Have you tried...

At Spark last fall, one of our classes was on felting soap.  Totally random.  It was also probably the class I did the worst at.   P.S. that is supposed to be a flower on top.  I know...

The technique basically involves taking this super-fine wool and wrapping it over and over again around a bar of soap using nothing but your hands and a basin of water.  It sounds easy but it was kind of a pain because just as I would get it in place, it would start to unravel and I would have to start over.  But my hands got really clean.  Which was probably a good thing considering I did a lot of painting and mixed media that weekend.

Anyway, I tossed it in my bin of soaps and such and kind of forgot about it until a few weeks ago.  I decided that I would never give it away and it was just sitting there...so I figured what the heck and started using it myself.

Supposedly the wool is supposed to act as a natural exfoliant or something, but to be honest I can't really tell a difference and, although it lathered extremely well at Spark while I was making the darn thing, it hardly lathers at all when I really need it to :)

So my review: skip the felted soap and pick up a loofah instead.

Moving In

I may or may have not mentioned that my Awesome hubby built a pretty neat room for me.  The recent birth of our little boy necessitated turning my previous hobby room into a nursery (at no complaint, seriously.)  I just planned on waiting until we finished our basement and doing my projects in the kitchen or something.  The husband said he would finish a room for me.  Like I said, my hubby is Awesome.  Here is what remained of my old room.

Right now my new room it is literally just a holding room.  After we moved into our new house I didn't really take a lot of time to sort things out; I just threw everything together for the time being.  This time I am taking advantage of (what I hope is) a final move to my craft cave.  I sorted everything into 4 piles: general craft, scrapbooking, sewing, and tools.  I emptied everything and was left with a fifth pile: storage and organization.  This is literally going to take me my entire maternity leave just to go throught all of this stuff (how on earth did I collect so many things?!?!)

This is how you occupy the attention of an almost 3-year old while you work.

We kept the same color scheme as the rest of our home, but I finally got wood floors!  You have no idea how hard it is to find things I drop in carpet.  And I drop a lot of things.

Here is the future concept for the room.  My husband is going to build a built-in desk that wraps around 2 sides of the room.  On the blank wall (right) I suppose we'll put some kind of couch or seating.  Underneath the large desk shelf will go filing cabinets and more storage drawers.  My favorite part of the room?  The drop down desk for our kids to play/craft at.  My second favorite part?  A permanent area for my sewing machine.  As it is now, I am constantly getting it out every time I need it and I think this stops me from using it as much as I want to.  And next to that will be an office for our family to share.

I am so excited to watch this project come together.  I'll post progress on this blog!