Fun with Packaging

Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap will be ready for sale in about a week, but in the meantime, I’ve been thinking (quite a lot, actually) about how I want the packaging to look.  I’m learning that customers who buy from the local shop where I sell my soaps are enticed to buy just as much, if not more, by the cute packaging.  So, I’ve been mulling this over for a while and here is what I’ve decided on for Oatmeal, Milk and Honey.  I’m quite pleased with both the simplicity and cuteness of it!  What do you think?

Happy, happy birthday and a Merry Christmas!

When most people hear that my birthday is on Christmas Eve, I get the response, “Oh, I’m sorry.”  Other than never getting to have a birthday pool party, I’ve always enjoyed having my birthday the day before Christmas.  Sure, I’ve gotten plenty of “combo” gifts, but I’ve also gotten to spend plenty of birthdays surrounded by loved ones; playing games and eating sweets.  It’s like one BIG celebration and I get to have my own, little special part in it.  Growing up, my Mom and Dad made sure to wrap my birthday presents in birthday paper, and no matter how many cookies, pies and sweets they had already made, they still made me a birthday cake.  Now that I have my own family, I spend much of my birthday preparing foods and presents for our Christmas.  And I don’t mind.  I want my family to enjoy some of the same Christmas traditions I looked forward to when I was growing up, and we’ve made some new ones of our own.  And even though we have pies and cookies and presents to come, my sweet husband always bakes me a cake (this year, cupcakes!) and wraps my birthday presents in birthday paper. 

This birthday, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about “hope”.  At this time last year, we were hoping to travel to Ethiopia soon to bring home our son.  For hundreds of years, God’s people hoped for a Savior; diligently keeping God’s laws and practices while they waited.  I’ve been thinking about how so many of those people who had hoped for the redeemer completely missed Him when He arrived because He didn’t come as they had expected. He didn’t save them the way they wanted, but the way they needed.  They hoped for something earthly and God gave them something divine, and so many of them missed it.

I hope you don’t miss Him this Christmas.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

Merry Christmas!

Put de lime in de coconut…

Recently, I asked my Facebook fans for suggestions about what would go well with Coconut Fragrance Oil.  One suggestion I liked was for Coconut Lime.  Of course, the song “Coconut” by Harry Nilsson popped into my head and with it, the inspiration for how this soap would look.  Making this soap was a two-stage process.  First, I had to make a batch of green, lime-scented soap and then create “limes” out of it.Next, I made a batch of Coconut-scented soap and added the lime soaps as I poured.  The next morning, I sprinkled Apple Lime Sugar on the top. The best part was unmolding the soap and cutting the soap bars.  What fun to see the “limes” hidden in the coconut!So put de lime in the coconut and soap it all up!

First soap’s first

The first soap I selected to try from the Soap Swap was called “Hello, Sweet Thang!” by Plum Creek Soapworks.  I chose it to be first for two reasons: 1. It was the only soap I received that contains goat’s milk, and I was curious about how it would feel compared to my soaps (sans goat’s milk), AND 2. The smell reminds me of Fruit Stripe gum, which I LOVED when I was a kid.   So, far, I like this soap a lot.  It’s not super bubbly, but it is super moisturizing and feels really good on my skin.

Peppermint Bark…for real.

After making some delicious-looking peppermint bark soap, I decided I needed to make the real thing.  I used my silicone pan and lessons learned from making melt and pour soap and went to work.  My method comprised of melting, pouring and freezing, first milk chocolate chips, then white chocolate chips.  Before I put the last layer in the freezer, I sprinkled crushed peppermint (from candy canes) on the top.  It came out great!  Here’s my hubby cutting the pieces for me (since my hand was hurting from a cortisone shot I had received the day before).

And here they are before we ate them all up!

Really, it was all too easy! 

I’m a Big Boy Now!

What is it about a baby boy’s first hair cut that makes them lose their baby look?  My sweet, baby Abey now looks like big boy Abraham, but the trim was definitely needed.  I love his beautiful curls, but they had become unruly! 

Here’s Abraham before his hair cut.So, my husband asked one of his African American friends where we should take him for his hair cut and he suggested the beauty salon owned by his sister.  My only stipulation to my husband before he and Abraham left was “I want him to keep some curls!”

It’s hard to get a still shot of an on-the-go toddler, but I did the best I could to capture his cute new ‘do.  And he’s still got some curls!

