Body Soap

Hi everyone, if you're a bit curious why it's been a little light around here every year the University shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Years so my husband is home and we're getting up to wild and crazy things.

Or we were planning on it right up until God thought the world would look a lot better buried under two feet of snow (you should see the pile from the Walmart parking lot though, I think we finally got some mountains in Nebraska).

Now that we've tried to take over Christmas and failed miserably we're back to planning next years Halloween.

There has been making jars for specimens (which are a few days from being complete so I'll show later, I promise) and ordering of lab coats (you can get anything off Amazon). Eventually we want to make some scary heads for static props (one a Dwarf, the other a science experiment gone wrong).

But in the mean time I've stumbled across a Halloween project my husband and I can work on together that's also entertaining year round.

You may remember back in October my husband had a crazy idea to make chocolate body parts. He got as far as sculpting the Liver and the Brain to make molds and then got derailed because cornstarch couldn't hold the details.
A google search and online purchase later and I found some amazing silicone putty that will create molds of whatever you want in less than a half hour.

And while reading through the list of just what all you can use this stuff for an idea popped into my head, what if for Halloween I make a little coffin shaped soap dish and put a bunch of organ and other body shaped good smelling soaps in it.

A soap making kit purchase later and here's the first test run of the four body parts we currently have.
There will be a lot more playing, a lot more figuring out colors and I was told of an awesome website for really cool fragrances so each body part can smell like something different.

The test runs actually smell pretty good right now but I've got wild/crazy ideas.

What do you think of mine and my hubbys body parts soap? You kinda have to get more into the Halloweeney mood, but it sure is fun.

A Very Merry UnChristmas to you

*Yawn*

Is Christmas over? Can we finally come out of our Hobbit Hole and explore the wide world?

After weighing the pluses and minuses and multiplication tables my husband and I decided for sanity's sake to just go to bed and not wake up til it was the Monday after Christmas and hope that the plows would have finally bothered to try clearing a path to the wide world.

So we all know what that makes today then.

A very merry unChristmas to you, to you
A very merry unChristmas to you, to you
We finally dug ourselves out
And only lost one shoe
A very merry unChristmas to you
A very merry unChristmas to us, to us
A very merry unChristmas to us
It's the best time to play games
With the rules we make no fuss
A very merry unChristmas to us
A very merry unChristmas to all, to all
A very merry unChristmas to all, to all
Lego Advent Says it's time
Lego Santa's having a ball
A very merry unChristmas
A very merry unChristmas
A very merry unChristmas to all

And I even got you all a Present. May I present the present in the present a cartoon courtesy of my husband always pronouncing one of them wrong.

Time to chase the White Rabbit. I just hope I don't run into Neo again, I really don't want to listen to a three hour monologue from Colonel Sanders again.

A surprising Christmas Present

While I was camped out on the couch with the puppy spread over as much of my lap as possible I got a little bored Christmas Eve and took to surfing a bit and checking out my Etsy shop.

I was confused at first because one of my paintings suddenly had a good 30 more hits than it did yesterday and this seemed very absurd because who goes online shopping on Christmas eve?

I checked Analytics but aside from the higher number nothing seemed out of the ordinary (it certainly wasn't high enough to be on Regretsy that's for sure). Then I thought, hm, what if I look at craftcult, a helpful place for any Etsy shop owners to see some quick stats, who hearts you and if you've been featured anywhere.

Usually I tend to ignore that last part as my stuff hasn't been featured on Etsy ever but low and behold late Christmas Eve as the fire was embering in the Chimney I discovered this:My Winter Scene scape painting was featured in the Merry Christmas article put out by the Etsy Admins.

To tell the honest truth I was really floored because I didn't think my painting was anything all that wonderful, I've certainly made more interesting trees before.

But it was a lovely Christmas surprise to find that something of mine had been shown to the Etsy community at large for once, even if it was a time when almost no one is going to be online except for snow trapped people and their snuggly puppies.

