With Christmas fast approaching, we’ve extending our shop opening hours so those of you who can’t make it in during the week can have a chance to pop into the store.
We will be open on Saturdays from 9am – 12pm from now until the 17th of December.
I hope to see you here!
What is Franken Polish? I hear you say!
“Frankening” is the process of mixing existing nail polishes together to create a new and unique colour, or adding glitter to an existing polish to give it a sparkle. The name comes from Frankenstein, who was created using bits and pieces of other things.
We are super excited to be able to bring our very own range of DIY nail polish supplies to you all. We’re the only supplier in New Zealand that sells un-tinted nail polish base. So if you’re looking for a new hobby, or to start a new nail polish business you’ve come to the right place!
It really is as simple as adding colour, whether it’s one of our liquid tinters, or micas, to one of our three nail polish bases and shaking well. That’s it! You can also add glitter to make a sparkly polish – just make sure that the glitter is solvent resistant. The colour possibilities are only limited by your imagination!
We have one size bottle available at the moment, but we’ll be adding more soon. The 9ml flat bottle is a great size and comes with two metal balls to make mixing easy.
Nail polish base
We have three different untinted lacquer bases available. All our bases are developed using the “5 Free” formula, which means there are no nasties (No Toluene, Formaldehyde, Phthalates, Camphor and TSF resin).
Standard Nail Polish Base – use this base for making polishes that mostly use liquid tinters that don’t contain a lot of mica.
Silica Nail Polish Base – this has better suspension capabilities than the standard base, so it’s a great option if you want to make a polish with lots of mica or add a small particle glitter.
Glitter Suspension Base – this is the base to use if you want to really load up your polish with lots of sparkly glitters.
Colours
Choose from our range of liquid tinters – these are D&C pigments which are formulated in our 5 free base. Or for a more shimmery looking polish you can either use our Aluholo tinter, or any of our micas.
As a general guideline, we use about 1 part liquid tinter to 2 parts nail polish base (use more tinter if you want a more concentrated colour). For example – to make this pretty pink colour we used 2ml White (titanium dioxide) tinter and 1ml Red-34 tinter. Then topped the bottle up with 6ml of standard nail polish base. For micas you can use anywhere from 4-5 mini scoops up to a dozen or so. It really just depends on how dark you want your nail polish to be.
Glitters
We don’t stock any glitters at the moment, but we will be getting some in the future. The most important thing to remember when buying glitter for making nail polish is to make sure it is solvent resistant. If it isn’t then the nail polish will eat right through the glitter.
Safety Notice
Nail polish bases and liquid tinters are extremely flammable. They have a dangerous goods classification which means they can only be shipped via road (sorry no overnight deliveries are possible to the South Island)
When making your nail polish please ensure that you are working in a well ventilated area away from any heat sources such as naked flames, heaters, or even an oven. Also ensure that your unused ingredients are stored away from any possible heat sources.
It’s a good idea to put some newspaper or handy towels down on your work surface to make sure you don’t get any stray drops of nail polish on your furniture.
After literally weeks of hard work – there was no blood, but there was some sweat during those stifling summer days, and definitely a few tears! Our new website is finally LIVE!
I hope you all like the new look as much as we do. It’s a bit ‘cleaner’ looking than our old one, and I’m really hoping it’s much less “buggy” too! As with any new thing, there might be a few hiccups while we all get used to the new layout, so please be patient with me as I work to try and smooth out any last glitches. If you do notice anything odd please don’t hesitate to flick me a message so I can fix it.
Once we get settled with our website I’ll be rolling out some new features which will hopefully make shopping with us that little bit better!
The Christmas season has come around again, scarily fast this year!
We’ve been in the throes of our busiest time of year these last few weeks and I’d just like to say a big THANK YOU to all our customers for being patient and sticking with us throughout some of our more challenging times – The worst of these being our website crashing during our busiest week of the year, or our most frustrating issue this year – running out of stock!
