...my first try did not go as planned, so here we go again.

This time I am using Bramble Berry's Sunny Herb Garden fragrance oil and I am NOT using glycerin. I put my mica and titanium oxide in oil this time...hoping for better success.
 

These are my swirl and base colors.
 

To try something new again I added aloe vera liquid as part of my water phase...interesting how it changed my lye water to a golden yellow.
 

I poured my base color and laid the yellow on top.
 

Then I sprinkled the mica/oil and titanium oxide/oil mixtures on the top of the 2 colors.
 

Then I swirled everything about.
 

Isn't that sparkle gorgeous!? 

 

The dividers are in.
 

Now we wait and cross our fingers that is batch comes out better than the last trial.
 

TADA!!! I say SUCCESS!!!
 

I love how this came out, I think it is gorgeous in color and swirl. The mica sparkle is so fun (even thought it wont last past the first wash)

What do you think?

My Salt Bars - Sunny Herb Garden Scent Review

Here are my salt bars unmolded. LOVE the color and smoothness of the bars, cannot wait to try them out in a few weeks.
(I do need to work on my photo skills someday)

 

The scent I used is Sunny Herb Garden from Bramble Berry.
I bought this scent on a whim as it was their scent of the month for May. The description reads:

Sunny Herb Garden: There's nothing better than the smell of fresh picked herbs. This fragrance combines the fresh aromas of rosemary, thyme, sage, and basil with a soft lavender undertone. 

I love this scent. It is fresh and herbal...which I adore in fragrances. There is no discoloration or acceleration...great fragrance to work with! I bought a small bottle and have already used it all up in this project and the one you will see next week....so I need to buy more ASAP to keep on hand.

My First Go at Salt Bars

I tried making salt bars for the first time. If I made them correctly...interesting! I say interesting because...that was it?? What have I been afraid of? It was certainly quite easy to make.

First the recipe. I have been reading about them for 7 years, so I gathered all my notes and here is my summary....

• Use a high % of coconut oil
• Salt should be 50% - 100% of your oil weight
• Use regular salt or sea salt DO NOT use dead sea salt
• Superfat at 20%

So my recipe is:
80% coconut oil
15% olive oil
5% castor oil

75% my oils in salt (I used regular table salt)

I colored my salt...my theory was my colored salt would show through my non colored soap....hahaha...ok...I had a good laugh at myself as I stirred in my salt at trace....

My theory didn't pan out....BUT...I absolutely LOVE the color I ended up with!!

So here are my beautys poured into their molds. Thankfully I grabbed an extra mold (the flowers) just in case I had extra soap, because I wasn't sure how much this new mold held, and I knew the salt would add volume as well. I went with 20 ounce oil weight, so I can cut that back next time.

Come back in a few days and see how they came out.

New Scent to Try

Just received my newest Bramble Berry order. Trying their scent of the month "Sunny Herb Garden". Hoping to redeem myself with a better oil glycerin swirl soap with this scent. In the order was a free sample of carnation...may try that one too! :)

Then I ordered a new mold...I know, like I don't have enough molds...but I have always wanted to make salt bars and this is the perfect mold for that, so that is next on the agenda to try!

Stay Tuned...

Oil & Glycerin Swirl Soap....FAIL

I now remember why I never use Titanium Oxide....it never ever...EVER works for me. I don't know why, I don't know what I do wrong, but it is NOT the ingredient for me. I thought by using it in glycerin...which was new for me...would be different. I'd say it was worse!

On the left is fresh poured...right is the day after. :(

UGH! Have you ever seen an uglier soap???!!
 

What was funny is I had just uncovered it as The Hubs pulled in the driveway...as I stood there in disbelief staring at this mess...he walks in and says..."oh that's pretty!" I looked at him like he was nutso lol.

Disappointing....but time to regroup and try again....MINUS the TD.
Stay Tuned and see if I can redeem myself. :)

Cinco de Mayo

From Wikipedia...

            

Not to be confused with Mexican Independence Day, which occurs on September 16.

 

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated in the United States and in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla).

