Melt & Pour Soap-making

Let's start by saying that making soap with the M&P method will allow you to prepare a home-made product that, differently from the commercial soaps, will have a controlled list of ingredients.

M&P soap is actually a blend of true soap ingredients plus glycerin (great for repairing skin) and molecules like sorbitol and propylene glycol (also used in coffee-based drinks, liquid sweeteners, ice cream, etc.) which allow this kind of soap to melt.

M&P soap is made with lye+natural oils like true soap, but this step is done for you, by the soap base producers, beforehand.

This method is suitable for kids (taken for granted that an adult will be around to avoid the poor kids to get burned!)
It doesn't need lye (Sodium Hydroxide) handling and it doesn't require CURING time.

The only disadvantage I see, is that you have a limited number of ingredients you can choose because you start from a pre-existing base.
For this reason you have to be very careful about the base you buy: most of them contain very harsh detergents (SLS) and potentially harmful preservatives (PARABENS).
This method can produce lower soap quality than some other methods.

This is a table I found on LoveToKnow.com, and that lists all the soap-making processes with their pros and cons.

Credits for the table to: http://crafts.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Making_Soap

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Card making and papercraft magazines

Last month I had the chance to get, for the first time, a couple of Cardmaking & papercraft magazines: Papercraft Inspirations and Make Christmas card magazine. Papercraft Inspiration December issue had a Christmas window build-a-scene embossing folder and stamp free gift, as well as free festive papers . Make Christmas cards was offering: 2 embossing folder borders , 13 stylish stamps , 32 Christmas papers , 12 découpage sheets , 117 toppers & motifs and 73 festive greetings. Here you have some of the cards and tags I've made with the magazines' gifts All cards have been donated to hospitals

One more way to combine soy wax and gel!

The followings are all two-layered candles with the bottom layer made of gel and the upper part made of soy wax . Why combining the two of them? Because gel is transparent and allows you to embed objects and soy wax has an incredible scent throw and a long burning time ! Few simple rules for embedding objects: ideally they should be non flammable (like glass animals, shells or stones)! ...but if you do not exaggerate with the amount, you also can potentially use cinnamon sticks, dried flowers etc... To be on the safe side: if you use flammable objects I'd anyway suggest you to pour the thinnest layer of gel as possible (just to cover the embeds) and avoid burning this layer. And remember: never ever leave lit candles unattended! Let yourself be inspired and give it a try! Gel embeddings: glitters (blue candle) or sea shells (peach candle). Soy wax: caramel-scented. G el embeddings: cinnamon sticks G el embeddings: cinnamon sticks (left) or star

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