If you’re looking for a new way to express your creativity, be sure to try making your own natural soap. It can be as easy as “melt and pour,” or try more advanced methods of mixing fat, lye and water. You are sure to enjoy experimenting with fragrances, essential oils, herbs and colors.
Melt and pour is easy, and safe enough for kids. Some of the soap bases you can try are goat milk, honey, glycerin, olive & aloe, oatmeal or shea butter. There are some others as well, and each of the bases has different qualities. Try a few to choose the ones you like best.
To make a bar soap just melt the soap base completely, stirring frequently and add the fragrances, colors, or essential oils that you like. Then pour the soap into the molds and allow it to cool. If for some reason the soap bar does not come out the way you like it, just re-melt and try it again.
Feeling adventurous? Try the more advanced method using fat, water, and lye. You will need a little more equipment, time, knowledge and caution. Lye is a caustic agent that requires special handling. Use eye protection and rubber gloves, and keep it off your skin and clothes. Also, lye will damage aluminum and Formica so avoid contact with table tops and counters. For details, recipes and more ideas, type “make natural soap” into a search engine.
Making soap is not only fun, it saves money. Compare the cost of fancy soaps to what you make yourself! Use your imagination to make your own soap look and smell exactly like you want. You can even start your own soap business!
Making natural soap at home is environmentally friendly compared to the production of commercial products. Prior to World War I, people used to make soap at home from leftover cooking fats, using purchased cans of lye. Before that, people made lye from wood ashes.
Best of all, you have total control over what goes into your soap. If you are allergic to one ingredient, simply substitute another. Vegetarians will appreciate soaps made from vegetable rather than animal fats. Skin is the largest organ of your body. Knowing what’s in your soap is great way to help take care of it. Sustainable living certainly has some healthy side effects!
Fun, flexible and creative, not to mention healthy and economical — that’s what making your own soap is all about. With so many easy soap-making recipes available, you’re sure to find a way to make your own unique soap. Anyone can do it.
Jen Hopkins has worked in the skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about make your own soap, and home soap making. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.
- Jen Hopkins
Although scrapbooking is a blast, before long you end up with a ton of scrapbooking supplies and no where to put them. Your worries are over because today we are going to make our own scrapbooking organizer.
Now you will know where everything is because it will be set up and organized nicely.
What you will need:
- A medium sized shelf that you can devote entirely to your scrapbooking. (You can find this at a home decorating store or an office supply store.)
- Four or five paper racks. These are the racks that you can put your documents in without folding them.
- Pick up some sturdy bins or baskets that can fit on your shelf.
- Polaroid camera.
- Permanent markers.
- Some freezer bags to keep the beads, stickers and other supplies in.
- Hot glue gun.
How to set it up:
1. The first thing you will want to do is find a great place in your home to keep your scrapbooking organizer shelf at. A few great places would be the basement, storage room or even your home office.
2. Set up your shelf in it’s designated area, then get all of your other supplies ready in a good working location. Be sure to have your scrapbooking supplies available as well.
3. Designate a bin or basket to each item you wish it to hold. For example, if you have 5 bins, use one for markers, pens, glue sticks, crayons, paints, and stamps. Create a bin for every category of supplies. You can use another bin for ribbons, lace, leather, paper flowers, and things like this.
Your last bin should be named miscellaneous for things that don’t really go in any of the other bins.
4. Now, assemble every item that will be placed in one particular scrapbooking organizer bin. Take a picture of these items with your Polaroid camera. Use the hot glue gun to glue the picture to the font of the bins. This a nice way to make a photo label. You can also write on the bin with your markers if you wish.
5. Gather your different papers and place them in the scrapbooking organizer paper racks. This will ensure that you are able to find a particular type of paper quickly for projects.
6. Now, place your scrapbooking organizer bins and paper racks on your shelf where you wish them to be. Voila!
Get some supplies to organize in your bins from Discount Scrapbooking. They have discounts on everything from scrapbook die cutting machines to scrapbook paper piecings.
- Jessica P
The new generation is becoming more aware of environment friendliness as the days go on. They are also thinking of cost effectiveness. One way to be eco friendly is to make your own soap at home. To do this you must have some ingredients at hand and you can choose which fragrance to use.
Making your own natural soap can bring your peace of mind in two effective ways. You are no longer be a part of the chemical pollution that is harming the environment as the soaps are produced industrially and you can ensure that the ingredients you are using to make a soap are all natural and won’t do any harm to your skin.
