Sponsored by readers like you: Beaded snowflakes!

We're not just about the cosmetic chemistry around here - we're also about the beading. Last night my Chilliwack craft group created gorgeous Christmas jewellery, including these lovely beaded snowflakes!

As you know, our youth programs are sponsored by readers like you. When you contribute to our groups by buying the Formulating & Creating Lotions and Creams, Lotion Making 101, Back to Basics, or Hair Care: Shampoos & Conditioners e-books, you contribute to four different programs at three different locations (Chilliwack and Yarrow libraries, and the Ed Centre alternative school). For more information on our groups and what we do, please click here! 

There are three ways to finish off the end of each arm of the snowflake - by gluing on a bead with Crazy Glue (not recommended, you'll be covered in it, and you have to wait before gluing the next arm!), by using a crimping bead, or by turning the end into a loop. I recommend having a loop at the top and bottom of the snowflake so you can hang it from something and you can hang something from the bottom, and I like the crimping bead method the best (primarily because they are really hard to bend and my hands hurt after making the first one!).

I also recommend using acrylic beads. They're much cheaper than glass or crystal, and they are much lighter. The first ones I made with glass beads kept pulling the 3M hook off my office door!

But wait, there's more! We also made awesome Christmas jewellery! If you'd like to make a gorgeous Christmas charm bracelet, click here! The little snowmen, angels, and trees can be used for earrings as well

Here are a few posts I've written about snowflake making or jewellery projects! These make great Christmas presents, and you can do them with kids as young as 6 - as long as they have some eye-hand co-ordination. Let them put the beads on, then do the rest of the work for them! 

Many many links for jewellery making! 

Some more ideas for snowflake making! 

Here's my favourite post on the topic - snowflakes!

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Formulating and creating lotions: The new e-book is here!

Thank you to everyone who offered their suggestions about the new e-book! It's finally here - Formulating and Creating Lotions! I've designed this to be a second level lotion making e-book with information for those of us are experienced at making lotions and wanting to start formulating our own emulsified products from scratch.

I have included everything I know about making lotions, including the template recipes, the process of making great lotions, modifying and tweaking those recipes,  creating drier feeling products, learning how to substitute, as well as making minimally processed products (aka natural products) and more information than you wanted on the HLB system. I've included questions and comments from readers like you, and I've tried to include some pictures that might be helpful (although you all know I'm not the greatest photographer!). And I've included a ton of information on working with esters, including ingredient write-ups and recipe ideas. In short, I've tried to pack everything I know about making lotions and creams into this 224 page e-book!

Click here if you want to take a look at the table of contents! And look to your right to see the other e-books I've written! (Back to Basics, Hair Care Products, and Lotion Making 101!) 

If you donate $26.00 to our Rated T for Teen youth programs, I'll send you out a copy of this e-book by e-mail as our thanks for your generosity! I'll also be sending out the charts that came with the Lotion Making 101 e-book as well as a sample HLB calculator in Excel format!

As a note, if you want it sent to someone else as a present, for instance, please note this in the comments section. And include anything else you want in the comments section - although I'll know you're donating for this book based on the donation amount of $26.00.

To those of you who have donated in the past - thank you so much! Every single penny from these e-books goes to support our youth programs. It is because of your kindness that we can continue our programs! And to those of you considering donating, thank you for considering us. I can never convey how grateful we are for your support!

What does your $26 buy for our groups? Xacto knives, scissors, glue sticks, pencils, pens, paper, and everything else we need for this week's card making group. It purchased buttons for last week's fun with fleece group and next week's beeswax so the kids can make Christmas presents.

What's next? I'm taking a few days off writing before I start the facial products e-book that is begging to be written! Then the mineral make-up e-book! 

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Sponsored by readers like you - chocolate making!

Valentine's Day will soon be upon us, and the best way I know of to tell someone you love them is with loads of chocolate. So why not make your own? It's easy to make chocolate bark - get something you want to add to the chocolate, like cinnamon hearts, almonds, macadamia nuts and coconut, or any other dried fruit or nuts, mix it into some melted chocolate, pour into a mold of some kind and put in the fridge. In twenty minutes, you've got yourself a bark!

