Saturday, July 28, 2012

Complete Fragrance List

I do a lot of custom orders, it's actually what I like to do best!  So for anyone who is interested in ordering something special, here's a list of our currently available fragrances.  I will update this list on an as-needed basis!

Essential Oils:
California Lemon
Bergamot
Lavender
Peppermint *
Patchouli **
Lime
Rose (geranium "rose" essential oil) *
Tea Tree
Orange **
Lemongrass *, **
Rosemary *
Eucalyptus
Pink Grapefruit

Fragrance Oils:
Spruce Ceaderleaf *
Bay Rum
Blackberry
Green Tea
Cucumber Melon
Coconut Macaroon **
Watermelon
Orchid
Coconut, Lime Verbena
Fallen Leaves
Christmas Cookies **
Christmas Memories *, **
Christmas Cabin *
Cranberry Orange
Pumpkin Pie Spice *
Strawberry
Winter Garden
Ginger Spice *
Vanilla **
Rain


For descriptions of the Fall/Holiday fragrances see this post.

*Warning:  Not every essential oil is appropriate for pregnant or lactating women.  Please consult your physician before use.

** These fragrances will discolor the soap and will only work with certain colors. These scents will turn white soap yellow or brown over time.

Three New Soapy Listings!

I've been busy this past week!  What can I say, I felt inspired by all that art glass!

First up, Coconut Lime Verbena soap!  These adorable pink soaps would make a great gift or party favor, and they're made with my new favorite fragrance!  Coconut Lime Verbena has this awesome fruity, tangy scent with a hint of floral.  I LOVE IT!









Next up, Lemon Poppy Seed Soap!  This was actually an old standby when I first started making soap, but it's been a while since I've had it in stock, so it's new to you!  It's a shea butter soap, peppered with poppy seed, and lemon essential oil.  It's a lovely soap!








And Last, but not least, there's a fun Orchid Soap with a star design on top and lots and lots of gold sparkles!






To order, just swing by my Etsy shop! :)

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Chihuly & Me

I've had a love affair with Dale Chihuly for quite some time now.  Well, maybe not with Dale himself, but with his work.

It all started when I was a little girl.  I fell in love with vintage glass.  I remember vividly my mom trying to make a special moment out of a weeknight making cinnamon toast and serving it on her grandmother's pink depression ware.  I was in AWE of the blush molded glass, it might have been "garbage dishes" earned with box tops when my great grandmother acquired it, but to me it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my wee little life.

I loved the way the light hit it, I loved the way it sparkled, I loved it's translucence, and it's fragility made it more precious somehow.

It was like a gateway drug.  And it lead to years of collecting depression ware, and ceramics, until it really became a bit of a "problem".  Especially as my cupboards began to fill and my husband began to grumble.  "Do we really NEED another set of glass candle holders??"  Yes, honey, we do.  We really do.

This gateway glass eventually lead to the more "hard core" stuff - like the work of Chihuly.  For those who don't know who he is, I highly recommend this brief youtube clip:



And what trip to Seattle would be complete without checking out hand blown art glass?  Not a very good trip, as far as I'm concerned!

We had planned to go to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma on our way home, but we couldn't help but peak through the bushes to see what we could of the Chihuly Gardens of Glass next to the Space Needle.



They pretty much only allow you to see glimpses of the enormous glass sculptures without buying a ticket.  But it's kind of hard to hide a 100 ft. column of sparkling yellow spikes.  Do you see that corner of a building to the right?  That's the Space Needle.  I see what you did there, Mr. Chihuly.  One column of light, right next to another.


 This one looked like big pink bubbles, almost like some sort of prehistoric plant, and with the large scale to match.


 Inside the glass building, more glass, of course.  From a distance I could tell that they were his famous "sea forms".


 And this one, oh man, I was so glad to get a picture of it!  In the foreground is another huge column with trumpet shaped red glass, and in the background is an even BIGGER sphere of squiggly glass!  In between was this fountain pool of water.


 I kept waiting for a giant glass humming bird to come and take a sip.


And then after seeing all this, we went to dinner.

*Do not skim past this next part!  It was so amazing I can't quite believe it happened!!!*

So Hubs had made reservations for us to eat at this swank Italian place that was a short walk from our hotel.  It was a small restaurant, very narrow shaped dining area with booths next to the windows and a row of tables along the other side.  We were sitting in a booth.

Towards the end of our meal, as we were waiting for our desert to arrive, two men came in and sat at a table about 10 feet away from us.  They looked pretty ordinary.

Our desert arrived, we ooh'd and aaaah'd over the yumminess.  And then suddenly Hubs stopped mid-sentence and said, "Oh my gosh, I think that's Chihuly!"

I looked over, and there he was!!!  Eye patch, crazy hair and all.  Dale Chihuly, close enough that I could have gotten up, taken one step, and jumped in his lap!

I think my heart stopped for a moment.

And then Hubs said, "Amy, look at his shoes!"  I did, they were black and splattered with colorful paint.  Oh my goodness, it really is him!

I decided to play it cool, and not approach him.  I mean, here he is trying to eat a meal with a friend, does he really need crazy fan girls going crazy all over him?  Did I say crazy enough times?  Because I felt kind of crazy, like I had no idea how to act, and that combo with trying to be dignified in the face of crazy fan feelings are not good!

I think I should probably mention here, that I'm kind of shy.  I get terrible stage fright, and I often feel like I'd rather disappear before embarrassing myself.

So we finished our desert, giggling like school children, and trying to act inconspicuous about it.

Our check came, and it was time to go.

