March Break - Day 4

I'm cheating today with my post because I have done absolutely nothing crafty today at all. I've been knee-deep in cleaning the house in preparation for my Mother's visit tomorrow.

I had asked Joe to make me a 1 lb soap mold for my birthday. I ended up with three because of a misunderstanding. He knows that I typically make three pound batches, so he assumed that I wanted three molds when I really just wanted one so that I can experiment with smaller batches. I win, I now have three awesome 1 lb soap molds!



I had to test the new molds to make sure they worked (of course!). Last weekend I made two small 1 lb batches of soap, freesia and apple blossom scents. I love them both, but the apple blossom scent is quite faint.



During my cleaning spree today I found two cotton dish cloths that I knit AGES ago. I just had to weave in the ends. So, even though I have NO time for anything today, I sat for 15 minutes, wove in the ends and now I have two pretty dish clothes to show off when my Mom arrives.

March Break - Day 3

Well, I sewed another top from Simplicity 3835. I know it's boring to read about, but I really needed a top to match a pair of black pants that I'm wearing on Friday night to a fancy restaurant.



As I was sewing it I wasn't lovin' it. I kept thinking I'd wear it on Friday and then give it to my Mother (DianNe). But forget that! Once it was done I was diggin' it. I followed Lera's lead and lengthened the pattern by about 2 inches (I had only added about 1 for the previous ones I've made) and I really like the little extra length! (Thanks Lera!).

I'm off to a geocaching event tonight and then I'll be in full cleaning mode tomorrow to prepare for my Mother's arrival on Friday. I'm thinking March Break, days 4 and 5 might not be so crafty. We'll see.

March Break - Day 2

My sewing machine and I have become re-aquainted in the last couple of days and it feels GREAT!!!

I made not one, but two more tops from Simplicity 3835 and I know that before the summer is here there will be MANY more!

The first one is made of one of my favourite fabrics from Joann's. It's an orange print and I love it.



The next one is made from a cheapie fabric I bought at Len's Mill Store. It's strange, each side has a different print! One side is blue paisley and the other is a weird horse shoe print.



I am happier with it than I thought I would be.

Now I'm off to make matching pendants.

March Break - Day 1

I started sewing another Simplicity 3835 top this morning. Even though I KNOW I have some 1/4" elastic around for the neck, I could NOT find it!!!! I dashed out to Fabricland to pick some up and found myself at Value Village (funny how that happens!).

I found this scrappy cabin pillow cover for $1.49. I don't think it was ever used. I happen to have a pillow form for the scrappy cabin pillow I was going to make but never got around to.



I love that it has a prairie point border!



I also scooped some more large buttons to cover which will soon become pendants, I'm sure!



I got home and was all ready to continue sewing when a friend called and wanted to go out and play in the snow with our new cameras, so off I went.

These are a couple of my favourite photos of the day, both taken with my new lens. The rest can be found at my Flickr page.





I wonder what Day 2 will bring?

digging out

Well, the sun is finally shining after 36 hours of constant snow fall. I was out very early this morning shovelling the sidewalk again and I ran into some very nice (and funny) neighbours across the street who probably think I'm nutso for shovelling snow with a camera around my neck.



It might be hard to tell, but there is sooooooooooo much snow on our roof!



There's no place to put the it!



And I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a while. That's my poor little car trapped and Joe's truck is behind it. (We put our windshield wipers up so they didn't freeze to the windshild)



This just in...as I'm typing this post the plow came to do the parking lot across the street. That is so much snow!!



It's a good thing that I have enough soap-making and fabric to keep me occupied until June. I won't be going anywhere for then next day or two!!

More pendants

I had the urge on the weekend to make more button pendants.

As much as I love the pendants, I think I really just like sifting through my disgustingly large button collection. Please don't read that wrong. As far as I'm concerned, you can NEVER have too many buttons!!!!



I'm especially proud of this one:



I have been wanting to make fabric-covered button pendants for a while now, but I couldn't figure out how to attach the bail. The back of a fabric-covered button has a big indent, so the bail won't fit. A light bulb went off and I realized if I glued a flat button to the back of the fabric-covered button, it would create a flat back allowing me to glue on the bail. It worked! So you can expect more fabric-covered button pendants in my future.

I'm actually wearing that pendant today :)

falls

On the weekend, we went out geocaching and for dinner with some friends. We ended up at Bridal Veil Falls (Niagara Falls little sister) to do a geocache.