Or make some tiger butter. We made ours with milk chocolate and Nutella last night, but you can make it with peanut butter. I like to use a teaspoon for about 30 grams. Get your spoon, scoop out some peanut butter or Nutella, pour the melted chocolate over it, mix well, pour into a mold, and put into the fridge or freezer. In twenty minutes, you've got a lovely tiger, hazelnut, or panther butter!

Don't forget about the packaging! I like to use foils and cellophane bags for packaging our chocolates because they're fun to use and look very professional and adorable. Emily's chocolate here is a black foil with a pink foam glitter heart (I bought those from Michael's). Add an adorable tag or card (for instance, these are sweet as are these ones) on the ribbon or twist tie and you have yourself a fantastic Valentine's day chocolate-y gift!

If you'd like to learn more about making chocolate, please visit this post or  this post (with the hand outs), or this one, or this one!

If you want to give something that looks like chocolate but isn't, consider making the black cocoa emulsified scrub, black cocoa scrub bars, or some bath melts, which you can decorate in foils (but make sure you put a big DO NOT EAT warning on the label!)

And you know Jay had to make some replica of the Bob-Bombs from the Mario games, so I made sure he had all the stuff he needed to make his awesome little characters! 

As you know, our youth groups are funded by readers like you who donate by buying the e-books, Back to Basics, Hair Care Products: Shampoos & Conditioners, and Lotionmaking 101. If you'd like to learn more about our groups and what we do, please click here. I'm posting these pictures because not only do our youth love seeing their work shared with others and to encourage you to make these projects with the kids in your lives, but to thank you for all the support you give them. We couldn't do these programs without the donations you've offered, and I simply can't thank you all enough.

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The lotionmaking 101 e-book is finally done!

After much work, I've finally put together all the posts on this blog relating to lotion making in the Lotionmaking 101 e-book! It runs 305 pages and 95,647 words, and you'll find everything I know about the basics of lotion making, chemistry of lotions, all the ingredients we use, information on anti-oxidants and preservatives, and a ton of recipes for lotions, body lotions, body butters, light lotions, moisturizers, shaving lotions and more. Rather than re-write the whole thing here, click here to see the table of contents (which runs 8 pages!!!).

With a $29 donation to my youth groups, I'll send you a copy of the book!

Thanks to your generous contributions for the last two e-books (Back to Basics and Hair Care Products: Shampoos & Conditioners), we've been able to fund our four youth groups at the Chilliwack and Yarrow libraries (Genshiken, Games Night, Rated T for Teen video club, and How's That Made, the craft group) into the new year, and we've been able to expand our groups to include the bi-weekly pregnant and parenting teen activity group, Rockin' Out with the Girls (all girl Rock Band day), and the new role playing groups that start in January! (And we're hoping to get an artist friend of ours to offer a drawing class!) Every penny of your donations goes to support our programs, to buy supplies, equipment, food, and treats, and to buy supplies youth can take home to continue the crafting fun and increase their mastery of our projects.

For more information on our groups, click here.

If you click on the little button below, it'll automatically donate $29 in Canadian funds to my group. The book will come to you by e-mail shortly thereafter.

When you donate, I'll also send you a compressed file of the carrier oil, exotic oil, butter, and preservative charts as a handy dandy reference (I couldn't put it in the e-book due to formatting issues, and Word is driving me nuts already!)

Thank you to everyone who has supported or is planning to support our groups. You have no idea how much this means to me and how much it means to the kids. Our present making Christmas extravaganza later this week will include five projects - bubble bath, soap, chocolate, beeswax candles, and Shrinky Dink trinkets - thanks to your generosity! And our Christmas extravaganza in Yarrow included glitter powder, lip balm, bubble bath, and bath salts - all of those supplies sponsored by readers like you!

What does your donation do for our youth groups? $29 can buy 14 pairs of scissors or 6 metres of fleece (it's buy one, get one free this week!). $29 can buy all the veggies for games night, video game club, and Rockin' Out with the Girls! $29 can buy 144 pairs of earrings and all the beads and findings to make them! $29 times five can buy us a new sewing machine for our upcoming learning to quilt class (and we desperately need a new one as mine is dying!). We can make $29 go a long way - I get tons of discounts and freebies - and every penny helps us continue the programs!

If you have any questions about the groups or your donation, don't hesitate to write to me (Susan, aka Swift) at sjbarclay@telus.net!

