Sponiebr

5 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

We love long lists, @Moonstar  winter is coming. It is cold, long and dreary. In other words, a perfect time to address long lists. 

 

Chefmom and i spent a few solid hours on the phone recently planning out the wax&twice test roll out. Be excited! Be very excited...

 

i am in need of liquid soap in my home soon, too. That means articles on liquid soap!!!!! 

OH! TT!!! That REMINDS ME... I haven't seen you washing your hands lately... Can we get a probono video?Actually, if you'd be interested I'd like you to try that colored soap I made... 

How about some variations in how to physically wrap soaps and candles and  examples of product labeling, like:

ingredient listings: Do you do a basic Contains lard water and lye and may contain goat's milk, mineral pigments... etc..

How to word your labels: e.g.: 10% Superfat... How do you actually label that in a manner that the general public with no concept of how or what a lye discount is can understand what we are selling in a manner that is attractive to a customer.  E.g.: Sparky's ass-chapp'n handemade harwood lye soap and paint remover with 20% extra fat.

BUT REALLY What I could really use right this minute is a solid tutorial on how to properly and efficiently dress soap to get it ready to sell.  

Just my lousy 2 bits o'copper. 

Sponiebr the Executor of fecklessness. (And still suspended from making bad decisions.) 

You might be able to get away with using some mica's for the metallic look... Like a ruby red mica and a little opal to increase luster? Personally I would probably skip the duct tape and go straight to chip board and paper mache. You  can use hot glue to run lines and other features.

Looking at that picture, I would guess fiber glass and polyester resin. (That's also a REALLY good option. (Bondo...) 

On 11/21/2016 at 7:18 AM, Darbla said:

I'm working on altering some shoes, and I want to layer duct tape over them and then I need something to smooth over crevices and cracks at the edges of the duct tape layers and try to get a smoother outside so I can then paint over that.  Would Mod Podge work as a smoothing top layer or is there something better? 

Um... Are you going to wear these shoes? I think Mod Podge is just PVA (elmer's glue). What kind of painting are you going to do are you painting designs for fashion or are you just trying to cover the duct tape? I dunno... I personally would use a PVC rubber like Spray on Plasti Dip. Walmart carries the brush on type and the spray on type. I also comes in varrious colors. I'm not too sure how plasti dip would handle paint, and you would REALLY need to air the things out to get all of that solvent out of the shoes before wearing them... Kind of an expensive endeavor TBH. 

HTH, YMWV! 

Sponie

9 hours ago, Moonstar said:

Lol ! Why am I not surprised that you have electric cat beds .... never knew there was such a thing but I do now, and of course I learned that here ! 

Iam a sucker for tear jerker movies too ! Some of the best movies Ive seen were on the Lifetime Channel. I just wish I could remember the names of them

they were that good. 

Those electric cat beds have been around for quite a while! You might not be used to calling them electric cat beds though... Most people call them:


(wait for it) 

Laptops. 


Bah-dum-bah-Ching!  

1 hour ago, iansmommaya said:

I just got done Master Batching 80 pounds of oil! Thanks for this thread, I've starting doing this and while it takes a little while to measure and melt all those oils it saves sooooo much time!

 

 This is the thread in which we decide it is the way forward.

My GAWD ladies... So, uh... Like how long would something like that take? Theoretically? Also out of curiosity, if you are getting jugs or pails for individual batches, where are you getting them from? I've got 35 lbs. of Palm and 35 lbs. of CO I need to weigh out into more manageable containers. I'm not 100% sold that my standard formula is going to be the one and only for all time formula. I mean I LOVE how it works, but I really don't like the concept of basing a formulation off of a premixed store product, because they could change their formulation at anytime. I really need to try a regular OO-CO-PO-Cas mix and see how I like it. 

What have I done? I've been at Church and putzing around all day. I'm fix'n to go make a picture frame for a world map 44"x31"...  yay... 

2 hours ago, TallTayl said:

The link I posted was a simple DIY using whatever is on hand to carve the master, then 2 part epoxy for the business end of the stamp. Way easier than making that positive...

Tell me about it! Especially since that positive ended up in the pot... 
 

One thing I have done to make stamps for pottery clay is get a custom rubber stamp made. Stamp that into polymer clay for a nice impression. Then use the epoxy, polymer, or clay, etc  to make the stamp master. Fast and cheap. 

