How To: Salt Dough Angels

When I was little, my Mom and I used to make salt dough ornaments for our Christmas tree. I made more when I went away to college, then again when I had a house and tree of my own as an adult.  This year, my kids and I made more salt dough angels together.  This is how we did it...

Here is a pdf file with the template we used for the cut-out portions of the angel pattern.  It includes the dress, wings and halo.  The head, legs and hands can be rolled and shaped free-form.

First, cut out the various parts of the template.

Then roll out your salt dough so that it's about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.  We used a proportion of 2 parts flour to 1 part salt and 1 part water.  We put parchment paper down on the table to keep things clean and make the rolling easier.

Next, cut out the dress body, dress arms, wings and halo using a tool with a thin edge (like a butter knife).

It's hard to be very precise when cutting out the "feather" detail on the wings, so we went back over them with a toothpick to shape them more.

To make the angels look more 3-dimensional, we added an actual body underneath the clothes, like this.  Then we placed the dress body and sleeves on top.

The sleeves get folded over and a small oval ball of dough becomes the folded hands and helps hold the sleeves in place.

The part my kids liked doing best was adding the hair.  We used a garlic press to squeeze out long strands of salt dough, then used toothpicks to shape them around the head, which is the last part to be added.  It's also a good idea at this point to poke a hole or two in the place where you plan to hang a string from.  We poked two holes in the halo to run string through later.

Here's my 11 year old daughter's angel.

And my 7 year old daughter's...

We put them all in the oven on a low temperature (275 degrees) for 60 minutes, or so, to dry them out.

After they are completely dry and cool, they can be painted.  It's a good idea to seal them with some sort of spray varnish after they are decorated, since this keeps additional moisture from penetrating the dough and making them soggy.

Voila!

Winter Solstice Soap

In all the mad hurrying and scurrying to get ready for the holiday sales season, I made a blunder on one batch of soap.  I accidentally added the essential oils from two different varieties to the same batch.  Happily, it turned out to be a lovely mistake.  It's a little like those old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercials from the 1980s where two people run into each other on the sidewalk and chocolate and peanut butter collide...a wonderful accident.

Winter Solstice Soap is made with honey, beeswax and the oils of frankincense, myrrh, clove and orange.  It's warm and spicy and sweet, all at the same time.  It's a perfect winter scent.

I wanted to choose label art for it that made folks think of the cozy glow of candles in the long, dark winter.  I chose today (Daylight Savings Day) to make it available because I think there's lots to love in this stretch of time until the Winter Solstice on December 21st.  The darkness of the longest night is always lifted by candlelight.  

Thanks to the Graphics Fairy for this great image.

Each bar is individually wrapped and labeled for gift-giving.  There is only one batch, so don't miss out!

Tough Chick Soap

I have a new One Batch bare bar soap available on the website today.  It's called Tough Chick Soap because it's a mixture of floral, feminine sweetness and rough and tough ground organic oats.  It's scented with fine French lavender essential oil and is made with honey from the Ballard Bee Company.  The smell is a complex, sweet floral.  It's lovely.  You should try some!

How To: Batik Dyed Easter Eggs

We decorated Easter eggs yesterday, using the same method that my Mom taught me as a child.  I'm not sure what the name of it would be, probably pysanka, batik or wax relief.  It's basically the same technique that is traditionally used to make intricate Ukrainian Easter eggs, though our style is much more "free form" and abstract.  

Here's what you need: 

• hard boiled eggs 
• wax--I used soy wax, but regular paraffin would do.  You could even just melt down old candles that you have lying around.
• container to melt the wax in
• wax pen and/or q-tips
• dye for coloring the eggs--We always add some vinegar too, to help set the color.

Melt your wax on a very low heat.  Simmer is best, or else it might start smoking.  If you get the wax too hot, it flows too quickly out of the pen and you also run the risk of getting burned more easily.

This is what the wax batik pen looks like up close.  It has a little hole and chamber where the melted wax goes in and then pours out of the small hole in the tip.  You don't have as much control as with a regular ink pen, but you can achieve some nice lines and squiggles.

