Odds 'n Ends

I haven't done much over the past week that was photo worthy, but I have a few things to share.

First, it is no secret by now that I love swapping. If like 90% of my needs could be met by using the barter system, I would be the happiest gal around. As it is, I enjoy what I can get.

I have been spending a lot of time on Ravelry lately and have made some amazing friends. One of them makes some really awesome aromatherapy products and we recently had a little swap!



Take a closer look at the oils and that delicious "Buttermint" body butter. Mmmm. :)



And bath teas! In tea bags!



And my personal fave, a loose bath tea that smells and looks so beautiful I just want to bury my face in it.



I haven't used it yet because a bath is a luxury here due to time constraints, but I am planning a good one for tomorrow. After all, we are supposed to be getting a bit of snow over tonight and tomorrow and we will have little else to do. It came with reusable bags, but I decided that I will be just dumping some in loose so I can feel like a -- what are girls supposed to want to feel like? A fairy princess? -- surrounded by all those beautiful petals and leaves. And of course there will pictures. No! Not those kind. That is not something anybody wants to see and you can all just trust me on that. There will just be pictures of the tea in the tub. But I really have to scrub the tub before I can get any pictures, so that is a job for tonight...

Other things: A while back, Ethan and Noah and I were at Target and Ethan found some electric griddles on sale. By this I mean that they were on an end display and on the bottom shelf and he noticed the fried egg photos on the box. I looked down to see what he was talking about and lo and behold -- electric griddles. On sale. I have wanted one for years, and more so lately when we started making pancakes on a regular basis. One at a time in a pan means grumpy, hungry people and cold food for mom.



I can do four at a time on that thing and they turn out perfectly. The best parts are that the cord detaches so you can wash the top in hot, soapy water without ruining any important electrical parts AND the legs fold under for easy storage. I keep mine in the drawer under the stove. Love it.

And what would a mish-mash blog post be without bread?



I just loved the way the flour looked all pushed toward the edge there.

And look. All golden brown and lovely. All four little loaves. Perfectly round and delightful.



Except for the fact that they were all total crap and I had to throw them away. None of them cooked properly inside. When I pulled them out of the oven after the timer went off and John cut into one, there was still a small area of raw dough in the center. So I stuck the other three back in the oven for a while, but they still came out weird. Just too dense and wet in a bad way. I hate throwing food away, especially when there are major catastrophes happening around the world where I know people are so desperate for anything they would have eaten the partially raw stuff, but I did it anyway. And I still feel horrible about it.

In other news, I will be turning thirty very soon. Yay! I have decided that part of this new phase of my life is that I want to do more self portraits. While I am not usually happy with my general appearance, I must be some sort of closet narcissist because I love to see photos of myself. I like this one the best out of the ones I took last night. :)



And finally, since winter is dragging on and on for many of us, I dug up some pictures from Springs past, as an early little tribute to spring. Let's hope it gets the hint and comes a little early this year. We could all use a little sunshine and warmth.

Soapy Saturday

Yup. Saturday was soap day. I only managed to crank out eight cold process batches, but at least I am getting stocked up again.



I still don't have my downstairs oven hooked up, so I had to use the upstairs kitchen and it smelled so good up there it was almost worth all the trips up and down the stairs. :) This Saturday my brother is coming down to hook up the wire to the breaker box and then I will be able to use my very own soap kitchen!!! And of course there will be pictures...

Anyway, back to the soap I just made.


The four Goat's Milk batches. From left: Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Blueberry Poppyseed, Vanilla Chai and Cinnamon Almond.



Oatmeal Milk & Honey Goat's Milk soap. Naturally it also contains real honey and oatmeal and is topped with hand ground oats.



Cinnamon Almond Goat's Milk soap. The lighter soap is almond scented and the dark chunks are Cinnamon Sugar.



Regular soap. From left: Coffee Orange Mint and Carrot Tea Tree.



Star Anise!



Everybody all sliced up and ready to cure.

And here's a shot of the Cinnamon Almond all sliced up. I brought this stuff to the thickest trace I could and STILL most of the dark chunks sank to the bottom. Oh well. Still looks sort of cool.




So I ended up with these:

Goat's Milk:
Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Blueberry Poppyseed, Vanilla Chai and Cinnamon Almond

Regular:
Camping Trip, Carrot Tea Tree, Coffee Orange Mint and Star Anise

All will be available for sale as of March 1st. :)

Mostly stamp-y stuff.

Definitely have a small pile of stamp pictures to show you, but first this:



Whitney at Whisker Graphics is just great and she makes this beautiful baker's twine in such unique colors! She has it for sale in several colors and I've had my eye on these two for a while.

Also. I have been insanely busy lately. I have not been managing my time well and then an awesome thing happened that was most of my friends from Ravelry coming to my Etsy shop. And so this happened:



I was sorting to my little heart's content for a day or two there. Amidst all the packaging, the stamps I ordered arrived! I am not a stamper by any stretch of the word. I do not have steady enough hands or the desire to make adorable cards and whatnot. What I do love is a very simple thank you card with one or two images and a very plain text. So these are what I ended up with so far:





The cute little knitting one just got here today and I didn't get a chance to try it yet, but I got it here.





The card I took the photo of was very much less than perfect, but the stamp worked great! I got perfect prints after the test print but put them in envelopes before I remembered to take pictures. Stamp came from here.















The sewing stuff, typewriter and fern are from here and they are great! I am dying over that little thimble and those scissors. :D

And on a completely different note, I had some more catching up to do. Unfortunately not soap. I am so behind on everything it is not even remotely amusing.

Hand balm:



Back in the shop!



And coming soon (like a soon as I can sit in front of the computer and put them up on Etsy) will be two different label options! Same wonderful balm, different labels. Why? Not everybody knits.

So we have regular:



Or for gardeners! :D



And speaking of gardeners (You see me forcing a segue? Yeah. I did that.) I had to share a picture of this happy little cloud that went floating by my window.



And this sycamore (again). I really do love that tree. I really, really hope it never falls on our house...



That's it. Catch you later. Cross your fingers that I get to make some soap again soon before I lose all my customers...