Soap--The Finished Product

So here's the oatmeal/cinnamon leaf soap that was my first batch ever (not the best picture, apologies. I've gotta work on setting up a decent space to shoot my work).

The soap turned out great though! I had to wait 3 weeks for it to cure, so I just got around to testing it out a week or so ago. The oatmeal is gently exfoliating and it has a really nice subtle smell--really clean. Everybody who's taken a look at it/taken some/used it says they like it and the smell, etc. So I think it was a success (other than getting it stuck in the mold and having to pry it out painstakingly...which can be easily remedied next time). But yeah. I'm getting an order together for supplies and should be making some new batches soonish! Cucumber soap is definitely next and after that--not sure. Lavendar maybe? Guess we'll see.

In other news, I think i've found a place to sell my books in town so I'm gonna try to make about 10 (in a fairly short amount of time) and take them up there to see if the store owner is interested. I also got a commission to make a day planner for someone--it's going well but laying that thing out takes me back to my grahpic design class days ::shudder::. Half of it's done though and I plan on getting the rest of the layout done today.

Behold--COLORS!

When we moved into the house it kind of felt like a wood paneled cave (the whole house was paneled like this)...
So we asked the realty company if we could paint and were surprised when they agreed that we could. Paneling? Not the easiest thing to paint over. But the roommates and I got through 7 rooms (kitchen, living room, studio, 2 bedrooms bathroom and hallway) in 5 days. We figured it'd take at least a month...but we're kind of awesome, so it didn't take long at all, hah.
So here's a glimpse of what the house looks like now:

so most of the house is a light gray/blue. Brandon, the man of the house, opted not to paint his room as pretty colors make no difference to him, really; so my room is a mint green (which looks gray due to my sucky camera) and Michael's is a light olive-y green. The studio was an awesome purple color (which even Brandon liked) but the landlord freaked about it and made us paint it a more boring color. So grey it is! We discovered all the exterior doors and windows used to be a bright green and the cabinents were all a 70's orange, hah. This house definitely has a lot of history, so it would seem. It's starting to feel more like home though and the paint's definitely helping that feeling.

Fire!

With fall drawing nigh...and a stack of firewood left by the previous tenants--I just kept thinking how AWESOME it would be to have a fire pit in the backyard. I continued to think about this as I was riding my bike the other day after work, enjoying the mountain air. My thought pattern went a little something like this, as I recall: Fall is definitely close at hand. I had noticed a construction sight near the place where I parked my car...and that construction sight had a lot of good rocks. We need to have a bunch friends over to hang out soon, you know, it's so nice to sit around a warm fire and enjoy the company of said friends. And man, those rocks would be the PERFECT size for building up the wall of a fire pit. And the backyard wouldn't look so horribly empty if there was something in the middle of it...like a fire pit....

This lead to me getting a bunch of rocks and beginning to dig the fire pit as soon as I got home.

However, I definitely didn't get enough rocks. So the next day after work I went back....with a box. And filled it. And having Wednesday off work, I dug out the rest of the pit and built up a nice little rock wall around it, called up some friends later that night and we spent a good few hours hanging out, laughing, roasting marshmallows and what not....

At any rate--I don't know if building a fire pit counts as an art or a craft (Brandon assured me it counted as an earth work..."well, sort of...") but I must say, at the end of the day I was proud of my work and I think it's definitely a great addition to the yard and can't wait for cooler weather and more good times hanging out with friends around the fire.