Soapy happiness

As I've mentioned before, I don't make soap. I use it though for laundry, for my hair, for my body and if I could find a formulation that worked well with dishes, I'd use soap for that too.
Real soap.
I read a lot of books about soapmaking. Even though I don't make soap I'm fascinated by the process and actually E and I do plan to make some sometime soon.
I just finished reading Soap: Making It, Enjoying It by Ann Bramson, it's not very expensive and it's a good book from the early 70s. Not the best book to start with if you want to start making soap, but if you want a clearer idea of how it's made, the history of soap and some tips on making pretty handcarved bars from a simple box mold, it's good. The reason I don't think it's a good beginning soapmaking book is because soapmaking has come a very long way since the mid-70s, the internet, people sharing information, the fact there is so much more information than there was then means that a lot of the information is out of date. Like she says to put the water into the lye in a glass juice bottle which can be dangerous. More current books explain how to mix lye into water more safely.
But the sheer amount of information on the history of soap was a lot of fun to read, and unlike a lot of how to books, her writing style is accessible enough I was able to read it from cover to cover instead of just reading the parts that looked interesting. Soap is a passion for her and her book was one of the first really good ones on soapmaking. Another thing is that most of her soaps are tallow soap, which means rendering fat to make the tallow. I like tallow soaps. In fact an awful lot of current formulations by major soap companies contain tallow, which makes for a nice hard bar of soap. More modern books focus on vegetable and nut oils that don't need hours of boiling and straining and have no animal by-products.
I've gone into detail about why I like soap, real soap over detergents. At some point I'll have to work on a list to ask soapmakers so you can know what you are using and buying. I usually ask if it's hot or cold process (cold process soap isn't boiled after the lye and fat are mixed, it's given time to age and fully cure to be usable, hot process is boiled to completely saponify all the fat and lye mixture and is usable as soon as it sets), if it's super-fatted (which means fat added that isn't saponified) and what additional ingredients are in it and if it uses essential oils or fragrance oils for scent. I will buy soaps that use fragrance oils, but I like to know for sure. Rose and jasmine soap from cottage industries almost always use a fragrance oil because their essential oils are really expensive.
For store bought soaps, there are a couple kinds that are real soap. Little House in the Suburbs says that Ivory is a good substitute for handmade soaps because it's inexpensive and only has a few ingredients which is what you're looking for in real soap. Mike uses Dr. Bronner's exclusively, the liquid version which seems expensive, but a little bit goes a long way, and can actually be diluted to half water, half soap if the people in your family just can't resist using lots.
One thing that Ms. Bramson recommended in her book to cut down on soap usage was not running the bar across your body and keep it all wet in the shower or bath, but using wet hands to soap up your hands and using your soapy hands which keeps the soap from being too water-logged and helps it last longer.
I love using my soaps. Other than Mike, we mostly use Gladheart Acres soap, which is cold process. We buy several bars at a time and the kids sniff them and pick out their soaps carefully. They love the whole process of it. We use end-cuts and mistakes from them in our kitchen and by our bathroom sinks for handwashing.
I'm reading another book on soapmaking now in between working on my current project which is pin cushion that's just turning out too cute. I should have that done in a day or two to show off and post general instructions for on Beadwork at Bellaonline.com.

The Compleat Cook- a 1658 cookbook

I love my Kindle.
One of the nice things about it is that slowly a lot of the public domain material from places like Project Gutenberg is becoming available in Kindle format so I can hit one click buy for free, and turn on my Kindle, open up the connection, and get it in seconds. The weird part is that a lot of it is not being reviewed. So I went to review a cookbook I downloaded and just started really going through in the last couple of days. The cookbook is The Compleat Cook Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether Italian, Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering Of Sauces or Making of Pastry which was printed in 1658.(Project Gutenberg link to read online or download) The first reviewer said it was from 1658 and you couldn't make the recipes now. I had to disagree and said this..
Yes, the first reviewer is right, this IS a cookbook from 1658. But I don't see that as being a bad thing at all. A lot of the recipes in it are doable now and adaptable. If you are interested in renaissance era cooking at all, it's an invaluable guide and being in Kindle format makes it easy to bookmark things you want to try out later.
It is NOT a step by step cookbook as we are used to now, so it will take a little bit of research to understand what some of the terms are, as well as a decent knowledge of how to cook to be able to do the recipes in it. It will call for "enough flower to make a past" which means enough flour to make a paste/dough, or for cooking in a "quick" oven which means hot. You don't get exact temperatures or times or even exact measurements for a lot of the recipes.
That said, I read some of the recipes to my husband yesterday and he's looking forward to me trying them.
It also has a couple bread recipes in it, and a lot of bread recipes weren't recorded in the middle ages and during the renaissance because it was generally assumed that people knew how to make bread. Which leads to another thing that people miss in older recipes. We are very used to having instant dry yeast available to us, so when we look at older beer or bread recipes that call for a cup of yeast, it's a bit confusing. Yeast at that point was the sourdough yeast culture, a liquid mix of flour and water that had live yeast growing and active in it.
It's free and it's a nice bit of history.
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I'll admit, there is something very strange about reading a cookbook that old on something that seems to be science fiction to me still even having one.
You can see all my book reviews here.
Okay..back to beading.

