What's up?

So I've been neglecting my blog the last couple of weeks.
Why you may ask?

Well I have been busy with taking care of some unexpected health problems and getting ready for tomorrow's craft show.

I am feeling better and with a few life style changes and some time I will be all good. Turning 50 sucks, lol.

Tomorrow I am doing one of my favorite craft shows it is......
The Wabash Valley Herb Festival
It's a great festival on the banks of the Wabash river in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is filled with vendors selling herbs and flowers and garden related items and hand crafts. It's a jurried show and I like that because there are no buy and sell vendors there. It's a very popular annual event that people look forward to all year.
It has been raining here so much latley I was conserned that it would be raining but it looks like it's going to be a cool clear day....awesome.

Well it's getting late and I have to get up at 4:30 am to go set up, I will say good night!

Something for my sore muscles

ARRRRGGGG I hate getting old and some of the things that go with it. For me the body aches are the worst part. So a few years ago I started making different soaks and bath teas to relax my ouchys. I decided to make some for my shops.

I just love this stuff it smells awesome. When I am tired and my muscles ache I fill my tub with warm water . Then I fill a cotton bag with the herbs and salt and drop it into the tub to dissolve the salts and release the beautiful scent. The salts relax my muscles and the scent relaxes me. It is the perfect end to a long day.

The combo of dead sea and Epsom salts relax and sooth sore muscles and help detox the skin. I like the rose petals and hips the oils from them seem to help soften my skin. The wild rose and oak is such a awesome warm calming scent.

The resealable bag holds 1 lb. of salts and a reusable cotton bag to fill with the salts and petals. Just fill the bag and drop into the warm tub let the salts dissolve and soak you aches away.

Awesome Olive Oil Soap

I have been making Olive oil soap again and I can tell you my drying room smells beautiful. I have 2 sweet bars and 2 spa bars.

The "sweet" bars are the first 2 bars. The purple bar is a beautiful sexy tropical Tuberose. It smells like heady rich island flowers. The pink bars smell like Pink Sugar and awesome feminine sent, very flirty.

The green bars are my "spa" bars. They are clean fresh uni-sex scents. The top bar is Green Clover and Aloe scent[BBW dupe], I added some apricot kernels to polish your dry winter skin. The 2 toned bar is my favorite it is White Tea and Ginger, I love the fresh clean smell of it I added apricot kernel to gently polish the skin and candula petals to sooth it. Both of these bars will remind you of a day at the spa.

I love olive oil soap it has really been good for my skin. I have been using it as my shampoo for the last couple of months and have seen a nice improvement to my dry hair and scalp.

I have all of these bars listed in my shop http://gingerbellsbathshop.etsy.com now is a good time to check them out. I am having a buy 3 get 1 free sale; mix or match any items in shop that will be over soon.

Another long festival over!

The Parke County Covered Bridge Festival is a 10 day county wide craft show held every October.

This is the 4th year I have done it and I really enjoy it. It is one of my favorite shows of the year but 10 days is a long time; by day 7 I am ready for it to be done.

Sales were down this year for everyone but it still was a profitable show. I sold 98% of the necklaces I brought and about 75% of the bracelets as well. I started the show with 89 candles and brought home 8 and sold many bars of soaps and soap sets as well as pillar candles and other misalliance items.

So needless to say my shops are looking kind of sad. I have been ordering a lot of supplies so that I can make new inventory for my shops and the 2 shows I have coming up in December.

The next couple of weeks I will be making new beads for jewelry , soaps and candles. While at the show I crocheted a bunch of pretty new wash cloths ,soap bags and bath puffs to pair with some soaps for nice gift sets. I also demoed polymer clay canes so I have a bunch to use for my new beads and to list in my shop for others to use.

Before I can start all the fun creating I need to clean up this messy house. My loving spouse is a "Spoiled Latino King" who's sweet Mom never made pick up after himself and he still does not. He's a great Hubby but damn he's spoiled of course after 21 years I ought to know better then to expect anything different. ( random rant over).

