Artzy Potpourri

Whew, it’s been a long couple of days!  Monday was my day off so I spent some time shopping with a friend for decorations for the church for the holidays.  I also did a little shopping with my hubby for something – I don’t remember what any more.  And in between I made a few varieties of handmade soap.  I have sixteen kinds planned and I’ve only got five left to make.  My favorite ones from the first batches was one that was a pretty blue with poppy seeds in it that I call “Robin’s Egg.”  It’s a combination of fir trees, cedarwood, etc…  Kind of like a walk in the woods really and it looks like a robin’s egg.  Another one I made that day was Lime Basil which turns out to be a really interesting combination of fragrances that I really like.  It’s a transparent soap and I made it kind of a pretty lime green.  And I also put some dried Basil in it and it’s pretty in addition to smelling really good.  I made seven kinds of soap that day and it was about 2:30 am when I got to sleep that night.

Tuesday I worked at the bakery, it was a day of redeeming messes.  Two girls made and decorated sugar cookies in the bakery on Saturday and they didn’t turn out very good.  So I spent a number of hours working on trying to creatively take ugly cookies and make pretty ones from them.  I took one cookie over to show Boss Lady and she lit up.  In a few seconds there she was at my station, planting a wet one on my cheek.  LOL!  I had lipstick lips on me.  She’d been thinking that they were unsellable and was really grateful to see how they’d improved.  I love getting brownie points.  But really, I hate having a shoddy product out there, so I was doing it for me as much as for her.

I came home Tuesday night and made more soap.  My favorites from Tuesday night are a lemon chamomile and a lavender vanilla flavors.  The lemon chamomile has a layer of white, then a layer of clear yellow, with chamomile flowers in that part.  It looks like amber with those flowers in there and I love it!  The other one is a pale lavender opaque with another layer of transparent lavender that has lavender blooms in it.  It’s really pretty in my opinion and I love lavender and vanilla so it’s hard to go wrong with that.  I think it was a little past 1 a.m. when I finally fell into bed last night.

I’m not real certain that I have much to show for my day at work really.  I spent some time cleaning off a shelf that I’m now using for storing Christmas sugar cookies.  They sell pretty fast and I’m ahead at the moment.  But that may not last real long.  I had to break the news to one of the elves that Boss Lady didn’t like her work on the sugar cookies.  I hated that.  I’ll work with her to make sure we get a better product in the future, I just have to be really careful with her.  I don’t want to hurt her but we’ve got to get to a better product.  It will come, I just need to be patient with her I guess. 

Then from work I went shopping for decorating supplies for the church.  I bought a bunch of fruit, some greens and ribbon.  I made new bows for all the wreaths on the doors of the church (well, the front ones anyway.)  And I used the greens and fruit to decorate this ledge we have up front in church, and I put lots of candles in the mix and it really looks nice.  I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks on Saturday when the concert is on.  I think it will look really lovely, and hopefully the fruit will last through the season. 

So I’m finally home with a moment to gather my thoughts.  I’m enjoying some sweet jazz with a trumpet player I’ve never heard before and the sounds are divine - Chris Botti is his name.  Sweet!  I should scurry off to bed but I can’t quite seem to break away from this amazing music.  I was tired today and I had some pain, but not to bad.  And it won’t be long until I’m dozing here but the music…  Very nice.  Very nice indeed!

Good night foxy voxers!

I have a little secret I'll share another day.