We’re already planning big things for 2016, the first of these is to make sure we have ample stock on hand to supply fragrances in larger sizes – it’s been a long time coming and I’m super excited to be able to finally sell our yummy fragrances in big bottles. Our fragrance shipment is now on the water, the ship left California a couple of weeks ago (after a 3 1/2 week delay!) and is due to arrive early January, so watch this space for larger sizes early next year.
We’ve also got a new product range that we’re going to be launching next year – it’s still a work in progress so I can’t give too much away right now, but it’s going to be awesome! (sorry that was really vague!)
Zen Designs has been open for just over two years now, and it’s been one massive roller coaster of a ride! We’ve continued to grow and hopefully improve (!) all the time. We’re so, so grateful for everyone that supports us and offers their kind words and feedback. We know that you have a choice when it comes to buying your craft supplies so it really means a lot to us that you choose us. We may not be the biggest, or the cheapest, but we always try to make sure our service is the best.
I hope you all have a wonderfully Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!
– Kirsty, Yasmin and the Zen Designs Team 🙂
In order to receive your parcels before Christmas, please order no later than –
South Island – Friday 18th December
North Island – Monday 21 December
For locals who would like to PICK UP your order from our shop we will be open until
WEDNESDAY 23rd December 8.30am – 12pm
Store Holiday Opening Hours
Wednesday 23rd December – Open 8.30am – 12pm
Thursday 24th December – Sunday 10th January – CLOSED
Monday 11th January – Open 8.30am – 4pm (resuming normal opening hours Monday – Friday 8.30am – 4pm)
Holiday Deliveries
While our physical store will be closed until the 11th of January, we will be dispatching online orders made during this time, so don’t worry your order definitely won’t be sitting here for three weeks waiting to send out!
We’re now open Saturdays from 9am – 1pm for the rest of the year!
I know there are a few of you from out of town, or that work during the week who can’t come in during our regular opening hours, so now that we’re open Saturday mornings it will be easier to get all your Christmas crafting supplies.
I hate when I have to make announcements like this, but unfortunately with the ever increasing freight costs I can no longer absorb the dangerous goods fee that the courier charges me for sending sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide.
I regret to say that from today 08/10/15 we now have to pass on that surcharge to our customers. All orders containing lye will have a $7.50 dangerous goods surcharge added to the regular freight cost.
Also, due to strict packaging regulations lye can only be sent in 1kg buckets, which means if you order more than 1kg you will receive multiple 1kg buckets.
We only charge one $7.50 fee when you order up to 5kg of lye, so in order to save costs it might be a good idea to buy in larger quantities to save paying multiple surcharges over time.
We’re excited to announce we’re now offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $175.
Just in time for all your Christmas projects! Happy shopping 🙂
The humble mason jar has been on a serious come-back for a while now. What used to be solely reserved for people like my Granddad, and his case loads of preserved peaches, (literally case loads! I now have an aversion to tinned peaches because of the sheer amount of preserved peaches we used to have to eat in my childhood!), are now considered a fashionable.
I find myself being served cold drinks in mason jars virtually everywhere I go. You can’t go for five minutes browsing Pinterest without being bombarded with ideas on how to use mason jars in every which way other than what they’re originally designed for. So I thought I’d jump on that bandwagon!
The month of May has officially been dubbed “Mason Jar May”
For the next four weeks I’m going to set about attempting four different projects using various styles of mason jars. I stress the word attempting, because like any crafter will know grand ideas sometimes don’t come out as awesome “in the flesh” as they do in your head.
Stay tuned for my first project Mason Jar Ribbon Holder
The year is now a quarter of the way over and I feel like I’ve barely gotten past Christmas! I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing long weekend over Easter. I’m hoping for a few days of sunshine so I can tackle the overgrown forest that my garden has become!
We’re closing at 4pm on Thursday 2nd April, and will reopen at 8.30am Tuesday 7th April. Any orders that are received before 2pm Thursday will leave on the courier today and be delivered Tuesday.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter (maybe taking a little time to do some candle or soap making!)
Take advantage of our four day Easter Sale with 10% store wide.
Use coupon code Easter15 during checkout to receive your discount.
