Cocoa Mango Soap

This is the second soap we made Thursday. I really can’t wait to try this one. It smells divine! Here is our recipe. If you are not familiar with cold process soapmaking, please read and print out the instructions Here. [stextbox id=”custom”] Cocoa Mango Soap [print_link] A Happy Acres Original 10% Cocoa Butter- 90 grams…

Read More

Old Tyme Vanilla Soap

Well, Dave and I are at it again! We made two soaps yesterday. This first one is made from lard. We wanted to try lard since that’s what soap used to be made with. We used lard from the store and it was S-T-I-N-K-Y! But today with the vanilla creme fragrance oil, we can only…

Read More

Mixed Media Polymer Clay Workshop Dvd

Here is another one of Interweave’s Beading Daily Workshop with Ronna Sarvas Weltman, artist and best-selling author. Ronna takes the listener through the very basics of polymer clay starting with the tools needed for this craft to proper conditioning of the clay. Other topics include shaping and adding texture to the clay. She also includes…

Read More

Apple Crisp and More

[donotprint]A couple weeks ago, we again headed over to Reid’s Orchard and picked up three more different bags of apples: Fuji, Golden Delicious and Winesap. Of course we had to have a taste test after they were dried. After tasting all three, we agreed that both Fuji and Winesap tasted better than Golden Delicious. However,…

Read More

Fall Colors at Happy Acres

It was nice getting out today for a stroll around Happy Acres. I’ve been a bit under the weather for the last week, so it’s good to feel a little more like myself. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to see if I could find any color out here. First of all I needed…

Read More

Square-agonals Giveaway

Giveaway Closed – Congrats to Halle Gustafson from Chanhassen, MN! Square-agonals: A New Angle on Quilting, a new book published by Landauer Publishing is written by Sandi Blackwell, quilter, teacher, and business owner. In this book, Sandi shows a new technique for creating diagonal-set quilts without the complications of adding setting and corner triangles. Square-agonals…

Read More

Soap #6 Olive Oil Update

Well, I finally tried the Calendula Olive Oil soap I made for my friend Marsha. If you missed the post, here is the recipe. It has a great lather and feels really conditioning on the skin. Since it is 90% olive oil, it is a soft soap and probably won’t last long. But I’m happy…

Read More

Fall Festival Time

We always know it’s Fall around here even if it doesn’t feel like it. For the last 89 years my hometown (just 10 minutes from where we live now) has a week-long festival. This carnival and food fest, put on by the West Side Nut Club, is one of the largest street festivals in the…

Read More

Creating Collage Backgrounds

This is another one of those fun lab series from Quarry Books. There are 52 labs divided into 12 units. Author Bee Shay starts with building the foundation and textures and continues on through the book to unification and composition. All of the labs contain materials list and instructions. The labs also include Play and…

Read More