(234-227) Baby Showers - Like Butter!

This weekend I started out by making a Welcome sign for the upcoming shower! It turned out super cute...picture to come soon :)

Saturday was a Sara & Amber craft experimental day. We started in Sara's lab making soap (we made about 64 bars this weekend). We did a double batch of lavender/rosemary glycrin soap and beeswax lemon verbana. Both turned out wonderful and I think will be added to the final book of recipes for our business launch. Tomorrow we do the final packaging of the soap.

After a quick jaunt around town grabbing some delicious subs at Eastside Deli (yum!) and checking out the Decorette shop to see their latest inventory of molds we headed to my kitchen and made delicious whipped body butter. The recipe contains: Shea & Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Vitamin E, Essential Oil, Liquid Glycrin, and distilled water. The results were a wonderfully soft body butter!

We chose to use a grapefruit essential oil and instead of the resulting scent we had been intending, the lotion turned out to smell more like a chocolate covered orange. The kind you get around Christmas, so I tilted this variety Christmas Orange. We make about 40 ozs and packaged 23 for the shower I am hosting next weekend. I hope to add some shower themed stickers if time permits.

On a side bar...I wish we had the branding ready for our new business! We are not quiet there yet, but we spent a few hours planning. Thus far we have a domain and are working to link it to the blog. We checked out some preliminary site designs and started to discuss ideas and look at competitors. This week we are focusing on site linked and working on some design (we need a logo). Stay tuned for our new business launching mid this year! Sara and I have much work ahead of us :)

In tow with the rest of the weekend crafting projects was more shower preparation. I worked on customizing two game ideas I had come across online. One was "pin the sperm on the egg." I had a great time creating a sperm Dan and egg Sierra (was cracking up the whole time):













The second was a customization of an attributes game where you list the different attributes parents have and then you have the attendees guess which attribute the mommy will want the baby to share. No photoshop there though I had contemplated creating some combined images with Sierra's favorite physical traits (kind of old school Conan Obrien style with the celebrity babies).

All was a success until it came to the chocolates...but that is another tail all together and it is past my bedtime.

(238) Supplies Shopping

Another long week...I must admit I have been in quiet a rut since finding out about the change at my job. So Friday I went to Tacoma to transition the work I had completed. On my trip I stopped in Seattle to visit Sierra and Dan.

Friday was low key and after taking the sounder up from Tacoma, I watched the guys try to install a toilette for about an hour while waiting for Sierra to get home from work. After another hour and chatting the guys were still working on their project, so Sierra and I headed to dinner at Tango.

Sunday we met for brunch - yum! After which Sierra and I went on an adventure to Zenith Supplies (http://www.zenithsupplies.com/) in search of materials for soap for her shower. We stopped before heading back and enjoyed some custard and chatted about life. I am so excited for her and Dan starting their family. Life feels like it is changing so quickly and I feel in slow motion. I suppose it does not help being sick this week.

We left for home late on Saturday to make it in time for the anti-Super Bowl party that is becoming a new tradition. Sunday I woke and went to JCs house and made some delicious chili before the masses started to arrive. It was a hit! Everyone brought delicious treats, played games, and watched some of the game (though there was more focus on the kitten half time show).

Monday Sara and I made some truffles and I tried a new peanut butter truffle recipe that is delicious! Also, on my way home I found a local supply company right down the street Shay & Company (http://www.shayandcompany.com/) that has great supplies for making lotions, soaps, and cosmetics. I got the final supplies for our upcoming soap making session this weekend.

This week I have to make the banner/welcome sign, lotion/soap, and truffles for the shower. Much to do before next week.

And to top it all off, we got back our wedding photos. I designed and ordered our thank yous, designed a book with the photo booth pictures, and designed a wedding album for my mom (though I may want to design another one and give her that instead). I still have to design a book for our honeymoon too! But it feels good to be getting thing done.

Speaking of which...so close to getting my taxes done, but have to research details about filling out a Schedule F. On that note, off to research tax stuff. I was researching having a hobby that you can write off on your taxes, but you have to make a profit to write it off. So my goal this year to build an online store front to sell hobbies. I started an Etsy site, my friend has a registered company, and website that we are going to work on soon. So this will be a goal for the year!