Eat Local!

This school year I requested a student to assist me with some marketing for our school cafeteria.  One of the projects we've been working on is taking photos of the meals served to students to showcase our food to parents and visitors, in newsletters, bulletin boards, and more. 

The culmination of the project has been pairing some of the food photos with some of the student garden photos, which were then blown up poster size.  Some foodie posters were mixed in to balance everything out and today they were hung up as the cafeteria art.  I was delighted that the photo of the veggie pizza we served was made into a nice poster to hang right outside my office door.  I love it! 

What do you think? 

 

27 Years Ago Today...

Three kids and two grandgirlies later....

August 2012 with our youngest Grandgirlie, Hailley

And we are still in love!

I can so hear my middle child laughing right now over the big glasses I wore back in 1986...but hey, they WERE the fad of the day way back then! 

Fun With Blueberries...Soap, That Is!

Freshly poured Blueberry Soap

If you remember, the other day I made all of the blueberries for another fun soapy project.  Ok, more than one project, but I can't spoil all of my secrets just yet. 

On Tuesday I made one of the blueberry soapy projects rolling through my head.  With a snow day callled I had cellphone in hand and a pot of soap in the other and it was of to the soap room for some fun. 

Setting the larger half spheres in place

What I didn't show you the other day was the larger larger half sphere embeds I made to go along with this project.  To start off with, I poured a small amount of soap into the bottom of the mold and then set the larger half spheres in place. 



A sprinkle of mica on top

After I was satisfied with the way everything looked, I poured the rest of the soap overtop then sprinkled a bit of the blue mica mixture down the center that I had come up with for this project. 



Not happy with how the mica looked, I changed my mind about what I wanted to do on the top, and carefully folded the soap over the mica line with a spoon and added the blueberries to the top, as seen above. 

Cut bars of Blueberry Soap

Today was cutting day, and I was anxious to see what mysteries were hidden inside the bars.  Did all of the larger blue pieces stay down?  I didn't spoon the soap over the larger embeds, so it was likely some didn't stay at the bottom.  Did some of the embeds float up?  It didn't matter to me, because each bar has its own personality and I love each and every one of them!

I still have a ton of blueberries leftover for another project or perhaps two?  We shall see what happens this weekend!

Almost a Doozy Snowstorm Day

At least that is what our weather man says.  He has a Doozometer and we are between Bamboozy and Doozy...not quite worthy of a REAL Doozy, but we have a Snow Day from school out of the deal, so that means another soaping day for me!  We are expecting 12-18 inches of snow with this storm, and hubby is excited as this means the snowmobile season got a little boost and isn't quite over just yet. 

Hyacinth Soap

Last night I cut up the logs of soap I made on Saturday, and am delighted with the outcome of each one.  I have to say that the Hyacinth soap was a fun one to make, and I loved how it looked in the mold.  The bottom of the soap was created by swirling three colors in the pot then I created a textured top with the hyacinth blue and spring green colors, and garnished the top with iridescent glitter.  It smells heavenly.

Strawberries & Champagne Soap

Strawberries and Champagne was created with the same in the pot swirl method using two colors, and garnished with iridescent glitter and sugar pearls to give the appearance of champagne bubbles dancing on the top. 

Bay Rum Soap

Bay Rum!  I am most excited with the way this batch turned out.  The photo gives the appearance of the color brown, but it is really the color of a dried bay leaf.  I made this one by dividing the soap and coloring half the batch.  Alternating the bay leaf color and white, I poured a strip of soap down the middle of the mold over top of each other.  It took quite a bit of time to finish the pour, but it was well worth the effort as the end result is amazing! 

Pale Ale Soap

Pale Ale about killed me with the fragrance when I was working with it.  It has mellowed out in the soap now that it is cut and drying out a bit, much to my relief.  I wanted to give this one the appearance of foam on top, so I tinted the top white, and used cocoa to make the pencil line.  I will go a bit easier on the cocoa next time, as the line is sort of heavy looking to me.  Regardless, it is still and eye catcher.

Today I am going to be working with my brain idea for the blueberry embeds made over the weekend, and the rootbeer soap idea floating in my head.  A new slab mold with dividers arrived yesterday and I'm twitching to break it in.  I bought the additional dividers to make guest/favor size soaps so this will most definitely be a well used mold and with all of the ideas rolling around in my head, I may need more than one of these molds to satisfy that creativity. 

Blueberries and More!

Blueberries!

These blueberries are part of another soapy project I am working on, and is phase two of the project.  Yesterday I made the soap for the blueberries, today is turning that soap into blueberries.  The third phase of the project will make its debut soon and photos will most definitely follow. 

Strawberries & Champagne Soap

Yesterday was a full day in the Soap Room.  Aside from the blueberry soap, I made some embeds for the Rootbeer soap idea I am working over in my head.  Pale Ale, Bay Rum, Strawberries & Champagne, and Hyacinth logs of soap were made. 

Lemon cupcake, anyone? 

The last project of the day was lemon cupcake soaps.  It ended up being a very productive day for me, and I was delighted with how everything turned out.  However, the lemon cupcakes managed to work their way through the gel phase, even though I soaped at very low temps.  Needless to say I was disappointed that the "frosting" had flattened out when I looked at them this morning.  They still look nice, just not as impressive as when they were freshly made, as shown in the photo. 

350 Cupcakes Later....

CUPCAKES!!!!

Yesteray our Supervisory Union held an all day District wide Music Festival (for Grades 4-12), and I was commissioned to make cupcakes for a lunch celebration.  It was quite the project, but the kids were delighted when I rolled the cart into the room and that was reward enough for me.  After practicing all day we served the students dinner and then they made the final preparations for a free concert. 

Greening Up Bit by Bit

I see some green!

It doesn't take much to get me excited except when I am anxious for winter to finish melting away and discover a small patch of green slowly making its appearance. 

I have been itching all winter to go sit on the bench under the pergola we built last summer and this afternoon I trudged my way through the snow to enjoy a moment of tranquility when I discovered a small patch of green grass poking its way around the snow melting away. 

The driveway and yard is rapidly turning into a lake and mud bog.  For the first time this winter I had to lug out my boots so I can get in and out of the car without ending up with water logged feet and/or shoes being sucked off my feet by the mud.

Lilac soap cut into bars

I was so thrilled with the results of the soap I made last weekend and wanted to share how the Lilac soap turned out.   The swirls look like whispers of purple in the base of the bar and the piping adds a fancy touch befitting of the delicate lilac fragrance.  I can't wait until it warms up enough for my lilac bush to bloom.  Until then, I will be enjoying the fragrance of this soap as it finishes curing. 

Hailley and Christina saying "cheese and macaroni"

Last Sunday my oldest Grand Girlie turned four.  Seems like just yesterday that she was born, the time has flown by so quickly.  We took a road trip to celebrate the occasion, and went from needing jackets to no jackets back to needing jackets in the time we were there.  We played in the snow and mud, blew bubbles, dumped some bubble water on accident (actually a lot), and took a nice walk on the muddy back roads.  One thing for certain, I was glad I wasn't the one having to wash the multiple jackets, boots, and clothes the girls got covered in mud.