I thought, oh man, now I'm going to have to get up and leave without tripping over my own shoes!

I got up, I glanced up at him one last time, and he looked up at ME!!  AAAAHHHH!!!!  Dale Chiluly LOOKED at me!!!

And then I turned, and didn't fall on my face on my way out the door.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!!!  THAT was DALE CHILULY!!!  It was REALLY HIM!!!

O

M

G!!!

(Just in case you're reading this, Mr. Chiluly, Yup, that was me.  Hi!  I hope that I wasn't too obviously twitterpated over the sight of you and that you had a nice meal with your friend!)

And then we went back to the Pacific Science Center to see King Tut.  And look at Chiluly glass while all lit up at night.



I still can't believe that happened!!!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

King Tut Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle

As part of our most amazing weekend, we went to see the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.



The lighting wasn't that great for picture taking, but we did the best we could!  Overall, it was pretty impressive!  It amazed me that all of these artifacts were made specifically for burial - they must have spent their entire lives preparing for death.  On one of the signs inside it said that there were over 5,000 objects found in King Tut's tomb, and it took the discoverer 10 years to identify and catalog all of his findings.  What was displayed in the exhibit was only a sampling of what was found.


 They even made special sarcophagi boxes for their cats! (A different kind of cat box. lol)


 Not a great picture, but I thought this lady was quite lovely.


 And you can't tell by this picture, but this statue was enormous!  A normal sized person would be shorter than the red box it's standing on.


 There was quite a number of beautiful gold necklaces like this one.  The top part is a counter weight that has it's own intricate design, and the bottom part is decorated with lapiz lazuli scarabs.  Gorgeous!



 This is one of several model ships that were buried with King Tut.  It was believed that they would magically become life size and carry the King into the afterlife.


This is the outer sarcophagus that is made of wood and painted.  Inside were three more sarcophagi that were made of pure gold!  We didn't get to see the gold ones, apparently they want to keep those in Egypt.


Below are pictures of our favorite piece in the exhibit.  It's a miniature canopic sarcophagus.  There were four of them buried with the Pharaoh that contained his organs.  This particular one contained his stomach.  It's made of pure gold and inlaid with precious gem stones.  Inside it's inscribed with hieroglyphic quotes from The Book of the Dead.




And this is the golden head covering that was on the mummy of King Tut.  How amazing!


And when we stepped out of the exhibit we had this awesome view of the Space Needle!  And it was a perfect summer evening with a gentle breeze.  Fantastic!



Monday, July 23, 2012

Seattle's Pan Pacific Hotel

This last weekend was me & Hub's 10th Anniversary.  So to celebrate, we went to Seattle to visit the EMP, the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, and to experience some amazing glass in Tacoma at the Museum of Glass.

There is WAY too much to say about the amazing time we had to put into one blog entry, so I'm going to break it into three parts:  the hotel & the EMP, King Tut, and the Museum of Glass & Dale Chihuly.

The Pan Pacific

We arrived several hours before our scheduled check-in time at the hotel, but made arrangements to make use of their parking facilities ahead of time so we planned to park and do some sight seeing before checking in.  But the kind people at the front desk were able to go ahead and check us in early!  When we got to our room, we discovered that although we had reserved a queen room w/ no view, we had been given a king room w/ a view that was TO DIE FOR!!!



 The rest of the room was pretty amazing too!





 And the view from the other window wasn't too shabby.



 After oogling over our good luck, and thanking the front desk people profusely we went out to do some sight seeing at the EMP (Experience Music Project).  It's also a museum of all things pop culture & science fiction, which was the main attraction for nerds like us.  They are currently hosting a really great Avatar exhibit, complete with props from the movie and large scale models that the artists used to make the CGI, which was awesome to see.  There was also a fun exhibit with the Icons of Sci-Fi.  And much to my excitement, I was able to get my picture taken with a Dalek!


 In the gift shop I picked a up a fun new R2D2 silicone mold, so I'm sure I'll be offering R2D2 soaps in the near future!  I asked the lady at the counter if they had TARDIS molds, and she said, "If it exists, we have it, but we don't have it."  So I asked, "Do you have anything TARDIS shaped that I might be able to make into a mold?"  And she said, "Yes!"  And then she got excited when I told her that I was planning to make soap out of it, so I might even have a new customer! lol

After the EMP we went to dinner & the King Tut exhibit, and then we came back to our room to find this!  We had mentioned at the front desk that it was our anniversary when we checked in, but we hadn't ordered anything special for it, so this was a complete surprise!  Again, the people at the Pan Pacific treated us like royalty!  We'll definitely stay there again!



Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Bag O' Bones Pirate Soap!

Yes, I've been busy this week!  Made a bunch of new soaps in fun new molds, and I spent all day yesterday canning strawberry jam!  WHEW!  I think I might need a vacation from myself.

It's all worth it though, right?





For now I'm offering this as a novelty gift, but I'll happily do custom orders for party favors as well!  Bag O' Bones is going to be offered at the very reasonable price of $4.00 a bag!  What a deal!

And since I'm having Christmas in July this week with the coupon code CIJPDX for 10% off it's even better!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Easter Island Statue Soaps

Hot outta the mold, Easter Island Soaps!





There are 9 guest sized soaps in each bag, plenty to make your own Easter Island!  I can also package these as favors for your next Tiki theme party!  These are scented with bay rum fragrance oil, but I can make them as a custom order in any scent you choose.

The gift size package above is newly listed in my Etsy Shop!  I'm currently offering 10% off as part of my Christmas in July sale!