Freaking Out About Christmas (and other updates)

First off: Mask was a success! Hooray! I do have pictures of me in it, but as folks should have guessed by now, I don't do self-portraits. The pictures that I do have of him are not with him entirely completed - imagine the horns are dark grey, drybrushed with black. And someone is wearing it. That's all you're missing.



(the second one has accurate colors)

Now, on to other news. Soap! It exists, and it is fabulous. I finally figured out that Cold Process soap is a million times easier than Hot Process soap, and that CP soap works best when you actually pay attention to the temperature of your ingredients.

The first batch, which I posted about last month, was eventually saved. Turns out that the little crock pot I got from goodwill to make soap with has 3 settings - off (duh), low, and high. And by "low", they mean "not hot enough for HP soap". So when I was cooking my first batch, it was not getting hot enough for the gel phase to complete. Easy fix though! One 30-minute jaunt through the high setting, and it turned into real, honest to goodness soap.



Now, at that point you might think that I would do more research on this whole soapmaking thing, maybe fill the crockpot with water and see exactly what temperatures the different settings give (holy crap why did I not think of that until just now I totally need to do that), and not just assume that since the high setting worked on the rebatch, it would work on the initial batch. You might think that I would have forethought!

Clearly, you would be reading a different blog. I think I've established by now that I like to live dangerously, craft first and ask questions later! Even when those questions concern things like how do you dispose of 2 lbs of very-lye-active monstrosity. But I get ahead of myself.

Well, not terribly far ahead. Let us tell this story.

So the first batch had turned into real, honest-to-goodness soap. It didn't burn my tongue, it lathered, and it felt really nice to shave with (which was, you may recall, my goal. Mr Sweetie loves it). I was riding the high that comes with learning something new, doing it yourself, and it turning out well enough that you can show it off to your friends (and show off I did!). I decided to make another batch that weekend, and since the shaving soap was just a touch drying (33% coconut oil, 10% castor oil, and bentonite clay will evidently do that to you), I wanted to make sure this next one would be nice and rich. Shea butter! Honey! 9% lye discount! The world was my oyster.

Now, experienced soapmakers will have raised their eyebrows right when I said honey. They know, as I thought I knew, that honey raises the temperature of soap, and so you have to be careful when you add it. You want to make sure that your lye-water and your oils are nice and cool, so that it doesn't overheat.

You especially want to not add your honey TO your water, before you add your lye. This makes your lye-water turn a lovely shade of burnt orange that would be GREAT for your brother who goes to UT, except that it also means your lye-water is CRAZY HOT. Well over the usual 200 degrees that you normally get when this reaction takes place.

Smart people would wait until this cooled down to 110 degrees. Smart people would make sure the oil in the crockpot was also around this temperature, and that the crockpot was not set to high. Smart people would definitely not google just enough shady websites to convince themselves that 150-degree orange lye-water and oils that are probably in the area of 200 degrees themselves could make soap - and you're fucking Mensa smart if you didn't mix your oils and lye, AND THEN ADD MORE HONEY. You know. Because that's totally going to save that giant vat of burning caustic oil.

Fun fact: burnt soap? Smells like roux. This is A Sign.

So, yeah, that batch didn't turn out like at all. It did solidify, but was nothing you'd want to rub all over your body, much less pets or children. It was wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown out. Mr. Sweetie came home and I denied that it had ever happened.

So the new "batch 2"! Same recipe as before, only I didn't add the honey to the lye-water, and I let it cool down to 120 before impatience demanded I mix it to my (set on low) oils. It looked great! I achieved a very clear trace, and if I was a more rational person I would have molded it then and there.

Instead, I added honey. Yup. And two cups of almond meal, to make it scrubby, but I think that the almond meal I bought is more like almond flour than almond ground up bits that can remove dead skin, so it's only very mildly scrubby.

This one also heated up too much, but didn't burn like the first Batch 2 did. Hooray, it's soap! I didn't scent it, and it ended up smelling like what I think must be a combination of unrefined shea nuts and cooked almond flour. It's not necessarily bad, but it IS strange. This is what we're using at home now, because I'm not putting 'toasted almond and shea nut' soap in my christmas gift baskets.

Although that's not a bad name, now that I think about it.

