Why does it have to be so HARD?

The weather cooperated yesterday afternoon, so we packed up a picnic,  loaded our bikes onto the back of the car, and went bike riding on Westham Island. Lots of farms-  not terribly interesting though,  so we packed up again and headed over to the dyke in Richmond and rode along there for a while. There are picnic tables dotted along the dyke so we stopped at one for our picnic before heading back. It was really nice to get out and do something active and fun together. It doesn’t happen often enough. Daily life gets in the way and it’s so easy to just fall into the routine. Days like yesterday remind me that life is short and we should seize the day with the ones we love. I know it sounds cliche…

Which brings me to my Mom. She’s got some kind of dementia, probably Alzheimers disease. About 18 months ago she saw a specialist who thought she probably had early Alzheimers, but we took her to another specialist for a second opinion and he disagreed. Either way, there was really nothing to do at that point other than keeping her on the medication (which may or may not help in the early stages) and try to support her as much as possible. Since then her memory has gotten quite a bit worse. She calls me regularly with questions and gets confused about paperwork and things that come in the mail. I’ve taken over her medical insurance claims because she was getting them mixed up. Luckily, all of her other bills are paid via pre-authorized payment. The one thing she is still doing is paying her Visa bill each month. All her life she has saved all her receipts- writing the date at the top and then checking them against her statement each month. Lately she’s been having more difficulty with it. She frequently calls Visa to send her copies of certain bills she can’t find, but for the most part she’s managing that pretty well.

My big concern about her is that she is still driving. Last year after she had 2 accidents close together and her car was wrecked,  then had eye surgery and couldn’t drive for at least 6 weeks we thought we could convince her to give up driving but it didn’t work. After her eye healed, she convinced my brothers to take her car shopping (in hindsight they should have refused) and she bought a new car. She can no longer drive anywhere she hasn’t been many times, and even needs written directions to get to my house reliably. Recently she was supposed to follow me in her car to go to a specialist appointment, but as soon as I got into my car she didn’t know where I was. She had no idea what my car looked like, so she just went home and then was upset with me because she said I didn’t tell her to follow me (of course I did). So- she still drives to her credit union and to stores she knows and to my house. She says she doesn’t drive very often, but I wish she would make the decision to stop herself. I think this is going to be a big problem because she doesn’t see the danger. Maybe it’s going to take her getting lost before she realizes she has to stop. I just hope it’s not an accident that decides for her.

Bubble bath Bars are one of the products that I’ve always wanted to try to make myself. The first time I tried one years ago, I knew what a great idea it was: No paying for all that water and plastic bottles and I could control the ingredients to make it exactly like I wanted. My recipe includes super-bubbling surfactants, baking soda for water softening and skin soothing properties, a touch of sweet almond oil for moisturizing without an oily feeling, as well as glycerin for its humectant property (it draws moisture to the skin) I have lots of different fragrances and essential oils to create some wonderful scents for them.

Recently a couple of my new customers  ordered a bunch of these little babies in a variety of scents, so I had fun experimenting with different colour combinations and styles. Each 4 oz bar is enough to last about 3 baths. The bubble power of these bars is incredible. We’re talking mile-high suds, especially if you agitate the water really well or you have very hard water pressure. Our water pressure is pathetic here, so I just splash the water back and forth with my hand after crumbling part of the bar under the running tub faucet- it works great. I include a warning on these to be careful using them in a jetted tub- the suds will climb right over the top if you aren’t careful!

Here’s Black Raspberry Vanilla

This one is scented with Peppermint and Spearmint essential oils. I call it Double Mint. Here you can see one of my handmade wooden soap dishes too. They are great for keeping handmade soaps drained and dry between uses, but here this one is just a photo prop:-)

This one is Ginger, but I used this colour for Creamsicle too

In the group photo at the top, you can also see Lemongrass Lime (yellow and green swirl), Oatmeal Milk & Honey (tan with added colloidal oatmeal) and Energy (yellow and green blend)

You can purchase these in singles or as a pack of 4 in my Zibbet Shop. For larger quantities, please contact me directly via my shop contact link. There’s a long list of scent choices there- choose your favourites.  If you’re local to Vancouver BC, don’t forget to use the Coupon Code LAZ289 during check out so you won’t be charged shipping!

I make these bars fresh to order and they need about 2 days to dry before packaging. No artificial preservatives are added, so they should be used within about 3 months of purchase.

I chose a winning comment by using a random number generator, and Lisa was the winner of my handmade soap giveaway! Congratulations Lisa and thanks everyone else for coming and entering the contest. Here are the bars that Lisa requested as her prize:  Bubble Gum, Lemongrass & Lime and Sea Salt Spa. They are on their way to Maryland today. I hope you enjoy them Lisa!

Happy New Year everyone! To start the year off right, I’m holding a little giveaway contest.  If you’d like the chance to WIN your choice of THREE bars of my handmade soap, here’s your chance.

Shipping of the prize is limited to Canada and the USA.