The 12 Soaps of Christmas

My lovely soaps have arrived!  I participated in Bramble Berry’s Soap Swap by sending them 12 handmade soaps and receiving 12 different soaps made by other soapers who participated in the swap.  They all smell and look so wonderful that I’m not sure which one to try first.  The first thing I had to do was smell each one and then read the list of ingredients.  I’ll have to make some notes about which oil/butter combinations I like the best.  The real treat will be putting them to the test!

Aurora

This soap does not look like what I had envisioned.  I was going for a dark blue base with streaks of black, green and purple.  When I added my fragrance oil, the saponification process rapidly increased and before I had a chance to pour my colors into the mold, they were thicker than pudding.  Rather than “pour”, I had to “plop” my colors into the mold.  Rather than “swirl”, I had to “blend”.  However, I’m relatively pleased with the final result.  The green still “pops” a bit, though the contrasts are not what I had hoped for.  And the white powder on the top?  That’s a bad case of soda ash.  I’ve read it’s caused by high levels of humidity and we’ve had our fair share of that here in the St. Louis area, but I’m at a loss as to how to prevent it.  I’ve read placing wax paper on top of the soap will help prevent it, but that sometimes ruins the appearance of my soaps.  My husband suggested that I wait a while before covering my soap so that condensation doesn’t form with the soap is still hot, so I’m going to try that next time.  It smells wonderful, though!  I used Sleigh Ride fragrance oil, which smells like peppermint and snow (to me).  We’ll see what a month on the curing rack does for it. 

On the Rack

A favorite!  Oatmeal, Milk and Honey! After a brief hiatus from soaping to focus on Christmas decorating, shopping and baking, I made this beautiful loaf last night!  It was my first attempt at layering cold process soap and I think it turned out pretty cute!  There are three layers: yellow, brown and natural with oatmeal in it.  I used bubble wrap on the bottom of my mold to create a honey comb look.  The soap is made with Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Olive Oil with infused Geranium Blossom, Sweet Almond Oil, Shea Butter and Castor Oil.  It will be a real treat for dry, winter skin!  Look for it to be ready middle of January.

Christmas Cookies…Mmmmm

I don’t know if it’s a tradition, per se, but we definitely make a lot of cookies during the holidays.  I recently made over 100 snowflake sugar cookies to exchange at a cookie exchange party.  In return, I received a variety of delicious cookies!  My favorite were gooey butter cookies…it’s a St. Louis thing.  However, my cookies are going fast so I need to replace them SOON!  Here’s what I have on my baking list:

Peppermint Bark.  Never made these before, but the peppermint bark soap I made recently made me want to make the real thing!

Frosted Sugar Cookies.  We make these on Christmas eve.  The kids frost and decorate them, eat some and leave some on a plate for Santa.

Bourbon Balls.  I made these last year and they are delicious!  Chocolaty with a touch of Bourbon.

Chocolate Chip Forgotten Cookies.  So easy but oh so tasty!  My husband makes these!

Gooey Butter Cookies.  Fortunately, my friend who made the gooey butter cookies (which are now all eaten) also gave out her recipe!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies.  I cheat with this recipe and use pre-packaged peanut butter cookie mix.  Still, they’re delicious!

What’s on your cookie list?

Christmas Traditions

I hope my children have wonderful memories of our Christmases.  One of the ways I try to make that happen is by starting and keeping traditions that they look forward to each year and will remember when they’re older.  I thought I’d spend some time this month posting about some of our Christmas traditions.

A tradition I started a couple of years ago is called The Jesse Tree.  My children know that Christmas is when we celebrate the joy of salvation that was made possible through Jesus’s birth (and ultimately his death).  However, I didn’t want that celebration to focus on just one day. The Jesse Tree connects the Advent season with Old Testament promises of the coming Savior.   The Jesse Tree gets its name from Isaiah 1:11,

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
   from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

This prophetic verse points to the promised Messiah who will be a descendent of Jesse (King David’s father).   Each day during Advent, we read a passage from the Old Testament and then hang a relevant ornament on the Jesse Tree.  The scriptures span 4000 years of God’s promise of salvation to His people and ends with the ultimate fulfillment of that promise; the birth of Jesus.

Two years ago, I let the kids pick out any tree (within budget) to use as our Jesse Tree.  They chose a white tree with multi-colored lights.  I didn’t like the laminated ornaments I used in the past, so this year, we made new ornaments.  I found clip art pictures that represented each of the scriptures and printed them on white card stock.  I then used a circle cutter to cut them out and glued them onto foam ornaments I bought at Michael’s.  The kids had fun decorating them with glitter glue and sequins.

