Donna's Handmade Crafts and GiftsThanks for visiting my site! I have so much more to add, here, and it will take some time! Be sure to check back often for updates! Thank you for your patience!
For more information on each topic, click the title/link: Apple Crisp Mugs
Seeing a "bouquet" of crocheted flowers made using buttons as the centres has inspired me to make these starting with crochet circles, and linking them together to make an afghan/throw. :) I think that'd be a great way to use up scraps of yarn! :D I could start small and add to it as I go. I might have to make six-sided flowers, will see how these stitch up. :) I even saw a six-sided one, the biggest flower! I saved the pin on Pinterest, just in case I ever get around to making these!
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The Liquid Soap Experiment:
Summary of how to make liquid soap: use about a 1/4 bar of shredded soap, at least 8 c of water if your Instant Pot is big enough. Heat it up and then let it cool for 12-24 hours. Stir and/or put the finished product through the blender, and bottle it up, if the consistency is right. If not, add more soap or water as needed and repeat the process until satisfied. Only add Essential Oil (optional) after desired consistency is reached; maybe about 15-20 drops per 1/3c of soap. Different kinds of soap produce different results! Have some fun! All the hives are tucked in for Winter so now is the time to plan for next year and work with whatever is left from this year. I’ve tried making liquid soap before and wasn’t thrilled with the results but I always have a million other things that “need” to be done, so it’s been put on hold. Since then, I have been playing with essential oils for more than just the bees – I’ve jumped back into learning what they can do for us. I have been using tea tree soap bars for a few years, now, as it is naturally antiseptic without being as damaging to our health as some of the synthetic chemical products available. Having to constantly isolate or protect myself from crowds through this pandemic makes shopping a very undesirable chore and I don’t want to buy everything online. What I do buy online, I want to get the most of that shipping cost as possible. And right now, my 2.5 hour/day job is on holidays, so more spare time. I have finally reached a motivation point where making liquid soap has made it to the front page of my to-do list. (*_*) I have lots of bar soap! Lots! Crazy amounts! Where did it all come from? I don’t even like bar soap. Until now! I sat with the guys, a couple of nights ago, watching something on tv, literally peeling layers off a bar of soap with a paring knife. It was a huge bar of soap, so I only did about half of it, with a recipe in mind that i found online. I’m not sure that recipe had enough information. I found this one and am even more excited! This recipe includes more information including how to make naturally antibacterial/antiseptic soap. As for heating it, I thought my Instant Pot would be a great idea! It was! First time, I simply heated the water on “multigrain” setting because I wanted to be sure it would be brought to a boil as quickly as possible – and that one seemed like a good choice. I might be wrong. I added the “peeled” soap, which was actually pretty flaky, about 8 cups of water, then covered and sealed the pot lid, and waited about 12 hours. The result looked like pearly pudding. It was a little thicker, actually a solid, but um, not. I could cut it and the cuts remained, I couldn’t pour it, but I was afraid to try to pick it up with my hands for fear of soapy disaster. I scooped it with a kitchen spoon as if it was cheesecake that wobbled but didn’t seem to blob away. I removed half and added another 8 or so cups of water and just cooked it the way it was, in the Instant Pot, again using the multigrain setting. It had congealed by the time I got up this morning and I could stir it down into a liquid. I thought I was finished, so I poured it into some hand soap dispensers, a giant storage container, and a repurposed food container. The foaming dispenser was not pleased with what I had put in and shaken with water, so I poured that bit into a regular liquid soap pump container. It’s not really happy, either. This new recipe says to try the blender first, so that’s next! Update, yes, the blender worked wonders for the regular soap dispenser. The foaming dispenser is still not happy. They're so finicky! POURING SOAP OUT OF THE INSTANT POT stainless pot is TRICKY, especially without a funnel! Liquid soap doesn’t necessary pour like water! This should seem obvious, but then again, maybe not. I do get to laugh at myself. Sinks are a wonderful invention for catching what spills and for the soap that ended up on the floor, the mop took great care of it. Maybe I shouldn’t really be pouring liquid soap at 6 am, anyway. BTW, I was amazed that after twelve hours, there was still a little bit of warmth in the Instant Pot! You definitely want to leave it alone while it’s still hot. The soap needs to sit, anyway, and the Instant Pot is wonderfully insulated to cool it more slowly. For some of us, making things is fun, so it’s necessary to find other things to occupy the mind while waiting for the process. What to do with the soap?! This may seem overly obvious, but I once read somewhere, the basic fact that soap is soap. I run some through my dishwasher along with washing soda or baking soda, depending on what's handy. I'm not crazy about it as a shampoo but it works great for hand soap, laundry, and mopping floors. Beekeeping finds honey EVERYWHERE so cleanup is constant. We go through a lot of soap and water. My mom actually keeps a big laundry soap jug with a spigot, full of soapy water, for outdoor clean up by the garden, barn, and bee yard. It’s especially wonderful when it’s been sitting in the sun, all warmed up. I have lots of left-over pump bottles from soap and lotion, that work well, too. Because our bee yards are spread out over different farms, it’s good to keep some soapy water in a pump bottle in the car and van, along with a washcloth or even a towel, depending on how messy life might get. |