I absolutely love the watermelon sorbet cars that I made. I decided to work on a boys combo to go in the little outdoors kid’s meal boxes that I found (I used the side of one for the picture). These cars will definitely be included. Hopefully dinosaurs turn out this well too *grin*
It was a difficult day, but something cool came out of it. I found these adorable heavy plastic martini glasses and couldn’t resist getting a few to experiment with. I actually wanted margarita glasses, but these really popped to me. I want to see if I can fit 3 or 4 of the new cocktail scented body & massage oils in them. Since the bottles are only 1 oz I’m hoping that they can lean to the back without looking too unbalanced. I’ve debated if I should wrap the whole thing in a little basket wrap, but I think that might end up looking cheesy. I am debating experimenting with shrink wrap window treatments. That should be pretty cost effective since I can cut a little strip whenever I need one, without much loss and being a bulk price. I found some cute little handle baskets too, but not nearly as adorable as these little guys. *grin* I just hope they turn out to be as eye catching as I hope and a good little spring/summer booths item. Hopefully I’ll be posting a cute picture of a completed combo on here with these soon! 🙂
I got my Oriental Trading delivery today and think the kid combo packages turned out really cute 🙂 I wasn’t sure since I don’t always have the best of luck with their packages, but couldn’t resist trying for spring. The little box is barely tall enough for 1 oz bottles to stand in. I figure that I will either lay them down or angle them. I thought that kids would care more about the box than how the contents are set inside *grin* I’m so excited! I also got some transparent basket bags that were on sale and some clearances holiday packaging for this next December. A bit early, but so cheap that I don’t mind storing them and passing along some savings! Now that I have a list of what scents to use in the combos I just need an energetic day to make up some products lol
My lovely young helper came by after school today and since I haven’t been feeling so great it was mostly just a relaxing visit instead of getting a lot of product done. As she sniffed the new scents she started firing questions at me and I did my best to answer every one of them, although some details are beyond me, like how exactly do they know which chemicals to go together to make an FO. (Pretty complex thought, isn’t it?! The explanation that an FO is a blend of chemicals to reproduce a scent made sense, but the exact lab activities…dude. *grin*) Anyway, as we chatted I could almost see the wheels start turning behind her eyes, saw an eyebrow go up, and then she asked how I know to identify the notes in each scent. I started to explain, although I could tell that she wasn’t overly satisfied by my first explanation. When she started sniffing White Chocolate Raspberry and I said that it reminds me of a truffle she said that she didn’t know what a chocolate truffle was. Cue lightbulb above my head if I was in a comic *grin*. I got out my well guarded box of truffles that I have been amazingly good at limiting my indulgence in, so that they last. We each took one and started nibbling. Not only did I get to share in her first step into feminine indulgence (lol That first bite of incredibly wonderful chocolate should become a celebrated day in my opinion *sassy grin*), but here was a perfect way to help things become clearer for her. I asked her what she tasted and she flashed me one of my own infamous duh looks, and told me it was chocolate. “Really good chocolate, but chocolate.” Lmao. Touché. I managed to keep from laughing (now I realize I need to limit my use of that look since that is a rather insulting look lol), then started naming ingredients. With each nibble, each flavor and nuance I said, she started to nod. She became very excited as things clicked into place, and I said that for me smelling an FO is like eating a gourmet truffle. I enjoy every little thing that makes it the wondrous thing that it is, and each of those “flavors” is what comes together to make it distinctive. The most beautiful grin spread, ear to ear, across her face, and hurriedly she started reopening bottles to sniff again. Bouncing on the couch, then unable to contain her excitement she had to jump up to move around the room, she started sniffing the lids and announcing the more subtle notes that she detected. It was very helpful to have her give a name to a few notes that I wasn’t able to put my finger on, but most of all it was beyond awesome to see that connection and excitement. She has a very unguarded and expressive face, so I could easily see her dissecting memories and applying this new concept to them. *happy sigh* This lazy day has been way more satisfying than any other work session we have had! 🙂
Now that she understood the concept behind putting scents together to make a different variations she started to truly understand how I come up with custom blends. It was so neat to see that newly wise nod of agreement that the freshly zested lemon would work really well with buttercream, and become a more indulgent scent then (although she didn’t know what I meant when I said I wanted to make a blend close to a lemon bar, so guess what we will be baking next week? Lol). She piped up moments later that mojito had a soft note of orange under the lemon and mint, which stunned me. When she catches on it’s like a wildfire! *grin* She is excited for me to start making some products and blends, to see what notes she can distinguish in them, and how the combination of the notes makes something totally new sometimes. Miss Ash was greatly impressed that she could smell the vanilla (“…like the ice cream usually in it!”) in my rootbeer float blend (soda shoppe), and understood that without that note it wouldn’t have smelled like a float, just rootbeer.
