RobsCreations

Winter  equals dry chapped hands  👐 ! I usually have to go for glycerin-rich, highly hydrating commercial creams otherwise there's no chance I can fix my cracked skin. Besides using my home-made soap, which doesn't contain aggressive ingredients, every night ⭐⭐⭐(well, almost every night 😁) I put on my hands a consistent amount of cream. This usually works very well, but t his year it has been pretty cold and the tap water in my area is particularly hard, so my problems persisted... I frankly hate to use thick and oily products during daytime (I always stain my clothes!!!), that's how I ended up with idea of making a fresh, light and handbag sized lotion. The original lotion recipe is from The Soap Kitchen but I've personalized it with some of my favourite essential oils. Sweet Almond Oil : 24g  Coconut Oil : 16g Glycerine : 2g Stearic Acid : 5g  Citric Acid : 0.5g  Emulsifying Wax : 10g  Cetearyl Alcohol : 5g  Ster...

Few weeks ago I bumped into this video  by chance. I got stricken by the ability of the lady (Christina Griffiths) and by the interesting technique she was using to create some super cute Baby cards. She used water colours to colour some embossed animal figures. In this other   video ,  Christina used a gold shimmering mica to water colour her cards and she really did an amazing job!  I don't have water colours at home, but I have plenty of mica and pigments and I wanted to try them. I went for very simple cards (nothing compared to  Christina's) that I've also decorated with cornflower petals and with an embossed sentiment. Micas are a naturally existing  silicates which can occur in scales , sheets or flakes . In the cosmetics field, coloured micas are fine pigment-coated powders that are used to add bright colours and iridescence (shimmer) to many products.  Besides using micas in soap making , I have used t...

My handsewn rice warming pads...in their orange version! For more details see here !

A brand new batch!!! Bees wax, shea butter, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, and also mica and lip safe fragrances for Sangria and Hot Chocolate lip balms. No preservatives at all!

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 ).

After laundry, vacuum cleaning, a bit of clothes folding and my Nespresso machine descaling (uff I'm tired!), I decided to test whether two pieces of fabric I bought 10 days ago (or maybe more, time flies!) are 100% cotton... How so? Let me start from the beginning... few weeks ago I decided to start a pretty nice (but likely highly unsuccessful at least for me) project: making rice heating pads without a sewing machine ! You can use heating pads to warm up your feet, hands, and bed linen too ! You can warm them up in the oven or in the microwave....with a caveat: they have to be made of cotton or any other natural fiber that doesn't burn as soon as you put it into the oven/microwave !!! Heating pads are very useful for winter time and I'd like to make some for two people I love. As first thing I went to a haberdashery and bought two colourful fabric stripes! I washed them and then, only then, asked myself whether they were made of cotton.... I looked on...

Now it' s the right moment!  - I've collected all my closet/drawer now-not-so-much scented sachets - I've emptied them (this time I haven't recycled the lavender floral buds because they were pretty old and I've already re-used them many many times), and cleaned the sachets from impurities, debris etc. - I've  removed dry debris from the new lavendin floral buds  (I always have the feeling that they can give you some crazy sneezing if inhaled!!!) with a  plastic mesh and put l avendin flower buds  in a plastic container Lavendin is  a hybrid between true lavender and spike lavender and you can find a nice description about it's properties   here - I've added 8-10 drops of organic lavender essential oil, sealed the container, shook it vigorously and repeated the operation three times.  To maximize the absorption of the essential oil on the floral buds, I left the containers tightly closed for an over night Tod...

I love craft paper ! You can use it for many projects and a roll will last for quite a long time! A while ago I was looking for nice small bags for my home-made lip balms but I didn't want to spend a fortune by going to a craft shop (even if I would have loved to! ahahaah). I love the fancy, tiny, colourful and perfectly sized bags you can find for example in Confetti stores  (in UK) or  Loisirs et creation  (in France) but they are pretty expensive... I remember I found a video  (link to the video)  on Youtube showing how to gift wrap very small items by only using wrapping paper,  double sided adhesive tape and scissors . I gave it a try myself with crafting paper and h ere you can see the result! Nice and simple, isn't it? 

There's nothing particularly special behind the making of a soap starting from a M&P base, but there is definitively a lot of fun! I won't give you too many technical details about how to melt, colour and pour M&P soap bases (but if you'll ask you'll certainly have an answer  ;-) ), but I'd rather share tips on how to prepare nice SOAP CURLS you can use to decorate your creation! For this soap I've prepared two different kind of curls. For both kinds, I've initially melted, coloured and poured two small blocks of about 5x5x2 HxLxW cm. For the big light purple curls I've used a potato peeler on the thinner edge of the soap block. Once you have peeled-off a ribbon of soap, you have to roll it with your fingers to make it became a perfect curl! I've then laid down the curls in the bottom of the mould before pouring the first transparent soap layer. For the small curls I've simply used an old ( crafting-dedicated! ) grater an...

Gel with cinnamon sticks (lower part) + soy wax scented with green tea fragrance (upper part).  Handmade lavender sachet (no sewing involved!)

