Butching Up My Shop

A couple of people have asked me to include more "masculine" type fragrances in my soap selection, since so many of them are florals or marine. I love all kinds of fragrances, so I'm in the process of adding some soaps that are less girlie, in terms of fragrance. How about Sandalwood Vanilla, Patchouli and Sweet Orange, Sandalwood Patchouli, Salty Mariner and Coconut Lemongrass? Those are all in the works, and some are drying on the curing rack right now.

It's Friday again -- it hardly seems possible. Friday nights we go to the high school football games. Not because we're big football fans. We go to see our daughter perform. She's a dancer with the band, which performs at halftime. This is her senior year and it makes me a bit nostalgic. She's been on the dance line for 4 years now. Once football is over this fall, we won't be seeing her dance at the games anymore, but she'll still be dancing in various competitions.

Secret Garden

This morning I packed up another order that came in last night! I am really pleased with selling at etsy, where there is such a large pool of potential buyers. A person with only their own independent shop can't possibly draw that much traffic. I am really loving etsy. :D

Today I added Secret Garden soap to my shop. It smells so soft and feminine with florals, sandalwood and musk. I'm experimenting with colorful photo edges on my promotional images. What do you think?

Oh, and I just want to say that I love this little soap dish that I got on etsy from LBegley. She had some wonderful stuff!

Lotion Bars

Today I added Shea and Mango Butter Lotion Bars to my shop. You can have them in the essential oil or fragrance oil of your choice. I love lotion bars, they're highly concentrated so a little goes a long way. They glide on so smooth and creamy, no greasy or messy feeling. They sink right into your skin.

Dream Pillows

I'm pretty excited about these, after all the research I've done on them and getting just the right organic dried herbs and flowers. Ta-Da! Finally, my Restful Dreams Dream Pillow is in my shop. More are coming soon!

It hardly seems possible that our kids have been back to school now for a week. The house seems strangely empty and quiet. We went to watch our daughter, who is on the dance line at school, perform at half-time at the Friday night football game. Her hairpiece came off in the middle of the kick line, but she just waited til they were done, threw the hairpiece into a pile of pom poms, then resumed dancing! That's my girl. She can handle almost anything. :)

Packing Orders

I had a successful day yesterday in my Etsy shop, 4 orders with multiple items. I spent a big part of this afternoon labeling and packaging it all up for the post office tomorrow. It's very gratifying and it makes me realize how important it is to maintain a public presence in the Etsy forums. Sometimes I wonder if any customers are listening over there, or if it's only sellers reading the forums. It only takes one good day to make you realize how effective it can be. :D

I made my first dream pillow this morning. It's really pretty and fragrant in a subtle way, with dried organic herbs and flowers. I'm going to make myself one too, and sleep on it tonight. They really do work for me. I'm going to take some photos of them, but the camera chose this moment to conk out on me. It's charging now.

Watercolor-y Batiks

I've added some clip art-type graphics to my shop, 3 cute little Anime Dollies in PSD format, 72 dpi, @800 pixels high each, with no drop shadows. These are royalty free, made from my own 3D characters, and can be used to make sig tags, banners, web pages, decorate fundraiser candy wrappers, make greeting cards, or whatever your imagination suggests. They can be used in any program which can handle PSD files.

Remember when I went shopping for fabrics to make my dream pillows a couple days ago? I just had to take a photo of these beautiful batiks. The purple splotchy one is my favorite.



Now I'm off to make Lilac soap, then a big batch of Lavender.

Oh yes, and does anyone know how I can make my blogger page 100% the width of the page?

Mmmmm...Patchouli

I made a big batch of soap this morning, scented with Patchouli and Clementine. I really does smell wonderful. The clementine sweetens and takes the edge off the patchouli. I can hardly wait for this one to cure.

I was astonished today to be contacted by a merchant who actually threatened me with legal action for selling lavender sachets, which have been around since at least the middle ages. Apparently this merchant thinks they invented them. This individual has since backed off. Now, I am simply rude because I didn't ask this merchant first before putting lavender sachets in my store. Sigh.

Fabric Shopping

I did a lot of work weeding and tearing out old flowers yesterday, then planted a bunch of new flowers in the container garden around our lily pond. I've made a little album of the photos, including some of our brilliant bromeliads, at Flickr. You can see them here.

I'm gearing up to begin making Dream Pillows, filled with soothing herbs and flowers. I went shopping for fabrics yesterday and really got into the idea of matching colors and patterns to the dream blends I am making. I spent an hour admiring different batiks with soft, watercolor patterns.

I bought a yard each of 4 different kinds and I couldn't honestly say which one I love best. They are all so beautiful. I'm in a Medieval Stillroom swap with some other crafters and I'm making some solid perfume and dream pillows as my contribution. The dark purple batik with gold, pink and sage swirly dots and stars is going to be perfect for the swap.

I love swaps. I know it's crazy, I already have a ton of bath and beauty products I've made myself, but I am always eager to try what other people make. Right now I have 44 sample bars of soap sitting in a box, plus the delightful stuff I got from a Harry Potter swap. I have 7 different bars of soap going in my bathroom. I need to muster some self control about swaps.

Later on, after I do my yoga, I'm going to be working on a digital character I started a couple months ago but haven't finished yet. She's called Mitsouko, and she's almost finished. For some reason I'm just stalling on it. I need to get busy. Here's what she looks like so far.