I was also wondering if you all wouldn't mind doing me a tiny little favor. And all you have to do is click a link.

I managed to make a Treasury devoted to One of a Kind items found on Etsy with a winter theme and in order for it to get a bit more exposure it just needs some new clicks over there to visit and maybe a few clicks on things that are inside it for sale.

That'll give it more exposure so more people will see it and maybe one of the pretty things I featured will be purchased.There's another row of goodies but you'll have to click on over to see (not because I'm trying to be evil, I'm just very lazy).

Thanks so much to everyone who clicks and Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, you're cabin bound

Merry Christmas Eve everyone or Happy Christmas for those across the pond (I have no idea why we dumped Happy in favor of Merry. Maybe Merry puts out more).

My husband and I were just getting ready to head up to my parents house, the first time I'd be back home for Christmas in four years and . . .
Like I said we'll just be getting ready to go . . .
I'll get the door and . . . Oh COME ON!
Yesterday the mother of all ice storms hit (okay so it wasn't that bad, we've had way worse hit here but I want to be all dramatic. It is the season for over reacting after all) covering everything in a fine layer of ice.

Which made for some gorgeous tree pictures.
But has left my husband, puppy and I stranded here for Christmas.
Luckily we snapped into action fast yesterday and before everything froze on the roads we made a mad dash to the grocery story and got a nice roast and some other Christmas Eve Dinner fixin's so we wouldn't have to survive off week old leftovers.

Sadly since we had been planning on not being here at all we thought it'd be easier to open our gifts up much earlier at home so now there will be no presents on Christmas (but we can play with them before at least. I think I'll stick my Transformer into my Easy Bake Oven and see what happens).

So to help us get more into the Christmas Mood (and for anyone else that's housebound thanks to Mother Nature) here are some pictures of Essie opening up her gifts. She wasn't so sure about it all at first.
"You want me to do WHAT with it?"

So we tried to get it started for her.
"You will give me whatever you have in your hand now. Feed the Puppy! Feed the Puppy!"
Eventually she started to figure it out on her own.

And got a little demanding about her Stocking.
Though once she got enough of the ducks head out she took to just carrying that around with the wrapping still on.
She by far got the best score with two new toys, two bones, a box of milk bones and a set of treats along with a new toy from my In-Laws. Though sadly she's already bored of them all and is back to annoying the hell out of us with her yellow ball.

Puppies.

Merry Christmas to anyone still out there in blog land.

I'll probably be around more than I have for a Christmas Season in a long time just so we don't all go crazy and try our own re-enactment of that Stephen King Classic about cabin fever: The Green Mile.

Oh no, my spleen!

As some of you know I am on this twittery thing and occasionally I start a little game here and there to help pass the time.

Your "Dumbest Horror Movie" or say your "Bad Car Names," that may capture the joy and imagination of some corner of the twitter universe (Dumbest Horror Movie got so popular in fact Diablo Cody even chimed in a few times).

Yesterday one of my twitter buds had her son at her job, bored out of his mind so he took to drawing her some awesome pictures which she shared on the Tritter thing.

I found one of them so hilarious I started my own hashtag game based off it called #ohnomyspleen.

It's pretty easy to play, just start a sentence and end it with #ohnomyspleen.

Like:

Friends, Romans, Country men lend me your #ohnomyspleen

It's Shake 'n' Bake and I #ohnomyspleen

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack frost nipping at your #ohnomyspleen

Or the one to start it all:

Just as I was going to sign the Magna Carta #ohnomyspleen

I wanted to share because she actually wrote a blog post about the good times had by all yesterday and also to prove that I don't just make up everything I claim here in my head (I'm not quite that crazy yet, we'll see after the holidays).

So go and check it out, especially if you want to see the drawing that started it all.

I'll just be on twitter trying to start another phenomenon. I'm trying to get #ninjapuppy to stick but so far no dice: