Again, again and again … CC&C

I'm kind of back from the holiday … in two days I'll leave my computer (and virtual life) again but for now I'm back.
While being away I had time to think about 2011 and all the time I'll have to fil with action and the idea of a second "Coffee, cake and crafting" came to my mind. In November my conclusion after the day was >never again at my place< … but to be honest that would make things extremely complicated. I'd have to look for a fitting venue, take all my stuff to that place and immediately tidy up again … at my place I have everything one needs – rooms and materials and hardware.
So maybe (if T approves) we'll have another "Coffee, cake and crafting" at my place in February … if not we'll see.

Happy Holiday!

Last week was extremely exhausting but also extremely interesting and funny. Weird week.
It was the last few days at uni before holiday (yippie), we finished the new Kloblatt issue, on Friday me Papa celebrated his birthday and on Saturday I had to work (7am-6pm) and after that I went to the Winterbastelmarkt where I had a stall with my friends again.
On Sunday E and me were at the market (10/10:30am to 7pm) and then we had a little x-mas party with homemade hotdogs and cesar's salad.

The Winterbastelmarkt went very very well. The first day was okay but on the second day we sold … hell/well … we sold nearly everything. Especially Simon was our bestseller on Sunday. He sold two of his illustrated plates and two of the illustrated cups!

So after all that fuss I'll enjoy christmas even more. That means I'll eat lots of cookies, drink lots of tea, read as much as possible and go for long cold walks … oh … and meet with all my family …
I hope you all have a relaxed holiday or at least christmas eve as well.

Out of nowhere …

there comes Christmas. Somehow time flies once more. Last week it was the end of summer, yesterday the new semester at uni started and only 10 more days till christmas.
Today I bought half of the presents for my family in one shop … In the last years they all got chocolate and teas – this year … well, that's a secret until the 24th.

But however. I tested the bathing pearls and they really work! They bubble and smell good and make the skin smooth. That really makes me happy.

And yesterday I made more paper for notebooks and today (much later) I will print illustrations and on Thursday I'll bind the books. These days my time management has to be perfect …

With some luck I'll sell all my soaps, notebooks, scarves and everything else at the wintermarket. You're welcome to visit me: Saturday 18th 2pm – 9pm and Sunday 19th 10am – 7pm at Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Wien FBLink.

Lavender Love, Rose Love and Chocolate Love

Today I made bath pearls … that's the small things you give in your bathing water and it starts to bubble and dyes the water.
I found different reciped on the internet and tried out 3 of them. The first one has the best texture but is without colouring, the second one maybe would have the same texture but I added liquid food colouring so that may have influenced the process and the third is with chocolate, has a good texture but doesn't bubble.

The main ingredients are soda (sodium bicarbonate), citric acid, starch, shea butter, cocoa butter, almond oil and any scented oil. Sometimes you don't need starch but use milk powder or instead of the butters you use coconut oil, instead of almond oil you use olive oil. There are many possibilities to diversify the recipe. The problem with colouring is that the paste does react with the liquid food colouring but powdered one won't work if it's not soluble in oil-based products.

This may sound complicated but actually it's really easy and nearly boring (especially compared to making soaps). The fun part is that you can buy most things around the corner and don't need to handle any dangerous chemicals. For me it the hardest part was to get food colouring – can you believe that 2 weeks before christmas it's impossible to get food colouring!

My favourite recipe was:

100 g Sodium Bicarbonate
50 g Citric acid
25 g Starch
15 g Cocoa butter
5 g Shea butter
10 g Almond Oil (or any other)
Optional:
A few drops of essential oil
Some petals or herbs
Food colouring

Mix soda, citric acid and starch in a bowl. Melt the butters on low temperature and add the almond oil and essential oil. Mix the dry ingredients with the oils and stir. It should feel like wet sand. Then put the paste in smalls forms, the filled forms in the fridge and wait and hour or two (or longer).
Get the cool paste out of the forms and let them dry.

ice ice baby – soap soap baby

Last weekend was the christmas market in Bad Vöslau (Lower Austria) and about everything went wrong. On Saturday I had to work and couldn't help out so Simon and T had to do everything without me. The market was outdoor and it had super minus degrees. And additional to all that there were hardly any people. Great! On Sunday E and I could be there too and so there were 4 of us. Highlight of the day was when half of my family came to visit us and the times when we tried to warm our feet in a neat café.
We closed our stall early because it just had no sense to freeze but not sell anything.
What a fail.

The good sides were to spend time with close friends and we (T&N) bought an old baroque style bedside cabinet in the café (because you can buy the furniture). And also at the market we got to know a very nice woman who sold herbal salt and jams and liqueur … in spring and summer she offers herbal walks … where you wander through the woods and meadows and gather herbs. I'll definitely do that. I always wanted to do that but all alone I'd get lost and never find back home and die in the swamp or get killed by does and squirrels … however.

On Monday I invited two girls to make soap at my place. We made the soap with coconut oil and olive oil and then divided it into two parts. To the first part we added jasmine blossom and ylangylang oil and to the other part we added coconut milk and vanilla oil. Once again we used my molds with the ornamental flower design.
Yesterday I cut the soap and I already love it. The one with the ylangylang oil smells extremely extravagant and the one with coconut milk feels sooo creamy.
I'll post pictures as soon as possible!

Two boys playing adults in my kitchen

The result of last week's splashing about are two soaps: A red one with roseleaves that should smell of roses and vanilla but smells of strawberry candy and a blue one with white bits that smells of spruce needle.
Both are friends of mine and they had great fun in weighing and stirring and all the other stuff one has to prepare and do when making soap.