Pressies for teachers

finally done.
green: lettuce FO, "lucky lettuce" was the name DD2 came up with
pink, white, green: watermelon
peach/light yellow: peach bellini (champagne and peach)

enjoy, that's all I have time for tonight!
I did make another batch of soap this weekend, but the photos were fuzzy, so eye candy of that one will have to wait, but it looks like caramel and smells like pineapple! YUM!!!

What in the Word???

no, this is not a typo, it's just my way of expressing how shocked I am at the news that some words are taken out of children's dictionary. Apparently the words below are not worth knowing.

MORE ON THIS HERE

Words taken out:
Carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe
Dwarf, elf, goblin
Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar
Coronation, duchess, duke, emperor, empire, monarch, decade
adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar, bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter, ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine, porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin, thrush, weasel, wren.
Acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker, county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus, gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquorice, manger, marzipan, melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip, pasture, poppy, porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, willow


While some of the words above are archaic, and not all words can be a condensed version of a dictionary, it's very sad. Not only that but they took away more words than they put back in. I quite like the comment left by PDFitzGerald-Morris who states:
"As George Orwell pointed out, the aim of NewSpeak was to continually destroy words so that heretical thought, so far as it was based on language, became impossible."

---

as every story, there are two sides, this is the other side. I still think there's a hidden (or not so hidden) agenda.

Bulle envole-toi! (or Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere!)

Bubble Bubble to wash your body, and face, and hands, and feet, and behind your ears! I love bubbles and I'm on the soap bandwagon! A friend, Tania B, tried to get me interested in soapmaking a couple of years ago, and I was interested, but the thought of lye scared me to death, and I just didn't have much time, but I did manage to rebatch some soap (thanks to Tania), and made these items for Krafty Lady with my soap, I also made a recipe with soap flakes (the white ones)... and made some shaving soap for DH...

Recently my friend Ann G told me that she was going to make some Melt and Pour projects, and other things, and I thought, heck, that sounds like fun, and got some MP stuff...

Well, you can see the results on my Krafty Lady DT page for "Miscellaneous Items", or on my Flickr.


Here's one of my Krafty Lady soaps, to give you an idea: And here is my Tiramisu (Olive) soap. I call it so as I find it sort of smells like that!

BUT, that's not all, I've also started making Cold Process soap, that's when you do it the "old fashioned" way, but I'm not using any animal fats (though if I lived on a farm it might be different, I'm not at that point yet in my soap experience)...
My first one was a very simple supermarket recipe from Lisa's site, I think this will yield a soft-ish soap, which will lather beautifully:

Then I had to try Tania's Salt Bars these are quite hard, and apparently yield a soap that's gentle enough to use on the face. When I first heard "salt bar" I thought "heel exfoliation" or something of the type, but apparently not. These will also be cured in 4 weeks, but are apparently much better a couple months later.

Now that went pretty well, though I won't know how well until at least 4 weeks from now, because soap has to do it's thing until you can use it... that is turn fats and caustic soda into soap... 4 weeks... it's a long wait!!

But then, like any soaper will tell you, you're looking for the NEXT recipe, well, for me, it had to be this one, Turkish Mocha from AussieSoapSupplies with a bit of added chocolateness. It is curing at the moment and smells just wonderful!!! Below you can see a few slices and the chocolate on top (and there's some cocoa in the soap too, and some ground coffee for a gentle exfoliation -- and as the AussieSoapSupplies site mentions, coffee in soap is great to remove smells, like onion or garlic, from hands.




and a single slice: Yum, it's really tempting, like a rich fudge!!


I'm currently planning my next recipe... it's hard work! LOL! What's hard is trying to find WHICH one to make....

Julie VO also makes soap (she's also one of the temptresses of my new found passion).

oh, I've also made a calming stick for a friend who loves Lavender, a headache stick for myself, some lip balm, and a new shaving soap for hubby!!

Hope you enjoyed your trip here today!

Oh Heck, I'm going to do a giveaway... why not, seems to be the thing to do these days, only problem is you'll have to wait a month to get your prize, but on the UP side, this will give more people time to enter, and me time to get organised. This is open to any country where I can send soap! :) I'm going to give away a 100 gram (that's roughly 3 1/4 oz) Turkish Mocha Soap Bar... To be fair I will find a fair way of deciding the winner... It's either going to be a Random Generated number picker that's online, or I'm going to put all the names in a hat and get a third party to pick one, blindfolded, with their left hand, or maybe their right, haven't decided yet :) If you really hate coffee (some people do, believe it or not) we can negotiate a different bar. I also reserve the right to change my mind on which soap I find (but I'll let you know before I mail it, in case this mocha bar goes all wrong in the next 4 weeks!) - Cool, my first giveaway! :) I'll draw the winner in the first week of January. Ciao!

this giveaway is closed - winner announced 30 January 2009