simplybeelightful

Is the MMS buttercream also in the recipe along with all the above? Just needed some clarification to see how it works. So just melt all the ingredients, do you know what temperature more or less? Then pour into a lip balm tube, how do you pour it in the little tube without spilling? How long you have to wait for it to harden? New at all this. Thanks.

Easiest way I found to fill lip balm tubes was using plastic syrings from your local veterinarian. Dip the rubber seal on the plunger into an oil to help it slide in the syringe, suck the melted lip balm mixture into the syringe and just start filling tubes. One caution, always hold the syringe straight up and down (never on it's side) when full of mixture or it will drain out. Clean the syringe in very hot water with dish soap and a baby bottle brush.

Very cute purse, espcially for a teen! Also like the idea of where the jeans came from. What a great idea for your favorite pair of jeans. Good job.

Not exactly my style but I like them. I LOVE the headboard! Nice job!

Sorry, guess I should have read first. :rolleyes2 I use 2/0 square braided all cotton wick for votives, regardless of whether they are white or yellow.

They shouldn't. What size candle are you making?

I used to subscribe to 2-3 of the craft show listings but have found one of the best ways to find shows is to talk to other crafters but, beware, a good show for someone else may not be a good show for you.

The best tip I would have for doing shows is to pick shows that have a high attendance. I never do a show that has less than 2,000 in attendance. They say you can only count on 10% of those attending even looking at your products.

I add 1 TBLS per ppo and add it to my warm oils stick blend in then add lye solution. I use this no matter what lye solution I use.

Ditto. I have found that the honey makes small brown spots in the soap when it is first unmolded but the spots eventually go away as the soap cures. Honey is a wonderful addition to soap.

oh, sounds complicated!

I would have to argue that beeswax and borax are not compatible as emulsifiers. I have made my formula with the two for many years and continually have had to add water to thin down my lotion. My recipe is pretty much the same (more or less) as that described.

It does make the soap a little softer when unmolded but it will harden. I wouldn't go anymore than 2 tbs. Have tried and it just didn't work. But I also love soap with honey in it (but then, being a beekepeeper I might be a little biased). The only thing I found was that the honey left little brown spots in the soap at first but they eventually disappeared. Good luck!

Thought about it cause I have such allergies but never did.

I'm of the opinion that the closer you have your tables and displays to the outside of your awning or booth, the better sales you have. This depends a lot on the show you are doing but, generally, most people are too lazy to walk into your booth so you lose a lot of lookie-loos that might end up buying something. We try to get as close to the walkway as we can.

Your local grocery store should sell "lunch bags". They are nice sized little brown paper bag and are very inexpensive. Check in the isle where you find baggies.

They do the same thing in my lavender beeswax soap. Everyone thinks I put ground up bees in the soap!

Chamomile blends well with rose. One of my soap scents is chamomile and rose petals (from candles and scents). Very nice.

Try www.rusticescentuals.com. Don't know if they have them or not but they do have a lot of lip balm supplies

Personally, I would probably use it. I wouldn't, however, make lip balms to sell from it until you at least test it. I can't think there would be anything in the wax. Yaley is a pretty good company as far as I know and unless they it says there are additives...

That would be my only concern too. Not sure how you could find out about anything being added to the beeswax. Does the wax say "for candle use only", or something to that effect?

To answer your second question, beeswax is a very hard wax that will get a little brittle over time but I think that still takes many, many years to occur. We have wax that is several years old that still looks like it did when we first poured it. If you're getting beeswax that is soft, it most likely has something added to it.

My best advice would be to get some beeswax from a local beekeeper to make sure you are getting good wax with nothing else in it.

scrape off as much as you can, then use Goo Gone and a paper towel. Works great!

I'm a beekeeper. I have used just plain, filtered beeswax in my lip balms, lotion, etc. for several years now. No problems. I think unless you are going to go into making lip balms in a huge way, like maybe Burt's Bees or Chapstick, you're fine.

By the way, I don't use white beeswax either.

I have an officejet pro HP printer and although I love how fast it prints and the quality, the $$ of ink is killing me. I was looking on Ebay and found many off brand replacement cartridges that are supposed to be compatible. In the past I filled my own ink cartridges with a much cheaper printer. Has anyone used a compatible brand for their printer. I don't want to chance messing it up.

I ruined a Xerox all in one by using an "off brand" ink. I wouldn't recommend it.

True, but until people start standing up for what's right and what is wrong and then holding some of these organizations accountable for the stupid things they say and do, nothing is going to change.

I personally wouldn't associate myself with any organization with these kind of extreme opinions.

If not for your own personal principals, think about your customer's. I don't think I would buy from a company that supports PETA and, basically, if you are paying $100 for that logo, you are supporting them.

And peta is who you want to be aligned with? They are a terrorist organization and they do nothing for animals. Their ultimate goal is the extinction of all animal use, including pets and livestock. Do some research here http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ or here http://www.naiaonline.org/body/articles/archives/arterror.htm In the meantime, here is a lovely quote by peta's "Humane Education" lecturer:

"Sometimes I think the only effective method of destroying speciesism would be for each uncaring human to be forced to live the life of a cow on a feedlot, or a monkey in a laboratory, or an elephant in the circus, or a bull in a rodeo, or a mink on a fur farm. Then people would be awakened from their soporific states and finally understand the horror that is inflicted on the animal kingdom by the vilest species to ever roam this planet: the human animal! Deep down, I truly hope that oppression, torture and murder return to each uncaring human tenfold! I hope that fathers accidentally shoot their sons on hunting excursions, while carnivores suffer heart attacks that kill them slowly

"Every woman ensconced in fur should endure a rape so vicious that it scars them forever. While every man entrenched in fur should suffer an anal raping so horrific that they become disemboweled. Every rodeo cowboy and matador should be gored to death, while circus abusers are trampled by elephants and mauled by tigers. And, lastly, may irony shine its esoteric head in the form of animal researchers catching debilitating diseases and painfully withering away because research dollars that could have been used to treat them was wasted on the barbaric, unscientific practice vivisection." Gary Yourofsky, PeTA Humane Education Lecturer, quoted in the University of Southern Indiana Student Newspaper, The Shield, January 24, 2008

Are these really the people who's seal of approval you want on your products?

Makes me glad I didn't send my kids to the U of Southern Indiana!

That may be right but, if that's true then very little in life in truly natural. Right? Even that apple has been picked, trucked to a processing plant, washed, inspected, graded for size and quality, coated with wax to make it shiny then trucked to a grocery store to be sold. So is that not a natural food then?

Just because you take the beeswax from a hive of bees, melt it down, pour it in a mold and stick a wick in the middle, then it's not a natural wax any more?

Guess I don't understand that line of thought. Oh well, guess we'll just agree to disagree on this point!

Sorry - to clarify

I meant that I personally believe one can say that a candle is "made with natural materials", but not that a candle itself is all natural.

apples are natural, applesauce is not.

in my opinion.

I agree, but, if you make a beeswax candle with nothing but beeswax in it (no mold release, no stearic, no scent, etc.) I consider that a candle that is all natural. :smiley2: