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A Birthday Dinner Without Sugar

Filed Under: Soap Queen Cuisine

We’re officially into Week Two of Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse. Woooooo HOOO! And in our office, all of us made it through Week One with **no** slip ups. We are so lucky to have each other to cheer us all on AND to peer-pressure us into staying on the straight and narrow. There’s something to be said for being inspired by others’ successes. I am sending out daily updates to our email group of virtual cleansers with recipes, experiences and support. If you’re missing those emails, be sure to post and let me know and I’ll get you on for the last 14 days of this great experience. The most positive part about the entire first week? I have found *so many* amazing vegan and gluten free blogs online with inventive and interesting recipes. This week has got me back in the kitchen and excited to be there!

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Dad’s Birthday Dinner

I had a fun challenge this weekend. It was my Dad’s birthday (happy birthday Dad!). I wanted to make him a fabulous birthday dinner but needed to do it vegan, gluten free AND sugar free. Holly in Customer Service is doing the Crazy Sexy Diet Reboot with us (and she’s been incredibly inspiring to do it with – I love her exuberant attitude!). She had a great suggestion: poached pears! Voila, my Crazy Sexy Vegan No Sugar Poached Pear recipe below! [Read more…]

Craxy Week 1: Recap

Filed Under: Soap Queen Cuisine

Craxy Week in Review 

It has been nearly a week on the Crazy Sexy Diet 21 day Cleanse and we are over 20% of the way through. I have been sending out daily e-mails to everyone who signed up to join me on this journey. Let me know if you want on the mailing list by emailing craxy(at)brambleberry(dot)com. For those of you not on the mailing list, here are some highlights from the week including this weeks findings, recipes, motivations and challenges.

Motivation, Love and Support

Group support has been awesome! Six people here in the office are doing this cleanse along side me as well as a bunch of you. It has been great to chat about recipes, how we are feeling and keep each other motivated and accountable. It has also been fun to find really nifty blogs with people who are doing juice cleanses like Fred Dursts (lead singer of Limp Bizkit) is on a juice fast. Fred gives a really honest perspective of his experience. My current blog crush is  Healthy Happy Life, which has a ton of recipes, reviews & videos. One of the biggest things to remember is…YOU CAN DO THIS, WE CAN DO THIS.

For extra motivation I created a Pinterest Crazy Sexy Diet Vegan Board to share exciting new recipes and ideas. Don’t you just love Pinterest?

Jeanee from Dirty laundry emailed me this week too and was just the refreshing burst of energy that I needed. Check out her super cute blog post on her gluten free bread here. It looks like she’s been combining a couple of different recipes from the Crazy Sexy book to make her own fabulous creation. You definitely have to get creative on a diet like this to stay sane. Thanks for the pick-me-up, Jeanee!

Here are this week’s recipes

Spicy Peanut Ginger Kale Salad

Simply DD Buddha Bow

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups wild rice
3 1/4 cups vegetable stock, low sodium
1 carrot, grated
handful or so fresh cilantro, chopped
4-5 large leaves collard greens, stems removed and chopped

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 bag frozen peas
1/4 bag frozen corn
olive oil
coconut aminos (optional)
raw olives, chopped (optional but add great taste!)

Directions: Cook rice in the stock until done, about 35 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in the beans, peas, corn, and collards.  Top the bowls with cilantro, carrot, and olives.  Drizzle on olive oil and coconut aminos to your liking.  Easy, yes?  The leftovers are wonderful too.  The possibilites are endless, so feel free to get creative or keep it simple like this recipe.  You basically just want a gluten free grain, topped with raw and/or steamed vegetables and add a couple flavors and textures to the top like olives, avocado, bell pepper, carrot, etc.

Remember

With any change comes some challenges. Mine has been lack of energy and some food cravings. I have found that being prepared is the key. Have snacks packed and healthy ingredients on hand with recipes that set you up for success has been extremely helpful. Making the choice to think about what you are putting in your body and having your goals in your mind at all times is big. This reboot is all about cleansing not only your body but getting focused on your total wellness mind, body and soul.

MP Loves CP

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

I’m still in love with our new silicone cube mold (I’m sure you can tell from the recent cube mold tutorials: Holiday Cubes and  Crazy for Cubes). I even designed a brand new mini heart mold specifically for embedding in the cube mold (now that‘s love). The technique of combining melt and pour with cold process soap is super simple with lovable results. It’s even easy enough for CP beginners!

[Read more…]

Valentine Etsy Linkspiration and Love

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Valentine’s Day is less than a month away which means you still have time to purchase your valentine goodies. Or even better…MAKE your valentine goodies (Pushaw! As if we’d recommend anything but handmade). If you decide to buy instead of make, check out some super cute and homemade finds from Etsy and support the handmade soaping community. Chris and I are planning on celebrating Valentine’s Day as a family with little Jamisen by our side. Though we go on date nights, I’m pretty sure finding a friend to babysit might be impossible on the date-iest night of the year!

Lemmers SoapWorks Co. LoveLee Soaps, Howards Home

Big T Ranch Soap, Herb’n Development Handmades, Sunbasilgarden Soap

Robyn’s Nest Boutique, Be Greatful Shop, Dallas Soap Company

KC SoapsNMore, The Twisted Purl, Delightful Wonders

Apply for the Summer S.O.A.P. Team

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

S.O.A.P. Summer 2012

We’ve got some great fragrances that we can’t wait to try out for the next round of the S.O.A.P. panel, Summer 2012! We need to enlist 8 soapy soldiers to help us decide on the new fragrances for Summer 2012.

What’s up with the S.O.A.P. panel? Soap Opinion (Awesome) Panel members will receive 10 one ounce fragrance samples of our top fragrance choices for Summer 2012. Give the cutting-edge fragrances a sniff AND test them in any product you like (CP, MP, lotion, scrubs, body balms, candles, anything!). Then fill out a survey to help distinguish the top choices. We want your honest opinion and notes on testing! In the past, we’ve really enjoyed the fact that our S.O.A.P. team members have taken no liberties in expressing exactly how they feel about some of the samples. If the fragrances don’t pass with the SOAP Team then they don’t pass with the BB testing team either.

  • “Smells foody,  but then a bit antisepticy at the end, a bit like acetone at the end  but at first foody…not sure which food, cookie, vanilla but definitely acetone, burning to the nose at the end.” 
  • “Fruity, orange (dreamsicle), popsicle scent or fruity chewing gum, kind of want to lick it.”
  • “Fruity again but with some floral at the beginning, strong at first but then relatively subtle, a bit perfumey, not something I would want to eat.”

Thanks Mommy You Soap It for those super creative and funny quips, taken from this blog post: The actual notes from my sniffer when I first popped the bottles open {SOAP Panel}

How do I get in on the action? Tweet, Facebook or Blog about your favorite Bramble Berry Fragrance Oil (including links) and why you should be selected for the S.O.A.P. team. You have until Tuesday January 24th to get your links out there, and then we’ll choose and announce the finalists soon after. Be sure to get your tweets, posts and blogs done by next week! Note: your Tweets should have @brambleberry someplace in the body of the Tweet (but make sure they don’t just get directed directly to @brambleberry or else no one else can see them)!

Fine Print: We will be sending the fragrances out by the end of next week and we would like the surveys complete by February 27th, which gives you about a month to test the fragrances. Please keep these dates in mind before you enter. We are looking for an accountable and enthusiastic panel, so be sure that this works out with your schedule! Because these fragrances can’t ship internationally, we are not able accept international entries.

Still curious? Check out the results from previous S.O.A.P panels! 

Fall 2011, Summer 2011, Floral Edition 2011

The darling soap above was made by Emily from Soap and Restless. She was on the Summer Soap Team for 2011 and did a fabulous job testing the fragrances in her cold process soap. Check out Emily’s Blog Posts about her testing experience: SOAP Opera Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5.

Remember to Tweet, Blog and Facebook about your favorite Bramble Berry Fragrance Oil.

Crazy Sexy Reboot Starts Today

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I’m excited! The Crazy Sexy Reboot starts today and I’ve already juiced up my juice breakfast (see below for recipe and see above for one big fan of the green delicious juice and yes, for the record, the black kale can and will stain). I’m ready to eat my Tofu Eggless Salad on Gluten Free bread for lunch. Tonight, I’ve got a Thai faux-Peanut sauce vegetable with Quinoa already prepped. It should be delicious!

