'Twas the Night Before Christmas....

Wow, it's already Christmas Eve! In 10 minutes, it will be Christmas, and I fully expect to hear Santa and his Reindeer land on my roof! How did this holiday season sneak up on me so fast!?

I don't really have much to blog about right now, and I have no new pictures. I made a few batches of soap last week that turned out pretty well. I've still yet to completely mess something up *knocks on wood*! I made a Grapefruit and Lemongrass soap that is supposed to mimic Dove's Energize collection, and some Frankincense soap for a friend's family member. Let me tell you, there is distinct difference between the way essential oils and synthetic fragrances smell compared to one another! Both my soap and the Dove body wash smell "energizing" and citrusy, but there is some distinct difference that I can't quite place my finger on between the quality of the smell. ANYWAY!

For now, that is all! I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas/Holiday!

Ingredients of my Bonnie Bombs!

Today was such a LOVELY day in Tampa, FL, so I decided to take my craft outside under my patio (easy clean-up, no angry mom, etc...) and take some pictures of the ingredients I use to make my Bonnie Bombs!

Here are all my basic ingredients and supplies I use to make my bath bombs....We've got a mixing bowl, measuring cup, various skin oils, organic powdered milk, baking soda, citric acid, jasmine essential oil, and a liquid dropper



These are the oils I'm going to use in this batch to give my customer super soft skin. I'm using NOW products that I get from a local nutrition store. Here we have 100% Pure Shea Butter, Sweet Almond Oil, and Castor Oil. I melt them all together in a small bowl and let them cool while I mix my baking soda and citric acid...

In this particular batch, I'm also adding some organic powdered milk to make my customer's skin even softer! Something that's different about my bath bomb making than other people is that I use water instead of witch hazel to get my mixture moist enough to hold together. I've read sooooo many recipes that say "NOT TO USE WATER," because it will set off the reaction early, and "you don't want that." Lol, I'm not sure why I don't want that, but it seems to set off the reaction JUST ENOUGH to hold my bombs together super tight. Especially when I add some powdered milk to my bath bombs, adding water makes it just milky enough to make it moist enough to hold together.

Finally, I'm going to add some Jasmine scented Essential Oil to the mix. Jasmine is great at relieving stress and is very therapeutic, plus it is also a very popular scent, which will hopefully help my sales =D.

I will post another blog soon with the final product! I would also like to apologize to anyone who was offended by my picture of the sky in Tampa today. It's not my fault it doesn't snow here XP

Business Cards!!!

I don't want to sound like a sales...woman here, but Vistaprint is awesome! Only a few days ago I ordered 250 FREE business cards from them and only had to pay shipping ($5). I even chose the "slow" option, which said it would take them 21 days to process, print, and ship my business cards...yet I got them in LESS than a WEEK! They are printed on a high gloss paper in full color as well. On the back they do say "Business Cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.com!" But hey, what can you ask for with free business cards?!

Here they are!!!

=D so excited!

Balsam Fir Soap!

This is a continuation from my previous post documenting how I make soap...and here is the final product!

This soap smells just like the holidays! To scent this soap, I used Balsam Fir Needle Essential Oil and added both Shea butter and Cocoa butter to leave your skin EXTRA soft during these dry, cold winter months. This soap is also made with Olive Oil, which is a perfect ingredient for any skin type and holds in moisture to your skin as well. The scent of Balsam Fir is useful for chest colds and to loosen tight, dry coughs. Each soap has a light green tint with red sugar sprinkles on the top and comes wrapped in cellophane with color coordinating bow.

Here is the link to this item on my Etsy shop where you can learn more about it: Balsam Fir Holiday Soap made with Shea Butter and Cocoa Butter

Making Balsam Fir Cold-Process Soap for the Holidays!

Today I decided to make some kind of holiday-scented soap that could also be sold after the holidays as an uplifting winter scent. I picked 2 essential oils up at my local natural food store: peppermint and Balsam Fir Needle. I chose to save the peppermint oil for my bath bombs I plan on making when my citric acid arrives. So here we go!

First, we have to mix our lye and water mixture! To do this, we need several things...

We've got our lye, water, a digital kitchen scale, measuring cup, something to pour our mixture into, thick rubber gloves, safety glasses, and some kind of crazy breathing mask my dad gave me.

I got my calculation for how much lye and water I will need for my batch at Brambleberry.com. I pour my Lye into my water, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND, and leave it to sit in a WELL VENTILATED area until it cools to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

While I'm waiting for my lye mixture to cool, I work on mixing my oils together. In this particular soap, I am using Olive Oil, Organic Vegetable Shortening, Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, and Sweet Almond Oil.

