You can Start to see the light

It is easy to close the blindes and keep the light out,
Out of your room, your feelings, your life.
The negative thoughts wallow and grow in the darkness.
It is easy to be where you are used to it,
and not even be aware that the negativity is there.

Feeling it, being it, never to see the possibility.

You keep yourself from the light.

Everyone wallows in the bad, the negative,

it catches attention, makes for great conversation,

but it holds us all back.

 Holds us back from our potential of being,

being positive and capable in our relationships, our minds, and our lives.
You can let in the possibilities.

And all you have to do is open the blinds.

Cutest Little Critters

I was perusing Etsy yesterday and came accross the cutest little soap critters.  I just had to share them.

Pictured from top to bottom is Rabbit Soap by Bloom Decoration Soap,  Kids Colorful Bubble Amphibian by Hop is My Muse, 3 Sheep Soap - Cotton Candy by Twin Dream Creations,  and Scooby Doo Set of 12 Birthday Party Favors by Memory Kreations

Wow

I have been in college a long time, I mean a really long time.  Feels like an eternity since I started. Oh, waite, it was a lifetime ago.  I started college out of high school and took time off around my kids. My oldest is now getting ready to drive and my youngest turned two in December.  Boy, does time fly.  The whole graduation ceremony reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

"The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get." 

Jim Rohn

It was an absolutley beautiful day to have a graduation.

Vanilla Mocha Oh Yeah!

 This batch of soap surprised me. It could have gone wrong in sooo many different ways, and I honestly thought it did, a couple of times.  I learned some things from this batch that I haven't learned from others.

1. Remember art class from so many years ago, it can come in handy.

2. When in doubt, cure and cut anyway.

3. You never know what your going to get.

Ah, art class, not just time to screw around but to learn the color wheel, complimentary colors, and that your cly sculpture can explod in the kiln. To me I thought it was just fun and never thought I would retian some of that information.  I also never realized that the complimentary color thing would help me in soap making. 

Most of my soaps are made with a lot of olive oil, which has a yellow greeen hue to it, and I use palm oil (sustainable and Orangutan safe, of course) which also has a lovely yellow hue.  So when I was mixing the lye into the oils it did not occur to me that the cocoa powder I used would turn the mixture green, instead of the brown I was so longing for.  The complimentary colors of the color wheel popped into my head and I added the slightest bit of red oxide. And would you know it?!?!?! Brown. Deep beautiful chocolatey brown. 

The whole batch got layered with a coffee strip, I used real coffee grounds for the stripe and for a gentle exfoliating factor but I did not realize that it would smell funny.  Like a slightly foul conatiner of left over noodles stuck in the back of the fridge foul. Ewww! I thought I had killed the whole batch, it was setting up and there really was no other alternative.  So, it was wrapped and left to cure, smelly or not. I forgot about it, for like a week.  When I finally got around to cutting it, it smelled...good.  Like chocolate vanilla coffee with a little musk added in.  Kind of weird but better than I had thought it was going to. I cut the loaf into bars anyway.  Now that it is pretty much cured, it smells fabulous and I find myself sneaking a sniff whenever I get the chance.  

Like a chocolate bar with a hint of coffee.  Vanilla Mocha Oh, Yeah!

Little Information and another experiement

The little information part is easy,  I am taking any baking I do and putting it on my other blog. Foodylove.blogspot.com I think it should go there rather than here. :) Makes sense to me. There. Done.

Now on to the experiement. The thing that I did was a thing I have not done before but thought about many times.  Mixing Melt & Pour and cold process. Sounds easy, right? Well, I found out I was kind of wrong and well...kind of right, but I had a few other things happen I had not thought about.

I made my cold process soap like I always do and mix it at about 95 degrees F., added my fragrance at trace and tried to layer the M & P before I swirled it. I thought it would just swirl right in and that it would turn out like I was thinking in my head.

Sounded good to me.  Except I did not take into consideration two things; 

  1) My fragrence oil accelerated trace and,

2) M&P gets hard at lower temperatures

The accelerated trace was no big deal, I have salvaged many a batch from the dreaded sieze. But I was feeling a little sheepish for not realizing that the cooler temperature that I mix my CP at would have such an effect on the M&P.   I went to swirl like I usually do and stuck my knife into the batch and it was met with hard melt and pour. Ooops!