From the falls we had a great view of Niagara Falls, Ontario.



And Niagara Falls, NY.



The building with the funky coloured lights on it is the casino. That's where we went for dinner. We had a few minutes to kill before our reservation, so Joe and I both stuck $20 into a slot machine. I won $200 and Joe won $25. That sure was fun!!!

Birthday Goodies

Whew. That was certainly an unplanned little blogging break!

Last weekend Joe and I celebrated our birthdays together (they are 2 days apart). We had a super weekend and had lots of laughs with our friends. Once I recovered from the weekend, I was plagued with a migrane for three days. It was all I could do to drag my butt to work each day.

I was also lucky enough to recieve a fantastic birthday package in the mail this week from Lera. She is SO generous. She included gloves and goggles for soapmaking (because apparently she thinks I should wear them!), some geocaching trade items for Joe, socks, soaps, a cute little stuffed bird, mints, chocolates, some funny 40-year old stuff, and some cute little note cards.



I LOVE the little bird!



And such pretty soap!



I always seem to have such a hard time blogging again after a little break. I hope to get back into the swing of things soon!!

eclipse and a winner

Last night was a lunar eclipse. Joe was very excited about it, a little more excited than I was. The first time he went outside to look it was cloudy. The second time it was clear and he got me out of bed to go and look at it!!!!!

Anyways, he wanted to play with my new lens so he took some photos. The first zillion didn't turn out and then he opened the new remote for it (it was still in the box) and got some pretty good shots. Good for us. We're both amateurs, me more than him.



And upon request by Felicia here's a photo of the new lens. Don't you just love my messy fabric piles in the background??? Sheesh.



And now for what you're really here for...the winner of my soap give-away. I printed out all the comments, put them in a basket and had one of the students at school draw the name of the winner.





Congratulations Leslie. If you could send me an e-mail with your mailing address I'll pop the soap in the mail real soon!

button note cards

As many of you know, I have a slight problem with collecting buttons. When I saw this tutorial/pdf for button note cards I knew I had to make some.



I made three cards using 12 buttons. I only have 7,358,339 buttons left to use up!!!!! Yippee!!!

And that photo was taken with my fancy shmancy new lens that I have no idea how to use that Joe gave me yesterday as an early birthday present. I'm a lucky gal with a lot of learning to do!!

Thanks for all the soap love, I'm extremely flattered! I'll be drawing a name tomorrow some time.

300!

Wowza. This is my 300th post! I can hardly believe it!

To celebrate this milestone, of course I have to have a give-away.

If you leave a comment on this post, later in the week (either Thursday or Friday) I will pick a winner to receive three bars of my first batches of soap.

Please keep in mind that these bars are FAR FROM perfect. They are my first attempts at soap-making, and although they are very usable, they have their flaws.

You will win on bar each of the following:

Lemon Poppyseed - This would make a great hand soap. I added far too many poppyseeds making it a little abrasive on sensitive skin.

Oatmeal - Again, would make a great hand soap. (I added too much oatmeal!)

Chocolate mint - By far my favourite of the three. It has a wonderful minty scent. I've been using this soap daily and my skin is loving it!



On the weekend I made two more batches of soap.

Chocolate raspberry (it may not look too pretty, but boy does it smell delicious!!!)



And pina colada, trust me, this smells insanely good!!!





The pina colada and chocolate raspberry soaps need to cure for three weeks. I'm sure there will be another give-away when they are ready!

curling

Yesterday was the annual curling bonspiel for Joe's work. Every year Joe's dad (a retired chef) comes down and cooks dinner for 60 crazy curlers.

Yesterday went off without a hitch.

The icemaker re-surfaced the ice.



Our friend Larry played a great game.



Everyone seemed to have a great time.



I even discovered that Joe DOES know how to wash dishes!!!



And our chef enjoyed a beer once everyone had been fed.



And for the record, I don't curl. I have curled in the past but it's slippery and scary and ever since I had my elbow replaced I'm afraid to do it. It was a super-fun day though and I look forward to next year.

Happy Valentine's Day

I just had a delivery of the most beautiful flowers at work! Thanks Joe!





There's even some chocolates tucked into the arrangement. They will be gone before lunch.



I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day.

Note: Photos taken with my crappy work camera.

friends

I know that the most rewarding part of blogging for me has been the relationships that have formed with fellow bloggers. I am CONSTANTLY amazed at the generosity of these people that I've never met and I am SO THANKFUL for the friends that I've made through my blog.

