Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Soap!

I need another hobby like I need a hole in the head. But soap making...I've always wanted to learn about soap making! I have this idea in my head that I will learn the process, create awesome soaps and them open an Etsy shop to sell my soaps. It might be a pipe dream for now but I'm on my way.
Above is my first amateur attempt at melt and pour soap making. I bought a cheapy kit at A.C. Moore when I was in NY last month and just got around to testing the waters of soap making. The materials included in the kit aren't very good quality but it was good enough for a mere amateur such as myself. I also just purchases some real soap making supplies from Bramble Berry to really get going once I have it down pat.

I have been intrigued by soaps that have chunks of colored soap pieces within a opaque base. So I learned a little about this method on youtube. I think that this method would work out a lot better if I made a huge batch and cut each bar individually but I used the starter kit materials and the individual bar mold for the ease of learning and not being wasteful of my limited materials.
For a first try, I think it turned out ok. The blue, pink and orange translucent chucks were all dyed and molded separately and them chopped up and dropped into a white opaque base with fragrance added. I used cucumber-melon fragrance, which I'm not crazy about, but wanted to try everything that came in the kit.

My better quality supplies arrived yesterday so I will be attempting more soap (better quality soap!) in the very near future!

Monday, July 26, 2010

At-home Animal Print Mani!

I love animal print-- leopard, cheetah, zebra-- you name it! My sister recently had an awesome manicure done with leopard print nail art on one nail on each hand. It was gorgeous....but really expensive. I figured that I could definitley do an at-home version for much, much less!


So here what I used:
Out the Door Topcoat
Orly Bonder Basecoat
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Nail Polish, Choco-Latte
Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen, Black and gold
 
I did my usual mani: starting with a coat of Orly Bonder, 2 coats of color, then used the nail art pens to create the leopard print, and then finished with a coat of Out the Door as usual. And ta-da-- a cute mani for the week!