Search Results for: candle

Jamisen is One Year Old

April 22, 2012 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

It’s hard to believe but Mr. Jamisen is 1 year old. He went from this:

To this:

In ONE YEAR! Seriously. How did that happen? He’s like an actual little boy-person. Things that Jamisen can do now: pull himself up on chairs and legs to a standing position, ‘scoot’ around things, point, wave, clap, say: Mamma, Dadda, ba-oon (balloon) and hi and eat good sized solids. He has his own Twitter account for photos. You can follow him @bramblebump. I post photos every few days and my favorite right now are pages 16-20 from when he was teensy, teensy tiny! Everyone told me it would go quickly and it has – it’s been like a blink of an eye from when he was just 6 pounds leaving the hospital until now when he is a healthy 22 pounds. [Read more…]

S.O.A.P. Team Mash

February 27, 2012 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Thank you to the wonderful S.O.A.P. Team for helping us pick our fragrances for the Summer 2012 season. Don’t know what the S.O.A.P. team is? Read about it here. Our dedicated team tests 10 different fragrance oils in lotions, melt and pour, cold process, candles, lotion bars and more! They report their findings, likes and honest dislikes (which makes for hysterical reading material). The team then reports to us by taking a survey at the end of the process. Finally, the Brambleberrians get together to look at the results. We pick the top superstar fragrances to add to the Bramble Berry fragrance oil line. It’s definitely not a requirement, but many of the S.O.A.P.(ers) update their blogs and Facebook pages with testing results along the way. We LOVE reading the updates. Don’t worry, we’ll definitely keep you updated with the final results. We’re still waiting for a few of the survey results to come in (down to the wire; it’s a nail biter!) before we decide on the final fragrance additions.

Enjoy the photos from We Love Soap, Peach Blossom Cosmetics, Soap Art, EcoSations, Sudsie Q Soaps, Brooklyn Bath

Previous S.O.A.P. panel fragrance winners were: Plum Tea, Bordeaux Blend, Pinot Grigio,

Southern Peach, Tropical Punch, Exotic Fruit Smoothie

Cherry Blossom, Eucalyptus Blossom, Orange Grove

2012 Summer Soap Team:

Andi from We Love Soap: Twitter, Blog

Alanna from Peach Blossoms Cosmetics: Facebook

Dawn from EcoSations: Etsy, Facebook

Rose from Brooklyn Bath: Blog, Etsy

Jean from Soap Art: Website, Blog

Nicole from My Quest for Health: Blog, Facebook

April from April’s Soap: Blog, Facebook

Lucky Lucky Neko: Artfire, Blog

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

January 17, 2012 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.

Valentine Inspiration

January 7, 2012 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 Bath Fizzies

Romantic Reeds, Cold Process Hearts, Chocolate Lip Balm

Oodles and Oodles of New

August 7, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We’ve been hard at work adding new products for your soaping and toiletry needs – molds, additives, colorants, new fragrance kits and more! Read on to be introduced to the latest products in the Bramble Berry warehouse. And be sure to add a few to your shopping cart on your next visit to show ’em some love. =)

Scalloped Oval Mold

[Read more…]

Wrap It Up

July 26, 2011 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

On our (super active) Facebook Fan Page, Cigar Bands come up in conversation at least once a week – how to create them, how to use them, how to print them etc… and though we’re a little slow, we finally got the hint and created some easy cigar bands that you can customize yourself for your products. This cigar band was designed around the oh so popular 12 Bar Square Silicone Mold

[Read more…]

The Column Swirl Phenomenon

June 16, 2011 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

It’s really incredible how fast word spreads on the internet, and exciting to see how contagious inspiration can be! Last month my husband showed me a video posted on Facebook, originally uploaded by “Non ci posso credere.” (Click here to view the video. It’s SOOO cool!) It showed artists pouring paint down a column creating the most amazing swirled designs. Then on March 14 I shared it on the Soapylove fanpage, and the response was thrilling!

The very next day Amanda Griffin, author of the great CP eZine “Lovin’ Soap”, posted a FULL TUTORIAL showing how to do it with cold process soap (including her recipe), and coined the term “Column Swirl.” She will be posting it for The Soap Queen very soon, but here’s a sneak peek. I love all of her beautiful colors!

The next week, Erin Pikor of Naiad Soap Arts posted her soapy experiment using this method, using all natural colorants. More gorgeous results! (Click here for her post).

Then Holly Port of Lotion Bar Café (click here for her post), and finally David Fisher, writer for About.com wrote about this new technique here.