Sale starts Friday 3 April and ends Monday 6 April – sorry no back orders available. Sale does not include items already reduced.
It’s been a crazy few months around here to say the least! With our move out of the portacom and into our new shop we’ve got a lot more space so our product range has slowly been expanding. I’ve found space is kind of like money – the more you have the more you use until you get to the point where you don’t know how you managed to survive before!
If you aren’t able to come in and visit our shop don’t worry because we ship all our products nationwide, and ordering off the website is super easy!
Here are a few new things we’ve got in store now… keep an eye out because I’m expecting a lot more new products to arrive in the next month or so, it’s exciting stuff!
Our new range of preserving jars are absolutely stunning. At this stage we have three different styles; The Quilted Jelly Jar, Jam Jar and Weck Tulip Jars. They have nice thick glass walls and are used by professional candle makers throughout New Zealand.
The Jelly and Jam jars are made in the USA and the Weck jars are made in Germany so the quality of this glassware is exceptional.
You can use them in other crafts too, they’re not just for candle makers. You can of course use them in preserving your jams and relishes, they’re also great to store chocolates and treats for wedding favours. I’ve made a mini terrarium with a Weck Tulip jar which is a lovely addition to my chaotic desk! Keep an eye out on the website for the tutorial.
I’ve been searching for a range of soap moulds for quite some time now. There are so many out there, mostly made in China, but the quality is questionable to say the least. Finally I settled on a well known and trusted brand – Milky Way Molds.
They’re designed and manufactured in the USA and are used by hobbiest to professional soap makers all around the world.
The moulds are made from sturdy PVC plastic and can be used for making soap, wax melts, chocolate, or even to mould plaster and clay! If you take proper care of them they will last for many uses. They are real value for money.
I have new styles arriving every few months so check out our soap moulds page for any new stock.
After a long, long wait we’re pleased to announce that our 6oz silver candle tins are finally back in stock!
You’ve all been so patient waiting for these to arrive back in. My shipment landed in our store this afternoon and I’ve had a busy day unpacking the new stock. I’ve got plenty of these tins so hopefully we won’t run out any time soon.
I’ve gone back to the tin design with the three little feet on the bottom and the raised lid.
Since moving inside to our new shop space I’ve been able to start buying in new fragrances again (see what I mean about the more space you have the more you use!) Our newest fragrances are Beach Daisies, Pineapple Jasmine, Fresh Ginger and I’ve got Fresh Peach and Black Tie winging their way to New Zealand right now.
If you’ve seen a fragrance somewhere else and I don’t have it listed, flick me an email and I’ll see about adding it to our line.
We will be discontinuing some of our fragrances in the next couple of weeks. We find some fragrances just aren’t too popular and I’d rather free up the space to add new scents.
The fragrances currently being discontinued are – Animalistic, Bay Rum, CK One, Chocolate Orchid, Rosewood & Musk
We can still get these fragrances in, but won’t be keeping them on the shelf so if you’d like to order them in the future a minimum size of 300ml will apply.
Just a quick note to say we’ll be CLOSED Monday 26 January for Auckland anniversary day.
All orders received on Monday will be sent out on Tuesday.
For those of you in the Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Northland areas I hope you have a lovely long weekend!
I mentioned in my post before Christmas that we’ve outgrown our little portacom which we had in the car park for the last year or more. So we’ve had to move!
Luckily we didn’t have to move very far… we’re still at the same location (22c Portside Drive, Mt Maunganui). But we’re now located inside the main building. Access is via the rear entrance by the white trellis planter box. There’s plenty of parking in the yard, or on the street.
Dad and I worked right through the Christmas holidays building and fitting out our new shop. I hope you love it as much as we do!! Here’s a sneak peak…
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It’s still a work in progress so please bear with me. In the coming few weeks and months you’ll see a wider range of products from new glassware, wood wicks, fragrances and a range of different oils being stocked now that we have more space to put them!
We’re open Monday to Friday from 8.30am – 4pm. We’d love for you all to come in and see our new shop so feel free to pop in for a look.
~ Kirsty