I LIKE it! I was really considering getting some Sculpy and just making one quick and dirty out of a rolled up worm of the polymer. I've done many impressions of Scottish Clan Badges with Sculpy before. Neat stuff that PVC clay. 
 

You do do not need vent holes on a soap stamp, sponiebr. Never in all of my years of stamping and viewing stamps have I ever seen any with vents. It all just mushes where it needs to go. A vent is one more place to get soap stuck in the stamp and ruin the soap. 

Come to think of it, I can't ever remember seeing vents in stamps either... (not rubber, not soap, not any stamp) I would have really preferred a negative because that could be fed into the CNC mill and POP! Negative mold! TA-DA!!! It would have been really nice to do that also because I could have had it done with a sharp center ridge through the center line of the design that broadened out to what I wanted the finished width to be at depth. But that requires the CNC milling machine, which ain't mine, and if I want it CNC'd I have to do it his way. 

And life goes on.  

6 minutes ago, Trappeur said:

Hey Sponie, 

 

No problem!  Oh great a picture!...

 

What is that drawing of?

 

And you want this to be a stamp mold for soap?

 

Trappeur

Yeah... I want that as my stamp. This is a label: 

• I mean if the Artist Formerly known as Prince can do this: 

  

   

   

  Certainly the Executor of Bad Ideas should be able to get away with this: 
  
  

   

   

4 minutes ago, Trappeur said:

lol, omg......here I thought was going to be a conversation about a friggin stamp and now I'm reading about the world that is doomed and someone making 200.00 an hour.  What does this have to do with a stamp mold? omg.....Make me understand.....maybe you could talk in English words so that I could follow your conversation.....

 

Trappeur

You want to understand insanity? I don't recommend it... My point in the above, besides being a not so thinly veiled rant, is that getting one of these stamps seems like it's either going to take a LONG time and a small amount of money or a short time and a LOT of money. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground there. 

 

2 minutes ago, Trappeur said:

How old are you anyways Sponie? lol  I'm not making fun of you, mind you...I was just wondering. I can't wait for this answer. lol

 

Trappeur

I look like I'm late 50's, I think like I'm over 90, and biologically I'm 41. I think my biological age is all an elaborate hoax. I mean really... All I have as proof of my age are anecdotes and a piece of paper. 

15 hours ago, Trappeur said:

ok....Sponie......well you made me read your very detailed post of what you were designing and although I hadn't a "hair" of a clue what in heck you were talking about I read it all the way to the end and thought to myself, "wow, this guy has created something amazing" and when I get to the end I couldn't wait to see the picture of your creation.....and zippo!  Nothing!  So where is your picture?  We all want to see.....

 

Trappeur

I'm SO sorry about that! Actually I took this last night before I melted it down to make new wax billets (the new ones I colored with a little charcoal). 

12 hours ago, Trappeur said:

Sponie, here is my suggestion.....why don't you give your design to this company and have them make up the stamp mold?  Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, don't you think?  That site is really beautiful.

 

Trappeur

I don't think I am physically capable of doing something sane or reasonable or having something sane or reasonable happen to me... I mean it might happen by accident, but it couldn't happen on purpose.

Actually, I've been considering ordering one, even with the whole customs and shipping time from Hungary, meh... I thought it was at least worth a few tries to do it myself. My dad COULD make this, but he doesn't want to make what I want. He want's to make it his way with his improvements. (e.g.: I have to redesign it so that all spaces have at least one area open to the outside to keep from forming air pockets, and it will be made of nothing else other than aluminum.) To get it from China takes forever and is basically a crap shoot at best. Then if I want to fork out the money $35-$180 I could get one done in the U.S. and have it in a couple of weeks... 
It boils down to time=money, and my time is worth nothing.

One of my friends posted on faceplant something to the effect of "When mediocrity becomes the ideal for a society, quality and the pursuit of excellence have died." Having been overseas and seen the long term effects that particular sentiment has had on people I can tell you it truly is an insipid cancer that destroys the very foundation of a nation and removes all sense of worth, pride, personal motivation, and severely erodes national identity. 