Making soaps might be time consuming but if you can make a handful of soap at a time it will be beneficial for your skin care and your pocketbook. You can use one of these three oils; like palm oil, olive or coconut oil as ingredients. You have to mix up this oil with water and lie. All you have to do is heating lye and water separately from the oil. When both lye and water meet the desired temperature they will combine together. You would want to stir or whisk this mixture until you are able to see stir lines on the top.
This is a similar process as making a pancake batter and the batter forms a raised line on top when a spoon is drugged across it. That is the thing you are looking for. Once this consistency is fulfilled you may want to add the natural ingredients you intend to mix up to make the soap your own. For instance, you can add beeswax to make it smooth or even cocoa butter to soften the skin. To make a successful natural soap though, be sure to use only natural ingredients.
Once you have instilled the additives that you collected then you have to pour the soap mixture into pre-oiled molds. Normally the molds are brick shaped or tubular and you have to make sure that they have made greasy with a vegetable oil otherwise at the time of removing the soaps from the molds they may no slide out easily without breaking. The soap mixture has to be left in the molds for about 24 hours.
By this time the soap making procedure will go through many changes, for example, it may darken in color or even begin to bubble and might get warm. These changes are natural when the lye/water/oil mixture is set to rest after being emulsified together. This setting period of time neutralizes the soap and makes it fit to set into the chosen mold. Once again, it is absolutely important to remember that the molds should be made oily otherwise you will not be able to remove the soap from the molds easily to continue the process.
You will need to have a cool, dry place established ahead of time to let your soap sit after you have released it from its mold. The soap can be cut into any shape you desire and then needs to be placed on wire racks lined with preferably wax paper, and then set in the dry, cool, dark place to cure.
The entire curing process will take anywhere for 3 to 8 weeks. But once this curing process is complete and the soap has dried out any moisture that was left then you will have a finished product. Most people are relieved knowing that what they are washing their bodies and faces with is healthy and not harmful to the community. This is an invaluable lesson that can be passed on for generations to come.
Jen Hopkins has worked in the skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about soap making process, and make your own soap. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.
- Jen Hopkins
Only a few china designs make a great presentation as ruby glass dinnerware does. The rich elegance of colours, coupled with rainbow shine cast when the light hits the glasses will make a meal absolutely unforgettable and remarkable.
In case you have guests for dinner that you would like to impress, use ruby glass dinnerware that invokes a sense of royalty/sophistication and your guests are sure to notice this. In case you select a china set that features dishes and beverage ware and is entirely ruby colored or uniquely accented with crimson touches, the dinnerware will enhance your menu.
While ruby glass dinnerware is extremely exquisite, it is very easy and convenient to replace a piece should the need arise. For instance, if a guest accidentally breaks a carnival glass tumbler, many retailers can quickly replace the piece from their on-site inventory. It is important that replacement options are available to ensure the continued beauty of your collection, and ruby dinnerware sets are unique and breathtaking without remaining too rare.
Even though ruby place settings and charger plates can easily become the focus of your dining tablescape, many hosts will find it equally rewarding, in the decorative sense, to accent their ruby glass dinnerware collections with pieces of green glass dinnerware. Or perhaps in celebration of America’s Fourth of July holiday, a red collection can quickly and easily be paired with blue accents for a patriotic look! Any holiday or time of the year can be made more attractive with the appropriate ruby dinnerware sets.
During the winter holiday of Christmas, this design is more effective and welcoming. When you showcase the sparkling glass with glowing candles and a crackling fire the traditional red and green motif gets an appreciated update. Your decorating efforts will be noticed by your guests and appreciated while sitting at the table together.
The most important thing about selecting dinnerware is that it is meant to be used. Many people purchase great china, only to lock it away in a cabinet somewhere, never to be used, which misses the whole point. Beautiful ruby glass dinnerware, or any other fine dinnerware, should be served upon to create memories your family will always remember.
Ruby glass dinnerware is a way to impress your guests with your sense of style. The special color of the glassware enhances any table. During the Christmas holidays, ruby glassware can be mixed with green glass dinnerware for a great Christmas touch. This glassware is becoming much more popular with collectors. Another great way to use your ruby ware is to mix with a carnival glass tumbler to showcase both pieces. Special care should be used when handling your pieces so as to not cause damage. This concern should be shared with dinner guests.
