cedar_lea

I knew I saw this somewhere -- Natures garden has a Melissa fragrance in thier bargan oils. It might be worth a try

http://www.naturesgardencandles.com/candlemaking-soap-supplies/item/eosale/--**CLOSEOUT-Nature-Identical-Fragrances-.html

When I got one of my first FO orders I got the little sniffies from Elements and one was their honey. My roomate couldn't stop sniffing it. I left it with him & the next morning 1/4 of the bottle had disappered because he sniffed it so much. Needless to say I have a few oz now .

Bookmarked. Not for crafting, just because I love trying all the different salts from all over the world

Thanks for the link

OMG another local supplier I hadn't found in my seaching! I drive right by there once a month for work!

How well did they scent Raven?

Being pretty noob myself I know the answer to some of these questions.

Scale: You want digital, no really, and one that does .1 oz because sometime you're going to be doing as small of a batch as possible to save supplies when testing and need it, or mixing FOs. Scales are found hiding on the bottom shelf near dishes or blenders depending on the store. Walmart has a $30 one and a $50 one. I suggest the $50 one. I have the $30 and it's not very good at small measurements (sometimes it doesn't seem to register) and likes to shut off if it goes too long without use --which is pretty obnoxious because you usually have a half full container that now you can't get a tare weight on.

Pour pot: Someone suggested using pyrex containers for pour pots and I love it. I put it in my pan of water on the oven and balance it on those metal cookie cutters and let it boil. I can see the color and it has a pour spout, which I am WAY too messy to live without.

You want to see these things?

I don't know how informative it would be for anyone else, but I do have a picture I was using just to label my SA %s and keep my testing notes strait.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NTR2NEOPSFAQ5T7DO6RCCPAVJ4/album/photos/409296

What am I seeing in that soap? It looks amazing!

They remind me of my grandmother's rock collection. I love the way the colors blend together.

We discovered Scentsy before I started playing with candlemaking and have been burning them fairly regularly since.

I made my first tarts on Tuesday. On Wed I did a test burn & on Thursday me and my SO were fighting because we were late for work and grumpy . . .

In the middle of it he turns to me and says "In all serious I just want to say that I think your scents are wonderful and are lasting much longer than the Scentsy ones" And this was a tart with only 24hrs cure and only a 5% scent load . . .

Needless to say, we stopped fighting after that.

OK cool! I can try the warmed oven like I do with my palm candles!

Basically I found the supplier website that had the most details on how to work with the wax and tried to go with it. I so have no clue what I'm doing. I'm glad I finally found your thread on chocolate so I know what all of the stirring is about! So I don't really know if my pour temp is a good choice or if I should be doing something different than heating it to 180 and then stirring until it reachest 150. Trying to decipher all of the info out there is really complex. But I'm still really happy that it's the asthetics of frosting that are my biggest challenge!

Something nutty or spicey

I really like the abstracted bamboo. You get the feel without it needing to be precise or realistic.

Very cool design. Artistically genious!

Getting long enough wicks is the trick with those jars. I know that some wicks come long but usually they're higher than reccomened. You might just have to shop around or look into using the spooled wicking that you cut yourself. I got around my wicking problem by filling the bottom with pebbles and sand so I don't have a good answer for you unfortunately. You may be able to do something similar for testing purposes until you find a wick size or three that seems to like your wax in that container and then you'll only have to get longer sizes of the ones your most likely to use. I'd do a search and make sure I knew where to find them before going there though. With the sand I do a small first pour shortly after the wax is melted to give it time to settle before doing the actual candle pour. It's worked well.

Threw the one with 8% SA in the warmer and it melted and has filled the room with scent. The cold throw was great & the hot throw is about average, which I'm taking as good considering it only had 24hrs cure and was only a 5% fragrance load.

So everything is working wonderfully, except for the lovely powder coating. So far the wax is everything I hoped it would be. Next stop seeing if coconut oil makes it better. . . . oh yea and testing to see if there's a level of SA that seems best. So far so good. Thanks everyone!

Awesome! Pine scented felt Christmas orniments like my grandma taught me to make are in my future!

I may have to check these out. They sound really cool. Are they something you could use as stuffing in a cute beany baby type way?

Picked up the C3 and some Saelic Acid today! I poured some testers in a silicone ice cube tray. I did plain C3, 1%, 2%, 4%, 6%, & 8%. Even the basic C3 popped out nice (I think the fact that it frosted lots helped that). I think I'm leaning toward the 4% or the 6% though. I colored them green and threw my spring blend in. I was planning on playing with beeswax too, but it doesn't look like that will be necessary. They smell really good so far, but obviously need time to sit before I can get them into a burner.

I read everything I could and followed the most detaled instructions I could find, which meant I heated the wax to 180, took it off the burner and stirred until it reached 150 and poured. Definate frosting on all of them so I'll have to figure out what to do about that.

But it seems like a sucessful experiment and I'm glad I went ahead and did it. More playing in my future!

I really like the simplicity of one big wave swirl. It looks like summertime!

That's really beautiful!! Do you have any advise/technique points on mica dusting? I just ordered my first micas too so I'll be trying to figure them out soon.

Gosh you could go a million directions with that! You could mix it with chocolate and get a spicey chocolate with a hint of citrus, berry and . . . something else (because nobody's going to go "is that bayberry?")

You could try to push the berry notes some with other berry scents. I have a rasberry that smells like Chambord that comes to mind. Also a wine would work, you always here descriptions of peppery and berry notes on wine bottles so it's not much of a stretch. The same with pushing the citrus or the herby like others already suggested.

You could also go floral and name it something that implies a super girly girl with a bit of spice. . .

And I'm sure there's options I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Going with scented's blend I would probobly add a few drops of grass or some other green scent to make it a little less oakmossy and greener. I don't know what other green scents are out there that would be good. Grass is the only one in my cupboard that I could suggest so there might be a better one. .

I love those! I hadn't seen any of the glow in the dark stuff yet and it looks like it's really glowing. My SO collects rubber ducks & he would love those!

Well I don't know about hated . . . but I definately change my mind about things I'm ambivalent toward. Cucumber is my latest "OMG why didn't I realise this was awesome" scent. There's also a couple of scents I have to remind myself that I only hate on my skin. I will think I hate musks, but then I have this memory of the first time I decided to buy my Mom perfume for Chistmas. I had the sales lady try on almost every scent in the store & I thought most of them were too flowery/powdery/soapy and finally decided on a musk scent, so I can't hate musk completely.

I have to wait until they open on Monday or else I'd be hovering over the oven right now

I hadn't decided how I wanted to portion them. I had thought maybe I'd use a silicone ice tray mold I have of star shapes but I'm not sold on the idea. I hadn't even thought of portion cups. I ran off after reading your post to go educate myself & them seem pretty cool.

So if I wanted to do silicone molds I think I could add beeswax & that would make it hard, or I could just get restraunt cups and not worry about it. Decisions decisions! Thanks for the info.