This is a fascinating retrospective of a family that takes a photo of themselves every year. Click here to see all of the changes through the years.
Christmas Soap
This is one of the soaps we made for our Christmas soap display at Otion. The red and white chunks are made with clear soap colored with Labcolors Red and white melt and pour soap. We made the flat layers in a cake pan, chopped up the layered soap and then embedded the chunks into a Milky Way Square Mold.
I’m in Seattle today, with Erik from Otion, to plan our 2008 Action plan. It will be a light posting day. Saturday, I’ll be working at Otion doing soapmaking demos for our holiday crafters. If you’re around, stop by to see the holiday soap!
8% Beeswax Soap
Recently, one of our Bramble Berry customers wrote with some problems he was having unmolding his 8% beeswax soap. It was sticking in his lovely Milky Way Tray mold and causing him no end of consternation.
We made his recipe for him to test it and see if it was technique or the mold. It was exciting to see that a thicker trace was all that was necessary to make a great batch of soap that released easily from the mold.
Isn’t that batch of soap nicely colored? It’s all natural coloring from the yellow beeswax. We scented ours with a little Lemongrass. The undernote of Beeswax and the Lemongrass make for a match made in heaven!
Squeaky Clean Soap Love
I’m squealing with delight over these wonderful products.
The Squeaky-Clean packaging is professional and appealing. The lip balms are especially swanky with fun fonts and professional printing. I love the Honey and Carmel Latte.
The Sugar & Blueberries soap is already long gone in my shower. It was a hefty bar that appealed to my hubby because of the size and weight in the hand.
I’ve been using the Facial Cleansing Oil at the Gym to wash up after working out. It’s a nice change from foaming cleansers. Though it seems counterintuitive to add oil to your face to clean it, the product works well and my face is left feeling clean, soft but not stripped.
I loved the packaging, the smells, and the uniqueness of the facial cleansing oil.
Mandi, the proprietress, also has an Etsy shop selling these goodies:
She is one creative (and busy!) crafter!
Bramble Berry & Effusion Lamps
Thank you Christy over at Thrifty Decorating for doing the hard work for us and researching Bramble Berry fragrances in Effusion Lamps!
She wrote about Effusion Lamps here and then here to answer reader questions. It’s a great post, complete with photos and should answer all your questions about making Effusion Lamp Refills on the cheap.
If you’re curious about Effusion Lamps, how they work, what they’re good for or how to save yourself some money on your own blends, Christy’s got the lowdown here.
Yoga isn’t making me fat?!
Thank you to Northwest Digital Designs for reading this blog and pointing out that yoga probably isn’t making me fat. Here’s a site that addresses how yoga can be used to control your weight. It involves eating a healthier diet (picture me making a frowny face here).
I was really hoping for a secret that didn’t involve a combination of diet and healthy eating.
Freight Delays
The actual freeway
These are photos of the main I-5 corridor in Chehalis Washington (I went to high school there!). All of Bramble Berry’s freight goes on this freeway to reach us from most of our international shipping ports. Many of our freight shipments are being delayed until the water recedes and the road can be reopened.
Supposedly this will not affect our outbound shipments – only getting stock to us that’s already on the road.
Podcast on Work-Life Balance
I listened to this podcast last night while working on instructions for Jelly Rolls (they will be done soon). It’s on Work Life Balance (and the myth thereof).
Here’s the link so you can listen while you work.
One of the best tips was to “Drop three things from your to-do list. Right now!”
I’m not sure what those three things could be for me. Everything seems like it’s so important and can’t be dropped but I’ll be thinking about it for the next few days.
If you listen to the podcast, I’d be interested to see what you took away from the show.
My first thought was that maybe I could drop some of my housework responsibilities. There’s a great post on that very subject here. It starts out:
Working women let the laundry pile up. That was basically the finding of a recent study on women and housework.
That’s true in my house already – laundry, dishes, and dust are already piling up. So, maybe cutting housework responsibilities isn’t the first thing to drop off my To-Do list. =)
Final Talc Photos
These are the final product of the messy Talc Project from last week. The template for these lovely, simple labels can be found here. It’s a PDF File and takes a few minutes to download.
Enjoy making these fun and easy gifts for Christmas. If you come up with innovative ways to keep the dust down, let me know. I’d love to share it with our group.
Paw Print Soap
These soaps were made by Kay from Russia. The color combinations are striking and filling in the baby pawprints takes a steady hand and extreme patience.
Champagne-Sipping Fruity Soap
Aren’t they cute? They’re using Kumquat fragrance, non-bleeding purple and either Super Pearly White (soaps on right) or Sparkle Violet (soaps on left) for the contrasting color.
The Kumquat fragrance is absolutely a stunner. It’s bright and effervescently fruity in a sophisticated manner that manages to avoid all nuances of Kool-Aid fruity and stick to adult, champagne-sipping fruity.
I’ll do a tutorial in the next few weeks on how to make Jelly Roll Soap.
Running in a Windstorm
This was my run today, in a mini windstorm with winds from 19 to 27 miles per hour. Thankfully, it was merely wet and not actively raining.
And the Winn(t)er Is …
For the “Love My Commenters” surprise contest,
koinonaicommunity!
Please email me at brambleceo (at) qwest.net and I’ll get your goodies right out to you.
Holiday Soaps
Inspirational Holiday Soaps from HermitFarm Soaptorium. Click here to see all of her photos. She’s a full time artist (with hobbies of calligraphy and dance on the side) and it shows by the detail work on these holiday soaps.