Handmade Christmas Presents part one: Soaking in a hot tub!

Want to surprise all those aunts and sisters and grandmas and teachers with something handmade that they can actually use? Want to show your kids about the chemical reaction of natron and citric aid, dissolved in water? Then join me making some cosmetics:

We made bathfizzies, bathsalt, lipgloss and soap, but let´s just start with the bath fizzies. One thing I loved last year, when I regained a little freedom after my twins grew older, was soaking in the tub, for long evenings, with a book. I´ve always loved floating, but then again, who doesn´t? And I´ve always loved those luxury bath fizzies, smelling like some essential oils and coloring the bathwater. Only, they are pretty pricey, and even now, as I could afford them, why buy when you can diy? (Love this saying!)
So, I went researching the internet, raided a pharmacy and went to work. Also, this is an awesome chemical experiment to show to your children, so, gather your ingredients:

You will need:
2 cups of natron
1cup of citric aid (not liquid. We got it in the pharmacy)
1/4 cup of cornstarch
1/2 cup of cocoabutter (from the pharmacy, too)
This is the base. You can add fragrances or color in form of foodcoloring (not liquid), as much as you want to.
Then you first mix the dry ingredients (Natron, citric aid and cornstarch) in a bowl:
while you melt the cocoa butter in a double boiler:
 
pour the cocoa butter into the bowl with your dry ingredients, add essential oils and foodcoloring and mix with hands.
 
It will feel like wet sand, and just like with wet sand on the beach, you now form balls with your hands, such as these:

 

You need to let them dry for 24 hours, then they become pretty hard, so you can wrap them in little boxes or cellophane or jars, without them breaking. When you throw them into water, they dissolve, and the natron reacts with the citric aid, causing your water to sputter. We tried it with the rests from our bowl right away, and it worked:

 

Should have taken a smelling and sounding picture, though :) Martha Stewart offers a similar recipe, only she moulds her fizzies in icecube trays and adds cane sugar, which sounds intresting, as well. Check her recipe out here.

We still had some cocoa butter spare, so we used it to make lipbalm. We got very cheap containers from the pharmacy: 

They were five cent each, and the only small containers we could find, so we had to spice them up a bit, by spraypainting the lids: 

Then we simply chopped some lipstick rests into the doubleboiler: 

 

Then we melted those lipstick rests together with the cocoabutter, and if you have, some beeswax. We had, from our candle project, but be carefull using not too much beeswax, or your lipbalm will get too hard. Pour the mixture into your containers, and voila - you´ve got homemade lipbalm. 

And as for the bath salt - we simply bought plain salt crystals and mixed them with petals, essential oils, or the contents of teabags like peppermint or christmas spice. Oh, and we added foodcoloring. And glitter. We love foodcoloring and glitter. Then we filled this in jars and photoshopped some nice labels:

 

The girls wrote the texts themselves and photoshopped with my assistance. So, what have we got: 

- A personalized cosmetics package for lots of female friends and relatives

-Children learning about homogenization, chemical reactions, photoshop and an attitude not to buy everything and

- an afternoon of fun in the kitchen! Cool, huh?

So, this was the first of my handmade christmas posts. There will be more to come, and I thought I´d match them with... well... a nice wintersong, okay? Such as this warm and cozy song, that sounds like floating in hot water, too:

Handfelted cuffs, or garnets, or whatever you call them, tutorial part one

Like these?I mean, it´s far too warm to wear them right now, but it´s never too early to start thinking about christmas presents, right?
These are made combining wetfelting and needlefelting, so let´s first focus on the wetfelting-part and gather our supplies for this:Wool. Only black and red, for these, of course. Well, colors you like. I bought mine here, I don´t think they´ll ship internationally, but I bet you´ll find a way to get some nice, soft, unspun wool for felting. I bought several colors, because I want to make tons of cuffs. For everyone. But let´s go on:You´ll also need warm (or hot) water, soap (olive soap is very good, but I think any will do), something to quicken the fulling process like bubblewrap, or a bamboomat, or a towel, an area that can get wet and this black plastic strip you see on the left of the pic. That´s for shaping both cuffs, and I cut it from an old placemat. The size is a little bigger than both your cuffs should be. Any plastic that´s thick enough will do, but don´t take cardboard, it will soak. So, no you take your wool and layer it on your plasticstrip: See, on the left and right side, it needs to verlap a little. I tried to describe the process of how to tear the wool in this post, and now you simply take those "feathers" and layer them, until one side of your strip is fully covered. Looks like a friendly, fluffy dog, right?Now gently sprinkle everything with warm water. Felting is all about being gentle, if you work too fast, you´ll get holes and clumps. Take your soap, and like washing your hands, make lots of bubbles. Then, still very gently, process caressing your wool, only with your fingertips, until you feel that the surface solidifies. Is that a proper word? Well, it should look something like this: Take it, with the plastic strip still in place, and flip it around. Fold the overlapping, wet wool on your strip, cover the whole thing with wool, like you did before, and repeat the last steps on this side. It doesn´t matter if it looks a little uneven, like this: Because wool is a natural product, and it´s supposed to behave a little strange. Just proceed felting, until you get the feeling everything is in place and the wool won´t shift when you move your piece. Make sure you also felt the sides. When everything feels fine, remove the plastic strip, and place your work on a towel: Wrap it, make it nice and cozy:Pour hot water on it. Make it very, very soapy. Roll it, knead it like dough, flip it, until you can feel the muscles of your arms. Sweat. Any spare agressions? Put ém here. We´re done with the gentle. Your piece will tighten and shrink during this process, how much depends on a) how long you work and b) the characteristics of your wool. Felting is a lot about trial and error, that´s why I like it. Open your towel and try wearing your piece:
This still looks a little loose, so I worked a little more until I was satisfied. Then rinse it and wring it out,cut it in half like this, trim the edgesand wear :-)
This was probably the longest tutorial I ever put up here, so, I split it up.
I explain the needlefelting here.
And in case you´d like to see how they can look in violet, click here.
I hope I´m still in time to link this to my favourite linklist, .
And as this was such a long tutorial, I´m glad my favourite song today is a long song, too, so I don´t have to push F5 too often:I admit it´s a little corny. But hey, I like corny.

So, my fellow ladies, I do indeed appreciate contact, feel free to leave me a comment below. Hugs, Helen