This batch was also made using the silicone ice cube trays that Hastur and the Library Overlord gave me for my birthday, which was very sweet. They also gave me a candy thermometer and an egg timer, and for that I am grateful beyond words.

Oh, you say, that's all grand, but what about the successful recipe? Where is THAT in your cornucopia of despair? Haha. Soon to follow, that's where. Soon to follow.

Making a Mask!

And it's fun, fun, fun. I saw the stuff on Goblin Art and thought, hot damn, that's pretty and really out of my price range. So the Library Overlord and I got together with some plaster strips, and made base masks of each others faces. It was good times.

A little fun foam, duct tape, and paper mache later, I have this handsome fellow:




I'm letting him dry one last time overnight, then tomorrow we enter the fabulous world of acrylic paints. I may spreay him with a primer first, especially on the horns, which are awesomely ridged via wrapped elasti-cord:



It's going to be a good year.

About OK

Thursday night Mr. Sweetie called me and told me that one of our rats, About (of the infamous Out and About) was acting funny. Her left eye was droopy, and she had no balance. He thought she might have had a stroke.

We talked to Hastur, who has more experience with rats than us, and she recommended a good vet. We weren't able to get time off on Friday to drop her off, but we called the vet that evening and she said to go ahead and drop them both off - she'd see them the same night!

So it turns out that what happened is that About got a middle ear infection somehow. She's got antibiotics to take, and in about a week should be fine.

Score!

I learned how to move pictures from my phone to my email! It's good to know I am not entirely without hope in technological matters. Here is the first batch, which will of course be pictures of Maggie, since I know yall have been dying to see them.





As you can see, she is a beautiful, smiley-as-hell dog. Who gets into trouble, and also into Rudder Fountain.




This is the tree that fell on Mr. Sweetie's parents' house, after some handy chainsaw work. The stumps are not all of the slices - the stumps are all of the slices that were of a given size (large enough to be sat on, small enough that the chainsaw blade could slice all the way through the tree), and ALSO level enough to be chairs, which is what they're going to be. They're drying them out, and then they'll lacquer them and have 'Furniture courtesy of Hurricane Ike' burnt into them. I love my in-laws. Also, that tree? Farther away than it looks, as I was standing WELL OUTSIDE the garage when I took that picture.


Ok, this was just awesome. We were driving PrimaryBrother back to Austin, and stopped by a pecan store on the way (if you have made this drive, you know the one I mean - it has a sign you can see for miles) so I could go to the bathroom. In case people drop by (giant! sign!) after hours, there is a vending machine, WITH A GODDAMN PIE IN IT. It's a pie machine!


This is Dr. Icthys, who lives up at work and keeps me company. He is a grumpy, grumpy fish, which people tend not to believe until they meet him, and watch him try to beat the shit out of stationary objects like my inboxes, the wall, and his food container. And speaking of the walls!


Them's my walls. Covered in art, my favorite pieces drawn by friends. I am very proud of my walls, and the effort that goes into finding work-appropriate stuff that's still actually funny.


My sister's tattoo, that she got not knowing it was a logo for something or another, and would like for me to figure out a way to change into something different. Specifically, a peacock, that "looks persian", and doesn't suck. I haven't drawn in years. No pressure or anything!


This is where we're going for my birthday this weekend. It is a happy, happy place, where I can get this:

Maggie OK

It's been just about 24 hours since her seizure/faint/whatever on Sunday, and she has been her normal self the whole time. She got into trouble while I was in the shower, chased rabbits while snoring on the couch, cuddled up next to me and then farted, and tried to knock over my soda and claim it for herself. All is well.

Holy Crap, Maggie Had a Seizure?

Today Maggie and I walked to the dog park for the first time (she’s been before, but I thought the walk would do both of us good). We hung out for a while, I brought a book, she jumped in mud puddles and loved on people with her muddy self.

Then after a while I saw her walking up to me, but she kept falling forward, like her front paws wouldn’t support her. I thought maybe she had burrs on them, and went to go see, and when I got to her she fell over and was twitching - almost vibrating - and her heart was beating really fast, and she wasn’t able to focus her eyes, and seemed disoriented. My first thought was Holy crap, seizure!

