I Heart Hats

I really really do love to wear hats.

I discovered hats at a thrift shop while still in high school, and fell in love with this gorgeous, chocolate brown fedora. I used to wear that thing almost every time I went out!

I stopped wearing hats for a few years, but rediscovered them again about 5-6 years ago while I was participating in a local craft show. The neighbouring booth was run by a lady who made winter hats under the business name The Mad Hatter. I bought a lovely burgundy winter hat that was like a soft faux-suede outer and warm, snuggly faux-fur on the inside. The following year I bought 2 more hats from her, one was a lovely coffee with milk shade of brown outside with thick, warm faux-fur on the inside and the second one was a funky grey mix faux-fur that was almost shaped like a top-hat. I wore that thing to lots of my daughter's skating practices and it kept my head (and me) toasty warm :) This is a good thing, as it doesn't take much to make me uncomfortably cold.

I also have a crocheted summer hat that I purchased from Loopy4Ewe that I usually wear to the farmers market in the summer if I'm outside. My daughter also has a cool beanie from her. Just look at this cool hat:
Last spring, I discovered a very cool hatter in Lunenburg, NS - Anna Shoub. She's originally from the US, but found her way to our beautiful province. I want soooo many of her summer hats. Especially now that I have funky retro sunglasses in the style similar to Jackie O's. So I'm really coveting these couple of hats:But she also has stylish winter hats available.

Please check out these ladies' shops - they have lots of wonderful goodies to choose from! Support handmade, support local :)

Today is Earth Day

This post is going to be short & sweet!

Today is Earth Day. A day to celebrate Earth, and to revisit how we should be treating her. Lots of people participated in Earth Hour which is great. How many people are going to seriously consider what they can do on a daily basis to help our great planet?

Here, we have decided to reduce the amount of time the computers and tv are on. Each are on for several hours a day, and we quite often have 3 computers in the house. My work computer (which I also use for personal use), my husband's work laptop, and our son's personal computer. So, we have agreed on a rule that the tv does not get turned on during the week and the computers are only on for each child to use for 1/2 hour each day to send an email to Dad when he's working and to do their daily Webkinz activities so their Webkinz don't get sick... Yesterday was the 1st day we did it, and the kids were fine with it! No complaints (I think it's because I didn't make a blanket statement of no computer or tv at all) and they actually played with Bionicle lego - together!! And played with dominoes, and practiced their musical instruments (drums, guitar, violin and recorder).

I also made a commitment to use less packaging or to reuse packaging whenever possible. For a great way to reduce your use of plastic bags at the grocery store or bulk food store, check out these bags from Kootsac on Etsy.

Also, if you ship things you can use old (clean) cereal boxes and granola boxes for mailers. You can check out a fabulous tutorial on how to make there here.

Several members of the TransCanada Etsy Team are celebrating Earth Day with specials. You can check them out here. I am also having a special - free shipping on all orders over $15. You can check out what I have in stock at my Etsy shop - but the sale runs for one day only! April 22. If you are local and normally pick up your order anyway, then instead of free shipping I'll include free items with your order :)

Hmmm, guess it wasn't quite so short and sweet after all. But now that it's ready to be posted, I'm going to be turning my computer off again for the day and doing some spring cleaning with natural cleaning products that I'm making myself. Stay tuned for some recipes so you can also make some!

Sun Island Soap Almost Ready

My Sun Island Soap is almost ready for sale. This is the soap you want to use when you're head is all stuffed up from a cold. Scented with essential oils of eucalyptus, rosemary, benzoin resin and peppermint this will start to clear out the sinuses :)

This soap never looks the same from batch to batch. It's a bit finicky to work with, but it's a popular bar with my customers so I keep making it :)

Along with the essential oils listed above, it has wonderful oils such as lots of olive, coconut, palm, avocado and unrefined, fair-trade shea butter, and beeswax from a local apiary. I colour it with red clay. Sometimes it's a defined swirl, other times it's a layer. This batch it's all just kinda mixed in for a speckled pattern. This isn't the prettiest batch I've made, but it still works :)


These are stamped and just need to cure for another few days, then they'll be ready for sale. I'll have them up in my Etsy shop within a week or so. Once they're up, they're good to go :)

Happiness Thought of the Day:
"There is no greater happiness than going out of your way to do something for a good cause in which your part is only discovered by chance."

January GiveAway - Nova Scotia Beach Glass!

This lovely bracelet (which is actually a blue/green seafoam colour, not white) is being donated by Lori at Willow Black Lab (mostly beach glass supplies Lori and her black lab Willow find on their treasure hunting expeditions) / Nova Scotia Beach Glass (beautiful jewelry Lori designs and creates with the treasures she finds along the shores of Nova Scotia). This is what Lori told me about how she started collecting beach glass:
"Willow found me when she was only 4 weeks old and weighed in at a whoopping 3 lbs. So she started to travel to work with me and on my lunch hour we would head for the beach. I noticed broken glass and picked it up because I didn't want her to cut her paws or eat it. Then one day I found a perfectly smooth and frosty piece of cobalt blue . I was amazed and hooked on beach glass from then on. It's been over 5 years that I've hunted for seaglass and eachpiece I find still holds me in amazement just like the first piece."

The bracelet is 7.5 inches long , silver plated and has seafoam green beach glass.

All you have to do is go to either of her Etsy webshops (you can click on the links above) and make a comment below as to what your favourite piece is. On January 15th, I'll be making a random draw from all the people that commented for the winner of the bracelet :)

I've recently bought a few items from Lori. I've been experimenting with making jewelry pieces for over a year now, and thought I'd try my hand at using beach glass. I got the following items:
I'm really looking forward to playing with them to see what I come up with. I took a class last spring on wire-wrapping, and we used beach glass. We shall see what wire designs the above pieces call out for :)

And since this is my first post of 2009, I wish you all a Happy New Year! May 2009 bring you peace, happiness and prosperity :)

The Enfield Farmers Market is finished for the winter. Thank you to everybody in the community that came out and supported your local vendors! We'll be opening up again in June. For anybody that wants to order Clean & Bright products, you can see what I have available by going to my Etsy shop here. If you're local and want to arrange to pick up your order, feel free to place your order on Etsy and put a comment in the Message to Seller box that you'd like to pick it up. I'll let you know what the actual total is in Canadian funds since you won't have to pay for shipping. Also, I'm now available for home parties. If you'd like to host a home party please email me at cleanbright@eastlink.ca and I'll send you some information. I won't be doing very many home parties due to my knee injury. But I am up for doing 1-2 every month until my knee surgery is scheduled...

May your day be filled with sunshine :)

Etsy - Buy Handmade!

I've recently joined Etsy. It's an online shopping extravaganza (I'm sure I spelled that incorrectly!) where everything is handmade by the person selling it. I have bought several items there in the last few months and have been extremely pleased with everything so far. I now have a "shop" there, and have just opened one for my children to sell their bead creations on (although I haven't taken the time to get anything listed for them yet as I need some nice photos of them).

I have recently joined a team at Etsy called The Soaper Stars. This group is filled with extremely creative soapmakers, along with other creative goodies such as photographic prints, jewelry, etc. We have a blog which you can check out at http://soaperstars.blogspot.com/ There you will find links to the Etsy shops of all the Etsy Soaper Stars members, plus information on any sales, promotions, or charity drives we're doing.

Thanks!
Jody