Storm of the Year.

On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, The South was hit with devestation.  Alabama suffered the worse in these storms.  Tornadoes hit through several counties and close to 200 died in this storm.  Tuscaloosa was one of the worse cities hit with the highest death toll.  The tornado was almost a mile wide and was on the ground for over five minutes.  In that short period of time, homes were lost, businesses gone, people were injured and the devestation is unbelievable.  Trees look like broken matchsticks.  Homes were leveled.  It truly looks like a war zone there.  Sadly, Tuscaloosa was not the only place hit.  Dekalb County suffered the second most deaths on that day.  Cullman once again suffered disaster.  Words cannot express what these towns and people have gone through.  Other counties went without power for a few days but that does not compare.  People have banned together to help those who were less fortunate and they are still looking for any help, supplies, support and prayers from others.  Let's remember those who have suffered some loss during these storms. Alabama was not the only state hit with these storms or had fatalities.  These are the times that America needs to show that we stand behind our people and are there when we need us to be.  God bless you all  My prayers go out to everyone.

Mother's Day Gift Basket Drawing!

Ok everyone, I am hosting another drawing and this time it is for a Mother's Day gift basket.  The rules are have to have your fiends come by and like my page and say who sent them.  The one who has the most referrals wins the gift basket  But wait, that is not all, if you feel you don't have enough friends to refer, you can come by and post a humors joke, inspiration story, comment etc.  Of that group, there will be a random drawing for another gift basket.  Also, from the winner's friends, I will do another random drawing so that they have a chance to win two items from my store.  That way, everyone has a chance to win.  The baskets will be valued at over $25 each.  So, come stop by my page and send your friends too.  I look forward to seeing the stories and comments that you post.  Good luck everyone.  This drawing is opened until April 30th and the winner will have 48 hours in which to respond and provide me with their mailing address.

Newest products from last weekend

I have been a busy little beaver lately.  I am trying to get enough products for some up-coming craft shows and Farmer's Market.  My latests products have been soap and some bath salts.  My next creating session will be for sugar scrubs, lotion, smelly jellys and some more novelty soaps.  Come back by  in about a week and see what else I have made.  I have made cupcake bath fizzies before but was never really happy with the "iciing".  I have finally mastered icing!  Yay!  I had a request to make a soap that had annointing oil in it and I made a batch that came out successful.  I was not sure how the soap would react with the oil but it did fne and it does smell wonderful.  My kitchen table is covered with my latest soaps and will soon move them to the racks.  Thanks for stopping by and looking.

Cupcake Soap - Raspberry Cupcake Cream

Cupcake Soap - Rice Petals and Shea

Mango Sorbet Bath Salts

Strawberries and Champagne Bath Salts

Rapture Bath Salts

Scent from Heaven - Annointing Oil Soap

Layered Amish Quilt Soap with French Green Clay and Pink Kanolin Clay

Lt. Blue for Him

Twilight Dreams - Unisex Soap

Handmade Laundry Detergent

Satsuma Cut and Bath Salt Sundaes

Here is a picture of the Satsuma cut.  It smells sooo good.  I citrisy fresh scent, nice for the Summer.  And here are the bath salt sundaes that I made.  I need to work on the "fosting" but I still think that they look cute.  I made these using Imagine Base from Nature's Garden and Melt and Pour soap.  Two of them I used Shea Aloe butter and Melt and Pour soap.  It just sets up too fast for me to work with it.  I am gouing to make some cupcake soaps and am going to try making the "fosting" with cp soap.  I am hoping that I can do this tomorrow after I get off from work.  Anyway, here they are.

Newest Products from this weekend

Well I was able to make a couple of things this weekend.  I made a batch of bath salt sundaes.  I need to work on the "whipped topping" but they still came out pretty good.  I also made another batch for my luxury line.  Satsuma, smells soooo good.  It's has kind of an orangy scent to it but it is a light fresh scent.  This will make a nice Spring/Summer addition to your arsenal of bath and body products.  For some reason it took a looooooong tme to trace and I wanted to do a textured top.  I had to wait over an hour to be able to get some kind of texture and am fairly pleased with the results.  It is orange on top with a little bitt of cooper in it (not sure how much it will show up) and the bottom of the bar is white.  I will pos pics of it when I cut it  Here is a preview.

