Mandy Jo's Musings

Yellow Friendship Rosette Soap Tutorial

2012-03-16T14:31:00.001-07:00

Today I had to make some soap samples for Out of the box sampler that I will be sending in for the Easter Sampler so I thought I'd make a tutorial to go with it.

What you'll need:

Melt & Pour Glycerin Soap Base (I used white)

Essential oils (I used Coconut Lime Verbena & Lemongrass)

Soap Dye (I used yellow)

Silicone Rosette Mold

All of these items can be purchased at your local craft store.

You'll also need:

1 kitchen knife to cut the soap

A microwave (or double boiler if you don't have a micro)

Pyrex measuring cup (or any microwave safe bowl)

I needed to make 25 rosettes so my portions were large but essentially I just over sized the following:

8-10oz Melt & Pour Glycerin Soap Melted

10-20 drops Coconut Lime Verbena Essential Oil

10 drops Lemongrass Essential Oil

10 drops yellow soap dye

First cut up the soap and put it into the Pyrex measuring cup

Put it in the microwave and cook for 1 min, remove stir an repeat until melted.

While you're waiting get the mold ready

Get your fragrances and dyes ready to go

Now that everything is melted

add the essential oils

Add the color

Stir and then pour into the mold

Now it's time to wait, let it set. If you want to speed things along you can put it in the freezer.

Once set remove from the molds and enjoy your very own

Yellow Rosette of Friendship

Fog Smog

2012-03-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

It was really foggy this morning so I snapped this picture on my way to work. Stephanie Abrams was asking for Weather out your window pictures this morning so I also uploaded it to the Weather Channel website. Without further adieu:

New Listings for MJ's Bubbles N Baubles

2012-03-12T11:43:00.002-07:00

I've added some new soap items to my shop. Check it out:

MJ's Bubbles N Baubles

Introducing lanyards!

2012-03-09T07:05:00.001-08:00

I think I've mentioned that Tyler's sister-in-law recently started a new job. Well part of her job requires her to wear and ID badge so she asked me to make her a lanyard. I must admit that she had a great idea, so I've added lanyards to my ETSY shop. So here you have it my first lanyard.

I quite like it if I do say so mysel. :) You can see more at my shop: MJsbaublesnbubbles

The Wisteria is in bloom

2012-03-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

The Wisteria is blooming!

Helping out can be fun

2012-03-07T16:27:00.001-08:00

So this week I started helping out Tyler's Sister-in-law because she started her new job. I've been getting up at 4am so I can drive across town and watch her 6yr old twins before school. I have to get them up, hepl them get ready for school. Feed them breakfast and then drop them off for school by 7:15. It's a challenge especially on days I work, but family is important and I'm happy to help. To be honest I've had a lot of fun getting the girls ready for school and doing their hair. I took some pictures of my little fashion plates today. I never thought I'd get so much enjoyment out of helping out, but it's been a lot of fun. I don't have to take them tomorrow and I have to admit I'm going to miss the e chicklettes.

More Roses

2012-03-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Today is my friend Lei's birthday. So to celebrate I made her one of my famous (well not so famous yet) Soap Rose Bouquets. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. It also smelled wonderful. I fragranced the dark purple ones with Plumeria. The lavender ones are lavender patchouli. (I used a bar of the this one today..... LOVED IT!!!) The purple one's are sweet pea. Lei was really surprised by her gift so I was happy. Tell me what you think:

I also had fun with hot glue and ribbon to wrap the vase

Lei's favorite color is purple hence the single color scheme

Extreme close up!

I'm happy with the results

Not bad for a Monday nights work!

Catching up

2012-03-06T09:53:00.000-08:00

With the arrival of March or to coin a phrase from Homer Simpson: "Smarch" comes Spring Break and the arrival of insanity here in Panama City Beach. While by no means an excuse for my hiatus from blogging I'm latching onto it as an explanation for my laziness.

Last week I got to help Tyler with some of the yards he does every week. I did all of the mowing front and back and he edged, weed eated, and blew everything off. (I refuse to use those tools, they are too loud.) While the work was strenuous I couldn't help but appreciating the sense of accomplishment I received by completing such a menial task. Not to mention the praise Tyler heaped on me for what he considered to be a job well done. Now I'm not sure if he was just praising me so I would help him again or if he really meant it, but I blindly accepted the accolades because it made me feel good. So without further adeu, here is the front portion my completed yard:

It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?

2012-02-28T12:30:00.000-08:00

With Silver Bells &

Coco Shells &

Pretty Maids All in A Row

It's February 28th

My strawberries are going crazy

I've already eaten several this year.

I'm looking forward to many more

My Pineapple Sage is flowering

The blooms smell just like pineapple

I've been putting the leaves in my ice water

The chocolate mint has never looked better

The Kentucky Mint has gotten so big.

I wish I knew what these little purple flowers were

They have been going crazy.

I love the Viola's

They have been going crazy all winter.

It seems crazy to me that it's Feb 28th and I have all of this foliage.

Jewlery Tree

2012-02-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

Spring Break starts this week and with that in mind I took the time to make up a bunch of bracelets and necklaces. Today I priced everything and made a display for it all.

sooooooo, I made a Jewlery Tree:

Jewlery Tree

I filled the branches with bracelets

Each item is priced

Each price point grouped together

I had to space out the necklaces

Because my tree kept falling over

I even displayed the items I made in hemp

I was able to get some of the necklaces to hang together

I can't wait to show it all off tomorrow.

My blue orchid finally opened its second bloom

2012-02-25T16:04:00.001-08:00

The punch line is the second set of flowers are white.