Overall, the batch turned out really well and it smells fabulous! Not quite the swirl I wanted but....a success afterall. (I do love the marble effect.) Next time, I'll try soaping at highter temperatures and swirling between layers.  Wish me luck.

Sugar Scrubbie Experiment

This ones too hard, this ones too soft, and this one is too oily!!  Sugar scrubs that is.  I found a recipe for them on  the SoapQueen ( I do love the Soap Queen) and have always wanted to try to make sugar scrubbies.

I printed the recipe and gathered all my gear to try them the next day. The recipe wasn't bad I just thought it was a little oily and wanted to "adjust" the recipe to my taste. So I conducted a wee little experiment in order to find a recipe that was jjjuuussstt right.

Now, I probably should have used the same fragrance oil and mica for each one, but I am working under the assumption that the different fragrances will not reall have an effect since there is not a huge chemical reaction like making cold process soap.

I made three batches with different amounts of ingredients. The blue/green is the original recipe, it can be found here.  This is one is for comparison. 

The purple scrubbie is made with:                                     

 2 oz. clear M&P soap                                                                       

  1 oz of oil, I used Olive Oil                                                                

  6 oz Sugar                                                                                          

  25 drops FO and                                                                             

  1/8 tsp. lavender mica

Then the gold scrubbie is made with:

3 oz M &P soap

1.5 oz Olive Oil

6 oz Sugar

20 drops FO

1/8 tsp gold mica

After cutting and comparing each one I truely do prefer the the gold one.  Hands down!!!  It's jjuuusssttt right!! It cuts well, I think the extra M & P helped and it does not have the oily feel that the other ones did.  Now I have to remember with my next batch to thuroughly pack them into their molds. then it will be perfection!

Boy Does Time Fly

O.k. So it has been a while since I have posted anything.  I haven't been ignoring soap, actually the opposite, but I have, dispite my best intentions, gotten busy and unfocused.

Life got in the way.  It seems at times that it does that. 

So it is time to get back on the wagon and talk about some of my favorite things.  SSSOOOAAAPPP!  Amongst other things.  I should do it more often. This is something I do because I love to share.  My schedule will match my intentions and I'll post more often. Since life is a work in progress, along with this blog, I will make the time for it.

The Pink Dotted Owl on Etsy

Everyone meet Hootie and Owlivia

 

I love owls, they are wise, majestic, and slightly mysterious. Except these two; they are just the cutest soap owls. Love It!

Thanksgiving; The forgotten holiday

Thanksgiving is the forgotten holiday.  After Halloween, things seem to jump right to the winter Holidays with out even a look back.  I find the Holidays come earlier every year, I mean the shelves are stocked with stocking stuffers, Christmas candy, and presents before Halloween is even over.



The Praying Paisley Thankful Wall Hanging



It seems there is no reason to celebrate Thanksgiving if you can't give everyone in your family the most expensive gifts for Christmas.  If you watch the news, there is no reason to be thankful, it is all negative gloom and doom.  But I am thankful.  For all kinds of things, I am thankful. Thankful for the ability to write here, and the roof over my head, the sun, the moon, the seasons, the snow, heck, I'm thankful for indoor plumbing.  Thankful for the beautiful mountian town I live in.  I am grateful for my husband, and my children and my dogs that bark too much.  There is so many things to be thankful for and a lot of them we take for granted. 



That is why Thanksgiving is such an important holiday because it is not about the stuff you get, it is about appreciating the stuff you have.



Im So Crafty Thankful for You



Satin and Birch Cornicopia Soap      Solstic Scents Candied Yam Soap



Laurie's Tutu Boutique Little Turkey Tutu
Isn't that just the sweetest thing!

Soooo Important

I usually do not title my posts with exclamations and pressing things but this one is important for all lovers of handmade soaps and cosmetics, especially the small businesses manufacturing them.

The Safe Cosmetics Act....not so good.

This is the second (or is it third) that the government has recently tried to make it more difficult for small businesses to stay in business. It seems that the government, all though with good intentions, is trying to save us from ourselves and kill small business for fun and profit by passing more regulations that require more time and money from those of us trying to run small business.

You can decide for yourself by reading the full legislation here.

Write your representative and tell them no on the The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786).

Here is a copy of the letter I composed (with the help of The Soap Queen)and sent to my representative here in Colorado.