Mimi, a little faery

I made a big batch of Gardenia soap this morning and I wish you could smell it. It smells so fantastic in my kitchen!

I thought I'd show you one of my digital creations, a little 3D dolly I made called Mimi. I made all her skin and eye textures myself from high resolution photos. Mimi is a character used in a program called Poser. I just think she's too adorable.

All Done

I'm all done with the big order of lavender sachets -- and done in, too. As nice as it was to get a large order like that, I think I learned a lesson. The beauty of handcrafts are that they are made lovingly, on a small scale. When you have to make a ton of them and it takes you almost every waking minute for a week, then it's not so much fun. I don't think I'll be taking any large orders of sachets any time in the near future.

While I was stuffing sachets last night, I was inhaling all that glorious lavender in a big bowl under my nose. While it smells terrific, it has a soporific effect on me. I kept having to take little breaks to close my eyes. Either that or I was just really, really tired.

Ah.....Lavender

I just received 3 lbs. of dried Lavender de Provence flowers from PoPkO. I have to say that this is the most fragrant, heavenly lavender I've ever bought, and I've bought plenty of it over the years. Fabulous product and service, I'll definitely be buying from this fellow Etsy seller again!

Still Crocheting...

Eep, still crocheting little flowers and pairs of leaves for my sachets. Crocheting takes almost no time, but attaching the leaves onto the flowers and weaving all the loose ends in is what takes so much time. I still have 24 more flowers with accompanying leaves to make. I'm just taking a stretch break now and then back to the Size E hook.

At night I've been reading up on dream pillows, online and in books. I'm fascinated by the way that some herbs contribute to sleep and others can disturb sleep, and that very fragrant herbs are not necessarily good for sound sleep. I've been studying herbs for many years and still find it a fascinating topic. I hope to be adding Dream Pillows to my shop soon. I would love to find some old fashioned herb or botanical print fabric to make pillows.

Free Faery PSD's

Today I made this blog a banner, using a photo I took of a bunch of my craft stuff. What do you think? :D

I thought I'd mention today that on my Faery Moon Downloads page I offer lots of cute faeries in PSD format. There is a list of archived faeries at the bottom of the page, just click the "View" link to see what they look like. Here's the current free faery, which stars a little character I made called Mimi for the adorable Ball Joint Doll.

Sewing Away

It takes me about 5 minutes to sew each of these little cotton sachet bags for a special order I'm filling. I could probably do it faster, but I make french seams, which means twice the work. I think it's worth it, though, to do a really nice job and make sure the seams stay intact. So it's going to take me about 5.5 hours just to make the little bags. Then there's the crocheting of the little flowers and leaves, stuffing with lavender and adding a bow. I'm going to be happy when all the bags are made. I'm just a little over 2/3 done now.



What a disappointment today. I just found out that the Tropical Fairy Festival, which I'd signed up for, has been cancelled.

Being Busy is Gratifying

I am so happy today because I got an order for a lot of my Lavender Sachets for a christening next month. I have a week to make them all, so I've got to get busy. I've already been to JoAnne's Crafts this morning (thank goodness for 40% off coupons) to get my supplies and ordered 3 lbs. of divine Lavender de Provence dried flowers. Mmmmm...it's going to smell so good in my work room for the next couple of days.

Solid Perfume Glace

Today I made two solid perfumes for my shop, both made with pure essential oils. I've added Lavender de Provence Solid Perfume and Patchouli Lavender Solid Perfume, both in 0.25 oz. pots. I wish you could smell them, they are wonderful. I get my essential oils from a distributor with the dreamiest lavender, it's so relaxing and sweet.



This weekend my stepdaughter signed us up for the Tropical Fairy Festival in Miami, October 11-13. If you live around there, drop by and see us!

Pre-Raphaelite

One of my passions the past few years has been creating 3D characters for a program called Poser. I morph the standard characters, which are kind of homely as they come out of the box, and make more attractive faces and bodies for them. I used Photoshop and quality, high resolution photos to make skin textures for these characters. It's very time consuming, picky work, but I like doing it. You can see my characters in my Daz3D store. Here's an example of a render I did of my "Lizzie" yesterday.

One Woman, Lots of Crafts

By way of introduction, I'm Stephanie, lover of multiple arts and crafts, computer geek, 3D graphics artist and writer. I'm into making handmade soap, lotions and potions, crocheting, sewing, wildcrafting, writing, and computers, including making 3D characters and skin textures for a program called Poser.

I'm interested in so many kinds of arts and crafts, that they don't fit neatly into one category or the other. I'm as much "Bath and Beauty" as "Computer Graphics." One thing all of my interests have in common, though, is that they're all from my heart -- Heart Crafts. :)

Presently I have several domains which feature my writing, graphics and other works, but right now I am most excited about my new Sea Sprite Soaps store on Etsy, which features only handmade items. You can see my handmade soaps, lip balms and stillroom creations there, as well as some beautiful hand crocheted items.

One of the prettiest things I've made recently are these Lavender Sachets. They're completely made from scratch by me, including the little bags and the crocheted flower decorations. Each one is stuffed full with nearly a cup of dried lavender flowers.



The past few days I've been crocheting some saucy little camisoles out of beautiful Patons "Grace," a premium silky-smooth cotton yarn that is soft and comfortable on the skin. Check out my Key Lime Halter.