ArtFire Sale

I have reached 300 fans on Facebook and to celebrate I am having a sale in My ArtFire Store.  15% off each item.  Sale will end on April 9th so if you want to take advantage, come stop by.

The Fugly Side of Soap

Well yesterday was a lazy day for me but later that day I decided that I needed to be productive so I made a batch of soap.  BIG MISTAKE!  I should've just spent the rest of the day relaxing and taking it easy.  Mistake #2 was that I tried a new recipe with a new fragrance.  #3 which is not really a mistake as I add my milk when I start to trace but apparently this time it was the wrong move.  #4 I got soap on a stick and broke one of my wooden spoons trying to stir it.  So now I had to dump the whole thing in the crock pot in an effort to save it.  Well that caused the new fragrance to burn off so I had to add more fragrance but I didn't have any more of the first fragrance so that didn't help in the fragrace section.  I finally got the majority of it melted down and poured it into my mold, which was almost two small  Made this batch a little larger by mistake.  Glopped the whole thing in and it looked awful.  I decided to add some pieces from another soap in an effort to make it look pretty.  Totally failed  Here are some pics from my soaping disaster.  It's ok if you laugh or cry and even feel a little sorry for me.  I'm taking it all in stride.  It may be fugly but it's still soap, LOL.

In the mold

out of the mold

The final cut.

Bubble Bars

I have wanted to make bubble bars for a while and I had to wait until I had all the ingredients.  I finally made a small batch the other day and scented it with Daisy Type from Nature's Garden.  They smell sooooo good and the color is a pretty pink and white swirl.  Pink is one of my favorite colors :).  I tried one of them to test it out and wow! the bubbles that it makes.  A nice way to pamper yourself and like I said, the fragrance is to die for in my opinion.  Here is a pic of my batch.

My ArtFire Store and My First Sale.

I am very happy to report that I have officially made my first sale on my ArtFire Shop !  I have had my shop open for about two months so I was very happy to see an email that told me that I had made a sale.  What did I sell?  I sold one of my lingerie cards!  So I would like to thank Katelyn for being my frist customer on ArtFire.  I look forward to making more sales in the future.

My Latest Project

I've been doing a lot of reading and researching and in my "travels" I came upon talk of laundry detergent and stain sticks.  Well I've made laundry detergent before and I usually made it by grating a bar of soap and melting it and adding borax and washing soada.  I usualy make it with Zote Soap. (I love the fragrance of it).  Well I had read about making it by making a batch of 100% lard or 100% coconut oil cold process soap and adding water and borax and washing soda.  I've made a batch trying this method and waiting to see how it turns out.  I also read about stain sticks and reading the rave reviews of several people who have made it as well as tried it and thought that I would give it a whirl.  Well, I must say that I am very pleased with the stain stick.  Not sure who to thank specifically for the recipie but I will say thank you to the members of the Thedishforum.  They are a very helpful, insightful group of people and I have learned so much from them over the years.  The results of my latest project was AWESOME!  I had a night shirt that had a stain from who knows where and I can't remember how long that stain had been there but I can tell you that it has been months and I had tried everything to get that stain out.  Not that anyone would see it as I slept in it but still, I wanted to get it out.  I tried Shout, Spray and Wash, Iron out, soaking it and everything and couldn't get the stain out.  Well..  I made a batch of this wonderful stain stick and didn't even wait for it to really set up before I used it.  I wet the stain, rubbed the stain stick on it and threw it in the wash.  I didn't really have any expectations but figured it couldn't hurt.  Guess what?  It came out!  I couldn't beleive it.  I didn't let it set for a while, I just rubbed and threw in the wash.  Wonderful stuff.  I gave pieces to some friends and family for them to try and waiting to hear what they have to say.  My mom used it and she said that all but one stain came out and that one stain that didn't come out was lighter than it was before and she is going to give it a second treatment to see if it will completely come out.  Here is a pic of the shirt before and after and tell me what you think.

BEFORE

AFTER

The stain stick recipe that I used on this one was 100% lard.  I made two more batches.  One 100% Coconut and one 50/50 Coconut/Lard.