Local Holiday Gift Treasures

All you local folks should get over to The Chandellier, next to the Miner Family Restaurant in Gillespie. The owner, Valerie and her husband have done wonderful things with their space and it's just full of all kinds of upscale resale treasures.

And of course, there are a few brand new things as well, namely my line of Wild Sense soaps and body products.
I still have a lot of holiday items to add to what's there...Whipped Body Butters, Sugar Scrubs, Sugar Bumps (individual sugar scrubby cubes), Melting Bath Truffles, Body Creams, Herbal Teas and both Fragranced and All-Botanical Soaps.
Coming soon will be an assortment of Gift Basket Sets too!

Custom rubber stamp

I'm getting a custom rubber stamp made to stamp all of my bag with. I found a great online site with lots of in stock stamps as well. Lots of nature oriented ones and foliage too!
<--Here's what mine will look like. so much to do last minute to get ready for the holiday events and packaging! I got it online here:
Hope all of you other soapmakers out there have a great holiday season - I know I won't be hearing from many of you since you'll all be working events and markets on the weekends cutting and wrapping and decorating! Not too many more days until christmas... I refuse to do the countdown or I could send myself into a tailspin of stress!

WildSense Artfire Studio is Live!

Go take a peek at my Artfire Studio.
Wild Sense Artfire Studio

The design and photos aren't the concept I originally wanted but I procrastinated so much getting this up it was high time I just DID it. I will mess around more with a "concept theme" for more cohesive photos and graphics on my actual website when I launch that as a companion to the Artfire Studio. In the meantime, get ready to shop! Still lots of soaps to load up on the site but I'm getting there.

NEW WildSense YouTube Channel active!

Just wanted to let you all know that I now finally have a YouTube channel for my videos and I'll be adding many more tutorials on various soapmaking techniques as well as other bath & body product how-to's as I go along. I hope you enjoy them. The above photos are from my CP swirling tutorial, which I made with Cindy Gooding of Pittstown Soapworks, moderator of the Yahoo teaching group, Soap_makers. We had some fun when she came to visit and swirl with me!
There is a cricket hiding somewhere in my workshop who has provided a lovely soundtrack for many of the videos, LOL! And I should tell you that no animals are present; although you will hear my cats meowing upstairs from time to time, as they protest VERY loudly when Mommy "goes to work".
To go to the Tutorials, simply click on the title of this blog post :)
Have fun swirling!

Wild Sense in new local store!

Wild Sense soaps and body products will be available locally at the new store called The Chandellier located next to the Miner's Family Restaurant in downtown Gillespie! Grand Opening will be Saturday, Oct 23rd with refreshments and lots of great bargains.

I'll be running a special on my soaps for the first week as well. Customers buying 4 or more bars receive a scratch off card with a chance to win a free Soap, Lip Balm or an Aroma Bead sachet.

Aroma Bead tutorial

Woohoo! I finally figured out some of the glitches in uploading my videos so I will be posting several over the course of the next few days. The following video tutorial is a short video telling you how to use Aroma Beads from www.ElementsBathAndBody.com ((edited to change a couple of frames))

Tropical Fruit Soap Cut

Just realized I forgot to put up the pics of the Tropical Fruit soap once it was cut into bars.
Love this soap!

Artfire store almost ready

I've been getting a lot of emails asking where to get my soap creations..my Artfire store will be up soon. I have been taking pics all week and editing descriptions. It took awhile to get all the bio and policies done to my satisfaction, and i'm fussy with the photos too. But finally, it's almost ready to launch!
My other "regular' website has been taken down so I have redone it with the new business name and design and that's a project I've been working on as well. That will be completed after my Artfire Studio is done and loaded...so stay tuned. You'll hear it first here when I do launch, so follow this blog!

New Video - How to Easily Line a Slab Mold

Well this is my first demo to see how my FlipVideo works. So far it seems to be pretty cool!

Tropical Fruit Smoothie Soap

Just had to share this soap slab with you all...
It's CP soap with M&P embeds. It is making me crave one very large tropical drink, preferebly with one of those cute umbrellas. LOL
I took my time with the embed molds, coloring and scenting each type of fruit for realism. I'm not quite happy with the peach slices, but I will improve on those next time.

Hope you enjoyed today's soap porn!

Added splashes of Color to my Work Area

Just wanted to let you all now I have some new pics up on Flickr of my more colorful work area!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greengoddessherbals/sets/72157624135686790/


(or click on the title of this post)

Failure, Reinvention and Hope

This story about Kayla Fioravanti's journey of transformation, many failures and eventually what I think is a great success has been so inspiring to me and hits so many notes with me personally that I wanted to share it here for those who may have missed it on her blog. It really goes to show that failures can be a wonderful learning experience and as long as you persevere, you can keep going and growing.
http://essentialu.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/failure-reinvention-hope.html

Please everybody Vote to get us back in the top 2!!