Dear Representative John Salazar,

I am writing to express my concerns for H.R. 5786, The Safe Cosmetics Act. I make lip balms, soaps, and lotions and sell them at my local Farmer Market and festivals. I make less then $5000 per year. I sell them to pay for my daughter's new clothes and my son's snowbaords every year. what I make enhances my families income and helps the quality of our life, puts money back into my community, and helps deter the effects of the downturn in our economy.

I make soaps from common ingredients that you can find in your kitchen. For example, I have a great bar of soap that I make out of four ingredients: olive oil, lye, water, and essential oils. H.R. 5786 has a lot of extra reporting requirments that would be virtually impossible for me to comply with. I am just one woman in a kitchen. I do not have a huge staff to help with this paperwork nightmare. I often change formulations based on the season and consumer demand. Being nimble is a huge advantage for me and if I have to submit a new safety and ingredient affidavit for every product that will take away one of my key advantages. This legislation is unnecessary because it is already illegal to manufacture unsafe cosmetics and disclosure of ingredients and contact information is already required. Buying handmade and homemade toiletries is a prefferable choice for many consumers; these handicaps to small business like mine, could put me out of business and take that choice away. Please don't take away that choice. Please do not support H. R. 5786. It is well-meaning but it is written in such a way that I will not be able to stay in business because I will not be able to keep up. Estee Lauder started at her kitchen table. Please do not take that oppotunity away from me.

Sincerely,

Cass Smith


Make the decision for yourself and take the time to write your Representative. Help small business' do what they do best, business.

You can also check out the Oppose SCA website and sign the petition to Oppose the SCA here.

Love this

I was testing out this new fragrance I bought from Brambleberry, not to mention it was a good time to practice layering. I did not really think it was going to real well. But I love this. The storm that is busy brewing over that ocean matches the fragrance well. Ummmmm.

I call it Stormy Waters.

Who killed the doll?

My kids do some pretty crazy things sometimes, so when I saw this on my kitchen floor, I had to laugh, even though it was kind of funny and then again kind of not. What are the chances that I'd have a CSI crime scene on my tile.:)

As it turns out the red smudge is from a strawberry my little one squished into the tile and then just so happened to drop her dolly right next to it. Looks BBBBAAADDDD!

At 9:30 at night

There is a major sweet tooth in my household. Cookies are usually gone with in a day or two, especially if they are homemade...yummy. I am always looking for new recipes to try, so last night after a desperate search through the cupboards, I decided it was necessary...at 9:30 at night no less...to make brownies. It is not like they are hard to make, they just take a little time to mix and a lot of time to bake.

Of course, I can never just make a resipe, I always have to alter it in one way or another. I wanted raspberry brownies. OOOOOHHHHH......AAAAHHHHHH!

So I took a plain brownie recipe and mixed in aswirl of raspberry jam before I baked them....o.k. I'll say it again. OOOOOOHHHHHH.....AAAAHHHHH......mmmmmm. They smelled so fabulous, and oooey gooey goodness when they were cut into.

I'll be altering this recipe again, maybe I'll try orange marmalade, apple butter, or plain old strawberry next time.

Porn to brighten your day.

Inspiration is all around, everywhere that I look these days. I think that the summer wild flowers blooming has a lot to do with it. So I thought I would show some soap porn that makes me think of summer.

Poppy Party Soaps by Naturally Lela

Bailee Berry Exfoliating by Mountian Mama Chic

Sweetgrass Sun Soaps by Luxury Falls
What could be more summer than this!?!

Spell Bound by Sherri's Scents and Soys

Words for your Brain

Be careful what you think...

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your character.

Character is everything.

Not sure where this comes from, saw it on a crafters sign at a farmers market years ago, it has stuck with me ever since.

Words worth thinking about.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!!

I am always up to try something new, especially when it comes to the old standby chocolate chip cookie recipe. I found this recipe on a fabulous foodie blog. So I whipped this one up last night and baked a few this morning. OOOOOhhhhhh mmyyyyy.....

I think I have eaten too many already!
You can find the recipe here for your own devouring session.

Orangalicious, Finally!

Love to get ready to make soap, whether it is a new batch or not it is always an experience. It is like a science experiment and you not quite sure what the end product will look like. So I was elated when this batch turned out the way it did.

Here are just a few of the ingredients plus, a few that I had lying around. "The Gathering" of ingredients, as I like to call them.

The colors I used are micas, copper on top(love this) and apricot blush(love this even more) on the bottom. I love my colors intense and they both embody the fragrance I put into the soap.