 

It originated with Mexican-American communities in the American West as a way to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War, and today the date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

 

So we are having a mini celebration here in the Wyatt household. I premade everything the night before so it would be easy to come home after work and just put in the oven. I have to say Cinco de Mayo works very nicely with Meatless Monday.

 

On the far right is a green chili casserole. I made an extra one to see how it freezes. In the middle is cheese enchiladas and on the far left is the beginning of our dessert. I am making Tres Leche Cake I found over on my new favorite blog, Plain Chicken.

 

olé

Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge - Oil & Glycerin Swirl Soap Tutorial

Due to health issues we have closed down the business portion of Luster Canyon. Hoping this will be temporary, but for now this was the best decision for us. So I really haven't made anything for a couple of months now, and this week I felt the urge to soap for fun, and I come home to find over on Facebook Great Cakes Soapworks posted their new challenge...and that was all I needed to jump in.

This months challenge is an oil and glycerin swirled soap....cold-process soap with beautiful oil and/or glycerin swirls on top. I chose to use both oil and glycerin. Months ago I attempted an oil/mica swirl and I thought it came out pretty nice, and this time I chose to also add the titanium oxide/glycerin swirl.  In the tutorial Amy used the taiwan soap swirl, which is something I haven't done before so I stuck with that idea.

Since I am making for fun I decided to add a touch of luxe to the batch and put in some Tussah Silk which will add a "silky" feel to it.

You add it to your lye water, where it slowly just "melts" right in....

...And after stirring a bit the silk is completely dissolved.
 

 
I also added some Aloe Extract from Majestic Mountain Sage to my oils.

Now for my colors...looks like I am using something from just about every one of my suppliers on this batch lol....I used from TKB Trading Red Basics and Blueberry Pop and from Bramble Berry Titanium Oxide.
 

 
 My fragrance is Strawberry Jam from Bittercreek Candle Supply and since I am pretty sure there is vanilla content and I don't want this batch to brown I added Vanilla Color Stabilizer from Wholesale Supplies Plus.

I have my base and swirl colors ready....
 

And grrrr, just as Amy mentioned in the tutorial the yellow of the fragrance oil "greened" out my blue color a bit, so I am glad I added that extra smidgeon of blue mica and luckily this is still a blue shade I can be happy with.
 

The base color is poured...I am using my favorite birchwood mold from Bramble Berry.
 

...and my swirl colors glop/poured...because as you can see they thickened on me, but no worries, all is still good.
 

 
Now my oil and glycerin colors are poured about...

...and everything is swirled about. I probably should have made tighter passes for my swirls...something to remember next time.
 

 

 

So pretty!! I got a little heavy handed in pouring the mica/oil on this edge, but I think it will still be ok.

 

 

I put my dividers in... 

 

...and so far it is looking good.

 

They recommend not spraying the top with alcohol which I always do to prevent ash...so I am braving it and not using alcohol...and hoping the soap fairies are kind to me and keep the ash away!

Check back in a few days and see what we ended up with.

Scent Review - Pure Fragrance Oil - Green Tweed

Today we are soaping Green Tweed from Pure Fragrance Oils.

Cary Grant's fragrance of choice! Top notes of Mysore sandalwood,

ambergris, violet leaves, French verbena and Florentine iris.

Green Tweed is a wonderfully fresh, green scent that has a soft Oakmoss background.

This fragrance oil has such a nice clean scent...comparable to Irish Spring and a great scent for a man or a woman. In this latest order of fragrance oils the Irish Tweed came in these little white jugs...they are cute and store nicely...but I didn't like how clumsy it poured out of the bottle, so be sure to have a wipe nearby to catch the drips down the bottle...but I did like the handle when pouring.

My soap thickened on me because I didn't like the shade of green I ended up with so I needed to add more mica... and I guess I took a little too much time, so no itp (in the pot) swirl today, instead today it was spoon plops for me...which I enjoy just as much.
 

This fragrance plays nice with no acceleration. As for discoloration the oil itself has a green tint to it...it doesn't discolor the soap too much, no browning, but a gentle green hue so I actually like to use the darker green olive oil with this to enhance the green tint. Today I was out so I used my light colored olive oil.