We really need to get as many people as possible to vote DAILY until the 30th to win the grant that will help rebuild our elementary school! Please help if you have a minute go here:

www.refresheverything.com/bengilelementary
Thanks for your help and pass this on to get us as many votes as possible in the couple days that remain!!

New Blogwear

Well at long last I've finally made a banner and background for my blog. It's been a long time coming but I just haven't had tome to work on it and the times that i did, I got frustrated by the coding when I'd follow all instruction on how-to sites and nothing would show up right. Finally I have it down pat.
Now on to other things like my Artfire shop. Giving up Etsy in favor of Artfire, as they don't nickel and dime you to death on each and every listing. Then I can concentrate on a new site with database and proper cart.
Guess the graphics classes are paying off. But I still have a long way to go.

No new soaps lately, but I've been making pressed makeup and lipsticks and having great fun with those.

Colorado "safe" personal care products Bill fails in committee! Yay

Excerpt from Winged Seed's blog: "I’m tipping my hat to colleagues who joined me in blogging, tweeting, emailing and shouting “Stop” to the potential affects of this bad bill. The bill failed in Committee today 7 to 4. Some Colorado legislators reported they had received up to 700 emails regarding the bill. I listened to streaming radio from the hearing and those on our side were far more aware of the facts than either the representative from Compact for Safe Cosmetics or some of their small business supporters and individuals who testified. Although learned in his field and knowledgeable regarding environmental toxins and endocrinology, Dr. David Norris, PhD, Deptartment of Physiology, University of Colorado, was not well versed in cosmetics themselves nor skin absorption and allowable dilutions and was a weak proponent of the bill as a result."

Well, we all worked hard to get the word spread and thanks to everyone who helped.
Things like this should be based on real science, not supposition and hasty conclusions.


Leann

Your Personal choices are in danger! Take ACTION!

If you live in Colorado you have some looming legislation that comes up for discussion this coming Monday, March 1. This legislation, in a nutshell, to include formulators of organic or natural soap & cosmetics, will curtail your ability to operate. Additionally, should this legislation get passed, this legislation gives individuals in the state of Colorado the ability and license to sue any manufacturer of products that contain ingredients that quality for banning by the bill. March 1, this coming monday, is the day set aside for anyone to dispute this bill, submit arguments why it should not pass, or lobby for a more reasoned approach. If passed as is, Colorado citizens will be the enforcers not the state. Rewards upwards of $5,000 and $10,000 will ensure that the cosmetic products landscape in Colorado will be come the Wild Wild West, with attorneys being the greatest benefactor of this legislation. Enforcement will consist of simply suing the companies that are making products using ingredients that would qualify as banned. This includes MANY essential oils as well as many many perfectly safe cosmetic ingredients, cosmetic colors, etc.

Here is a shortlinks:
Cosmetic Design: http://tinyurl.com/yffy6a5

The Bill sponsors are using bad science, anecdotal evidence, and mass hysteria to give veracity and traction to the proposed bill. Lawmakers don't have to be genius's to get elected, and can propose legislation that is completely out of their depth of knowledge. As Thomas Jefferson said though, when govt does something that is so intolerable to cause harm to the people it is supposed to protect, it is not just our right to step in and work to stop it, but it is also our DUTY. The Personal Care Products Council will be there on March 1st to challenge and oppose this bill also.

I'm going to post info that both Colorado residents and non residents can use to contact legislators on this matter.

Contact info for you Colorado State Rep:
http://www.leg. state.co. us/Clics/CLICS2010A/csl.nsf/directory?openframeset
In case that wraps: http://tinyurl.com/ya85s6r

Betty Boyd is the Senate sponsor
Dianne Primavera is the House sponsor phone 303-866-4667
Dennis Apuan phone 303-866-3069
Karen Middleton phone 303-866-3911
Joe Miklosi Cap phone 303-866-2910

Link to the Bill in full
http://tinyurl.com/yddants

Link to follow and track changes are they are made:
http://tinyurl.com/yg37ro7 Toggle the selector at the top to the House Bills 1201 - 1250 and then scroll down to 1248

More links to learn more
Essential Wholesale blog: http://tinyurl.com/yjpd3l3
Robert Tisserand : http://roberttisserand.com/2010/02/tunnel-vision/

In anycase, if you live in Colorado, I urge you to make your voice heard, and as loudly as you can. The rest of use can also voice our opposition based on the idea that if this sort of thing passes in one state, than other states have an easier time getting something similar passed there also.
(the above thanks to Kelly Bloom of Southern Soapers)