Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2015

PANNA COTTA candles: mon coup de coeur!

Entirely made of wax (fruit decorations too)!   No other words needed: I simply love them!!!  They are my best piece ever!

Handsewn rice warming pads: a nice Xmas present

Ok, I seriously thought I couldn't stand a single chance... ...but determination is one of my characteristics and with only two tries* I think I managed to obtain a fairly good imitation of a commercial warming pad! *after the first try I realised that it was impossible to hand sew a double folded piece of cotton (4 layers) with a very thin needle and without a thimble, so I've undone the whole thing and started again from scratch (Repetita juvant!) I have used a cotton fabric stripe and the basmati rice as filling!  As first test I've warmed the pad in the microwave at 800/1000 W for one minute: IT WORKS !!! To make the pad look as a perfect present, fold it and wrap a satin ribbon around (do not put satin ribbons in the microwave, see my post on the Burning test ).

'Mighty spice' and 'Wild bush'

I'm not a pro photographer but I like to take pictures of my plants!  I've just used an old digital camera and played a bit with Windows 10 photo manager... Here you have today's pics: ' Mighty spice ' and  ' Wild bush '  

Tiny fruit wax decorations

Why was I so excited to receive my silicon moulds from   WhysperFairy ? Because of this cute little strawberries   and blackberries ! The blackberries are made of 100% soy wax coloured with violet and grey wax pellets. For the strawberries, one is made of paraffin coloured with red pellets and the other is made of uncoloured soy wax that I've then painted with wax-compatible paint. For the petiole and small leaves of both I've again used wax-compatible paint.  Aren't they cute??? ...now I just need to prepare some candles and use them!

Moulds! Lovely moulds!

Make your candles prettier: how to decorate glass containers!

...not that it is something you have to do, but just in case you're keen on doing it: find yourself a glue gun !!! You don't really need the big, super-powerful and expensive ones. I bought mine for less than 8 Euros + 12 recharges for less than 10 Euros ! What I really like of my glue gun is that it is very small, easy to handle and doesn't heat as much as the big ones. Glue recharges are still fully melted, but they do not reach a crazy temperature avoiding you serious burnings. What can you use to decorate the container? Ribbons, crafting paper, felt flowers and so on! For the Wild orchid candle I've used a black satin ribbon, on which I've glued iron-on white stones and a pink felt-made flower. While for the Arlequin   candle I've used colourful miniaturized safety pins that I've glued everywhere on the container's surface

Christmas spice M&P soap

This is a melt and pour soap I've prepared more than a year ago just before Xmas time. Before this, I have been using a wooden loaf mould and I have been slicing the the soap to make nice 1-cm-deep chunks. Anyway, I wanted to try different shapes, and bought a silicon cookie mould for my Xmas spice cakes . You can also recycle old cookie moulds you have in your kitchen, but don't use them for cooking ever again ! As always, I used  the  SLS and SLES-Free Stephensons 'Crystal' soap base I bought from The Soap Kitchen. This is a vegetable based M&P base that is glycerin rich and that is made from 100% natural ingredients. To make the soap cake more sparkling I've added plenty of Cristallina glitters and grated on top some pink soap I've prepared in advance. You'll find more on my  FB page

Caffeccino candles!

I'm Italian and coffee is really an important issue for me! ahahahah! I love dark and short coffee and the Italian way of drinking it in a bar: you get in, you ask for a coffee at the bar (no need to specify 'ristretto' or 'short' or whatever!!!), you shot it in one sip when it's still steaming, you pay and then you walk out...happier, with more energy and an incredible taste in your mouth!  I'm living in France since almost 5 years and I have to admit that I really miss a lot the Italian style  coffee  and one day, while thinking about the incredible smell of coffee powder, I came up with this idea: The Caffeccino candles w ith real coffee powder on top ! Obviously I've also added an incredible coffee fragrance I bought from  Mondo Bougies , and since it was meant to be a cappuccino, I whipped soy wax to create the foamy effect! There you go, now I'm craving for a coffee!  

From cuttings to real plants!

The most exciting part of an experiment are the results (in real life is not always like that ;-) ) ...and here you have the final outcome of my post  Make your basil plants live forever From cuttings... ...to plants!