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. 

Christmas Gifts are Here!

As promised, Christmas soaps and Gift Boxes are here!  Premade Gift Boxes are very limited, only THREE in stock!  You can choose the Mint collection, Ginger collection or Cranberry collection.

You  also have the option of creating your own gift box of soaps.  Each gift box can hold up to three soaps!  After you order a Make-Your-Own Christmas Gift Box, you can send me a message at check out telling me which three soaps you want in your gift box.  I’ll take care of the rest!

Don’t forget to check my blog regularly for Discount Codes I’ll randomly post between now and Christmas!  They’ll be good for one time, one day only.  Catch one if you can!

What Are You Waiting For?

Today is a special day for me.  One year ago today, we received a referral from our adoption agency.

Waiting for our referral was an emotional time for me, mostly because I was concerned that I wouldn’t know how to turn down the first referral we received.  But what if the first referral wasn’t the one we should accept?  How could I turn away a child? 

About a week before we received our referral, God laid it on my heart that our son would have a Biblical name.

Our first referral was for a one month old boy…named Abraham. 

Here’s a look back at 2009 and our time of waiting.

Waiting for Abraham

It’s in the Details

I found these adorable Christmas votive candles at Michael’s Craft Store about a month ago and thought they’d be a perfect part of my Christmas Gift Boxes!  The only thing I didn’t like was that they looked a little plain.  No problem!  I had fun dressing them up with cute Christmas bows!  The Christmas Gift Boxes are almost finished and will make great gifts for someone who loves a bit of pampering!

Cocoa Mint Gift Box: one bar of handmade Cocoa Mint Soap, handmade Peppermint Lotion and a votive candle in Evergreen fragrance.

Help AIDS Orphans Receive an Education

I’ve been reading the awesome and inspiring story of Twesigye Jackson Kaguri and his devotion to building a school for AIDS orphans in his community in Uganda.  It’s called the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project.  Their mission, as stated on their website, is “to provide a high-quality, free education, both formal and informal, to children who have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS in order to counteract pervasive hunger, poverty and systemic deprivation.”

You can help these awesome children achieve their dreams by giving a monetary donation  OR, and this sounds like a lot of fun, you can host a Grandmothers Basket Party!  “When you host a Basket Party, you become part of a growing circle of people who are helping impoverished Ugandan women rise out of poverty” (Nyaka website).  Many AIDS orphans are raised by their grandmothers, who had to watch their own children die from AIDS.  Now, in their old age, they must care for their grandchildren with very little resources.  The money raised from a Basket Party helps these grandmothers care for their grandchildren.  The baskets look beautiful!

You can follow the Nyaka Foundation on Facebook.

Pack a Shoebox!

Operation Christmas Child is a ministry by Samaritan’s Purse that distributes shoe boxes filled with toys, clothes, school supplies, but mostly, HOPE!  Their mission is to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world. Many of these children are displaced by civil war or are orphans.  For many of these children, this is the only present they’ll get at Christmas.  And for orphans, it is most likely the only things they can call “mine”. 

Shoe box collection week is November 15 –22.  Consider packing a shoebox this year and sharing hope with a child who needs it.

You can find more information here.

Check out the total joy this boy has in receiving his shoe box. AND he hadn’t even opened it yet!

A Day of Making Lotion

Handmade lotion is the BEST!  Sure, I’m a bit biased, but honestly, you can’t beat the rich oils and butters and lack of chemicals and alcohol when it comes to winter skin.  I spent Sunday whipping up 72 ounces of moisture-rich, creamy lotion and then divided it into five, fragrant batches.  Here’s a peek at how I did it.

The first step is to sterilize everything that will come into contact with the lotion.  Jars, lids, mixers, bowls, spoons, droppers…you name it.  I sterilized everything using a water/bleach solution.  Once it’s sterile, I set it out to dry.

Then, I start the measuring and melting process.  I use a basic lotion recipe that’s based on percentages.  You can find it here.  It allows me to use any variety of lotions and butters that I want.  For this batch, I used Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil, Cocoa Butter and Vitamin E Oil.  Below, I’m measuring the Cocoa Butter.  It smells just like chocolate!  Mmmmm!

Next, it’s time to blend my water with my oil/butter/emulsifying wax/stearic acid mix. 

Once the oils and water mix and the batch starts to thicken, I add my preservative.  I use a paraben-free preservative.  Once it was to a thickness I liked, I divided and scented five batches.  Here are the final lotions; ready for Christmas!

Make Your World Bigger

This month, you can make your world bigger by reading a book about adoption and the orphan crisis.  On the right of my blog, I’ve created a list of books that I read during our adoption journey.  Whether or not you’re considering adoption, I think you’ll find these books interesting.  I hope they deepen your understanding of how desperately these children need us.

“My Own Little World”–Matthew West