Alternating Work: Who Would have Thought?

I mentioned a week or so back I've been falling behind as a writer because I've been getting all caught up in soaping. This week, I've been trying alternating days. 

One day's work a few weeks back.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I do as much housework as I can along with snapping photos of any new items I made the day before and getting them wrapped up in the morning, and then I spend three or four hours in the afternoon writing. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I make a batch of soap before breakfast, then clean and handle my workout. I make another batch just after lunch before editing photos, listing new items, and blogging. If there's any time left before dinner, I do what editing or writing I can on Right of Succession (RoS). Then I make one final batch of soap just before bed.

New Fragrance: Firefly Inspired Shiny Mech

If your family is anything like mine, you've seen Firefly and Serenity at least twice. We love that sadly short-lived series, so I just had to make one of this year's fragrances a Firefly fragrance. When I decided I needed all but one of my non-Doctor Who fragrances this year to be feminine, the choice came down to River Tam, Kaylee Fry, and Serenity herself.

After I found a natural colorant with shimmer, I knew I had to pick Kaylee, and thus was born Shiny Mech.

Shiny Mech (Mechanic) Goat Milk and Glycerin Soaps

New Fragrance: Doctor Who Inspired Professor Who

I'm back with another new original fragrance inspired by Doctor Who I'll be debuting at Con Kasterborous next month. This one was inspired by Sylvester McCoy's 7th Doctor.

Professor Who Goat Milk and Glycerin Soaps

Slacker Writer

I've become very disappointed in myself lately. These past few months, I had fully intended to not only get ahead with my soaping but with my writing as well. The plan was originally to be finished with the Right of Succession rewrites and edits by now and be working on creating the paperback proofs.

Yeah, I'm not done with the rewrites yet. I'm doing okay on soap production, despite running out of half my fragrance oils getting ready for Homespun last week and having to wait on a resupply order to get in. The problem is, I tend to get started with one particular thing and become obsessive about that thing until I finish. Last week, I spent four days obsessively soaping, taking product photos, and wrapping all these new products to get ready for my first show of the year after the others got canceled. I didn't to the first bit of writing.

New Fragrance: Doctor Who Inspired Rainbow Hex

It's that time of year again. Con Kasterborous is coming up in just four and a half weeks, so I'm hard at work designing and producing new original fragrance lines. Today I have a look at the first of this year's three new Doctor Who inspired fragrances scheduled to debut at the convention.

Rainbow Hex Glycerin and Goat Milk Soaps

Just like the regeneration it's inspired by, Rainbow Hex is an interesting and slightly eccentric blend of marine, ozone, patchouli, lime, fresh greens, basil, and fresh cut grass. The design itself is modeled after the colorful patchwork coat worn by the 6th Doctor as portrayed by Colin Baker and is done mostly in glycerin soap with a bit of goat milk thrown in.

Homespun Recap

Hey, I'm back!

Sorry guys, I seem to get a bit forgetful when I'm super busy making stuff, and I've spent the past couple of weeks building inventory for the two shows I have scheduled this spring that didn't get canceled for one reason or another. Since I have fewer shows, I really wanted to make the most of them. Also, it's that time of year where I'm adding new fragrances in addition to adding candles and solid perfume to my inventory.

Homespun is one show I've wanted to do since before I actually opened the store. I didn't have the stock or money that first year. I missed the deadline to request an application by about three weeks last year, but I managed to get in this year. I was super excited these past few weeks and as Mom and I got there to set up at 7 a.m. Friday morning.

I LOVE my new sign! Thanks so much Aardvark Screenprinting.

You have to keep in mind, Homespun is one of those local shows everyone who has any sort of crafting hobby knows about. It's been around for years and years. It has a reputation of being a busy show with lots of sales and only handmade items.

Here I am with seventeen different fragrances, eleven of which are originals, brand new solid perfumes, and a whole rack of brand new candles. I felt like I had a bit of a home field advantage considering I was born and raised in the town and my little brother graduated from the hosting school. So, I was pumped and ready for this to be a bustling show, so long as the weather didn't get too horrible.

Seriously, there was a table dedicated to candles and sample size soaps.

There were a few hiccups during setup.

Despite sending out information packets specifying setup started at 7 a.m., the school organizers didn't show up until just before 8. Six of the booths, mine being one of course, were labeled incorrectly. This resulted in three of us initially setting up in the aisle, but those things happen. Whatever, it was easy enough to shift six feet.

The first real clue the show might not go so well came when some of the other venders started noticing direct sales booths setting up. The next was when the folks at the Scentsy booth fired up not one but at least three wax warmers and started burning wax tarts at their booth.

Okay, I get the fact that my items carry fragrance too. However, there's a huge difference between having wrapped items sitting out and actively using items designed to fragrance a small home at an indoor event. First off, there are a lot of people who have sensitivities to certain fragrances. It's not cool to fire up something that may cause a health hazard for someone to the point of making it impossible to avoid. I mean seriously, you'd get smacked in the face with a wall of Scentsy fragrances the moment you stepped foot in the gym. Secondly, it's just rude to the other perfumers to overlay your products fragrances over theirs to the point where absolutely everything smells like your stuff, and there were three other independent, handmade bath and body booths there not counting my own. Needless to say, if this is typical brand strategy for them, I will be pulling out of any shows where Sentsy booths will be in attendance from now on. 

There will video shortly to prove this was typical of traffic throughout.