After seeing the impending doom that will become my life due to complete and utter carelessness by people making $200 an hour because they are the best in the business, I have some really sincere reservations as to exactly what my time is actually worth. I mean, people that send out 4 documents to one person and all 4 documents have glaring mistakes and omissions and can't be used? These mistakes are going to cause a legal war! But, hell they still get $200/hr. and their assistant gets $75/hour, and I get to pay both. One person makes mistakes -it happens, one company may also make mistakes that can happen too.., but when it's the industry standard? Who the hell am I to complain about whittling a block of wax?  

Sponiebr the unwilling and unwitting grand prize winner on this week's installment of "REALITY CHECK NIGHTMARES"  

7 hours ago, NavyVet said:

Chocolate fudge, coconut, buttered rum & pecan pie. My house now smell like a bakery. She has created a German chocolate cake candle. I can not wait to see what else she comes up with.

I read this and thought, "Damn... That's almost my vape juice..."  

47 minutes ago, Moonstar said:

I can truly say I have no idea what your talking about but you sure put a smile on my face ( Ok you get me laughing + scratching my head thinking WTH LOL?) 

Thanks for starting my morning off with a laugh that I so desperatley need lol ! 

Glad I got someone's morning off to a good start. LOL! This thing is basically just like a rubber ink stamp but made of hard material and used to squish a design that would otherwise be printed on a label into a soft bar of freshly made and cut uncured soap. Ya;'know :
"(squish...) Viola! My company name and logo. Wrap some cellophane around it and seal the back with an ingredients sticker. Done. NEXT!!!!!!!"   

Soap stamp example (Why the HELL am I not buying THIS!!!!?)

<------ The sane personality..ytilanosrep enas ton ehT------------>

Sponie

Well, FWIW (keep in mind I'm a soaper) as someone that should be considered as an uninformed buyer, I like them, but I would like to see the wax or some of the candle. I know nothing about chandlery except maybe how to fashion an improvised wick and stick it into a jar of tallow for emergency light. (I mean, I understand the concepts, but I don't make candles.)

Pretty labels though! Maybe if they were a tad more narrow? I dunno. 

Cheers, 

Sponie the suspended executor of nuff'n. 

 

Apparently I don't have enough to do and am OBVIOUSLY bored and possibly losing my mind. I know right? "Possibly losing" my mind? Well, I say that because I KNOW BETTER, and I can't otherwise explain the unspeakably graphic display of gross stupidity that I spent my evening creating.  

So while this project isn't exactly related to soap or candle making it IS somewhat related to both and also mixes in mold making, and it's "crafty" to boot.  SO I post this HERE.

I want a soap stamp. No, no, no, no... not just ANY soap stamp my friends... No a Sponie Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services ORIGINAL MASTERPIECE soap stamp WITH original dies and molds to make MORE stamps!!! These are the minimum requirements... Oh, and it must be FLAWLESS. (a guy's gotta have some standards.)  

Over the last several weeks I finalized a pencil drawing and then scanned it and got a digital image to work with. I then polished the hell out of the digital image using GIMP and got THAT finalized. I converted the stamp to various formats and made a few depth maps so I could hand it over to my dad who does CNC milling. Well, dad ain't going to be able to get around to that for a while, so I decided to do it the old fashioned way, by carving a relief and casting the stamp.

I've actually spent several weeks developing and puttering around with this soap stamp. BUT TONIGHT!!!! I was going to get it DONE. So, this evening, and for most of this morning, I was working on carving the wax to make the positive relief of the stamp so I could make the silicone or plaster molds to cast the final stamp. (Think soap stamp made out of wax)

I'll fast forward through the drudgery of it all: I cast the high temp wax billets, cut the image out, glued (yes glued with Elmer's white glue) the image onto a billet, traced, carved, brushed, and burnished the relief. Total time for carving: 4 hours and damn did I do a nice job!  Something was bugging me, and I couldn't figure it out. I finally convinced myself that it was the air relief vent that I would need to create so that some of the sealed areas would actually stamp at the same depth as the rest of the stamp.  

Man I was IMPRESSED with MYSELF!!! OH TOUCH ME! DON'T I FEEL GOOD? I was RADIANT with SOME KINDA SPECIAL. I wanted to see what this bad-Larry was going to look like as an ink stamp, so I inked it up and splat. Hmmm... yeah I gotta fix that sealed middle part... It just isn't co-operating. It needs an air vent. Something else though seems... off... what is... OH F&^H NO!!!!!!!!!! (I'm stunned)  

NO FREAKING WAY!!!!  (I'm in shock, and might need an ambulance, good thing I'm by myself in the middle of nowhere in the moonlit swamp.) 