Anyway, it was a blast and she gave me a lot of ideas to consider, like the scent combos she recommended for the new kid combo I want to make and how I should package the adult cocktail combo of margarita and mojito scented items. I chose right in ordering some bright plastic baskets to use for the combos, according to her, and next week we will work on repackaging the products bagged in holiday cellos into more year round themed cellos. Apparently I need to get to work on making some donut and ice cream cone soaps though. *grin* My bad lol. I suspect that this is what she wants for her “payment” for helping. So as soon as I get some energy I have a lot of new things to start making. By the way, in case you are as ignorant as I am, kids “…just aren’t that into…” lotion, so “…stick with the bubble washes.” *grin* Lesson learned! Lol
First, my apologies for a month lapsing. My health issues have me in la la land and to be honest, I’m really surprised I didn’t blog while out of it. *grin* As I’m currently waiting for a double dose of medicine to kick in, I may just succeed at a very odd entry. Lol.
I did fairly well over the holidays and mostly all due to my amazing family and friends. I turned a profit for the first time, which in the overall accounting means I finally came out even on all the Paypal fees I’ve paid in the past year. *wry smile* I got almost completely caught up in Quickbooks (damn secretary slacked on her job and didn’t enter stuff since the cancer event in September…I’d fire her, but it’s hard to fire yourself *wink*) and Quickbooks took away all that excitement about that first profitable month. Of course, I’m now going into the slow months too. It’s for three years that the IRS accepts a business in loss, right? *teasing grin*
Accounting aside, I am now disassembling my holiday baskets that I had pre-made and deciding what items will get renamed to sell year round. My inventory spreadsheet is absolutely useless at the moment with disassembling. I gave up making sure that my inventory count matched between Quickbooks and my spreadsheet. I learned that I can just override that QB warning that I don’t have enough inventory to sell those items on an invoice. Lol. Georgia’s own spreadsheets FTW! *grin*
I got notification from my wholesaler that my order is in processing. I’m excited that I’ll finally have the necessary bases on hand again and have some really neat new seasonal offerings that have cheered me up. I got invited to be a vendor at a Welcoming Spring-type event that I won’t be able to attend due to distance, etc, but it drove home that I need to plan for spring and summer events.
I got a watermelon FO that has top ratings from other crafters and both age groups love it, so I’m hoping for a real winner there. I got a margarita FO and mojito FO to really provide some fresh and fun options. Honeysuckle FO, a fresh laundry variant FO with hints of marine and ozone notes, and then also a different floral FO. It’s called a Secret Crush Type, so it’ll have to be renamed to keep me out of trouble, but crafters write that they can’t keep it stocked because it sells so well. That would be a nice problem. Lol. I also got a Vanilla Noir type FO also that I really look forward to smelling. 5 star peer ratings and it was one of my customer loyalty freebies, so doubly exciting.
Of course, it wouldn’t be me ordering if food and desserts were missing! Banana Cream Pie FO, White Chocolate Raspberry FO, and a fresh lemon FO to play with. I want to do a lemon bar or cake type of scent. A nice play with some buttercream to sweeten that baby up. Mmmm mmmm. I saw a Whoopie Pie scent which I thought would be pointless to order, since I have all of the scents needed all ready, so time to try to make it. They called it “Making Whoopie”, which, like the Sex in the Shower scent, catches the eye, so I want to make a play on that too. That, if it turns out right, would be a very indulging scent that would be perfect in a variation of the seduction basket. I guarantee that you open up a bottle of that oil and a girl smells that luscious chocolate, she’s going to come investigate. *sassy wink* All in all, some exciting possibilities. More to come as things go on sale, if I can get profitable. My debit card might get taken away if I do too much preparing for the season and don’t see enough return. Lol.
A few other changes I’m excited over are new packaging options. My aunt brought up a great point in testing some Goat’s Milk lotion. It’s hard to get out of the bottle. (It can be a real razzle frazzle to get it into the bottles too! *teasing smile*) So, I found some jars to package it in. They’re amber, since clear was sold out and I declined the wait on the order for the clear to come in, and the other type of jars that I loved had really expensive lids, which is just stupid to pick then. I really try to keep things affordable and a lid that’s as expensive as a jar is just pointless to frugal (great word choice, right?! *grin*) me. I’m really super duper oddly excited about the new packaging option for bath salts. I noticed at the holiday craft sale event (seems like so freaking long ago) that everyone put down the salts when they saw how expensive they are. Well, a pint of dead sea salt plus additives IS expensive, even for me, but when I take a bath I indulge. I can go through a quarter of a canning jar of salts in one soak. I saw these new little cello options my wholesaler just came out with, that look like cellophane carrots, and are 12″ x 6″ cones. Perfect! Way cheaper than glass canning jars, cheap to ship, a more affordable sampling of how awesome my salts are, and look so freaking adorable I felt like I was 4 all over again looking at my Easter basket. If I do different layers of colors that’ll look even more adorable. Dude, if I wasn’t so meh I’d be doing a happy dance. *grin*
A few last additions that I’m happy about is trying out a gentle face cream and some pure aloe gel. I have a recipe for a leg relief gel using aloe and some EO that I’ve wanted to try since I saw the recipe months ago. The gel was on sale and I had been holding out for the base that I really wanted, so I finally get to try. That might make a great city wide garage sale seller come May and June. *crossing fingers* As to the face cream, it’s suppose to be so gentle that it can be used on faces or even babies, so I’ve had my eye on it to finally become available. I would like to see if I can add a few appropriate additives to it and add it to the acne line. It would mean a lot to me personally to have some options for teens, especially if it truly, naturally helps. If I don’t take that route, I might just make an official line for sensitivities and illnesses. I can’t legally say that it helps, but I can say that I experienced no reactions, so the population that has the same issues as me might have good experiences with this line. That’s a strong consideration. I’ve wanted to help Fibromyalgia and Arthritis sufferers, but when I can’t buy in bulk like the big guys, it’s just not affordable at either end. Maybe this could be the compromise.
Anyway, one last happy part to my order is a package of sliced luffa (loofah). I actually experimented with a small order I had on hand and gave as Christmas gifts, and I’m pretty proud of how they turned out. I pushed a slice into each round silicone mold (just a tiny bit wider than the mold, so it got jammed in if I’m being honest). Then I poured whatever Shea soap base in and saturated the luffa. After they set I popped them out and they became perfect rough spot soaps. Now, I did them in the experimental blend of Root beer Float too (*happy sigh* heavenly I tell you). The luffa should stay fairly soft now because of the exposure to the shower steam and water, as well as be submerged in the Shea soap. What a great soap to get heels ready for sandal season! There are several practical uses for this soap, so I’m excited to actually get the supplies on hand to make part of my line.
I just need a healthy clone of myself to actually make this stuff,, especially since I’m really excited. I also need to update my website I realized today. I took down Christmas decorations the day after the holiday, but still have those products promoted all over on my site. Time for some virtual housekeeping I suppose.
Thanks for being patient with me, for all of the encouragement, and I look forward to telling you about some new adventures for this next season. By the way, any input on one thing – I love the name “naughty elf” for one of my wintery seductive scents. I’m kind of thinking of leaving the name year round because it is catchy and cute. Any thoughts? Anyway, I hope everyone has a fantastic day and is sleeping well. Please cross your fingers that my doctor figures out a new treatment plan so that I’m no longer alternating between a narcoleptic and insomniac. *goofy smile* Waves from a snuggly Bo dog too!
