Soothing

This beautiful tub is in The English Room of The Manor House in Norfolk, Connecticut, where I stayed a few years ago.  I've been making soaps and scrubs, so have been wishing for a lovely bath, so how about some of these.

The Oriental from The Overflow Collection by KÄSCH

Morphosis from Jacuzzi

My friend, Alexandra, is blogging about renovating her home in Red Hook, Brooklyn and will soon have a beautiful view from her parlor level tub

A simple freestanding oval from Waterworks

And my sweet blog friend, Jozen from Lola's Girl, has a gorgeous master bathroom, lucky girl!

Really interesting glass bathtub from Wasauna

Tub in progress from another home renovation blog

and finally, this Amaltea Amethyst stunner of solid amethyst with
24-karat gold-plated legs from Baldi of Florence for just $190,000.00
on Luxuo.com

Destress Me

I already know it's gonna be kind of a stressful week, so I figured I could use a little aromatherapy in my life.  I got some dried lavender at the flower market:

and got out my buckets of melt-and-pour-soap from Majestic Mountain Sage. 

For my Valentine's Day Heart Soap I used clear, but this time I mixed it with some white.  I took a suggestion from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts and bought a mini loaf pan, and I already had some lavender oil from The Body Shop.

Then a little food coloring

and some time to rest, ahhh...

and then there were 6 little, purple bars.

There was a lot of lavender left so while I waited for the soap to set I sewed a sachet with the silk chiffon I got from Mood Fabrics and some purple cotton from Purl Soho.

I hand-sewed it since it was such a small piece and the fabrics were different weights and I didn't want to snag it in the machine.

Wishing you a peaceful week!

Last Pink Post in February

Of course there will be pink in other months too...but I started this month of love with a pink post and will end it with one too: this from my boyfriend's perspective.  We both like to take pics and compare so we can see the day from both of our viewpoints: so this was his take on my Valentine's Day Heart Soap project. 

Enjoy and onward to March!

2nd Christmas, Late Valentine's and Other Celebrations

It was almost like 2nd Christmas yesterday as we celebrated 3 birthdays, an anniversary and I brought some late Valentine's Day gifts too.  And this after the start of the Olympics, President's Day, Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras!

I had to wrap up the heart soaps I made, so I made a few miniature gift bags from a Martha Stewart pattern. 

And I wanted to be purple for the day, so I wore this beaded tank from Forever 21

and some light purple jewelry: this beautiful beaded necklace from Cameo Sisters Designs and ring from a trip to Chicago

My Dad had bought my Mom some little purple glasses

and I brought purple wine (and yea, my grandfather likes the box stuff )

And of course there were presents!

I got this gorgeous lilac Le Creuset casserole dish for my Aunt Liz.

[from Yummery]

On the Yummery site, Erin from Erin Cooks explains that this color was only recently made available in the US and right now Sur La Table has the exclusive on the lilac and the darker purple cassis colors, fab!

The other day I mentioned a gift that made me think of pink, pearl and ribbon and that was this Lion Brand knit flapper cloche for my grandfathers wife, Ruth.

Instead of the Landscapes Yarn in the pattern a very helpful woman in the shop recommended the yarn on sale this month: Wool-Ease Thick and Quick.  It's a lamb' s wool/acrylic blend, also a Super Bulky weight and surprisingly soft: it knit up in about 5 hours, so yes (relatively), quickly!  

I say pearl because at some point the shape reminded me of Pearl, the pink octopus in Finding Nemo.  It was even able to stand up on its own!  Let's compare:

[from freewebs.com]

Actually, this would probably make a pretty good amigurumi.  Eventually I got to the end of the knitting part and was all proud, until I realized that I hadn't joined the round.  Oops...

It was sewn up quickly, just ironic since I was already using circular needles, so why didn't I think of that before?  But it turned out fine and then I added this cool 2-tone pink/blue ribbon from Paper Presentation.

It was a good, relaxing day.  And I love that my Mom always has flowers around the house.  Maybe someday i'll learn how to keep a plant alive.