I know it looks kind of gross now, but it will get better!!! Now to warm it up! I put the burner on to simmer because I don't want my oils to get any hotter than 120 degrees. After a while it begins to look like.....

THIS! Still not ready yet, but getting there. And excuse my 80's brown stove/kitchen. 3 out of 4 of the burners still work so they won't get rid of it. So after a while, my mixture looks like....

My oils are evenly mixed and I've separated them into 2 batches, one of them colored, the other one not (this ended up not working out in the end, everything became one color). One both the oil and the lye mixture are around 100 degrees, I pour the Lye mixture into the oils, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND and stir with a spoon for about 10 minutes. Then, like most soap makers, I become impatient and use a stick blender to speed up the process. If I didn't have this handy tool, it may take me several hours to stir a mixture to the point of it tracing. If you make soap or are planning to give this hobby a try, make sure you are careful, or else this will happen...

Those right there are burns from my mixture splattering on me while using the stick blender. I'll be OK though!

Once my soap begins to trace (becomes thick enough) I pour it into my mold. In this batch I want to make bars, so I just use a plastic Sterilite container. After my soap hardens just a bit I take a spoon and put some "waves" into the top and add some colored sprinkles!

The final color should have a green hue to it. Can't wait to have these in my Etsy shop! Look for them soon!

AJSweetSoap decadent food soap inspiration!

So I always think it's good to promote fellow Etsians!

I found this shop a while ago and thought it was AWESOME! The shop is called AJSweetSoap and I've come to the conclusion that this shop specializes in food shapes soaps of ALL kinds. Check out some of these soaps...




Devishly Delicious Deviled Egg Soaps




Fabulously Fun Fondue Soap Set




Ice Cream Soapwich



Movie Theatre Vegan Popcorn Soaps




Springtime Splurge Vegan Cookie Soap Sampler


These are just a few of AJSweetSoap's HUNDREDS of deliciously decadent soaps. If you would like to visit her Etsy shop Click Here!

Bonnie Bombs!

About a week ago I was doing some research on a new holiday soap that I wanted to make, and I stumbled upon a video on youtube about how to make bath bombs! While I'm watching this video I'm thinking, "wow, this seems really inexpensive, easy, and fast!" So I went ahead and gave it a try. I told my friend about my new endeavor and she wanted me to make her something that was stress relieving and calming for this upcoming finals week. I decided on Eucalyptus Mint Essential Oil, and also decided to add in other ingredients that I also put into my soap: Cocoa Butter, Sweet Almond Oil, and Castor Oil. I also added in some powdered milk to make her skin even softer.

At this point I had already ordered 5 pounds of Citric Acid off the internet (the second main ingredient in bath bombs. It's an all natural ingredient that is used as a food preserving, and is also what makes the bubbles in your soda), but I wanted to go ahead and see if I could ACTUALLY do this. It looked so simple on youtube, I had to try it RIGHT AWAY! So I spent about 4 bucks on a tiny 4 oz bottle of Citric Acid from a local health food store. It was just enough to make 3 bath bombs; 2 for my friend and 1 for me to test.

In making my bath bombs, I decided to use water instead of Witch Hazel (which most recipes I found online told me to use). A lot of videos and tutorials say NOT to use water as the bonding agent because it will set off the reaction early, thus RUINING your product. WELL, I USED water and let me tell you, these bath bombs are indestructible. I think setting off a slight reaction helps the bombs to form together more tightly. While they were drying they did look a little foamy and wet, but I just left them there for about 30 hours, they hardened up quite nicely!

And here is my final product:The wrapping is my favorite part!

I do plan on posting a video up soon of me attempting to break one of my bath bombs, so look out for that!

Welcome to my new blog!

I've taken some advice and have started a craft blog revolving around my Etsy shop: Bonnie Bars. Hmmm....what should I blog about first?

Well...I got into soap-making pretty recently. I wanted to pick up a hobby that involved some chemistry while also making something that I enjoyed. I went into a store called Lush in the mall one day and a light bulb went off in my head. I said to myself, "this stuff would be fun to make! And I could do it! And for MUCH cheaper!" So here I am, making soap!

As of right now I have only 5 items in my shop, but I hope to expand that within the next half-year. Just tonight I attempted to make bath bombs, and they turned out great! This semester at school has been pretty hectic and I haven't had much time for this hobby, but next semester should be much lighter, so I will definitely be expanding the Bonnie Bars line!

Anyway! I'm not sure really what to talk about on this blog, but I am looking to get some advice from fellow craft makers on what I should do! Follow me and leave comments! Thank you!

And for now...I leave you with this...