Some people won’t be too pleased, I’m sure, but most on my list are getting specially selected or created products for Christmas. I did small gift bags for the kids and baskets for the families or adults. Plus one order is waiting for pick up with that family’s gifts, just to make sure that I don’t forget to give one or the other. Lol. Can you believe that 5 baskets aren’t included in this pile because they got shipped?! I finished the ordered baskets last night and took the pic, and realized that I have justification for being so exhausted. That’s a lot of little spurts of work. Albeit I’ve worked on stuff for months and now it’s just getting assembled, but I finally feel that there is proof positive that I do something. Lol. If people don’t like the stuff, I hope they give it to others that will, but I’m proud of myself. Good thing I stuck a bag of my “lump of coal” in each one just in case they don’t like getting the product for Christmas. *big grin*
My wholesaler was running massively behind, so when I put in my replacement order a couple of days ago I didn’t expect anything until after Christmas. (I still haven’t received my order from B&N from Black Friday after all.) Much to my surprise my box arrived and I got to unwrap my own present *grin* I ordered some new scents that were on sale and couldn’t wait to start sniffing.
Out of all of the new scents I was so excited to get Candy Corn. It’s been on my wish list on the site for months and once it was down to a few bucks for a big bottle, that baby was mine. *smile* Anyway, the blurb describes it as a soft vanilla with sweet notes. Um, I think my bottle didn’t get that memo. *pout* I swear to you that it smells like buttered popcorn! I have no idea how that will make a decent soap or lotion, that’s for sure. Lol. Any ideas? Maybe I should make a group of gag gifts with the positively awful scents that I’m beginning to gather (about one per every ten I order anymore *sigh). Buttered popcorn, stinky gingerbread that smells like an odd bread pudding, and the rank Cafe Latte…
And my mind wanders…sorry. *grin* I got two amazingly great scents that I’m tickled about. Pumpkin Spice isn’t quite as mellow as the Perfect Pumpkin that I have (which I had to restock in this order too, since it’s awesome!).
My customer loyalty gift from the wholesaler was Oakmoss and it is divine. It has a gentle earthiness to it, but such a clean, uplifting top note. It’s almost like sitting on the side of a waterfall, on the rocks by the pool area, and taking a deep and cleansing breath. *happy sigh* I think it’ll make a phenomenal unisex scent. Not too sweet or musky, not too heavy, not sharp…nothing but simply great.
So I’ll switch my thinking to the wasted FO was free and Oakmoss as my new, great purchase. *grin* Makes me feel better about the cost. Lol.
Anyway, I have a replacement scale battery, extra clear soap base, bath whip base, and lotion base, so I need to really get into gear if I can reign in my symptoms. *smile* I want to make the mens sugar scrub in Oakmoss now. Tonight I’ll stay quiet and laying down though, enjoying my Tizanidine, and play with name ideas. It’ll be hard to not go with the predictable line. Lol.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
I haven’t been overly productive the last few days, since I haven’t felt well, so I decided to really give a push last night to get a few things done. When I got off of the computer I sanitized my workstation in the kitchen and then started to get things out to start working. I really want to make a more masculine scented scrub option, so that was my main priority.
