Busy Months

In the next couple of months we have Easter, My Birthday, My Son's Birthday, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day.  I am trying to get a few projects made for these holidays and the start of the week end craft sales.  This weekend I made 2 very small batches of soap.  Usually I make a 20-22 lb. batch, but I wanted to make some art soap and a smaller batch was necessary so I did not have 22 pounds of blue laundry soap.  LOL  What I made was Blue Roses and Martian Moon soap.  I will attempt to post pictures of them, but indoors at night with a flash is not the best for taking photos up close.  I normally do not do such dark soaps, but like I said, it is an art soap.  Blue Roses is more of a light blue teal color with some variation in color and added soap chips for texture.  The top is decorated with a few soap chips and some white mica sparkles.  It smells just like roses and it is not overpowering.  The second soap was more for the Science Fiction lovers in the family.  We all have them.  LOL  I am just teasing.  I am not one, but many friends of mine and my son fall in this category.  I made a tube of soap with the Blue Roses soap and when it set up I cut it in two.  These two pieces became the moon for the Martian Moon soap.  I did not want the background to come out the same color as the moon and I wanted it to look like night with a few stars in the sky.  I used a few chips of soap in the recipe so it would have texture and look like stars.  I also swirled the blue soap somewhat and that left interest in the sky look.  The top is decorated with a few pearl cake decorating beads, star glitter for soap making, white sparkle mica, and a few toy Martians.  The Martians are about the same color as the soap.  The fragrance is coconut, almond, and fruit smoothie.  It smells wonderful and is not girlie or manly.  If you have any comments you wish to share, give me note or a ring.  Thank you for viewing this email.  Dawn

St. Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to Everyone!

Since I posted this post, I have had 3 people that want to take the class for sure.  Also there is an interest in beginning lessons.  I would be glad to teach both beginning and advanced classes.  I have made soap since the 80's.  I made soap for my own personal use and I sell mine on the internet and in some local shops and craft fairs.  If you have friends or relatives that would be interested in learning the skills to make soap, and they are in the Wichita vicinity, then send them my way.  If you take the class and do not feel that soaping in your thing, at least you will have Christmas presents made ahead of time.   

I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER AN ADVANCED SOAP MAKING CLASS HERE IN WICHITA. I WOULD HAVE THE CLASS ON A WEEKEND AND IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MEET FOR A SESSION ON BOTH DAYS, EVERYONE WOULD BE ABLE TO CUT THE SOAPS AND SHOW THEM OFF TO THE OTHER CLASS MEMBERS. I THINK CUTTING IS ONE OF THE HARDEST PARTS TO SOAP MAKING, THAT IS WHY I USE A MODIFIED VERSION OF THE TANK. I CAN'T EVER CUT STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN. MY SOAPS COME OUT TOP HEAVY OR BOTTOM HEAVY. I WILL HAVE ALL ITEMS AVAILABLE FOR THE CLASS AND ONLY CHARGE FOR MATERIALS AND A SMALL FEE FOR ME. I HAVE NOT SET A DATE AS OF YET SINCE I WANT TO SEE THE INTEREST. THIS IS A COLD PROCESS SOAP MAKING CLASS. I SELDOM DO ANY WENT AND POUR SOAPS. I ONLY WANT ADULTS IN THE CLASS SINCE WE WILL BE WORKING WITH LYE. SEND ME A NOTE OR GIVE ME A RING IF YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED. THANK YOU! DAWN

A Little Dying and a Little Knitting

This weekend I dyed Rambouillet wool and finished the shawl above.  The photos are of my drying wool on the front porch.  I purchased the yarn for the shawl and it is mostly Merino.  It is not intended to stripe, but it did.  I hope you had a weekend full of blessings for you and yours.  Dawn

Angora

Ruby had a haircut tonight.  Most people think Angora rabbits are cute, but they do not know all of the work we do to remove hair prior to spinning it.  Angora rabbits do not like the heat.  You can probably guess this since they have the thick coat. I like Angora to spin with, but I find that one ply of Angora and one ply of a soft wool, such as Merino work best.  If I just use Angora, it tends to be too fragile and does not hold shape well.  I hope everyone enjoyed the rains today.  Maybe it will fill up the lake.  LOL  Have a great evening and many blessings to you all!  Dawn

A Cat In The Hat Walking Stick

A few months ago I developed a motherly friendship with a young girl.  When you work in an apartment community office, you become the mother of the residents.  This girl's mother moved out of town and she was very lonely so we saw her more often than most residents.  Music is much of her life, but she is just now developing her talents in other areas.  She has become totally enamored by wood.  You see her rendition of A Cat in the Hat walking stick in these photos.  What a hoot!  Blessings to you all and thank you for sharing my blog with me.  Dawn

Who is Winning?

Crafters are always talking about their stash.  I have a stash of fabric, yarn, spinning fiber, soap making materials, toilet paper, etc.  Yes, people make fun of my supply of toilet paper, but that is one thing I do not want to run out of.  Do you have a stash?  They say that the person that has the most when they die wins.  Now exactly what do they win?  The family does not win when they have to sort through a mess when they go through your belongings.  God forbid my family having to sort through my things.  I am not a hoarder by definition.  It is someone that collects and never gets rid of or throws away things.  I pare down a lot of my things and then buy new and better things.  LOL  I give away and donate many things.

bottom 6 cubes

Top 3 cubes

Overflow

More Overflow.  Can you tell I like the color pink?

I have been organizing my fabric and placed it on cards, rolling it up and organizing it by color and theme.  I started buying little cubes and putting it in the cubes.  That did not work since I ran out of room and I bought 9 of them.  I saw some cheap bookshelves at Wallie World and if I embellish them with some trim boards, etc.  I think they won't look too bad.  The shabby chic ones at Target are already embellished, but the cost per bookcase is $179.00.  I think the 29.99 will win out, even with the trim board, they will be much lower in price.  But, the shabby chic ones are so pretty.  LOL
 
I have also purchased a ribbon holder to help remove the clutter and ciaos.  I had a re-purposed ribbon holder but it took up too much room and it did not handle all of the ribbon.  With the little pieces of ribbon and lace, I have devised a way to store them.  I want to say that there are many clever ways to store them out there.  I read up and looked at many a blog.  I tried to cut pretty shapes out of cardboard and glue pretty paper and fabric on them.  The cardboard was hard to cut and the tags were difficult to make.  The plain old fashioned manilla labels were not formal enough.  I like the look of old or worn tags, but even when I know that the stains are tea died, I do not want to touch them.  Am I the only one that feel that way???  Well, I finally decided to laminate some rose sticky notes I purchased around Valentine's Day.  I placed the small ribbons and lace around the roses and they all fit nicely into my red rimmed enamel bowl.

Ribbon storage in progress.  Can you tell that I like pink?