Making a Shampoo Bar

I thought I would try my hand at making a shampoo bar. It seems to me that a soap tote plus a shampoo bar would be an ideal gift-giving combination. I was able to find the oils I needed for the recipe I'm using at Community Natural Foods in Calgary. 

I'm going to use a proven recipe for now and I'd like to develop different soap recipes later. I am on the guaifenesin protocol for fibromyalgia and I could not use this kind of shampoo bar long-term, because common soap-making oils contain salicylates and they block the action of the guaifenesin. So another goal down the road is to make soap and shampoo bars that are sal-free.

Hanging Soap Box design

I have been thinking lately about how to make soap totes for thicker soap bars and shampoo bars.  This because I have been thinking that perhaps the soap tote needs to be sold along with a shampoo bar, making the combination a slam dunk for gift giving and travel.  And shampoo bars are made thicker in their shapes, I am observing. I'm even looking into shampoo bar recipes to make and sell along with the soap tote.

One of my early Soap Tote designs was a boxy shape. I have decided to revisit that design, and I'm nearing completion of that task.  I used the tips in this tutorial to get the box corners instead of sewing a bunch of pieces together like I did before.

It will feature a boxy shape for both the upper part of the bag and for the drying mesh. As you can see in the photo, the mesh bag is held in an open position, which makes it easier to drop the soap into after use.  I'm happy with the proportions and I'm ready to start producing these for sale.

Adhesives for Cricut Expression Cutting Board

After some time, the cutting mats for the Cricut Expression loses its stickiness. Here are my favourites for restoring adhesiveness so that the vinyl stays stuck to the cutting mat.

The UHU brand of glue stick works for vinyl. I apply it all over the cutting sheet and smooth it out with a putty knife. When it dries the adhesiveness can be reactivated with water.  (UHU doesn't work for cutting paper though, the paper will undesireably stick to the mat.) I tried another brand of glue stick from the dollar store and it didn't work as well for vinyl tarps, so I prefer the UHU brand.

The other adhesive I like is Aleen's Tack-it Over & Over. This adhesive keeps a tacky surface for a long time. I don't know if is good for cutting paper with the Cricut Expression, since I don't use my machine to cut paper. (In fact, scrapbooking is one of the last crafts on earth I would ever be interested in. I did it for my kids using digital photographs and microsoft Word for when my babies were small, but after that, no way!)

New Closure on Soap Tote

On my last custom job for a client, the design I used had a "tuck strip." That's what I'm going to call it because I don't know if that type of closure has a formal name.

It occurred to me that this type of closure would work on the Soap Tote. So I gave the traditional model of soap tote a makeover, tinkering with other elements as well. Now it has even less sewing but the same basic design. More efficient for me to make, and perhaps a better and neater way to close it up, since the more sewing, the more potential to sew crooked or have my sewing machine decide to be all sensitive and oversew or some such thing.

Art and Copy Trailer, featuring billboard installation footage

Art&Copy is a documentary about advertising, but what was interesting to me was the footage and statistics regarding the installation of vinyl billboards. All that vinyl and where does it end up after the campaign? Interesting footage in the documentary itself about an advertising warehouse with all the billboards at about 1:19. You can watch the documentary on Netflix.

Notebook Sleeve Design

Made a prototype for a notebook sleeve according to a customer's specifications. I had always wanted to offer something like this but I thought that there might be too much competition. Maybe the genius is in putting up the listing as a made-to-order item. 

This one has an eye staring at you. Might make someone think twice about knicking it. I put a nice slippery nylon lining in it.  Perhaps a future version will have some of that fake fur I have on hand.

Anthropologie's version by Swarm

I'm interested in making these, especially since I saw an iPad sleeve made out of old oil paintings from Anthropologie. Check out the rugged sewing and the WHAT THE HELL $248 price! Link

Workin' Hard But is it Hardly Workin?

I had been kind of bummed out about the state of sales on my Etsy shop, so on a whim I listened to Pricing for Profit from the Etsy Success seminar series. That gave me a boost to work on things and check out the other videos in that series.  Plus lately I have had tons of energy.  I re-photographed many of my listings, finished some backlogged projects, boosted inventory, reworked key words, and did some storytelling with my product descriptions.  Lots more to do, as there always is, but that's it so far.

I guess it is starting to pay off, I can see the view counts rising.