(pause: I've made castings before of Scottish clan badges, and sealing wax seals... This isn't my first rodeo, nor my 5th for that matter. resume)

I've, um failed to reverse the image. Yep! I carved a backwards stamp. I've got to start over again. I have NO explanation.. I just totally forgot to flip the image. 

The GOOD NEWS IS: Apparently you can't die from frustration. 

Wax 1 / Sponie 0 

Sponiebr (Suspended: Executor of anything pending outcome of internal investigation) 

2 hours ago, Trappeur said:

I didn't see the post where you said you felt smited, but I don't think it was done maliciously.  Maybe something was said that they just didn't word it correctly and it came out sounding smited.  

Trappeur, just for the record I'm the one that made mention of the word smite. (It's up at the top) Well, here:
"I don't know if you have been on other forums, but the admins of Craft Server are not going to smite you down if you happen to ask about a soap making topic the general soap forum so that the question isn't precisely under it's perfect little sub-forum... I know some forums WILL smite you with lashings of fire and thorns, but not here. Here... Just friendly genuine help to friendly genuine people seeking genuine friendly help."

I'm really trying to lighten up on my usual asinine writing style... (cringe) SORRY!  

Sponiebr (clears throat) Executor of bad, (well, just name it... I'm sure I can make it happen). 

Dear LORD! I thought I had it bad with soap... I had NO IDEA there could be so many issues with a candle. 

(cowers trembling in the corner.)

SORRY!!!! I'm WAY WRONG.... 

That was a custom blend FO in there that I got from someone. That I added cedar pine peppermint and pikake to.... 

Sorry about that.  

13 hours ago, MYTVC15 said:

I did end up buying a glass pyrex measuring cup, like an idiot. that's what I saw the soap queen use and read elsewhere that's what I should use.

No, not at all. There really is a ton of conflicting information on the web. You should get a long time of use out of your pyrex measuring cup, but the instant it starts getting that cloudy look to it after washing it and it dries I'd discontinue using it for M&P. As a general rule glass should never be used in anything with lye. What happens is that between the extremely caustic solution and the very quick rise in temperatures that you get when you mix the lye in with the water the glass develops micro fractures that *can* cause the glass to fracture suddenly. Pyrex also happens to be a high internal stress glass and tends to break rather violently when fractured instead of the simple "plink" kind of fracture that you would hear if you poured hot liquid into a cold glass wine bottle for example. Pyrex is especially prone to these kinds of fractures and the clouding, as you may have noticed with similar measuring cups or pyrex glass bowls that have been washed in a heat-dry dishwasher. The Pyrex glass also tends to heat up all by itself when put into a microwave (really almost all glass does this).  

oh, well. So I added ground up oatmeal to the goat's milk one, and just an extra touch of honey to the already honey one.  No colors or fragrance since Ill be using on my face and i am prone to break outs which is why i am doing this.

That sounds perfect! The oatmeal has some additional proteins in it that you will get the full benefit from because they weren't denatured by the M&P like they would be in a lye soap. The one with the honey should add a little more moisturizing to the soap as it is a humectant and it will also boost your lather a bit.  Please post some pictures of your soap! I would love to see how it turned out.  

I feel out of place here lol, among you serious soap artists. I don't sell soaps and have no desires to do that. Just wanted to find a soap for better skin care along with my oil cleansing method.

NOPE!!!! Stop! You've made soap, so you are one of us now! You can't be out of place among your own.  
Everyone on this forum started somewhere, and if this is where you've started then you've got a great start. This forum is fullonum advice, light, and lava.
I kind of started the same way as you. I made soap when I was a kid/teen a couple of times a year but it was NASTY (frequently lye heavy) soap that was made exclusively for laundry and cleaning stuff around the farm. That stuff I made when I was a kid is nothing like the nice soap I've learned to make over the past couple of years. For what it's worth I'm fairly new to the whole soap crafting thing too. (So you're GOLDEN if they'll put up with me  )  I started off making pine tar soap just for my own use, and this year pretty much everybody on Santa's list is getting soap for Christmas, oh and maybe socks or underwear. Some of my soap is down in the homeless shelter and my Church sold 10 or 12 bars of my soap I donated for one of their bazaars, (and they got full price for it too, just blows my mind).    