For brighter color contrast, we decided to use white shelled eggs rather than the brown ones that our family typically eats.

To apply the wax, just hold the egg over the wax pot (to catch drips) and "draw" your designs onto the egg.  Be careful of dripping wax onto skin and fingers because it's a little hot...though not as hot as the wax from a burning candle.  We didn't have any wax injuries, thankfully.

The wax cools and hardens in seconds, and you're ready to dip the egg into your color bath.  Every part of the egg the wax touches stays the color that is under the wax.  We usually went through this wax & color dip process two or three times for each egg, making sure to let the dye dry completely in between each step.    

The final step is to use your fingernail to gently scrape off the wax.  You do need to be careful about how hard you push, or else you end up with a few cracked eggs.  I think we lost two out of the 18 that we started with.

Sometimes the coolest effects come from multiple wax applications and color baths.  The end result can be a lovely colorful abstract that reminds me of some sort of Wassily Kandinsky painting.  Part of the fun is not knowing exactly what you're going to end up with until you scrape off the wax.

Happy Easter!

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You Dirty Dog!

After many months of planning and recipe tweaking, I'm finally ready to introduce our newest creation:  Dirty Dog Soap!

We've been using it on our own dirty dog, Murdoch.

He LOVES it...see? 

OK...so maybe love isn't exactly the best word, but it makes him smell quite fresh and clean and leaves his coat incredibly soft and fluffy.  He seems to like it a lot once he's out of the bath.

I think there's a trace of a proud smile here.  Perhaps.

Dirty Dog Soap could actually be categorized as a shampoo bar, since it contains natural ingredients like jojoba, coconut and castor oils, which make a wonderfully rich lather and moisturize the hair and skin.  The bar is scented with a pure essential oil blend of peppermint, lemongrass & lavender.  This mixture is fresh and invigorating as well as being severely disliked by bugs and little beasties.  The yellow flecks of color in the bar come from the calendula flower which is often used to heal, soften and sooth dry skin.

I should mention too, that there's absolutely nothing that makes this soap unsuitable for humans.  The ingredients are identical to those found in human shampoo and bath  bars.  The smell is wonderful and the lather sensational.  This is a soap the entire family will love...including the furriest members. 

How To: Glitter Votives

By this time of year I'm always itching for spring to arrive.  The days are starting to get longer, but it's still pretty wintery, gray and dark in our little corner of the world.  Such a situation calls for glitter, clearly.  I wanted to make a pretty votive candle holder for my daughter, since she adds sparkle and light to my life every single day.    Here's what I came up with...

What you need:  

• glass votives in any size or shape--jelly jars or wine glasses would probably work well too
• double-sided tape--this should have paper on one side
• fine glitter--the courser stuff might work too, but would probably not stick to the tape as well
• scissors
• dry paint brushes
• drop cloth or sheet to cover your work surface
• plain pieces of paper to collect excess glitter
• clear varnish--optional

Start with clean, dry glass.  Plan out the design that you want beforehand. It's helpful to apply only one glitter color at a time, both for efficiency and so that the colors don't become blended.  Cut a strip of double sided tape and apply it to the glass (leaving the paper side attached).  Burnish with your fingernail to make sure that the tape is adhered properly.

Remove the paper backing from the tape and pour ample quantities of glitter onto the newly exposed sticky side of the tape.  You can pat it on with your finger or a dry paintbrush to make sure that it's well distributed and stuck on.

Shake off the excess glitter and brush lightly with a dry paintbrush to remove any extra that may be attached to the glass.  

Repeat as needed with all the colors, shapes and patterns that your heart desires.  You could do more interesting variations than we attempted here by using shape blade scissors or shaped hole punches like the kind often used in scrap booking. One optional step (that I did not photograph for this tutorial) is to dab clear varnish over the glitter (but not on the glass) to protect it from being brushed off during normal handling.

I think I'll call these my "Welcome Back Spring" candles.  I love coming out of the dark of winter and back into the light.  Don't you?

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