I just bought ten small tins online. I think I may just do all my Xmas shopping online this year. I don't feel up to dealing with crowds and fighting for deals.
I am going to make some solid fragrances for some friends. I am thinking the tins can be decked out to be super cute. I've also just thought I could use the same recipe but substitute flavors for scents and give out lip balm. I bought ten tins for now.
So now I will need to stock up on beeswax and probably buy another small tub of shea. I wonder how much (if I can get it) cheaper online? It would save me the trip to the store.
I also found out that Michael's sells soy wax but 4 lbs costs $22!! That's really pricy. Somewhere I heard that Michael's does 25% coupons every week(?!) and that their soy wax counts. But I'm kind of leery of the store brand that I've never heard of--I smelled some of their fragrances (they had oils and small wax concentrated blocks) and they did not smell good at all. So I'm thinking at least for now I'm going to stick with my supplier online.
I didn't take pictures but I did have an awesome time experimenting with that recipe. I used some sample oils that I got from haydria perfumery (google it) and they turned out great!
In the future, I would use a little less beeswax to make the solid a little less so. It came out pretty hard which I should have surmised from the name but I hoped it would be a little less than "solid" and a little more like a congealed mass. Something like a thick oatmeal.
Anyway, my favorite one was actually a surprise one. I had a leftover/75% full bottle of papaya mango fragrance oil from the old Lotions and Potions that used to be downtown. I held onto it knowing someday I'd figure out a better use for it. It smells SO good. But. I used too much oil thinking "more oil equals more fragrance." No. The wax concoction has a saturation point so don't use more than the recipe calls for--you will end up with an ooze of extra oil along your solid's walls. When you press down, you will get a little splooge of oil. Not sexy.
My second favorite is "tainted love" (Haydria's). It smells fruity. The description says, "A flirtatious and feminine bouquet of violets, berries and light amber drizzled with honey. The scent to take you back to simpler times." It's really yummy. The fragrance had no trouble covering up the wax/shea smell I thought might be present. Somehow, I think more oil might have made the solid more solid because the ones that I correctly measured gave me a (slightly) softer product. Could be a lot of variables but this might be the reason. I also have the mango lidded and the other ones are in double shot glasses. I might end up taking a pic of the products. It sure makes the post more interesting.
- I am about to venture into new territory. I'm going to try my hand at candlemaking. I just bought ten pounds of soy wax chips, fragrance, dye and wicks. The cool part was whatever you bought you got a free fragrance "sample" (1 oz. is what you get and that's enough for a pound of wax). So I got to get some stuff for others (Xmas) and got a "sample" for myself.
- I also collected my clock parts today and a piece of black felt and red yarn for my dexter creepy blood clock. That's all.
- I'm still considering the Craft Fair in town in a month. I don't know if I can have enough inventory ready in time. But. I will attend either way. I will probably do some Xmas shopping there.
- Oh! And I also want to try making solid fragrance. I found this *super* easy "recipe" on Craftster. Shea, beeswax, fragrance and olive oil. That's it! I am now going to be hunting for the perfect containers for solid fragrances and candles.
- I talked to Greg about making gifts, if he was ok with that. He liked the idea. I'm def going to buy him some stuff but I like making things and I like that I can make things that are "inside jokes" for us or stuff that I know he'd like but you can't really buy. I started making him a "Gob" shirt from Arrested Development...the front has Gob on a segway and the back will say, "A trick is something a whore does for money or candy!" I even got the arrested development font (Antique Olive).
so that's it :)
I'm really excited to start on some new projects!