BeadTool4

I recently wrote a review of BeadTool 4 that you can find here on the BellaOnline beadwork site. I'm really impressed with it. In the article I used some pictures I took of mushrooms to show how nicely the photo conversion works.
I just used one of those wild rose pictures I took this summer and converted it to a 50x50 peyote stitched pattern.

This is the photo I used.

 

The realistic bead image, set at size 12 for export.

 

Indexed, unshaded beads, same pattern. It also generated a color list.

1-DB-1482 Transparent Lt Rose Luster Count:666
2-DB-1267 Matte Transparent Olive Count:402
3-DB-1484 Transparent Lt Moss Green Luster Count:148
4-DB-279 Lined Green/Maroon Luster Count:409
5-DB-310 Jet Black Matte Count:69
6-DB-436 Galvanized Pewter Count:46
7-DB-1406 Transparent Pale Grey Count:49
8-DB-1497 Opaque Lt Sky Blue Count:12
9-DB-281 Lined Pale Blue/Magenta Luster Count:50
A-DB-1054 Matte Metallic Violet/Gold AB Count:18
B-DB-422 Metallic Magenta  Count:226
C-DB-1310 Transparent Fuchsia Count:142
D-DB-1340 Silver Lined Bright Fuchsia Count:54
E-DB-1184 Galvanized SF Magenta Count:62
F-DB-355 Matte Rose Count:91
G-DB-157 Opaque Cream AB Count:41
H-DB-121 Dark Topaz Gold Luster Count:15
As usual, click on the images for the full sized view. I really really like this program. It won't replace the way I usually graph, but for photo conversion it's really wonderful.

We got our first snowfall!

It's all snowy and white. I love the way it looks.
I drew this box this morning to celebrate. I hope you like it! Click on the image for the full sized version. Makes a 2x2 inch cube.

Sparkly Recycled Cardboard Ornaments

 We keep cardboard food packaging to use for crafting. It becomes the frame work for duct tape purses, new boxes, covers and backs for mini-notebooks and all sorts of other things. I like these a lot too. Glittered ornaments for our tree.

What you'll need is templates or craft punches a small hole punch, all but the heart I used a 1/8 inch punch on, glitter, we used Martha Stewart's because I have lots of it I bought on sale after the holidays last year,glue and some sort of spray sealer.

If you use my templates, print them out on paper, then cut them out. Trace the shapes on to your cardboard and cut out the cardboard. A craft knife is helpful for the peace symbol, but if you work carefully you can use scissors.

Punch a small hole near the top, and cover the shapes with glue and sprinkle glitter on them. Let dry. Seal. If you want them to come out very nice and neat looking, you could spray paint the shapes before spreading the glue and glitter on them, but I like the way these look without it. We put the glitter on the plain brown side.

You can actually decorate these all sorts of ways. I offered my daughter buttons and sequins as well. She did the green ones.She also wanted me to point out the shapes make nice negative stencils to decorate clothing with. Click on the templates for the full sized version.

 

Sally's Snowflake- Cookie Box template

4 different colors. I hope you enjoy this as much I enjoyed doing the art for it.

Click on the image for the full sized version. Print at 100 dpi on card stock. Thinking more about this shape, I think it would work well for gifts of handkerchiefs as well. I have handkerchiefs on the mind though, I just got a bunch of vintage ones for my daughter so she'd stop using her great grandmother's hankies. She's thrilled with the prettiness of them, and I told her since they were hers she could re-embroider them if she wanted.

 

 

 

I was thinking about putting individual blank templates in my Etsy shop for 1.50 each for other people to use. I'll still keep posting lots of decorated ones here if I do that.

Heart topped box

Another new template. The top of this one makes a heart shape by interlocking the top pieces. 4 color ways. I hope you enjoy it!
Click on the images for the full sized versions. 100 ppi makes a 2 inch cube shaped box.