Lush by Levine

Note to self: Always try your products before giving them to other people.

So I decided that it was prudent that I take a bath this afternoon (#1 thing to do on day off) and use both the bath fizzies and the peppermint sugar scrub.  I grabbed my jar of peppermint fizzies and started the bath water.  A hint for those of you that have received the fizzies and have yet to use them.  In order to benefit from the aromatherapy properties of said fizzies, drop at least 3 if not 4 into the bath as you are sitting in the water.  The scent of peppermint was eye-opening but didn't last long.  However, the fizzies also act as a softener on the skin, which was nice.

The sugar scrub I found is best used with a long-handled bath brush or loofah on a stick.  If you use it with your hands (at least with my hands), it tickles!  This stuff is fantastic for softening the feet and getting off any stubborn dirt on your feet (yes my feet were really dirty!).  The scent is really nice and the oil in the scrub really softens the skin.  The only downside was the slipperiness of my bathtub following using the scrub.  And I was temporarily turned pink (just my feet) which washed off with my shower.

Shelly and I went to Sun Harvest Farms this past weekend and I picked up some new essential oils.  I'm looking forward to experimenting with pomegranate vanilla and an orange/clove mix.  I'm gonna make some new fizzies for myself and some new sugar scrub with organic sugar (and no food coloring) and plan to look into a new oil for the scrubs instead of grapeseed oil.  It's time to tweak this recipe so that it's mine.

Does anyone know where I can get waterproof computer labels???

Holiday 2008 Gifts

As the holidays approached, I became overly-ambitious.  I decided (after reading Martha Stewart Living) that I wanted to create spa goodies for my ladies.  She published recipes for sugar and salt scrubs, bath fizzies and salt drops (balls).  The scrubs were easy and were jarred immediately.  Unfortunately, they didn't travel well, so plans to send them to our New York friends was halted.  The bath fizzies were a fun project that involved chemistry.  I got to purchase citric acid and be ultra precise because one false move ended with fizzy bubbles everywhere and having to start from scratch.  The salt drops sucked!  What a hard project.  All but a mere few broke, crumbled and fell apart.  Only Marie received salt drops and hers didn't travel well, basically negating their original purpose.

Marie's Salts from Lush by Levine

The scrubs were made in two flavors - peppermint grapefruit and lemon eucalyptus (pink and green respectively).  Unfortunately, as per Shelly, the peppermint grapefruit turned her feet pink temporarily.

The fizzes came in a number of scents as a result of special requests - peppermint, eucalyptus, green tea/cucumber, cucumber/melon, lavender, and citrus.  No one has used the fizzies yet so I don't know how those turned out - but they look pretty.

As for the boys, I crocheted all of them hats.  I combined a few patterns that I found online and in books and created a fantastic pattern that I am really happy about.  Everyone loved them and it's awesome that I can customize them to people's head size (even some of my friends' really large heads).

My silent mannequins

The Kallstrom (and Fuqua) family

Stewart

Yarmulke for Eran

Lucky the Jew

Brad's camo hat

Shelly & Joe show off their hats

Then there were the gifts for the kids.  I was especially proud of these.  I made "friends" for my best friends' daughter, the pig and the frog.  I also made pigs for my mom and an inverted pig for Shelly.  Speaking of pigs, I decorated piggy banks for the niece and nephew.  

Yael's Pig

Yoni's Pig

Yoni's freehanded "Curious George"

Another side of Yael's pig

Shelly's "inverted" pig

Rhylan and her friends

A bear of my own pattern for Mateo

Enjoy all of the pictures.  In a few months I'm going to start working on my Holiday 2009 gifts (once I figure out what I'm gonna make!).