It’s Day 1 and we’ve got about 25 virtual participants joining us. I’ll be sending out emails frequently with fun recipes, support and good cheer. If you’d like to be in on the emails, just ask in the comments and we’ll get you added. [Read more…]

Favorite Books of 2011

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Bossypants by Tina FeyI love to read. I love it so much that even with a baby, I still find time to read almost every night before bed. My tastes vary widely from serious business books to action books to chick lit. I read it all!

I finished over 50 books last year (curious about which books that I’m currently reading? The complete 2011 list is on the About Me page with 2012 coming next week). These were my favorite books of 2011:

 

Bossypants – Tina Fey’s book was everything I want in an autobiography by a funny person. It was downright funny, funny and made me like her even more (if that’s even possible!). I laughed out loud many times reading this book, enough to wake my sleeping husband.

Story of a Beautiful Girl – This book has a heart wrenching start as it delves into the mentally indigent in the ’60s and their horrible treatment. From there, the book follows the lives of a mute man and a woman, in love but

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrandtorn apart through circumstance, and of the daughter they were forced to give up. It is deeply  moving, beautifully written and its ending does not disappoint.

Unbroken – Louis Zamperini crashed on a mission in World War II. He fought of starvation, sharks and the ocean for over 40 days before he was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese. This book tells the story of his time in captivity, at sea and his life before and after the war. It is an exceptionally well-written book, reading like fiction, with an absolutely inspiring message.

State of Wonder – I love Ann Patchett’s writing (if you haven’t read “Bel Canto,” you should). This story line is particularly convoluted. It involves a researcher in the Amazon who is tracking a method to make women fertile their entire lives. What are the ethical implications of this? There’s a mystery thrown in (missing researcher) to keep the plot line moving and engaging.

A Visit from the GoonThe Paris Wife Squad – Wide ranging, spanning decades, this book could practically be a series of short stories. Though the book took full concentration to follow (read this one in large chunks, not ten pages here and ten pages there), the writing and storyline(s) were unique and inventive. I kept reading to see how the author would pull it all together and was sad when the book ended.

The Paris Wife – I don’t like Ernest Hemigway’s writing (I know, I know, millions do and I am clearly in the wrong for this opinion) so I was incredibly surprised when not only did I devour this book, I found myself getting worked up (in anger; Hemingway was not the best husband) over the fictionalized account of Hemingway’s first marriage and child. The book is well researched though the author does take some liberties in retelling the story of Hemingway’s early years of writing in Paris.

If you’ve read any great books that you think I should read (or have my book club read), let me know! I always am looking for thoughtful book suggestions.

Cleansing Clay Masks on Soap Queen TV

Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs

Learn to make your own Clay Masks using a variety of dry clay powders, moisturizing oils and even ingredients you can find in your kitchen! Clay (or mud) is great for soaking up excess oil and removing impurities from your skin. In this episode, Anne-Marie shares 3 unique recipes which you can make for a fraction of the cost of store bought masks.

Ingredients used in this video:

Recipe 1)  Just Add Water Mask

  Get everything you need to make the ‘Just Add Water Mask’

 

Recipe 2)  Rich Mud Mask

  Get everything you need to make the ‘Rich Mud Mask’

 

Recipe #3 Fresh Clay Mask

  • 1 Small Avocado
  • 1 Egg White
  • 1/2 tsp Olive Oil
  • 1/2 Tbl Honey
  • 4 tsp Sea Clay

 

Winter Series Mash Up: Retro Cuteness

Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs

Though I will admit that I haven’t hit the slopes at all this season, I’m hoping that some of you have! One of the side effects from all the cold weather from winter is dry and chapped skin. We thought it would be really fun to make a coordinating winter relief series to take care of our delicate skin, irritated by winters’ cold. We published these already but just in case you missed one during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, we included all three below. If you look at the ingredients you’ll notice that the lip balm and body balm are made with many of the same products so you can kill two birds with one stone. Or make two balms with one order? Enjoy the recipes (and the slopes!).

 After the salt soak you can lather your feet in our winter body balm recipe and be sure to check out the winter lip balm recipe to complete the winter series! And don’t forget to download your free and super cool retro-style matching labels for the Body Balm, Lip Balm and Salt Soak.

Winter Body Balm

Winter Lip Balm

Winter Salt Soak

Has anyone tried these recipes or a variation of one of these recipes! I want to hear about it!

