RobsCreations

Here you have my second card of the month (with the first being the Mother's day card ) and it's for a friend's Birthday.  I had in mind something with plants and animals since a while and when I saw this rubber stamp in the shop I fell in love with it. To me, a tree of butterflies means joy and liberty. It reminds me the beauty of nature and it's complexity. It represents that lightness (read gentleness) we all should have.... In this occasion, I've also made the envelop myself and  I'm very very proud of me... It's only my second card after all!   Materials: Chocolate A4 Vivaldi paper 240 gr (1 sheet 21 x 14.4 cm and one sheet 7 x 11 cm)  Cream A4 Vivaldi paper 120 gr (1 sheet 9 x 13 cm)  Artemio frame puncher (tiny flowers)  Holographic embossing powder  Transparent embossing powder  Chocolate 154 Versacraft mini ink pad  Bronze 94 Versacolor mini ink pad  Double sided tape  Butterflies tree rubber stamp  Woodware clear

Last, but not least, batch of Melt & Pour soap for this month!  I like to call this soap bar Emerald soap or 50 Shades of Green! Aahahahahahaah :-) I'll try to give you an idea about how I've obtained the different colours in the layers. From bottom to top: 1) Green liquid colour (few drops),  1 mini-scoop of  titanium dioxide and of Clementine orange mica, 2) Green and violet liquid colours (few drops of each), 3) 1 drop of yellow liquid colour, Aqua green mica and Chromium oxide green pigment (1 mini-scoop of each), 4) 1 drop of  Green liquid colour.

Definitely not the first post on paraffin candles, but here there is a new 'effect' I want to talk about.  These white-ish lines (also called jump lines) can be an anti-aesthetic trait on some candles (I hate them on glass jar candles), but in some specific cases (like this one) they really give the candle a beautifully textured look making it appear vintage!  The secret? I let the melted paraffin cool down for quite a bit before pouring it in the mould, and I have poured it quite slowly.  The white-ish ridges/lines appear because as soon as the wax touches the mould's walls, it hardens. Mould's temperature remains constant and, without any external heat source, it is impossible to re-melt these lines.

A personal touch I have added to the last batch of soap shipped to a friend!

Half with embeds, half without! Scented with lavender fragrance, coloured with blue liquid colour from The soap Kitchen and sprinkled with dried cornflower petals.

What a cookie cutter can do... I've melted the Stephensons soap base, coloured it with a bit of clementine orange mica, pour it in a rectangular container and, once solidified, I cut the cute cats out by using  this amazing  cookie   cutter I just received for my B-day! Swimming cats... ahaahaha!  If working with embeds, ALWAYS  check the temperature of your melted soap before pouring!!! ...and the slices... Meow!

I received a fairly big  request   (at least from my point of view) of M&P soap from friends, lately! The SLS- and SLES-free Stephensons Clear soap base had a great success among my friends! It's highly rich in glycerine and it is made from vegetable-derived ingredients (no animal-derived oils/fats). The problem with this material, is that each time I have to order it from the UK I pay a lot of money for the shipping...after some research (and with the help of people from The Soap Kitchen ) I found a distributor in France ( soapbox-shop ) that accepts both bulk and small orders. For the moment, I cannot tell you if I really like this company, because on one side they've been very proactive and useful when I was about to place the order and I had a problem with the TVA and the delivery address, but on the other side one of the product I've ordered, and paid for, was not in the package I received... In addition, it's some days that I'm trying to contact them