I watched so many youtubers and read so much. Makes me want to try cp, but probably will not. no place to do it. and besides my husband thinks i'll blow up our apartment building somehow.
 

Well CP isn't anything to be afraid of. There are just some straight forward handling and safety procedures and precautions (long sleeved shirt, pants, closed toed shoes, gloves, eye googles, no pets or kids in the area, add lye to water only) that need to be religiously followed. Again, youtube can be very misleading especially with CP & HP soaps, after I've formulated an idea from watching youtube and poking about on the web, I normally run my ideas through the forum before tackling anything new. I've seen things on youtube by people that absolutely know what they are doing, and are still being flat out dangerous. I mean that just makes my skin crawl. I personally don't use M&P simply because I won't spend the money to buy it. But to be honest, when I get to doing embeds I'll probably fold and just buy a huge block of clear as soon as I see some on sale. 

I've heard of lye burns, I've heard of soap volcanoes but I haven't heard of anyone blowing anything up with soap making... yet. (That sounds like a really bad idea... I might look into that... )  

I sure do love looking at everyones pretty soaps though. I have never in my life seen soaps like that before.

They're absolutely amazing aren't they? Soap shaped like cupcakes with pipped soap frosting!? Get out! Oh, and the little baby booties and life like flowers that they make with M&P are really just unbelievable.  

You soap artists should sell your soaps on here. So I can buy them and display them in my home to admire, lol. I now have a weird fascination with beautiful hand made soaps! and even addicted to watching videos of people making them, lol. 

A venue here to sell finished product will likely not happen, because this is a fount of knowledge from whence springs the inspiration and wisdom of the collective (resistance is futile) to create.  Stick around, you'll soon get addicted to making these very same things that you now admire yourself.  
 

thank you again.

Glad you're here, and I look forward to hearing about your new adventures! 

22 minutes ago, Candybee said:

Ever since I discovered CS Mistletoe that has been my all time fav! I like that it also opens my sinuses in the winter when its dry and stuffy.

Isn't that stuff AWESOME? I have a little 1 oz bottle and it is DEFINITELY going to make it into some soap. 

I still have not been able to identify my favorite scent yet, and the soap maker doesn't remember what that little extra something was, other than it was a free sample. It's custom blended Tangerine with Cranberry and something, not really sure (it's a weird sweet citrusy note, yuzu maybe?). I don't know. I know htta the FO's were all BB. I've never smelled anything like it since she gave me that soap. I have a small sample of it saved to try and reproduce the scent one of these days. In fact my next FO order will be specifically to try and reproduce that scent. 

That's not just a start, that's an AWESOME start! 

6 hours ago, ILikeWaxMelts said:

Sponiebr; I think you may be able to get other brands of consistent temp. heating plates that way;

But I was looking to avoid the magnet because pour pots are NOT Magnetic they are aluminum.

and the heating plate on this is also aluminum; so I don't have to worry about compatibility with my 4-lb. pour pots this way.

But I do know they also use these in science labs for making stuff like

children's "Gummie vitamins" that are also poured in molds and need a consistent tempeture!! 

Wait... No, neither the container nor the hotplate hob material make any difference at all if they are able to be magnetized or not, in fact they usually are not ferromagnetic (e.g. glass flasks etc...) The stirring comes from a little plastic encased "pill" that you put at the bottom of the heating vessel (in this case your aluminum pour pot) and the magnetic stirring field under the heating element spins the little pill when you place the pot onto the "burner". When you pick the pot up the stirring "pill" stays in the pot and stops spinning until you put the pot back onto the hot plate.  Usually they have a speed controller that lets you vary how fast you want to stir from off to literally jumping out of the pot. 

1 hour ago, ILikeWaxMelts said:

http://www.tmart.com/High-Precision-Digital-Display-Constant-Temperature-Electronic-Heating-Plate-200-200-110V_p335012.html?cc=USD&fixed_price=hk_intl&gclid=CKC_m8zto9ACFQSnaQodtaEOxQ

Do you know if they make one with a magnetic stirrer? 

Welcome! 
I make soap but this is a chandler's paradise! Lot's of really helpful, talented, and knowledgeable people here at Craft Server. I'm glad to know there is another guy out there that can crochet. 

Slainte,

Sponiebr