Partnership Discussion List

Filed Under: Business Musings

If you’re thinking about entering into a partnership for business, read my first post on the subject here. And then, print out this handy list, grab a cup of tea and your potential partner and start a discussion. Make sure to talk about all the things on this list because how you start with a partnership agreement is more important than how you end. Are you ready? Grab that tea, get cozy and get talking! Your (possible) business partnership depends on your honesty, authenticity and thoughtful answers – both now and in the future.

(1) What products will you actually sell? Just soap? Soaps + lip balms? Soap + lip balms + more?  What products do you want to sell? Who do you think your customers will be? Will you sell at craft fairs, home parties, mail order, online, just to retailers or all of the above? Which ones will you tackle first?

(2) Will you be a corporation, an LLC or a sole proprietorship? This affects you and your family should something negative happen in the business, say, a bankruptcy. Though we all go into businesses planning for the best, we also need to come up with a worst-case scenario and planning what type of business entity you’ll be is the first step to that.

(3) How will you fund the business? Who is putting in what money? Who is putting in what time? In 6 months, who will be working what hours? What about vacation time? Do you get vacation time? What happens when one partner gets married and takes 2 weeks for her honeymoon (after basically neglecting the business for the 3 months before the wedding)? Resentfulness is a burning hole that can ruin any partnership and believing that others are not working as hard as you are? That’s prime grounds for feeling resentful.

(4) If you disagree with each other, how will you settle arguments? Mediator? A family friend? Does one partner have 51% and the other 49%? Is everything a collaboration? What level of decisions need to have two people to agree on them?

(5) What will you do with the money you make? Will you pull out your profits or re-invest them? Will you take salaries? Will you be paid hourly based on how many hours you worked?

(6) How can the company be dissolved if things don’t work out? How will you value the company if one partner buys the other partner out?  Or, what happens if a partner (gulp) dies or has a major health issue that takes them out of the business?

(7) Let’s get philosophical: what are you life goals? Do you have professional and personal values? What are they? What are the maxims you live by? If your personal maxim is, “The early bird gets the worm!” and your potential partner’s maxim is, “Good things come to those who wait,” there could be a major potential for trouble.

(8) Gut check. Do you trust this person? Note: hopefully you’re really drinking tea and not alcohol because if you’re drinking alcohol, you might want to check in on this question tomorrow.

(9) What is your skillset? What is their skillset? Do they compliment eachother? What about weaknesses?

Talking about your expectations for the partnership and the business is important before diving in. There is big difference between being the best of friends and having to work with each other day in and day out (and sometimes, long into the night). Just like pre-marital counseling, you need pre-partnership counseling. When you work on these things early, you’ll be able to concentrate on building the business – not working out interpersonal kinks.

 

 

 

Baby Swim Lessons and Granite Schooch

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

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Our family spends a lot of time near or in the water in the summer. Swimming pools and open bodies of water (including bathtubs and toilets) are dangerous places for babies to be without proper training. We enrolled Jamisen in swimming lessons at the ripe old age of 8 months. So far, he’s not a huge fan of the water but he is a huge fan of the play toys IN the water (see below).

Jamisen loves his ball! [Read more…]

Valentine Inspiration

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

According to the Bramble Berry Facebook page, many of you have already started on your Valentine. Way to plan ahead people. For those of you that are needing a little extra push to get started, here’s some inspiration from Soap Queen blogs gone by:

Neapolitan Cold Process for Valentine’s Day

Save The Bath Bomb- Valentine Style

XOXO Soap, Red Lipstick (for a date night),  Massage Candle

3D Hearts, Ombre Hearts, Heart BathFizzies

Romantic Reeds, Cold Process Hearts, Chocolate Lip Balm 

Neapolitan CP for Valentine’s Day

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

We know it’s winter but we’re screaming, we’re screaming for ice cream – Neapolitan ice cream that is! Remember the yummy taste of vanilla, berry and chocolate melting together in your mouth? Yeah, we can too so we decided to get our icy on by designing a special Valentine’s Day Soap to whet your appetite for summer days gone by. For the top of our bars, we were inspired by Kristy Rose from Kristy’s Lovely Lathers. Check out Kristy’s guest appearance on Soap Queen TV to see her demonstrate the swirly heart technique live.

[Read more…]