MMMMmmmmm....love how pretty the colors swirl ont he top of the mold. This is the first test of a new mold I made, trying to get the dimensions just right for the size and shape I was going for. The shape was right but the length was not quite there and it did not fit the whole batch of soap, so I improvised and used a plastic container that worked well. You can see it in the back kind of hiding.

I had read about soap growing and cracking, this was my first experince with it. Duh, I forgot to insulate the top well so it grew and cracked. Boo hoo :( The picture does not show how much it really did grow but I did manage to stop it.

Beautiful! I am delighted with how it turned out and the aroma is fabulous. i wish I could have smell -o-web or something so you could smell it through your screen! Orange rounded out with a little grapefruit, so energizing!

Summer is finally here!!

I live at a high altitude, so winter seems to last forever. When the temperature turned cold and snow fell in October, I danced out of bed to watch it fall. When it snowed in the end of May I almost cried.

When summer finally hits here (picture me jumping up and down for joy) it's like the return of a long lost love, stars returning to your eyes and a day-dreamy like haze flows over you. The sun warms your soul as the wind caresses your skin and your mind can think of nothing else but being in it's warm embrace.

So, needless to say when summer hit the valley last week, I did not hesitate to get out and get a tan, hike, run, and work on the garden. So much for unpacking and organizing but it is getting there (slowly). Winter can still overtake the warm weather so we get out and enjoy it whenever we can (especailly since it snowed yesterday).

Funky soap.

It is funny how life can get shoved into fast foreward in the blink of an eye. It seems just yesterday I was posting about my giddy-ness over getting my shipment of soap stuff, I was so excited and impatient(ooooh, making soap!)

So, when I got my package I was laughing and smiling like a little kid in a candy store. Plans for soap making had been in the works for a week or better and they stayed there until last Saturday when I finally had a chance to make a batch with my new toys.

And was I disappointed? Yep, I was. I was tinkering with a new recipe and a new ingrediant that traced soooo fast. It was like custard in no time and and no time means weird sloppy batch of soap. Smells fabulous, feels wonderful, oh, and bubbles...lucious bubbles....looks... not so hot. Kind of bland for my taste but should work fine.

My colors are usually more vibrant, those were going to be green and dark purple along with that beautiful black. Oh, well, geuss I'll just have to make more!

A little crafty box

I got a random hair the other day and decided that the "storage" that we had in my daughters room for her books was just not happening. It honestly was the box we packed them in when we moved here a month ago. Since she is little and is climbing on everything I was not sure that a bookcase was such a good idea, she pulls just about everything over on herself. I found baskets and all sorts of plastic containers and fabric lined boxes...there's an idea... though not one of them screamed "little baby girl." Since my daughter is getting to an age where she doesn't need all her baby blankets, I thought it would be cool to cover a box for her books with a couple.

Her old receiving blankets were perfect, though I did use about one and a half blankets to cover the box pictured.

I started by measuring and cutting the blanket on the outside of the box, this way I was sure to know that it would also fit on the inside of the box. By the way, I love duct tape, for all kinds of things, this time it just happens to be holding the blanket in place while I work on the other side of the blanket.

I cut two long pieces, one for the inside and one for the outside, that fit from the top of one side of the box across the bottom and up the other side. Then I cut squares that fit each end of the box, again one set for the inside and one for the out.

Then, I fit the long piece into the inside of the box, trimmed the extra, and glued down the creases in the bottom first with a white school glue and weighted it with a good sized text book, who knew they would come in so handy. After that dried, I pulled the top over the sides and glued those, using my friend duct tape to hold it in place. I folded over the edges to the side squares and glued them before I glued the squares in place on the box. Those were also rolled over the top of the box and glued.
Then I repeated almost the same thing for the outside except I folded in the rough edges to give it a more finished look. Yep, again with the duct tape.

Here is the finished product, turned out nice, if I don't say so myself and it is the perfect size for baby books. Looks nice in her room too. Love getting organized (Well, trying to, anyway.)

Soap porn Sunday!

The title kind of seems like it contradicts itself, doesn't it?!?! I thought I would share some of my soap porn today. I was jones'n for some sudsy images.

Anise Clove Vegan Handmade Soap

By DeShawnMarie

Lulu, Limited Editition, goats milk soap

by The Dirty Housewife

Lemongrass Sage

By Sherries Scents and Soys

Black Cherry Vanilla.....mmmm

by Angels Kiss

Love these, just makes you wanna jump in to the shower and rub them all over...mmmm.