- M Green
At the time of introduction in late 1907 the carnival glass was called as Iridescent Ware. However, people started using the name carnival glass only after collectors in the 1950s began to refer to it as such. This innovative glassware made in highly patterned moulds had a vivid metallic sheen of changing hues on pressed glass articles. Iridescent Ware got the metallic sheen from a special spray of metallic salts on the glass while it was very hot.
Made as both functional and ornamental objects and found in a wide array of colors, carnival glass is an inexpensive pressed glass, often called dope glass by glass factory workers because of the process of applying the iridescent coloring, which is known as doping. Its production can be traced back to as early as 1907, with many, many different pieces in over 150 distinct patterns. It did not, however, command the expected prices, and was subsequently discounted heavily.
The glass is produced in various translucent colors. Primarily amongst these are amethyst, marigold, cobalt, green, and red. Sometimes it is also made in opaque white which is called milk glass. A semi-transparent or translucent pale-green hue was also available before the widespread knowledge of radiation hazards. this glass was called Vaseline or uranium glass. Both of these contain traces of uranium salts which gives the glass a faint green glow when exposed to UV light.
Among the greatest producers of this type of glass was Millersburg glass Company in Ohio. The first glass products by that company were crystal however the Millersburg plant decided to follow success for iridescent glassware. So in the beginning of 1910 the Millersburg Company started its line of Radium glasswares
Carnival glass is a collector’s item. Prices of these glasses vary wildly from a few dollars to thousands of dollars. Carnival glass has become antique glass collectible and there is a good active market for it.
The identification of the glass of carnival is as an operation much difficult one. Great part of the suppliers has not included the mark of the creator in their product, while the others have made therefore only for the part of the time that have produced the glass. In order to identify this glass, one must bind together the models, colors, splendor, edges, thickness and other factors from catalogue of the old supplier, other known examples, or the other material of reference. From many suppliers the produced near copies of the popular models of theirs available again, identifying it are a challenge also for an expert.
At the time of introduction in late 1907 the carnival glass was called as Iridescent Ware. However, people started using the name carnival only after collectors in the 1950s began to refer to it as such. Among the greatest producers of this type of glass was Millersburg glass Company in Ohio. The first glass products by that company were crystal however the Millersburg plant decided to follow success for iridescent glassware. There is a very active market for this item since it has become an antique glass collectible. So even for an experienced expert this is a hard task.
- Menachem Green
Soaps will always be presents in a person’s home. Everyone has always been dependent on soaps when it comes to cleaning, making it a necessity for all of us. These soaps that we use for cleaning are actually made from fats and oils. Soaps are basically used for cleaning a lot of things -our bodies, clothes, dishes and most of the things that we use at home.
The process of making soaps from raw materials is called soap making. The scientific term of actually mixing all of the ingredients is saponification. Saponification involves mixing the fats and oils with alkali to create a sodium or potassium salt. The soaps that we use are able to clean the dirt from any surface because it can trap the dirt inside it. The soap wraps around the dirt allowing it to be soluble in water. When the soap is washed off, the soap plus the dirt comes with it too.
There are different kinds of soaps which are made. Besides from the commercial soaps that we are used to, there are also handmade soaps. These handmade soaps are the products that you get from making the soaps from scratch. The qualities of these two soaps are very different. In fact, soap making basically involves superfatting or the addition of an excess amount of fats into the soap mixture. The main advantage of this method is to make the soap skin-friendly. As the glycerine is left untouched in the soap, it is still able to keep it moisturizing property.
Soap making is actually a simple activity to do. There are basically three ways of making soap with their own advantages. First, the melt and pour method is the basic soap making procedure. This involves the use of a pre-made soap base which is melted and poured into the mold. Second, the cold process is done by slightly raising the temperature of the soap enough to liquefy it. Third, the hot-process is done by heating the soap to ensure that the reaction is complete.
Soap making materials are not hard to find. These are readily available anywhere so you can just buy them. Besides from soap making being such an easy activity, it allows the people to be creative. Soap additives can be found anywhere to enhance the quality of soaps. If you want to make colored soaps with a specific fragrance, you absolutely can! You just have to be creative when making your soap mixture. Creativity makes soap making very fun! You can absolutely do anything that you want with your soaps. Don’t get too excited when you make your soaps because there are certain precautionary measures that you should take. Lye is an essential ingredient in soap making, but it is very dangerous to handle. Always wear safety equipment when handling soap mixtures with lye to keep you safe all the time.
Jen Hopkins has worked in the skin care industry for years. She maintains websites about how to make soap, and make your own soap. If you want to contact her, you can use the contact form at one of her sites.
- Jen Hopkins