Additionally, attendance was pitiful. For an event as long established and with  as good of a reputation, I was sorely disappointed. I went expecting the cram packed event I'd heard about and saw maybe twenty people walking through at a time at best all weekend.

As it turns out, most of my information was a few years out of date. I'd mostly heard from people who went, vended, or helped organize it several years ago. After talking to other venders who have participated for many years, it seems the school's new administration just doesn't want to bother with the show anymore. They ran off a lot of their best venders via policy changes, drastically cut advertising, loosened their vender requirements, and took up lax, unprofessional event coordinating practices out of apathy and ruined a formerly great event in the process.

My impression was the show's become a waste of time and booth fees. I won't be returning.

Field Trip: Stinky Cheese Man

Each month, our homeschool group has a field trip for all the children. You don't have to go on all of them, which is good, because not all are suitable for all age groups. Well, the play we were scheduled to see back in November was postponed due to one of the actors being hospitalized. It was held last week.

As our luck tends to run, it also just so happened to be on the one day it was pouring down that week, which was also the coldest day of the week. My vehicle doesn't have a working heater, but thankfully we managed to get the worn out windshield wiper changed the day before. So we were cold, but safe on the hour drive to the VBC.

If you've never heard of "The Stinky Cheese Man," it's similar to a loosely written and very fast version of "Into the Woods." It's a collection of fairy tales held together through the storyline of the giant chasing after Jack, and like Scheherazade, he tells the giant stories to stall his death. He also tells the stories just enough off how they are supposed to go to cause the audience to giggle. However, it goes a step farther by seeking audience participation.

Now, if you've been reading for any length of time, you know my girls have a bit of an issue with sensory integration. As soon as the play started, and voices began booming over the sound system, Boo Bear clapped her hands over her ears and started complaining. I had to pull her hands away and remind her to listen hard to the story and forget about how her ears were feeling about three times before she got the hang of shifting her attention and relaxed enough to enjoy the story.

She still slapped her hands over hear ears every time the other kids began to yell answers at the characters, but considering the noise that can be generated by a couple thousand children packed into a concert hall, I can't blame her. It was uncomfortable, even for me with my degenerating sense of hearing.

I was irritated that morning when we set out for the play. I figured it be a waste of time. I'm never much of one for social events, but I've felt near to bursting into tears at the mere idea of getting out amongst people of late with the constant and unrelenting string of social obligations these past few months. (It's an introvert thing. More on that later.) Plus, it was cold and rainy, and the girls were too intent on playing to do anything toward getting themselves ready that particular morning.

Looking back though, I'm glad we were able to attend. Not only did they get to see their first play ever, Boo Bear and Sneak both had a breakthrough in integrating auditory overload without pain. Plus, I was able to point out structural features in the concert hall that contribute to acoustics.

Once Upon a Time Inspired Fragrances

You know what time it is folks. The spring craft show and arts festival season is fast approaching, so I've been hard at work developing and making the 2013 fragrance line!

First up are two fragrances inspired by ABC's Once Upon a Time: Snow Huntress and The Spinner. 

Snow Huntress is inspired by Snow White/Mary Margaret and is a light and feminine blend of evergreen, white gardenia, and fresh picked apple. The Spinner is inspired by Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold and is a blend of oak moss, sandalwood, evergreen, dirt, honey, black amber, clove, nutmeg, and firewood. It's very woodsy, but it has a sophisticated edge to it as well without being overwhelming or cloying.

Both soaps are fully glycerin, so they're vegan friendly. They're made with a blend of coconut oil, vitamin E oil, and corn oil. The colors are achieved with mineral oxide and mica powders. As always, they are free of detergents, dyes, paraben, and phthalate, so they are as gentle as they are luxurious.

They'll show up on the website and on the storefront either Thursday or Friday, weather permitting.

And as I said in the video, if you're going to be in the area in early June, make sure to stop by the Con Kasterborous website and purchase your tickets now before they raise the price. I hope to see you there!

This Time Health Won

I wrote a while back about when work and health collide. In that instance, I managed a compromise. These past few weeks though, health won out.

Back at the beginning of the fall show season, I managed to cause some minor damage to my abdominal wall. In twisting about to both hold up the back hatch of my vehicle and try to pull the tent frame out from under several cases of soap, I created minor tears in the bottom layer of muscle running from hip to solar plexus and also the ones running under the ribcage. I never even noticed this though because my system get so flooded with adrenaline throughout these events, unless I slash myself I don't much notice any discomfort aside from the expected aching feet. Then I expect to be horribly sore the next day. 

Don't let the size of the items fool you. Get them in a box, and they get heavy fast!

Gluten Free Ginger Peach Muffins

This time of year, those of us here in the E household have a lot of trouble with allergies. Specifically, the girls experience a lot of nausea thanks to sinus and post nasal drip. 

There isn't a huge amount to be done to help them aside from trying some unpasteurized local honey to try and treat their allergies naturally. However, I was told to try consuming ginger back when I was having horrendous morning sickness early in my pregnancy with Sneak. So a while back, I tried adding a bit of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg along with just a bit of brown sugar to a regular old biscuit recipe for those spring and fall mornings when the girls are feeling puny.

Now, I haven't made a batch of ginger biscuits since we went gluten free. The GF all purpose baking flour we use does make really good biscuits, but I've been just as down as the girls when it comes to allergies so far this spring. I don't work dough with my hands when I'm having lots of trouble sneezing and what not, so I've been going with a muffin variation.

These ginger peach muffins have certainly worked well for us these past couple of weeks, this morning included.

The muffins fresh out of the oven this morning.