I went to get out some bath whip, which is a main component in the scrub, but couldn’t find a jar. I finally found some in my emergency stash “hidey hole” and gave a sigh of relief. Then I began to bite my lip when I realized that I don’t have enough of the usual extra clear soap base that the recipe calls for until my order is delivered, who knows when, until I found an alternative that I think might be kind of nice, since it’s a creamy variation. Okay, second crisis averted. Cool! I got out the little holiday print plastic buckets that I wanted to put the finished product in, so they’re ready to just pop a gift tag on and put under the tree. I sanitized them and let them sit to dry while I got ready to cut the soap for melting. I had to roll my eyes when I went to turn my digital scale on and it said “lo”, and shut itself off. Seriously? So, I chilled myself out and went to my battery drawer to get another battery. Of course the scale has one of those special CR disc batteries and I have two, but not of the number that the scale needs. I mean, at this point it was just totally an “of course” thing.  *grin* Okay…quick thinking prevailed and I grabbed my household scale. Hmm….won’t read mere ounces (and I don’t have much more than the needed 10 ounces of the soap anyway), so I sigh and step onto the scale with the soap on a lid, knowing that I’ll have to suck it up and see my weight if I want to get the measurement of this blasted soap. Once the weight is flashing I put the soap on the cutting board while still on the scale and look back down to see the difference. Seriously?!  The scale was so mean that it didn’t bother to read a difference in the ounces of me versus the ounces of soap. Just stayed the same weight. *sigh* Appliances can just be so cruel. lol. Fine! I’ll just scrap making scrub for now until I get the new battery and will make some of the pumice soap that I need, since I sold out. Um, genius?  Knock knock…still no way to measure the soap to make the bars. *rolling eyes* Okay, so now that my spectacularly stupid moment was over I go to put the scale away and the glass top comes off. The glue had come loose and now my scale is a bit wobbly. No biggy….super glue is awesome and a quick fix. I put the stuff away and then go to the now dry buckets. They’re totally ready, so I figure I’ll pop the lids on and they’ll be ready for when I actually can make some base. Yeah, cue eye rolling now…the lids didn’t fit. *cracking up*  It’s a miracle that I wasn’t hyperventilating at this point and I was texting with my friend at the time about all that was going on. She advised that I just get out of the kitchen before it exploded, the way that things were going. *grin* The guilt though is soooo strong that I haven’t done much more than read and pack a few boxes, so I decided to box up the remaining dessert cake soaps. Oh yeah, you see where this is headed, don’t you? lol.  I had three of the perfect favor boxes left and had some of the fat square soap boxes that I had found in my hidey hole that might just work for the rest, since I’d like to ship a few more. First one I managed to cause the flaps to come apart, because adhesive now hates me, too. Double sided tape is my friend, though, and that puppy got wrangled. Second one went perfectly, so I should have been on guard, right? The third one I could see almost in slow motion…I pick it up, move my hand the three INCHES to the box and suddenly I see my hand becoming weak, the fingers stiffening and beginning to spread…splat. Apparently the cherry soap “sauce” has hardened rather well with the extra cure time and there’s just a bit of a dent in the bath whip “ice cream” below, but the sauce remains perfect. lol. No biggy…my mom has always embraced the little mistakes in my art, whatever medium I currently am into, as part of the gift of uniqueness of that item. That one is in Mom’s Christmas stocking. *grin*  Anyway, I used my other hand and got the third box filled. Beautiful. I assemble the soap box to test it out and it looks just great, although it is cardboard instead of something pretty, but I don’t care at this point. I carefully wrap another cake soap in tissue to help protect and cushion it in case the postal worker has to hit the breaks suddenly or someone decides to play shuffleboard with the gift box my goodies are going into (hey, I’ve heard the stories of what goes on behind the scenes and received some seriously smashed up boxes myself lol). As I am putting the soap into the box I notice that there’s a little bit hitting on the edge of the box. Hmm….maybe I need to sacrifice some of the tissue? Of course not! I mean, it was a day to live on in infamy, right, so shouldn’t we add one more to the list? Yeah, the soap is less than a centimeter too big itself to fit into the box. *cracking up* I tore a sheet of wax paper and covered the remaining soaps with it, and just walked away. lol. However, I couldn’t just walk away with a scrap of dignity and call it a crappy night. Nope. Nada. I slipped on the way out of the room, so I crashed into the living room in utter defeat. *grin* Needless to say I sat and finished reading my book for the rest of the night.
