Patterns of 2016 - Week 8

Turmeric Trees

Mango Skin & Flesh

Here are the patterns and prints that I made in week 8 of 2016 which are comprised of polymer clay cane segments which have been made and designed by myself. I then scan them and create a pattern and prints from the cane slices. Find more images on Smy Goodness Instagram.

Patterns of 2016 - Week 7

Pineapple Wreath

Radish Bunch

Here are the patterns and prints that I made in week 7 of 2016 which are comprised of polymer clay cane segments which have been made and designed by myself. I then scan them and create a pattern and prints from the cane slices. Find more images on Smy Goodness Instagram.

Handmade Bath Bombs or Bath Fizzies

In our final six-week soap making course we made bath bombs or bath fizzies. We've all seen these in the shops or have received some as a gift and they are fun,give great results and are luckily easy to make. You can buy all the ingredients from most shops, chemists or online. To form the shapes of your bathbombs you can buy specific shapes online that will create round ones or use silicone moulds, recyclable items like little yoghurt pots or go to the pound shop and buy a muffin tray which is what I have used for this class.

Dry Ingredients
250g bicarbonate of soda
75g epsom salts or mineral salt
75g citric acid
50g cornstarch

Wet Ingredients
2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp water
4 drops essential oil/fragrance
1-2 drops food colouring/beauty grade colourings

Bath Bombs/Bath Fizzies Instructions

1. Lightly grease your moulds, trays or containers with any oil.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, make sure there are no lumps at all, use a whisk or a spatula to make sure there are no lumps.
3. Combine all your wet ingredients together in a separate container and thoroughly mix.
4. In stages, add a little bit of the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring all the time, until both are combined. You might hear a bit of fizzing which is normal, you just need to keep stirring.
5. .Your mixture will start to appear a bit damp and clumpy and you can test if it’s ready by balling some together in your hand. You want the mixture to hold it’s shape and not crumble. If it is crumbling and you have added all your colour mixture you can give your mixture a spray of water and them stir again until it holds together in your hands. Don't be tempted to add lots of water as this will make the mixture expand.
6. When the mixture is ready you can add it to your moulds, trays or containers. Make sure to pack it in tightly to the mould, tray or container or the mixture will crumble and not hold its shape.
7. Leave the moulds or trays for at least an hour and then remove. f using silicone moulds, leave your bath fizzies in over night and then take them out of the moulds.
8. When packaging or storing your bath fizzies make sure that they are not kept in an air tight container or they will expand or explode. Keep them in a baggie or paper bag or box until ready to be used.

Patterns of the week - Week 6

Medieval Map

S'purple

Avocado

Beetroot Bunches

Here are the patterns and prints that I made in week 6 of 2016 which are comprised of polymer clay cane segments which have been made and designed by myself. I then scan them and create a pattern and prints from the cane slices. Find more images on Smy Goodness Instagram.

Beetroot Bunches

This little Beetroot Bunches pattern was made from photographs that I took of the cross section of a beetroot and of them in bunches...much like the title suggest. Beetroot are one of my favourite go to veg for juicing, roasting, in salads and in deserts. I love to hear the groans when I tell students that we will be making beetroot brownies; listening to the protestations of how much they are hated and eventually listening to the surprised exclamations of surprise that they are actually enjoying them in brownie form. They really do increase the moistness of cakes and brownies whilst providing healthy sugars. You can see my Beetroot Brownie recipe and post for more details.

Cold Process Soap Making

I've been teaching a six-week Soap Making Course at Wentworth Children's Centre and for weeks 4 and 5 we have been learning the cold press (CP) technique. We could have easily spent the whole six weeks on the CP technique but since part of the course has been family learning and we involved the children of the families there in the activities where it was appropriate for them to do so.

CP equipment (pic from @Wentworth_CC)

We had been building up to this session and this was our most technical as well as creative which explains our scales, goggles and gloves. For the first of the CP technique weeks we used the following recipe which I calculated using the fabulous SoapCalc.net:

150g distilled water (or filtered water, then boiled and cooled)
60g lye
160g olive oil
160g coconut oil
40g almond oil
40g castor oil
10 g lavender essential oil

Blending the oils and lye mixes

Achieving trace

The saponified soap poured into moulds

The soaps after 1 week

Soaps from week 2 with yellow and green dyes

me with some of our group from the class (pic from @Wentworth_CC)

Patterns of 2016 - week 5

Spiggles

Minty

Garden Cell

Barrel of Monkeys

Here are the patterns and prints that I made in week 5 of 2016 which are comprised of polymer clay cane segments which have been made and designed by myself. I then scan them and create a pattern and prints from the cane slices. Find more images on Smy Goodness Instagram.

Patterns of 2016 - Week 4

Patterns and prints made in week 4 of 2016.

Red Eye

Sunch

Rinkel

Sparkle

Maxy

Patterns of 2016 - Week 3

Here are the patterns from week 3 of 2016 created from polymer clay slices of canes that I have created over the past fifteen years, some are even earlier. The patterns are rebuilding my pattern database which will then be used for all sorts of different things.

Global Cell

Zen Monday

Space Cammo

Piral

Green Bolt

Bindo

Patchwork

LAS2

Melt and Pour Soap Making

melt and pour butter soaps w/exfoliants

melt and pour butter soaps w/exfoliants

making our layered melt and pour loafs

the different layers of our melt and pour loaf soap

our resulting bars of layered soaps

cutting the layered soap loaf

These are some of the soaps created by my students on a six-week soap making course I have been running at Wentworth Children's Centre in Hackney, London. We have spent two weeks on melt and pour techniques and worked with the children on decoration, colour mixing, scents and packaging. We are also a week of face and body scrubs, a week of bath fizzies/bath bombs and two weeks of cold press technique. The courses have been fun and well attended since everyone is interested in making their own products in order to know exactly what is in the products that we use every day. The students have been excited to learn all the techniques so they can practice them with their family and friends or perhaps even take up soap making as a hobby or making them as gifts or to sell.