If it weren't for the support of these friends, my blog would have dissolved long ago I'm sure of it. I can't think of any other project that I've started that has lasted this long and that I'm still excited about a year and a half later.

This morning as I was shovelling the front porch I noticed a box in-between the doors. At first I thought that Joe must have ordered something online, but when I had a closer look I realized it was a birthday gift for ME from Felicia. Today isn't my birthday, but I'm going to be 40 in a matter of days...yuck. I quickly made the decision that Joe could finish the shovelling, grabbed the box, threw it (gently) in my car and sped off to work.

I brought the box in with me to school and quickly opened it.



The first thing I noticed was this BEAUTIFUL tote bag. Oh my, how I love that colour!



Inside the the tote was the most incredible Noni pattern for a knitted bag.



And..................beautiful yarn to knit the bag!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and handles!)



And a little kit to make a knitted daffodil. I LOVE it!



Thank you so much Felicia. You've made my week!

sewing (almost) and candy

On Saturday morning I decided it was time to get back to my sewing machine. I have an army-surplus type bag that I use when we go geocaching that I thought could use a little spicing up. I added a pocket to the front and some fabric to the flap just to make it look a little bit prettier.



Once that was done, it was time to play with melted chocolate. I made some chocolate covered peanut-butter balls. When Joe saw them, he said they looked like "dog turds" when he tried one he was hooked. Apparently both Joe and I liked them because there's only three left. They'll be gone tonight, for sure!!

fancy packaging

Ok, my soap is ALMOST ready to use (the first batch anyways). I'm already thinking about packaging and presentation.

I have NO intentions of selling soap, but I'd really like it to look pretty when giving it away.

Here's what I've come up with so far. I simply wrapped the bar in a piece of pretty scrapbooking paper and glued an information label to it. I think I'm pretty happy with this presentation, for now.

it's funny now

I'd like to dedicate this post to my dear blogging friend Lera.

On Saturday I was home alone watching Lost. I suppose I should explain. Friday was a "snow day", I didn't have to go to work because of some wacky weather and I really wasn't feeling well. I decided to watch a few episodes of Lost that I had on DVD but have never watched. I spent the entire day Friday watching episodes 1-8 of the first season on DVD. I was hooked. On Saturday, I was at the video store 10 minutes before it even opened to rent the rest of Season 1 (which I finished watching by about 11:00 am on Sunday).

Yes, that's 24 episodes of a TV show in approximately 48 hours.

The only reason I'm not well into Season 2 is that I'm borrowing it from a friend who lives about an hour away. I can assure you once I get my hands on it, it will also be devoured.

So, early Saturday morning I get an e-mail from Lera suggesting that I try my hand at hot process soap making. For some strange reason she believes that I'm impatient and that perhaps hot process soaps would be better for me to make because you can use them immediately and not wait weeks for it to cure.

Well, if Lera suggested it, it MUST be a good idea, right??????

So, I tore myself away from Lost and started a batch of lemon poppyseed soap using the hot process method.

I should explain that with hot process soap, instead of pouring it in the mold and letting the saponification take place in the mold, you put the pot of soap in the oven and let the heat from the oven accelerate the process. According to the tutorial I used you're supposed to check on the soap every 15 minutes and give it a stir. At about the 45 minute mark the soap should be done, at which point you add your essential oils and any other additives (like poppy seeds).

So, I put the soap in the oven, set the timer and ran back to the living room to watch more of Lost. The timer went after 15 minutes and according to the tutorial the soap should be thickening up and resemble a nice custard.

Well, I opened the oven and it looked like a volcano had erupted. SOAP WAS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!! The lid of the pot had popped off, the soap was overflowing. Thank goodness I had a tray under the pot to catch any spills. For a fraction of a second I considered finding my camera, but time was of the essence and I had to save the soap.

It was just like a scene from "I Love Lucy". For about 15 minutes I was frantic. I scraped as much soap as I could from the OUTSIDE of the pot, the lid and the pan that was underneath it. I added the essential oil (still not enough I don't think) and the poppyseeds. I squished it all in the mold and crossed my fingers.

Here's the finished soap in all it's glory:



So, uh, thanks Lera for the wonderful suggestion to try my hand at hot process soap making. I think I'll stick to cold process soap that doesn't turn into a volcano and scare me to death. ;)