I’ll get a new battery tomorrow and contemplate trying again.  I can switch to using the empty whip containers that I stash for putting tester products into. I figure that they might not be as cute as the buckets, but they twist on securely and I can trust them. I might have someone else cut the soap though, because if the universe is still hating me, I will probably cut my finger off. Maybe when I’m melting the base I’ll actually cause an explosion in the kitchen, though….okay, maybe I won’t make anything new for awhile.
This is what fifty dollars can look like. Lol. I had to remove the bars of soap from their boxes to fit everything in the basket. I’m really proud of this basket. Might not look as spiffy as some of my others, but there’s a lot of work and me in that basket. That snowman soap in the middle, Snowman Cocoa Kisses, is one of my favs in this basket. You can’t see it, but there are layers of red swirls in it. I’d pour a little, put a drop, and draw the toothpick to swirl. Pour, repeat. *grin* Too cute!! Now, time to dread the bill at the post office. *grin*
I honestly haven’t done much the last few days due to being so sick, but thanks to my amazing Scatterbrain app I have been able to “jot down” the random thoughts flitting through my odd mind. *smile* Since I’m in an odd mood, I’m going to subject you to my random thoughts. Lol.
I did a ton of paperwork and updates while preparing for Saturday’s event and my ingredients are fresh in my mind. I got into a romantic mood and contemplated if I should do some Valentine’s options, to which I decided why not (may not be making enough to break even, but I figure that it’s keeping me from going more insane than I all ready am *grin*), and I planned out several items to make. First off, the Seduction Basket is getting reworked. I’m going to make “Aphrodisiac Body & Massage Oil” that clearly has to go into that basket. I’ve been doing some refresher reading on EOs and realized that I have several EOs that are thought to have aphrodisiac properties. It just makes sense to do a blend then. I absolutely hate the smell of the “Sensuality” EO blend that I bought back in one of my first orders with this wholesaler. I haven’t put my finger on the ingredient yet, but something seriously stinks in it to me. I suspect it is the Ylang Ylang. I’ll make a few varieties of my blend though, in case others like the variations, and can’t keep some natural “brown chicken brown cow” (this is where I know if you like country…lol) assistance from people. I was catching up on episodes of “The Doctors” and they were discussing how to increase the bedroom sizzle. One tip was to get a massage from their man with their man’s favorite scent, since it will increase the arousal and connect to what they associate with their mate. See, I was right to include the male scents!! *happy dance* I’ll have to add a few more though and maybe do a massage only combo.
I still hope to sell the Seduction Baskets though and make the embarrassment of buying six packs of intimacy coupons and erotic dice worth it. Lol. Little ol’ me was beet red while checking the multitude out. All I could think was that the teen ringing me up at Spencer’s was probably going to tell others about the perv who was stocking up. Rofl. Okay, my cheeks are red again just remembering.
I have some bath salts that are starting to degrade, which is disheartening. I realized that in my enthusiasm for my sugar scrub I almost put down salt products, so I’m shooting myself in the foot. I made a note in my app to make a blurb on my site about how salts are great for an occasional use, whereas sugar is better for frequent use. Big facepalming moment! I suppose this was one of those learning experiences.
I’m seriously thinking about making donut soaps too. The cakes were so well received and adorable, and I’d like to extend that a tiny bit further. I think a “sweets platter” with one of each soap would be so cute!!
I’ve been really utilizing my stock of EOs and will end up having to reimburse my business for my bottles of EO if I use much more. Lol. The “healing” EOs are cycling through my humidifier and my neck rubs. I have some EOs that I don’t feel comfortable including in items that I sell yet. I’m more than happy to experiment on myself though and it’s been helping. Lol. My proportions of the oils are generally beyond (okay, some way beyond) the maximum guidelines for helping ease my congestion, so I couldn’t sell these things. Every so often I get tired of the camphor and herbal scents though, so I’ve been cycling some Wintergreen EO on occasion. Mmmm. Gotta love it!! Between the infection and the EOs, I appreciate the side effect of appetite suppression. Lol.
Anyway, I have some fun scent profiles rumbling around in my brain and look forward to seeing which ones become successful. Now it’s time to go back to thinking about Christmas stuff! Have a fantastic day!!
Georgia's Pampering 