I am so excited to get the new oils I ordered so I can get started on the 20 lbs. of olive oil soap I am planning on making next week ; my curing racks will be jam packed with beautiful soaps. I ordered a bunch of fall and winter scents like Orange Spice , Zanzabar Clove, and Pumpkin Pound Cake. I'll also have some Shea butter soaps ready for listing next week and maybe a couple of bars of Pumpkin Spice Honey Soaps. I ordered 18 new scents so there will be loads of new wonderful smelling goodies going into my shop over the next few weeks.

I have a bunch of cool Christmas Ornaments in my gift shop and I am offering a 25% discount to my blog buddies. If you order them and put "blog buddy" in the notes to seller I will be happy refund the 25% to your pay pal account.

Well it's time to go mop the floors ............ OH JOY!

Insperation and and a blog feature

Where can you find inspiration, great polymer clay art ,adorable animal photos and a blog feature on my shop all in one place...That would be Artsy Clay's blog http://artsyclay.blogspot.com/ .

Her blog is well written and has a lot to offer a reader her photos are a lot of fun. She is also a wonderful polymer clay artist she makes the cutest sculpted cat faces as well as other lovely pieces that can be seen on her blog..

I am always touched when someone likes what I do because I get so much joy doing it and for someone to put that much effort into telling others about it is very touching to me and I really appreciate it.

She has reviewed several other shops and I found some new artists things to drool over so if you want to see some cool things check out her blog.

I love my new soap mold

I bought a new soap mold that I just love. It's not a fancy shape its a classic beveled oval what I love about it is how much easier it is to use then my other molds. It is made of a really high quality silicone the soap slips right out. Also because it is so heavy weight it doesn't warp like the hard plastic molds so it makes a lovely smooth bar of soap. The beautiful shape makes a wonderful base shape for embellishment and fits perfectly in the hand.

The soap in the photos are simple looking but the look really fits the awesome Strawberries and Cream scent. This soap smells like the yummy strawberry cream savors candy. I am not a big fan of food smelling soaps but I have to say this one makes me crave strawberries. YUMMO!

I have been testing a lot of different M&P soap bases lately to add to my cold process soaps. I wanted a base with high quality ingredients like the ones in my CP soaps. After a lot of trial and error I am happy with the one I have chosen and I think my customers will like it too. I know my soap testers are giving it rave reviews. I love testing soaps it's good clean fun(ha ha).

I have several new scents that I am testing too. The next new soap I will be adding is a Blackberry Sage blend Shea butter soap; I really like this fresh scent. I also will be adding some new herbal bath tea blends and milk and salt soaks too. I just got a big shipment of excellent organic herbs to blend into these bath luxuries.

Wabash Valley Herb Faire 2008

This is a fun little festival that happens in our town every Mothers Day. It is a Herb and art themed festival on the Wabash River.

This will be the second time I have done this festival. The first time I sold very well and picked up a boutique spot for about a year that was profitable. I had to skip it last year because my tent top needed fixed.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the weather stays nice and I can keep my tent sides up and enjoy the crowd.

I have one more festival scheduled for the first weekend in June them I am done with festivals until the fall.

I have been having fun making bath soaks today. I made a nice peppermint/ chamomile salt foot soak that is great for tired feet. I also made a English rose milk and oatmeal soak. It is so nice for softening your skin and smells good too. I really enjoy making and using them. I think I am going to go use one of the foot soaks right now for my tired toes.

Grand Opening

Well Now I have really gone over the deep end and opened a second shop dedacated to bath and body items and candles. It is http://gingerbellsbathshop.etsy.com check it out and feel free to tell me what you think.

I decided to open a second shop to showcase all the personal care items I love to use and make. I will still be carrying some in my main shop but as they sell I will phase them out of that shop.

Every day for a while I will be adding new items that are exclusive to the bath shop. Things like herbal tub teas, milk and soothing salt soaks, foot bath soaks and lip balm just to name a few items.

Right now my house smells awesome I just made some beautiful Chai tea milk bath and sealed it up in giant tea bags for the tub.

Hopefully separating my shops will help me on my quest to become more organized when it comes to my least favorite part of my craft journey; the business side. So dear reader please wish me luck.