Recently I’ve been getting emails from some of the organizers of last year’s craft fairs, asking if I want to rent space again. A month ago, I would have said I wasn’t interested, but I’m starting to get the bug again. I still enjoy making the Juicybags products, but I want to expand into other crafts using recycled materials.

Last Christmas, I bought some fun jewelry pendants for my daughter from Etsy. They were made from Scrabble letter tiles, with a Twilight theme. They were a huge hit with my daughter and her friends, so I thought I might try my hand at making some. I’ve ordered some supplies and as soon as they arrive I’ll give them a try. Here’s a shop that makes some really sweet designs.

I’m working on an idea to recycle old pop and rock LPs into drink coasters, but I haven’t hit on the exact method I’ll use. I picked up a few dollar store cork-backed coasters and decoupaged them with cuttings from scrapbook paper. They turned out pretty well, they just need a couple of coats of spray varnish to make them waterproof. This is how they started:

And then after I tweaked them (they still need the spray coating):

Then I started researching soap making. I know– nothing recycled about that– but there’s something about handmade soap that just grabs me. There is an amazing amount of information out there in web land about handmade soaps. I’ve been riveted to YouTube, watching people hot process and cold process and whatever-process. There’s a fantastic soap supply shop not far from here, so I dropped in and gathered everything I needed to make my first batch. There’s no way I was going to have the patience to wait 4-6 weeks for a cold processed batch to cure, so I thought I’d try hot process first. It was fun and easy, although after reading all the warnings about working with lye I was a bit nervous at first. There seems to be a lot to learn about how to scent soaps correctly with oils or fragrances, let alone all the additives I can barely pronounce! Anyway- for my first batch I used an online soap calculator to mix coconut, palm, and olive oils and shea butter. I tried a grapefruit essential oil for scent because Jon and I both like citrusy soaps. I added some tumeric for colour and a handful of grated orange peel for a bit of texture.  I loved how the colour was a bit uneven and the cut bars looked kinda rustic (in a good way), but …..NO scent! I was so disappointed. I mean, it’s ALL about the scent with handmade soaps, right? So, I headed back to the soap supply shop to ask for advice. I decided to go ahead and grate all the soap up and rebatch it (melt it down and try again!) Pretty simple to do– just grate it up with a cheese grater, chuck it all in the slow cooker and wait till it goes back to the mushy stage. It took a while and some mixing but it got there. I found out that citrus essential oils have a low flash point, which I think means they evaporate at low temps (like 110-115 F) so I let the batch cool down to just below 110 F before I added a dose of Sweet Orange and Grapefruit, with a dash of Litsea Cubeba as well. Do I sound like I know what I’m doing? Apparently that last one helps to hold on to the citrus scents. Let’s hope so!

It’s all cut and drying now- Yeah, it looks pretty rough, but I prefer to call it rustic:-) I’m calling it Marmalade Smoothie. What do you think? It was starting to get quite solid when I was packing it into the molds. It smells very good in the room, but who knows if that’s from the oils that got all over the utensils or the actual soap! It should sit to dry out and harden for a week or two before it’s used, so I’ll post again later with the final outcome. Next I thought I’d try soap made with beer! Jon had a can of Red Racer Pale Ale that somehow sprung a leak near the top, so he let me steal it. Wish me luck.

Ever since I first saw them at LUSH I’ve wanted to try making bath bombs at home. You know, those hard and dry colourful bombs that burst into fizziness when they are dropped into the water? Well, I made my first batch the other night. They are a bit tricky if you don’t know what it’s supposed to look or feel like at the molding stage, but I think I figured it out. I made pale pink half-balls scented with grapefruit essential oil. I need to find a better mold, or maybe use my heart-shaped muffin pan.  I tried using some hollow Christmas tree ornament balls (they are sold with candy inside) but they had a bit of a lip inside the open edge that made it really difficult to get the bombs out. I can see these would be really fun to make and sell- there are lots of colours, scents and accents you can add to decorate them. They’d make great gifts and stocking stuffers. Can you see that they are pink in this photo?

This last one was really fun and easy. I melted down some old broken crayons in the oven in star-shaped molds. I thought it would be fun to have something fun and inexpensive to sell and a way to pass on the recycling message to kids. They turned out so well, although the hard part was getting all the paper wrappers off. Soaking them in water helped but some were really stuck. The finished crayons look great and are fun to colour with. They would be perfect for kids to rub on paper over textures to make designs in a mix of colours. Excellent stocking stuffer too! I got the idea from a teacher who made these and gave them to her students on their birthdays- sweet! I love that these are chunky and easy for little kids to hold.