Not only is it super cool how exciting it is to get inspired, but also how great the soap community is! Everyone wanted to share their discoveries and projects with each other, and keep spreading the word about this new method. Now if someone can just figure out how to do a column swirl with MP! 😉

Summer Soaping Mash-Up

June 6, 2011 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials

It’s a beautiful day here in Bellingham, Washington and we’re enjoying the summer sun and some fun summer soap projects like Strawberry Pie Soap, Summer Lip Balm and Soothing After Sun Oil. What are some of your favorite summer soap projects?

Juicy Watermelon Soaps

Summer Strawberry Pie Soap

Mojito-riffic Soap

Summer Bronzer

Solid Sugar Scrub

Soap Queen TV Pinwheels

Summer Lip Balm

Soothing After Sun Oil

Red, White and Blue Massage Bars

After Sun Lotion

Summer Flip Flops

Bug Be Gone Candle

Summer Strawberry Scrub

American Flag Soap

Skeeter Beeter Tips for Summer

Easy 4th of July Stars

Get your soaping supplies at Bramble Berry and get started!

The Power Of A Vision Board

May 10, 2011 Filed Under: Business Musings

Karen Bowlding is my cousin. She’s also a wife and mother, and an author. Her new book, Say No With A Smile,” has just been published in ebook format. While Karen and I have known each other all our lives, we’ve become closer since she started her business, Karen Bolding Edit, Write & Design. This is Karen’s 2011 vision board.

Karen was inspired by my family’s creation of our 2011 vision boards to create her own. Before a vision board, Karen’s new year “resolution” routine was to record general life goals on a piece of paper, which she promptly lost. She says this is different, and I asked her to tell me why. Here’s what she said.

Immediate gratification. Karen says she enjoyed immediate gratification from the process of creating the board. Instead of paper and scissors, Karen used Logo Design Studio”>Logo Design Studio for her vision board. The board was created in about two hours, most of which was invested in thinking about her life. Within 48 hours, Karen had an experience that confirmed the value of her vision board.When her daughter threw food on the floor while eating dinner yesterday, Karen quickly glanced at the vision board displayed as the screen saver on her laptop. “I quickly decided this was a $5 issue, not a $50 issue and, instead of fussing at my daughter, I simply told her to finish her meal and pick up the food after she was done.” Karen says this resulted in reduced stress for both of them. Karen says that, because her vision board contains visual cues to “pick my battles,” she was able to incorporate the visual into her life to improve an important aspect of her day — dining with her 3-year old child. Karen says that now that the image is in her mind, she can call it forth when she needs it, not just when it’s in front of her on her screen saver.
Bringing it home. Karen says that the process of thinking about what she would include in her 2011 vision board forced her to compartmentalize and be more specific about her goals. Before using a vision board, Karen’s “write-it-on-paper” method resulted in a few days of motivation. Since Karen selected graphics and fonts for her vision board that resonate for her. As a result, she’s more invested in it. Says Karen, “I was able to ‘bring it home’ and focus on specific behaviors and things I want to do to create the life I want to have this year.”
Focus on triggers. Karen chose graphics for her vision board that reinforce positive results she has previously enjoyed as a result of engaging in specific activities. For example, because candles and a bath help her relax, the board’s visual of the candle and rocks, underneath the word, “relax” helps Karen recall peaceful times of solitude in the bath. The visual encourages her to want to re-create that experience. This desire It triggers action that leads to the specific result Karen desires — reduced stress

“My goal is to change myself, and therefore make things better for me and my family,” says Karen. “My vision board will help me do that; it’s already happening!”

By this time next year, Karen says, “I plan to have a significantly reduces stress level in large part because I will intentionally say, ‘No” more often. I also expect to have a stronger marriage as a result of communicating more clearly and effectively with my husband.” This intention is represented in the board as well.

I’ll check back in with Karen later this year to see whether her 2011 vision board is in the pile with the “write-it-on-paper” goal sheets of the past, or whether it’s has the positive impacts she expects as she leads her business and herself into 2011.

Go Karen!

Question: If you have a 2011 vision board, how do you use it? Is it a physical poster or virtual like Karen’s?

Spread the S.O.A.P. Love

April 4, 2011 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Today is the day we find out the NEW floral fragrances for Spring 2011. Me and my fabulous team get to read the surveys filled out by our hard working/testing S.O.A.P. team. Thank you for all of your hard work ladies! Click on the links below to check out all of their fabulous blogs. I love my job!

[Read more…]

Fair Ivy Round Up (thus far)

March 28, 2011 Filed Under: Business Musings, Personal Ramblings

The Fair Ivy contest entries are starting to roll in like wild fire. It’s so fun seeing all of the amazing soaping techniques and products. There are so many creative entries that we might have to pick 10 projects to send on to Lucy at Fair Ivy. You guys are making this hard on us! We’ve received out of this world melt and pour robot soaps, brilliantly swirled cold process soaps, fruity sugar scrubs, moisturizing salves and fun bath bombs.

Here’s just a handful of what we’ve received!