Hello all!
I had a fabulous afternoon.
Fiona invited Margie and myself out to her place to have a go at making Bee Wrap! I’ve been wanting to have a go at this for a while (my never ending and continually expanding ‘To Do List’)
First things first – Frankie was shrieking in the paddock as bottle time was a bit tardy in her opinion.
Little Fatty charged up the paddock and sucked back her bottle in 30 seconds flat!!!
She is still adorable.
Fiona has had a bit of a run with her – was touch and go with bloat. She’s been getting injections etc so keeping fingers crossed that she will be on the up and up. Was a close run poor Frankie.
Anyway – down to business!
Always nice to find another way to cut back on plastic, which apart from the coolness of bee wraps, is very attractive to me!
We chose our materials (I had some from Japan that I bought years ago with this in mind. Finally today…)
Aren’t the owls super cute?? 🙂
A mix of bees wax, resin and jojoba oil
Fiona pounding the resin into smaller bits!
Basically you heat the material in the oven, then paint on the mixture – one side only, then pop back in the over (only short two minute stints in the oven)
Once you take it out – you grab a corner in each hand and wave it about to cool off before putting it on a cake rack to dry.
We did two coats on each of our wraps.
Of course, there was coffee, lunch, cake, more coffee and catch ups during the afternoon!! (groan – I now owe myself two laps of the river haha)
We definitely want to do this again – Margie and I will get some supplies and probably precut/iron the materials.
I was super excited tonight because I peeled an extra potato so I got to wrap it up in my bee wrap to store in the fridge.
Its the little things 😀
Sorry – hard to see scale here – and they are folded in half twice! The owls and dragonflies are about 30x25cm and the green patterned one is about 36cm square. (Big enough I hope to fold over a bowl if I want to put one in the fridge.)
On the soap front – buoyed by my success at the market the other week, I really want to stock up before the Christmas markets. So since getting back from the Overland, I’ve made four new batches of soap.
The green one is ‘Kentish Rain’
Of course more espresso because it smells so amazing
I tried a new fragrance called ‘Cinnamon Sticks’
I had mixed results in the celtic knot mould – one especially didn’t come out cleanly. I soaked the bottom in warm water and the last one came free much more nicely.
I also tested out the new horse head moulds which look fine.
And lastly because it was super popular – I did a loaf of lavender!
I have to make sure I order more of that fragrance.
Anyway – I reckon I will have to get back into the garden. The weather is warming up beautifully so I need to do some WORK!! 🙂
Hope your week is going well!
Cheers
I think your celtic soap looks very nice. So I was not sure so I will ask. Are the fabric wraps used to store produce in instead of plastic bags? Can you wash them with the wax,resin, and oil? I’ve never heard of these before.
Thanks Ramona! I love the look of the celtic knots! I need to get more skilled at getting them out without muffing them up.
Re the Bee Wrap… its an alternative to cling wrap. So you could mould the fabric over the top of a bowl – or wrap a potato, or your sandwiches. Fiona recommended not using them with meat as you just wipe them down with a warm damp cloth. They are becoming more of a thing but quite expensive to buy. I’ll experiment with different sizes and see what suits my needs. Eventually you give them a recoating which is what Fiona did with some of hers that she has been using for a while.
Thanks for the information. You learn new things all the time.
no worries! Its becoming more of a ‘thing’ here but not sure how widely known or used in other parts of the world.