What Every Woman Wants

We are going out West to the Promised Land and we need a gift for the grandmas and aunts so that after we visit them and lay waste to their homes they will still like us. 

We decided to make soap. 

Perhaps I will rephrase that....the soap is already made. 

At the craft store you can buy trays of soap like this:

We are using goats milk soap, but there was also shea butter, avocado and glycerine. 

So no, we did not make the soap ourselves (that would be a REALLY great craft!) but we did dress it up, something mermaids are very good at. 

First we melted it in the microwave.

Then we scented it. 

We used rose for some batches, vanilla-pomegranate for others. 

Then we colored it and poured it into the molds.

This is how the molds look when they are filled and you happen to be laying on the ground.

After about 40 minutes the soap was cool and hard and we could push them out of the molds. 

This was so easy! Too easy, in fact. Next time we do this I am starting from scratch and I am going to find some goats to milk and make my own.

Next is packaging. 

Wrapping paper,










name tags,

glitter glue,





and gossamer bags.

And now our gifts are ready to be packed. 

I think the grandmas and aunts will love these....and in the meantime they will give our suitcases a lovely smell. 

Blossoming Ballpoints

I have a magic drawer in my home. It is the pencil drawer of our computer desk. This is why it is magic:

I toss a couple sharpened pencils and ball point pens in the drawer. I close the drawer. I go about my normal mother-jobs. Then, when all the sudden I need to write something extremely important down--quick--I open the drawer to locate a writing utensil. And what do I find? Broken tipped pencils, yellow crayons and no ball point pen in sight. This happens all the time! Arg! Do you have a magic drawer in your home?

My kids' second grade teachers must have a magic drawer in their desks too, because they make these flower pens.
They had their students make them for Mothers Day gifts, and I can tell you right now it is the best Mothers Day school present I've ever received.

Mothers Day was back in May, now it is July. Do you realize that means I have kept track of my flower pens for FOUR MONTHS now?

Like I said, best Mothers Day gift ever.

(It turns out that we could have been even more creative with this craft--we went to REI last night and they had a pen with a big long fern frond attached to it. )

Thanks, Ms. Benton and Mrs. Cheek!