The readings I use were written by Anne-Marie Welsh for Faith magazine, published by the Diocese of Erie.  You can find them here.

What are some of your Christmas traditions?

Technorati Tags: christmas,traditions,advent,jesse tree

Giving Thanks

Some of the things I am thankful for:

My God and Savior, who loves me more than I can possibly imagine.

My husband, who is loving, supportive and makes me laugh a lot!

My children and step-children, who challenge me and fill my heart with joy.

My family, who love  me through thick and thin.

My friends, old and new, who share life with me.

My church family, who pray for me and let me be a “rock star” for God.

My new cat pen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Peppermint Bark Soap

Aren’t these cute!  They smell and look just like the real thing…pepperminty and chocolatey!  Mmmm.   I used Melt and Pour soap and followed a tutorial posted on the Soap Queen Blog.  I'm giving them as Christmas gifts!  I’d like to find some cute Christmas tins to put them in to complete the illusion of being real peppermint bark!

Vote for me!

Remember the Winter Wonderland Soap contest I entered last month?  Well, now’s your chance to vote for my soap!  There are so many beautiful soaps entered in the contest, but I hope you’ll like mine the best and vote for it!  The prize is a Bramble Berry Soap Supplies gift certificate worth $100!  Just click on the picture below and then select my name, Catherine Dreher, in the side bar.  Easy, peasy!  You can only vote once.  Thanks for your vote!

Why do you build me up? Buttercup, baby.

Last year for my birthday, my mom treated me to a Vera Bradley handbag…and I’ve been hooked ever since.  My latest Vera fixation is a lovely color pattern called “Buttercup”.  It combines some of my favorite colors; brown, pink, green and yellow.  I actually get a lot of inspiration from Vera’s color patterns.  Many times, they combine colors and hues that I wouldn’t have thought to mix.  The result is eye-popping! 

Bright Star Soaps

I want to give a BIG shout out to my friend, Cheryl, at Bright Star Soaps.  She has the cutest collection of holiday soaps at her etsy shop and at such great prices!  I just ordered some of the snowflake soaps pictured above and can’t wait to get them !  They’re peppermint-scented and only $3.25!  I love the detail in them and the clear, blue color in the middle!  Check out her etsy store for more fun soaps for Christmas!

BTW: Cheryl is my adoption donation recipient and all of her soap sales go toward her adoption savings. 

Mission?…Possible.

Taking Catie Beth from a fundraising endeavor to a for-profit business was like hitting the ground running.  Once our adoption was complete, people kept asking for soap.  So, what could I do but keep making soap?  I would have been making it anyway because it’s such a fulfilling hobby for me, but if I could turn it into a business, then awesome!  Since adoption is near and dear to my heart, it made sense to continue using the business as a fundraiser to benefit another family.

Now that the business is off the ground (even if only by inches), I needed to take some steps back and do some planning.  If Catie Beth is to succeed, then it needs a road map; a mission and a vision.  So, that’s what I worked on over the weekend, and I wanted to share it with you.

The Catie Beth Bath and Body Mission

Our mission is two-fold:

1. To be a successful bath and body company by providing customers with unique, nourishing and natural bath and body products and with a high level of customer satisfaction.

2. To provide aid to orphans by donating to an adopting family or by donating to Hannah’s Hope Orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Our Six Core Values are:

1. Giving back

2. Keeping products as natural as possible

3. Providing exceptional customer service

4. Building relationships

5. Listening

6. Entrepreneurial spirit

The Catie Beth Bath and Body Vision

Our vision is for “Catie Beth Bath and Body” to be the best in providing natural skin care and customer service. We want customers to trust that our products are natural, beneficial and nourishing for their skin. We want to be trend-setters; being unique, experimental and sincere in what we offer our customers. It is also our vision that we become a well-known fund-raising resource for families who are approved for adoption and are in need of financial aid.

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

There are so many wonderful goodies to smell and eat this time of year.  I love the smell of warm gingerbread on a chilly day, and even though it was 75 degrees outside today, I was in the mood for some warm gingerbread!  I firmly believe that if a food is a “bread” or a “muffin”, it really wants to be a cupcake.  So, with gingerbread in mind, I searched for gingerbread cupcakes and found a good-looking recipe.  The original recipe called for lemon cream cheese frosting, but I thought orange was a better pair with ginger, so that’s what I did. You can find the original recipe here.  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cups self-rising  flour
• 1 tablespoon dark chocolate cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 valencia orange, squeezed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter or line with paper liners a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Cream 5 tablespoons of the butter with the white sugar. Add the molasses, the egg, the egg yolk and milk.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared tin.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 minutes or until slightly springy to the touch. Allow to cool a few minutes in the pan and remove to a rack to cool.
5. To Make Frosting: Cream the 4 tablespoons butter and the cream cheese together. Beat in the confectioners' sugar until fluffy. Add the orange juice and beat. When the cupcakes are cool, frost the tops with the frosting and serve.

