Catch up!

In the next few days I will be trying to get caught up a bit on what I've been up to this winter break. I did spend a whole lot of time working, which is good and bad. I really enjoy my work, but I am also very exhausted! I haven't really gotten much rest at all.

So here are some things I've been making over the break, in no chronological order:

I made chili-lime tequila for Ryan's (one of Charlie's D&D friends) birthday.

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Of course I had to use one of my favorite quotes. "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker!"

We did give him some candy too though...

Sorry about the bad picture quality, I only remembered last minute in the car that I needed to take some pictures for documentation.

I also made christmas cards for the local retirement home. Because it is always such a lonely season there because often they no longer have family, or if they do, they only visit once or twice. So I decided to make a bunch of homemade (yes, and ugly) christmas cards, that the caregivers could hand out to all of the residents at lunch or something.

Some of them I even like just because they are sooo bad!

And lots of glitter!!!


I also tested out a new product that I wrote about on my blog dedicated to Bella's Caring Products. I made ginger-lemon sugar scrubs.

Here are some of the materials I used to make my own ugly christmas sweater for a party Devan and Buck threw. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the finished product.

And last but not least I finally got my business cards! yay!

And here is a special goodbye from my sad kia, Daisy my  main homey! ;)

Price List

As per request from Desi I'm putting up a price list for my products. :)

My Shower Disks are $1.50 each.

They are used to help combat congestion, or also simply to enjoy the scent. The rosemary stimulates circulation, the eucalyptus clears congestion, and the lavender is a calming agent.
Simply place the disk anywhere in the shower (it will last longer if it's not directly under the water stream) and let it dissolve and the essential oils vaporize and mix with the steam. Enjoy!

Lip Balms $2.00

Vanilla and honey lip balms.

Lotion Bars $10.00

Available in the pictured heart shape above or the flower shape below. Scents at the moment are lemon, lavender, or vanilla.

Lavender-Oatmeal Moisturizer/Night Cream $7.50

Lotion Bars, and Lip Balms, and Shower Disks, oh, my!

So I have been spending a lot of time creating new things. My poor sewing machine needs to be looked at, and healed, so in the meantime I have discovered how much I adore making natural and simple beauty products on my own.
It started with a kiss, how did it end up like this:

And this my very depleted stock, about 50 percent of it has been claimed and the above shelf has a basket with approximately 100 lip balms.
It started with a pinterest experiment following a visit to Lush. My friend Nina, loves them and the fact that they are vegetarian, against animal testing, and make their products with natural ingredients and I think by hand. I like their products and splurged on some honey soap, massage bar, and shower gel. My uncle was with us and was  looking at oatmeal moisturizers since he was considering shaving his beard but wanted something for his poor childhood-achne ravaged face.
Lush is all nice and good, but oh so very expensive as well as requiring a drive up to Portland. So, what do you think I did? Jep, I hopped on pinterest, looked around, found a bunch of recipes and did my own thing. I used the recipes as a spring board and then created something unique and very me.
I created a lavender-oatmeal moisturizer. Then I went on to develop honey-vanilla lip balms. Lotion Bars might even have been before that. People kept wanting more and commenting on how much they loved it and would buy it from me. I didn't really take that seriously until I brought a bunch of my stuff to a work training and had people shoving money at me because they said they knew how expensive ingredients could be and wanted to help.
Wow, I realized people would really pay for what I make. The search for containers started. Hours and hours spent on the internet resulted in the perfect (if I do say so myself) containers to make my products shine. Then I had to come up with a fair price taking into account the cost of ingredients as well as time and effort.
I'm still in the beginning phases and am just now starting to actually make some of the money back I've put into it. When I can I will be ordering labels to make them really look professional and also give people a way to find out how to reach me and order things.
After I'd already started selling stuff I decided I was finally going to try out this mock vicks-vapors shower disk recipe I'd found. I'd gotten a shower disk before at Powell's books and liked it, less so the 4.99 price tag attached. The idea is that you place it on the floor of your shower and let it disintegrate, releasing the vapors which will mix with the steam of your shower. The vapors will help with congestions, whether chest from a cough, or sinus, it'll clear that right out! It's also fun to just put into she shower for some fresh and renewing aroma therapy.
My that was a mess! So much wasted time, energy, and ingredients. Well, then again waisted is subjective... After about a week I was successful and found a way! Today I got the fun colored foil wrappers and as luck had it they were the perfect size (I was worried they might be too small). Today I will have one last experiment and see how that goes, otherwise I am happy enough with the way I'm doing them. And those shower disks? Yes, they've flown out the window as fast as I could make them.
All of my products are great gifts, and not even all that girly so they can be used by men without having to sacrifice manliness.
What do they look like you ask? I shall show you:

Lotion Bars which function as lotion and release it little by little into your hands or skin when it begins to melt from your body temperature. It works great as a massage bar like Lush sells, but I have to admit to liking mine much more (and not just because I made it!)
For now it either comes in the shape of a heart or a flower and is about cupcake shaped. Depending on the demand and requests I'm thinking of getting another shape that kind of looks like a lego piece with rounded tops for even better massages.
The scents for now are Lavender, Lemon, and Vanilla. Theoretically the variety of scents could be unlimited, I'm just starting slowly with a base, but I'll gladly make you whatever natural scent you would like with some extra time allowed for getting the essential oils I don't have.

Here's the view of the tin from above:

The Flower Shape

The Heart Shape

Here is my lavender-oatmeal moisturizer that is most commonly used as an overnight cream:

My lip balms here are shown with clear tubes and either yellow lids or clear lids. I am able to tint them different colors, which however will no longer be all organic anymore. The tints only tint the lip balm, but does not rub off. I can also order differently colored tubes and/or lids if a sufficient amount is ordered in advance. For instance my friend Megan is hosting a baby shower for her sister. The baby will be a boy, so we have clear tubes with blue lids and are tinting the lip balm blue as party favors.

Best part for anyone wanting to get a bunch of lip balms? They're actually cheaper than most other lip balms out there, and definitely cheaper than Burt's. I love that my coworkers high school senior son told her they were better than the Burt's Beeswax ones. (They actually have organic beeswax as one part of the base.)

And here is the newest member of the family, the shower disks:

Unwrap them, place anywhere in the shower, wait, inhale, smell, and relax!

This is what they look like unwrapped. They are also about cupcake sized.


I still haven't been able to come up with a good idea to name my product line. So far I'm stuck on "Bella's Caring Products" quite unoriginal, so I welcome other suggestions. I guess I spent all my creative energy on creating the little buggers so none is left for the name. I think that's something I can live with though...

I'm alive

Well, hello, this is slightly embarrassing. So I'm just going to pretend I died and miraculously came back to life. So, blogosphere here I am, don't be too harsh!
It's amazing what has happened in the last few months! My baby sister got married on August 1st. I went to Europe and was there, I was also the event photographer for a big part of it. (Diesel actually had maid of honor duties limiting her time as photographer. Regardless, my sister was gorgeous and her wedding was amazing. No way I can compete with that! :) My mother told me it was the perfect wedding.

See, I told you Diesel was busy:

So that was quite the Adventure!

Next my friend Nina flew back with me from Amsterdam and staid for a month. We had a fabulous time and did not get into it once, or even really annoy each other! It was so much fun and we have many great memories!!!

The thing about visitors is you finally go explore all the cool things your area has to offer. I saw quite a bit more of Portland than I had before.

We also got to show her some of our favorite places like the Wildlife Reserve half way between Monmouth and Corvallis.

I relearned the meaning for Tripper in German (gonorrhea) and how hilarious it is that my friend George who lived in Germany for a while too named his cat that (no, he didn't know the meaning, but now we can never forget it again.....ever!).

I got to see a wallaby with her baby at the state fair. We also learned how delicious all the animals thought Charlie's shoelaces were! We had at least one of each kind chew on them, deers, goats, wallabies, pigs, etc.

We had a family of raccoons move into our back yard. Charlie named one of them Edward because he likes to sit on a branch and watch us sleep. XD

A friendly neighborhood bird planted a plethora of cantaloupes in our yard for us. Our tomatoes also went into overdrive!

George turned even older!

So did I.

We had a Halloween party:

Oh, and we're caught up! Who would have thought? Of course much more happened, for instance I found a new love: making my own lotions, moisturizers, lip balms, etc. That will be in the next post. I'll introduce you to a few of my girlfriends. ^^

Upcoming crafty goodness

Tomorrow my fiancé's baby brother (8) is coming to stay with us for a couple of days.
My fiancé is a bit apprehensive, since he's not quite sure about having to spend quality time with an 8-year-old. I on the other hand see this as a golden opportunity to do all sorts of crafts with him. We'll see if he's equally enthusiastic... It's only 8 crafts plus a little scrapbook of the trip!?!
Haha, who thinks I'm crazy? Especially since Alfredo has the attention span of a gnat!
If I'm lucky my friend will have time and come too, so I'll still have a fellow crafter once I loose Alfredo to the lure of the Xbox.

What's different about being a wife?

So I've been going a bit nuts on pinterest with wedding ideas. The fact that my sister is getting married on August first isn't helping. There are so questions that are all directed at me, because as it seems I'm the authority on it. ^^ god knows why... I certainly don't.
All these wedding plans have made me think a lot about marriage and what it means to be married. What will change after we get married? We already live together and have for almost 4 years, we moved in together after about 3 1/2 months. We've had a dog together for 3 years on fourth of July. We've had joint finances for at least 3 years.
So what will change when we marry on our 5 year anniversary?
I think maybe it'll have that feeling of permanency. I take the "till death do you part" part of the vows very seriously! I feel that since divorce has been destigmatized (which I think is a great thing! Believe me!), people are more prone to just give up and throw the towel. I know that there are very good reasons to get divorced, and there are situations where I would consider divorce myself. On the other hand I know that marriages need work! And I know I will do my damnedest to work and make sure that this will be my one and only marriage!
The other thing that would change might be kids. That part won't kick in though, until after I finish grad school. When you spend that much time in school, you'll want to actually use it before having kids. So that will be a change, but not for a while.
I want to be able to be a good wife. I just worry that I won't be. What makes a good wife? How do I achieve that? I don't really have the best role models. My parents aren't really the best suited couple. My mother has a lot of baggage from her first marriage. Charlie's parents aren't together. My American grandparents should never have stayed together and I wasn't around my Swiss grandparents at an age where I would have seen how they were together and been able to learn from them.
When you search the Internet for advice there isn't really much. Or at least nothing that really seems useful to me.
I wish I had a support system. I don't really believe in religion, but I do envy the sense of community you can get from it.
What do I do if I mess up? Who do I go to for advice?

Greta

I finally finished Greta round two. I had started one but did not like the threads I had used and some of the fabrics weren't quite my choice. So I decided to make a second one. Since I was making this wallhanging for my dad and I wanted it to be perfect.
I chose the Greta pattern because it's a bear and my father's name is Urs. In latin ursus means bear. So my dad has lots of bear things. He also has so much crappy kid artwork of mine in his office, so I figured I'd make him something that I wasn't embarrassed to have him display.

Here is a picture of the wallhanging as a whole.

I tried to use the quilting to make it look like the sun had sunbeams.

Here's the dedication I made for my dad. I put it on the bottom right of the border so he could see it during the day as a reminder that I care.