I already had many new things to try, for this reason I decided to stick to the same basic recipe I've been using before (beeswax, shea butter, avocado oil and sweet almond oil). I bought lip safe micas, fragrance oils, white chapstick tubes and shrink wraps for the tubes. I've matched Hot Chocolate Mica Powder with Chocolate orange Truffles Flavor Oil , and Sangria Mica with Strawberry Flavor Oil (for materials please see my FB page). I've also prepared couple of plain ones (no mica, no fragrance). Being the first time that I used micas I didn't want to exaggerate and I ended up with pretty mild colours. Also the presence of avocado oil (which is greenish) affected the final result, but I liked it anyway.     I printed out labels and eventually sealed the lip balms with my wonderful shrink wraps (for a quick video on the wraps see my FB page)!!!

I wanted something natural, easily spreadable and not too thick or greasy. This lotion does not contain preservatives or emulsifiers (usually needed when you mix water and oils)! It's only made of sterile water, beeswax, sweet almond oil (that penetrates skin in few minutes) and vegetable glycerine.  I didn't use a stick blender, but I've hand-whipped it. Being all natural, water-based and without preservatives it would be advisable to keep it in the fridge especially during very hot months and to use it as fast as you can (in few weeks or so). If you use less than 40% of water, the emulsion shouldn't separate, but in case   some water comes off you can drain it off and normally use the cream. This lotion is moisturizing and soothing thanks to the sweet almond oil! Healing and calming for my incredibly dry skin! 

A cream, differently from lotions, is pretty thick.  The recipe I've used here is water-free : an important trick that makes the cream last for some months  even without preservatives. I wanted to exploit the calming properties of calendula (marigold) and that's why I've infused the sweet almond oil, included in the recipe, with calendula dried flowers. Day 1 : Prepare calendula infused oil .  Put 10 grams of dry calendula petals in 250 mL of sweet almond oil and infuse the oil for 30' to 1 hour by using a double boiler or a bain marie.  Filter the oil by using a kitchen mesh or a gauze. Day 2 : melt the ingredients for the cream in a a double boiler or a bain marie and pour in clean tin containers, sterilized glass jars or whatever clean and sterilzed container you prefer. . RECIPE: Beeswax 10% Shea butter 30% Calendula infused oil 30% Avocado oil 30%

I use lip balms all over the year, several times per day and in great amounts. I keep one lip balm in my office drawer, one in my bag, one at home on the night stand... I think you got it: I'm a lip balm maniac !  Fed up of buying commercial lip balms that are expensive and full of c**p I decided to prepare one by myself. For the recipe the only suggestion I can give,  is to use beeswax ,a solid oil and liquid oil/s . . Then you'll find the recipe you like most empirically: for example you can change the proportions of different ingredients to make the lip balm harder or softer.  After having reviewed a lot of recipes I decided to invent mine: Beeswax (33%)- mild antibacterial properties.  Sweet Almond Oil (20%) - Good for dry, inflamed, or irritated skin. Contains vitamins and minerals.  Avocado Oil (14%)- Rich in vitamins A, D, & E. Moisturizing and excellent for extremely sensitive skin.  Shea Butter (33%)- Also known as the African karit...

VIDEO Bon bon bath bombs in action!

I've used tangerine essential oil and micas for the colours. I was afraid I have gone too far with the amount of micas : apparently they might turn the bath tub in a mess ! I've eventually used them and I have to admit that  it's true that micas leave a halo on the sink edge, but it gets away with a bit of clean tap water!!! They smell incredibly good, the bubbling is adorable and colours are amazing.

Lemon bath bombs made with Lemon Superb fragrance , food-grade yellow liquid colour, marigold (calendula) dried petals and edible gold flakes.

1. Mix Sodium bicarbonate and citric acid (3:1 or 2:1 work well) 2. Add Ultramarine violet powder , dried cornflower petals, strawberry fragrance, cristalline and silver glitters and mix well 3. Keep mixing and spritz some water (but not too much) 4. Spritz and mix until you can mold the mixture by squeezing it in a hand. 4. Put the mixture in the desired mold, press well the two halves of the mold, unmold 5. let the bath bombs dry on a layer of cooking paper 6. HAPPY BATHING!!!

I'm sure you all know LUSH bath bombs! Amazingly coloured and fizzy, they make your bath funnier! ...but they are incredibly expensive! If you actually think about the basic ingredients you need for preparing bath bombs you'll be surprised about how much overpriced these branded bath bombs are !!! You basically need citric acid , baking soda and water . In the presence of water, citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) react to form sodium citrate, water, and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the responsible for the bubbling effect. You can find ingredients for making bath bombs in supermarkets for few quid/bucks or buy them from specialized suppliers (http://www.youwish.nl/badbruis, http://www.brambleberry.com/Ingredients-C40.aspx, https://www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk) You can then add colours (I've tried liquid colours and micas), essential oils or skin safe fragrances , herbs and dried botanical , glitters , salts etc. You'll also need: a mixing...

Giving new life to your lavender sachets: a costless and safe way to perfume your house! - empty them and collect the floral buds in a container - add lavender essential oil or any fragrance you may like - stir for 5 minutes (chinese chopsticks work really nice) - cover with a plastic film for half an hour/hour (ideally better for longer times) - re-fill the sachets with the buds and put them in your closet, drawers etc. You can repeat the process each time your sachets lose their scent!