A very nice lady from a local vet clinic came and helped me hold her while Mr. Sweetie was on his way (and dude, we have found a new vet, let me tell you), and by the time he got there (maybe 4-5 mins?) she had stopped trembling and was starting to recover, and by the time we got her to the car she was normal again. We took her to the A&M Small Animal Clinic (only place in town open after 6 on sunday), and got her checked out.

The doc said that from the symptoms she had, it was probably either a seizure, like I had thought, or a hardcore fainting spell from a sudden drop in blood pressure. They did an ECG for her heart, and tested her for heartworms just in case, and everything came up fine. Mr. Sweetie is sleeping on the couch with her tonight, and I’m staying home with her tomorrow, in case anything else happens, but she will probably be just fine. We just got home, and gave her a bath (she was still really muddy), and hopefully won’t have to worry about anything more tonight.

Everything is probably fine. Worst case scenario she has some form of epilepsy, and having had that myself it doesn’t freak me out too bad. She’ll eat anything softer than her teeth if we let her, so I don’t see a problem giving her pills if that’s what she ends up needing.

So how was your sunday?

It's Been A While Since Massive Failsauce

So I made my first batch tonight, which may or may not be a failure.

I ran my recipe through a lye calculator, with an 8% superfat, melted my oils in the pot and added my lye water (and HOO BOY they do not joke about the fumes - had the fan on & front door open, would’ve opened the back but didn’t want the dog running around). It didn’t start getting creamy, but it did start getting bits of opaqueness floating in the clear, with a texture like applesauce. Then, all of a sudden - BAM! - it’s like pudding. I did my happy trace dance, and added in the clay I wanted as an additive, put on the lid and turned it to low to cook.

15 minutes later I came to check on it, and instead of a hard solid mass, it looked like vaseline. I wasn’t sure if this meant it had gelled or not, so I decided that it must not’ve, and added about a cup more water (2lb batch).

15 minutes after that, it still looks like vaseline, only more… fluffy? By this time I’m running around panicking, so I added a 14 floz can of coconut milk and a dram of peppermint EO, because I am an idiot. Some of it mixed in with the soap, some did not, so I don’t even know what’s going on now.

Another half hour after that, it’s mostly still vaseline, a little creamier, and with a good bit of excess liquid in the pot. I panicked again, because I have somewhere to be tonight, so I just prayed the liquid stuff is liquid soap and not just slightly brown coconut milk, and molded the lot of it. I figure it’s either going to be funky soap, soap that I need to rebatch, or I will know that I need to watch it like a hawk next time and get a better scale and a thermometer.

It feels waxy when I touch it, but it still zaps my tongue, and now I don’t know if it’s the peppermint or the lye doing that. I feel like I missed a vital memo somewhere in my research, but I don’t know what.

Making soap RIGHT NOW!!!

And OMG I has Trace!

Hooray, Dangerous Chemicals!

I like to make my family their gifts for christmas, but let's face it, there's only so much knitting I can do, and there's only so much appreciation for that knitting that my family has, and aside from TwinSister and LittlerBrother, I'm about tapped out. So I started thinking about it, and hey - SOAP! People like soap. And you make it in fairly big batches, so it's not like they're getting a tiny gift or anything, and you can personalize it! So I decide to make my family some soap.

Thing is, though, that I have no experience making soap, like at all. So I get to be completely self-taught, hooray! Well, self- and internet-taught, but you get the idea. I ordered some lye on the internet, and spent entirely too much on additives (hello, powdered seaweed and fancy clay!)

The lye came in today, and now I really, really, REALLY want to make a test batch. I should probably wait, since I don't have stuff like a pot to cook it in, gloves, goggles, and all the other stuff that I'll need, but the desire is there, and that's good. I think I should spend today working up recipes, and getting supply lists together, and getting my house in order so that I actually could start working with dangerous chemicals like lye, without worrying. I still need to work out where I'm going to keep the soap while it cures, and dig out my food scale, and maybe figure out what I'm going to do for a mold. But it's exciting, and I hope to be able to share this with the blog soon.

Changed Over my Accounts

FYI: Changed my blogger account so that it's the same as my gmail account. Same bat time, same bat channel, different bat email address.