Cool Pictures I took today

2012-02-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

Tyler brought me home another Camilla so I floateded it and took some pics.

Beads, beads and more beads

2012-02-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

BEADS!!!!!

My jewlery making has lead me to have an over abundance of them, but now thanks to my new friend Heathr I have organized bead storage. I can't tell you how happy that make me. :)

HOLY BEADS BATMAN!!!!

Cookies

2012-02-21T17:21:00.001-08:00

Recently Tyler has become addicted to cookies so when I saw this on Pinterest today it made me think of him and I had to share it.

A little flower

2012-02-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

I have these flowers in my yard, they were planted last spring and they just keep on blooming. I thought it was pretty so I'm going to charge.

I looked out the window and what did I see?

2012-02-18T13:31:00.001-08:00

Ripe Strawberries!

Orchids, Orchids, Orchids

2012-02-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I came home and my house was filled with Orchids. Tyler went out and got me two new ones to go with my current collection. That gives me a total of 5 Orchids.

I’m really excited about the new ones; the first one is a Spider Orchid

The purple one is a Phalaenopsis orchid which is the same type as the two I already own.

My two old one’s are getting ready to bloom. See?

I’ll post photos of them once they open up. One is blue and the other is a white and purple one.

Needless to say it was a welcome surprise yesterday as I was having a bad day.

More Wraps

2012-02-15T17:09:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of time today working on honing my pendant wrapping skills. I must say I am impressed with the results. J

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MJsBaublesnBubbles

Whoo hoo I learned how to wrap!!!!

2012-02-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

Doo do da dooo!!!!!!!!!

Introducing the first ever originally crafted Mandy original wrapped stone necklace!

I’m so excited I’ve wanted to learn how to make these for years and I finally figured it out?

I think it looks awesome with the ribbon but I think it would be easier with hemp. I’m going to keep at it, but I was so happy to find a use for that piece of purple fluorite I’ve had for years.

There's a bracelet to match. This pair isn't for sale but you will be seeing simliar items for sale soon at my ETSY shop.

Broke Valentines Day

2012-02-14T16:38:00.000-08:00

This year as in year’s past I found myself broke on Valentines Day. However, this is not a travesty the spirit of St. Valentine prevails and we had an excellent Valentines Day celebration.

The festivities included home made cards:

Love Coupons

Flowers

My Mom & Dad sent me the daisy rose bouquet and Tyler brought me a Camilla

A wonderful dinner

Featuring London Broil

Mashed Potatoes

& Broccoli with Cheese Sauce

Now you must be saying to yourself what's for dessert?

Chocolate covered strawberries!

I also made Tyler’s favorite dessert chocolate peanut butter bars and for an extra surprise I cut them into little hearts. Whoever says you have to spend a lot of money to have a stealer Valentine’s Day is incorrect. Tyler says he feels more loved because I made his presents then he would have if I went to the store and bought them. J

Winter Weather in Florida

2012-02-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

Winter Weather at Laketown Wharf

I took these pictures yesterday at 11

am, it was 34 degrees outside.

I couldn’t believe that with the running water the sign would still be frozen over.

The temperature today is already warmer than it was at this time yesterday. I guess I can handle one day of winter this year.

Instagram/Webstagram

2012-02-11T13:49:00.000-08:00

Recently I’ve fallen in love with the iPhone app Instagram. The app is advertised as a fast fun and beautiful way to share your photos. The reason I like it is you can take photos from your phone and edit them before sharing them on Instagram and on Facebook etc. The irony is I don’t have an iPhone I have an iPod and it’s the first generation so it doesn’t have a camera. So I have to take this round about method to use the app. First I take the photo on my phone then I upload it to Picasa then I download it to my iPad and upload it to Instagram. So I uploaded some randomness that I took last night and I thought I would share them.

Marlow Enjoying a bone with his

booty hanging off the chair.

Back view of his booty hanging

Extreme close up of Marlow's paw

Bubba

Couldn't Resist

2012-02-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

Strawberries comming to my backyard real soon

2012-02-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

Last year in our garden we planted strawberries, we had a pretty good showing with them in the early months of the year April and May and then they stopped fruiting but they were still pretty healthy so we kept them in the garden. We had a nice experience last year with everything we planted, we were still harvesting tomatoes and peppers well into December. Now that it's February most of the plants from last year's garden have died off with the exception of the herbs we transplanted and our strawberries. Now this is my first experience with having strawberries planted in the winter months so imagine my surprise when I went out to the garden this morning and I saw..........

STRAWBERRIES!!!!

I thought for sure this must be some fluke of the unseasonably warm weather......

So I did a little research. Turns out I was woefully misinformed. November through April are the optimal growing months for strawberries here in the Florida Panhandle, which explains why we have a strawberry festival here every February. Upon further investigation I realized the strawberry festival is actually going on this weekend. Now my face is red, I wish I didn't have to work or I would go to the festival. Oh well I guess I'll just have to buy some ripe one's and make a strawberry shortcake for us to enjoy here at home.

Come on down to ETSY

2012-02-09T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to get my little ETSY shop off the ground. This is where I intend to sell my bracelets and eventually my soap. I've put up quite a few listings over the last several days. Here's a link to my shop and a preview of a few of the listings:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Amandajjhall

Ladybug

Green and Gold with Polka Dots

Pink and Black with Polka Dots

Green and Gold for LSU

I've made quite a few sales, but none at my shop so I'm looking for a little help. http://www.etsy.com/shop/Amandajjhall