Birthday Party! WOO HOO!

 We had Emily's birthday party today.  We had a great time with our friends that were able to come out to the skating rink.  Here are a few pictures from Wayne's World.  We went over to Pizza Hut afterwards and had pizza and cupcakes.  Emily's friend Sam came home with her and we had a weinie roast and made smores. 

Last week I went on a soap making spree in preparation for Christmas.  I am trying to make gift baskets for several people and I needed to get the soap made so it would have time to cure and dry out before gift giving time.  I thought the cops were going to be called last weekend when I purchased every bit of lye on Tractor Supply's shelf!  Here are a few of the results.

This is what I call the Christmas soap, it is peppermint scented and colored with powder algae and red jojoba beads.

Bergamot!  I colored the orange with paprika that I soaked in olive oil and the strained through a coffee filter.  My intentions were to swirl this orange up and down into the white, but after I already had the log wrapped and covered up I realized I had forgot to swirl the colors, so I just left it the way it was.  Kind of disappointed with myself, but the soap is still going to be fabulous to use.
 

 I also did a run of spiced mahogany scented, pumice soap.  I colored it with turmeric and put it in a silicone mold that was shaped like leaves and pumpkins.  Brandon needed an abrasive soap for getting grease off his hands and I wanted to experiment with this mold.  The color came out perfect! It has the look of pumpkin pie.  I don't have a picture of these yet. Now I need to think about what creative ways I can package the soaps.  I went to Mitchael's and Hobby Lobby to try to get some ideas and basic items to start with.  We will see how that turns out.


Here are some other things we have been up to:

Emily with her science fair project.  It is not due until November 19, but we didn't want to be burdened with it over her birthday week, so we set a goal to have it done by Friday of this week, and ta-da, here we have it!