It’s so simple to Enter to WIN !

**Just hop over to my etsy  shop here, and/or the soap list on my own site here (more products are listed there) Have a look around and then come back and leave a comment telling us which soaps you would like to win  (don’t forget to leave your email for contact- it won’t appear publicly)**

For additional entries:

1. Tweet a link to this giveaway! (one entry per tweet– no limts!)

2. Follow me on Twitter here

3. Subscribe to my blog

4. Add a link back to this giveaway on your own blog (give us the URL in a comment here)

5. Blog about this giveaway with a link back here

6. Add my blog to your blogroll

7. Post a link to the giveaway on Facebook

8. Add my blog button to your blog

Please leave a separate comment below for each of your entries. The contest will run for 2 weeks, from Jan 1st till Jan 14th at noon (or as soon as I get a chance to do the draw that day)

Winner will be announced here and will be contacted via email. The winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn and you’ll forfeit your prize.

Good luck everyone!

Jan 14/10 Update: The contest is now closed. Thank you everyone for visiting and entering to win. The winner has been contacted and has 48 hours to respond to claim his/her prize.

I spent some time listing some of my Juicybags stuff in my Etsy shop last night. I forgot how time consuming that can be! Now to promote and try to get some sales for Christmas. The great thing about my Juicybags for online shopping is that the shipping is usually quite reasonable since they are so lightweight. If I can pack them flat enough, I can even send them by letter post which is much cheaper than package rate.

Now- if only Canada would get a nice, simple flat rate system going I could get to selling more soaps too! I have to get Jon to update my Juicybath site today. I’ve sold out of so many of my soaps that are pictured there. Lots of new stuff is on the curing racks though. We just have to figure out how to get better photos to show them off properly. I’ve got another craft fair this weekend so I’ll be busy in between working nights (ugh!) this week to get everything stocked up again. I need to make more Whipped Body Butters and I need scent suggestions. I made some unscented and only sold one or two. I guess scented is the way to go for that product.

How about:

Coconut?

Pineapple Cilantro?

Instant Karma? (like Lush’s  Karma)

Mango Melon?

Orange?

Lavender?

Honeysuckle?

My daughter Alison is the inspiration for these. She’s a big fan of the Twilight books and movie(s). Her bedroom walls are covered with posters of Edward and the rest of the vampires. Last Christmas, I bought her some Twilight-inspired pendants made from Scrabble letter tiles. They were a big hit, so this year I decided to try to make them myself. Alison suggested that I make them into cellphone charms, so I ordered some little coloured looped cords with split rings on the ends.

Once I got the hang of how to trim the pictures properly, they were really fun to make! I just ordered more supplies. I think I’m going to sell lots of these at the craft fairs this fall.

I added coconut, sunflower and castor oils to give the soap some nicer qualities like a bubbly, creamy lather. 100% lard or bacon fat would be great for laundry and dish soaps, but I wanted it to be more luxurious and soft on the skin for bathing. I’ve been researching scent blends, and Stacie said she liked mint, so I went with Lemongrass, spearmint and peppermint. It’s a winner!

I was worried about how to get the colour right, and ended up deciding on a mixture of iron oxide and mica. It looked so great in the pan after I poured it, just like a slab of fatty bacon! Lucky guess on the colours. You never know how it’s going to come out in the final soap, so I was really happy.

I had to wait overnight to find out if the colours survived and whether it would look right cut into bars. Here’s what happened:

I couldn’t resist the frying pan shot. Here’s a normal shot showing a bit more of the cut edges:

So, now it has to cure for at least 4 weeks to get the final, mild soap. I keep picking them up and smelling them. I want to try them…NOW! I sure hope I can duplicate this, because I think it’s going to be a great seller at the craft fairs in November and December. I will probably use lard or palm oil due to the lower cost but I don’t think it will alter the final results much. I have to find a scent that men will like because this would be a perfect guy gift, doncha think?  Thanks for looking!

Here’s my latest creation. I’m calling it Vanilla Bean Latte. It’s got coffee and ground oatmeal for gentle exfoliation, and a great vanilla bean fragrance.

I love how it came out. The little white bits inside are unscented soap that I grated up and mixed into the soap before molding it.

This next one was really fun. I added chunks of unscented soap to make the design. It’s called Creamsicle Cobble and it smells delicious. I can’t wait to try it, but this one has to cure for a few weeks first:

The first batch of soap I made is really smelling great now. It’s called Marmalade Smoothie, and it’s pictured in my previous post. The bars are much harder now, and the citrus scent is more noticeable. I’m using that in my shower right now, and I even shared some with my mom and sister.

Somehow I have to get back to doing some sewing as well. I’ve signed up for 3 craft fairs so far and I’ll need lots of wallets, coin purses and gift card holders. I’ll make some bags as well, but it’s the small items that seemed to sell the best last year, so I’ll focus on those.

Last Christmas, I bought some fun jewelry pendants for my daughter from Etsy. They were made from Scrabble letter tiles, with a Twilight theme. They were a huge hit with my daughter and her friends, so I thought I might try my hand at making some. I’ve ordered some supplies and as soon as they arrive I’ll give them a try. Here’s a shop that makes some really sweet designs.

I’m working on an idea to recycle old pop and rock LPs into drink coasters, but I haven’t hit on the exact method I’ll use. I picked up a few dollar store cork-backed coasters and decoupaged them with cuttings from scrapbook paper. They turned out pretty well, they just need a couple of coats of spray varnish to make them waterproof. This is how they started:

And then after I tweaked them (they still need the spray coating):

Then I started researching soap making. I know– nothing recycled about that– but there’s something about handmade soap that just grabs me. There is an amazing amount of information out there in web land about handmade soaps. I’ve been riveted to YouTube, watching people hot process and cold process and whatever-process. There’s a fantastic soap supply shop not far from here, so I dropped in and gathered everything I needed to make my first batch. There’s no way I was going to have the patience to wait 4-6 weeks for a cold processed batch to cure, so I thought I’d try hot process first. It was fun and easy, although after reading all the warnings about working with lye I was a bit nervous at first. There seems to be a lot to learn about how to scent soaps correctly with oils or fragrances, let alone all the additives I can barely pronounce! Anyway- for my first batch I used an online soap calculator to mix coconut, palm, and olive oils and shea butter. I tried a grapefruit essential oil for scent because Jon and I both like citrusy soaps. I added some tumeric for colour and a handful of grated orange peel for a bit of texture.  I loved how the colour was a bit uneven and the cut bars looked kinda rustic (in a good way), but …..NO scent! I was so disappointed. I mean, it’s ALL about the scent with handmade soaps, right? So, I headed back to the soap supply shop to ask for advice. I decided to go ahead and grate all the soap up and rebatch it (melt it down and try again!) Pretty simple to do– just grate it up with a cheese grater, chuck it all in the slow cooker and wait till it goes back to the mushy stage. It took a while and some mixing but it got there. I found out that citrus essential oils have a low flash point, which I think means they evaporate at low temps (like 110-115 F) so I let the batch cool down to just below 110 F before I added a dose of Sweet Orange and Grapefruit, with a dash of Litsea Cubeba as well. Do I sound like I know what I’m doing? Apparently that last one helps to hold on to the citrus scents. Let’s hope so!

It’s all cut and drying now- Yeah, it looks pretty rough, but I prefer to call it rustic:-) I’m calling it Marmalade Smoothie. What do you think? It was starting to get quite solid when I was packing it into the molds. It smells very good in the room, but who knows if that’s from the oils that got all over the utensils or the actual soap! It should sit to dry out and harden for a week or two before it’s used, so I’ll post again later with the final outcome. Next I thought I’d try soap made with beer! Jon had a can of Red Racer Pale Ale that somehow sprung a leak near the top, so he let me steal it. Wish me luck.

Ever since I first saw them at LUSH I’ve wanted to try making bath bombs at home. You know, those hard and dry colourful bombs that burst into fizziness when they are dropped into the water? Well, I made my first batch the other night. They are a bit tricky if you don’t know what it’s supposed to look or feel like at the molding stage, but I think I figured it out. I made pale pink half-balls scented with grapefruit essential oil. I need to find a better mold, or maybe use my heart-shaped muffin pan.  I tried using some hollow Christmas tree ornament balls (they are sold with candy inside) but they had a bit of a lip inside the open edge that made it really difficult to get the bombs out. I can see these would be really fun to make and sell- there are lots of colours, scents and accents you can add to decorate them. They’d make great gifts and stocking stuffers. Can you see that they are pink in this photo?

This last one was really fun and easy. I melted down some old broken crayons in the oven in star-shaped molds. I thought it would be fun to have something fun and inexpensive to sell and a way to pass on the recycling message to kids. They turned out so well, although the hard part was getting all the paper wrappers off. Soaking them in water helped but some were really stuck. The finished crayons look great and are fun to colour with. They would be perfect for kids to rub on paper over textures to make designs in a mix of colours. Excellent stocking stuffer too! I got the idea from a teacher who made these and gave them to her students on their birthdays- sweet! I love that these are chunky and easy for little kids to hold.

The event raised over $500 for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. Yeay, cupcakes for a great cause!

The best part is…drum roll please… I won the grand prize of the evening for the Best Tasting Cupcakes! How cool is that?  OK,  so the REAL grand prize winner was the Coconut Mojito Cupcakes, but they left before the judging, so the prize went to me as the runner up. The prize was a $300 certificate for a custom cake from Tartlets Pastry & Cake Design Check out the gallery of cakes on their site – just amazing.

Pretty fun evening, but I ate WAY too many cupcakes. My favorites were the Burger Cupcakes, complete with red, yellow and green icings for condiments, brownies for the ‘meat’ and sesame seeds on the tops of the ‘buns’. They were the winners for Most Creative Cupcakes. Aren’t they the coolest?