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Sponsored by readers like you - Christmas cards.

We had great fun last night making Christmas cards at the library. I worried we'd have a low turn-out due to the ice and snow, but we had 23 youth in the meeting room making all kinds of lovely cards! We also had fun in Yarrow on Tuesday making cards, and on Monday at the Ed Centre making mineral make-up (it was adorable seeing the boys making eye shadows for their girlfriends!)

If you'd like to make your own lovely snowglobe card, click here for the template. 

As you know, our youth programs are sponsored by readers like you. When you contribute to our groups by buying either the Back to Basics or Hair Care: Shampoos & Conditioners e-books, you contribute to four different programs at three different locations (Chilliwack and Yarrow libraries, and the Ed Centre alternative school). We're scheduling our programming for the winter and spring seasons so far, and we have so much fun planned for the future! Making scarves with fleece, sushi making, more mineral make-up, hair and skin care products, polymer clay, and so much more! My favourite group of the year is coming up - the Christmas extravaganza! Three hours of crafting Christmas presents and decorations chosen by the youth. This year Yarrow will see some super happy fun soap, beeswax candles, and jewellery making, while Chilliwack has yet to choose! (If you want to know more about our programs, click here!)

As a note, if you've already donated to the programs and have the books, but want to gift someone else, make a donation and note that you want to send a copy to a friend!

And the third book is coming out shortly - I'm just finding it really hard not to make the lotion book 400 pages!

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Update on youth groups, e-books, and everything else!

Thanks to everyone who has been voting in the Aviva competition - 2 days left, so if you have votes left, please use them - and buying the e-books, Back to Basics and the Hair Care Products: Shampoos & Conditioners! You have no idea what your contributions mean to our groups! Your donations make it possible to buy supplies, equipment, treats, veggies, board and video games, and everything else to make our programs successful!

We had four programs last week - chocolate making at the alternate school, chocolate making at our Chilliwack group, Rockin' out with the girls (where we tried out Rock Band 3 - it's awesome!), and the Hallowe'en party. I only have one group this week - melt & pour soap in Chilliwack - and one next week - mineral make-up in Yarrow - thanks to our holiday on the 11th. (It's going to feel pretty strange not running around like a monkey all week!)

Here are a few pictures from our chocolate making class. We decided to make some cute packaging to go with the lollipops, tiger butter, and bark!

To make your own tiger butter...
Melt some white chocolate. Add some peanut butter - use as little or as much as you like (we tend to use 1 tsp per 50 grams) - and mix. Pour into container. Let harden in the fridge. Eat and rejoice.

To make your own candy corn bark (or any other bark)...
Melt some white chocolate. Add some nuts, candy corn, candy canes, Valentine hearts, and so on. Mix, then pour into mold. Let harden in fridge. Eat and rejoice!

To make white chocolate covered pretzels...
Melt some white chocolate. Put some pretzels into the container with the melted chocolate. With a slotted spoon or really big fork, remove the pretzels and put them on waxed paper, then into the fridge to set. Remove when hardened. Eat. (They are addictive, beware!)

To make Hayden's concrete in a cup - don't. (Okay, if you really want to do it - melt white chocolate, add some black powdered colouring, put a stick in the cup and leave it there.)

Thanks to my amazing readers for helping make these programs possible. (I feel like I should caption these pictures with "Sponsored by viewers like you..." or something, because it's true!)

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Second e-book to raise money for my groups - Hair Care Products: Shampoos & Conditioners

Thank you to everyone who bought the e-book, Back to Basics, to help me raise money for my youth groups! I hope you're enjoying the book, and I'd love to hear your suggestions for future books, including ways I could improve the e-books (like making them a smaller file size - which I've done with the new one, more pictures, fewer pictures, different sections, and so on!)

In response to your e-mails and comments, I present to you the second of the e-books I'm putting together entitled Hair Care Products: Shampoos & Conditioners. This one's even longer - 194 pages (56,305 words!) and contains more recipes for shampoo and conditioners than I can count! I've included all the information from the blog about the chemistry of our hair, surfactants, cationic ingredients, and every other ingredient you'll find in our hair care products.

I wasn't, however, able to include the surfactant chart in the e-book as it was being really annoying about the formatting, so here's the link to that free download. 