*Note, I was only able to frost 10 cupcakes, but I like a lot of frosting! 

Sponsor a Child in Haiti

Long before a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, World Vision has been providing Haitians with basic necessities and orphan care.  AIDS is a serious epidemic in Haiti that has orphaned 380,000 children.  You can help one of these children by being a sponsor.  Click here to learn how.

Learning as I Go and a Warning

Having an Ethiopian baby presented one challenge for this White gal….what to do with his hair!?  At the orphanage in Addis Ababa, the special mothers used baby oil in the infants’ hair to keep it moisturized.  When I got back to the states with him, my African American friends confirmed that baby oil was good to use in his hair.  So that’s what we did for the first few months.
It turned out, however, that baby oil was NOT good for MY skin and, in general, poses a health risk to infants and toddlers.
Whenever Abraham is sitting on my lap, I love to kiss the sweet curls on top of his head.  All this skin-to-baby-oil contact caused me to break out with big, ugly pimples on my chin!  When I did some research into baby oil (which is pure mineral oil), I found that mineral oil can, indeed, cause contact dermatitis.  (Read here). As I researched further into baby oil, I found that baby oil can cause severe respiratory problems and even death in infants! (Read here).
Wait, what?  This product that is marketed and sold as a product to use on infants and that sits carelessly around a nursery room without a single warning label on it can cause DEATH?!  Some cases of death were from ingesting it, but other cases were caused by inhaling baby oil that was near the infant’s mouth and nose.  The inhaled oil coated the lungs and the toddler suffocated to death.
That was it!  The baby oil went in the trash.  My dermatitis cleared up, but what to do about Abraham’s sweet curls?  I looked up some all-natural hair milks that were made exclusively for African Americans and found that most of the ingredients were what I used in my lotions.  In fact, the hair milks were lotion with smaller amounts of thickening agent.
With a list of natural ingredients and an idea of the results I wanted, I went to work creating my own lotion for Abraham.  The lotion I use on his skin is the same lotion I use in his hair, and he gets a lot of compliments about both!  Now, his curls are moisturized and defined (and they smell great, too!)  I know exactly what is in his lotion because I put it in there!  My favorite ingredients to use in his lotions are Aloe Vera Liquid, Pistachio Butter, Cocoa Butter, Vitamin E Oil, Avocado Oil, and Sweet Almond Oil  I don’t use them all in the same lotion; just various combinations.  And, my chin looks great!  Bonus! 
Here are some before and after pictures of Abraham’s hair. 
Abraham has beautiful curls that are typical of the Amhara people in Ethiopia, but without hair lotion, they look fuzzy and matted.


Now, for mom’s remedy.  I wet his hair a little first and then slather on the lotion.  I use a wide-toothed comb to comb the lotion through and remove any knots in his hair.

Now, his sweet curls are shiny, moisturized and defined!

And the winner is…

A BIG “Thank you!” to everyone who entered the Soap Giveaway Contest by giving a shout out for Catie Beth Bath and Body!  I enlisted the help of my lovely daughter, Caitlyn, for drawing the winner.   Here, she’s holding the bag filled with contestants’ names.

                          Reaching in for a name!  Oh, the suspense!

                                She’s got a name!  Who will it be???!

                                              Congratulations!!

Thanks again to everyone who entered!  I had so much fun with this and will definitely be having more giveaways!

Christmas shopping? Keep these folks in mind.

I love to browse on etsy.com.  I get so much inspiration just seeing what other crafty people are doing.   If you’re not familiar with etsy, then now’s the time!  Etsy is a website that lets people sell their handmade items.  I used to have a “shop” on etsy before I created my own website.  Etsy is a great place to find unique items for Christmas while supporting small, craft businesses.
There are actually a lot of people using etsy to sell their handmade products in an effort to raise money for theirs or someone else’s adoption.  That’s how I got started on there!  To find these sellers, you can do a search for “adoption” and many items being sold to fundraise will come up.  To help you out, I’ve posted some that I found.  Click on the picture and it will take you to the etsy store.