If you want to take a peek at the Table of Contents, click on the link!

I'm asking for a $25 donation for the book through Paypal or Hyperwallet (you can reach me at sjbarclay@telus.net). Every penny of your donation goes to the Rated T for Teen youth groups we run at the Chilliwack and Yarrow libraries, and at the alternative education school in Chilliwack. (For more information on our groups, click here.) We're expanding to include a pregnant and parenting teen activity group run by a lovely volunteer, and we've just started the once monthly Rockin' Out with the Girls, an all girl Rock Band day!

If you click on the little button below, it'll automatically donate $25 in Canadian funds to my group. The book will come to you by e-mail shortly thereafter.

A quick note: It might take me a few hours to send you out the book 'cause I sometimes leave the house for work or my youth groups and I can't check my e-mail or send out attachments until I get to my home computer.

Why am I asking for more for this book than I did for the last? This is really two books in one. I had planned to write a surfactants book then one on hair care, but I realized it would be way more handy to have all the information about hair care in one book instead of two separate PDF files that make you have to refer back to the other one, so I decided to include everything together.

I'm currently working on the third book (which might end up being two at this rate!) - Creating Lotions & Creams - which I'm hoping to have out in a few weeks! And I'm putting together an additional book on other things you can create with surfactants like body washes, facial cleansers, cleaning products, and more as an adjunct to this book. Again, please send me any suggestions for e-books that might interest you! (I'm thinking about a mineral make-up one as well...)

Thanks so much for supporting our youth groups. Your donations helped us purchase chocolate making supplies for the alternative education centre craft group, a few replacement chocolate moulds that were broken in the process of removing said chocolates, and some scrapbooking paper so we could make some adorable packages suitable for gift giving. And your donations helped us buy Rock Band 3 and the keyboard for the Rockin' Out with the Girls for Friday and the Rated T for Teen video game group and Hallowe'en party on Saturday. Your donations will buy yet more chocolate for the Chilliwack group on Thursday night!

In short, your donations made our groups even more awesome than they were before, and I cannot thank you enough! Have I mentioned I love the readers of this blog?

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E-book to raise money for my youth groups

A huge thank you for purchasing the e-book as a way of supporting my youth groups! If you don't know about it, here's a quick synopsis...

It's a 122 page e-book entitled Back to Basics: Anhydrous Products. The book includes over 50 recipes and explanations for making lotion bars, whipped butters, balms, oil based scrubs, bath melts, bath oils, oil based sprays, solid scrubs, and facial sera, as well as all the carrier oil, exotic oil, and butter profiles, and everything I've gathered about the chemistry of our oils including fatty acids, mechanisms of rancidity, phytosterols, and polyphenols. Click here to see the table of contents.

I'm asking for a $20 donation for the book through Paypal or Hyperwallet (you can reach me at sjbarclay@telus.net). If you click on the little button below, I'll send you a copy of the book by e-mail.

A quick note: It might take me a few hours to send you out the book 'cause I sometimes leave the house for work or my youth groups and I can't check my e-mail or send out attachments until I get back to my laptop.  

What does your donation do for our youth groups? Last week $20 bought all the veggies, drinks, and treats for games night. This week $20 bought almost 4 kilograms of white chocolate for our craft group in Yarrow and $20 will buy supplies to make memory wire bracelets, including the memory wire and beads. Yep, $20 can go a long way, and every penny helps! Thanks again for your support!

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Update on the Aviva competition!

An update on the Aviva Community Fund competition. We didn't make it into the top 10 last round - we were number 19, which is still awesome, but not enough for the top 10 - so we're on to the second round as of October 25th. If you voted for us before, please consider voting again. We'll each have 10 votes, and you can vote once a day. If the 142 people who supported our group use up all of their votes, we'll make it into the top 10 this time!

A huge thank you to all of you who took a time out of your day to support our groups! 

I hate to ask you to vote again as it seems like we just went through this process, but imagine what $25,000 could do for our youth groups! I'll remind you again on the 25th, but for now, here's the link to our youth groups (listed under Rated T for Teen). If you haven't registered, please consider signing up to be a supporter of our group - it takes a few minutes, and you're doing something really awesome for the youth of Chilliwack and Yarrow!

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