The Elements of Supplies: Wholesale Bath & Body Supplies

As you may remember, I pledged to buy handmade this holiday season. For me, that pledge extends to purchases made throughout the year as well. This year I intend to go a step further to make my own gifts and goodies to pass out to friends and family and even to donate to charity. I'm interested in just about every craft there is, from quilting and knitting to candle making and baking, and it's my hope to get to try my hand at lots of different things and find a few things that I can really get into.

One craft I've only briefly considered is soap making. I love the idea of making your own soap and have used handmade soaps before. They are super luscious to use, smell amazing, and are so much better for your skin than over the counter soaps full of who knows what. But where do you start? I mean, if you want to make a batch to give as gifts, where do you get all the tins, tubs, and containers? Nothing is more frustrating that being excited to try something new but not knowing where to begin.

Fortunately, Elements Bath and Body has the answer. They are a family-owned and operated company that offers a wide variety of wholesale bath and body supplies, recipes, accessories, and bath and body packaging. They offer all you need to make and package your own homemade soaps, lip balms, body lotion, and bath salts. I'm already considering getting some of their chamomile, rose petals, or flax seeds to make neck and shoulder pillows! Or maybe I'll use their Rose-Milk Tub Tea recipe to make some fabulous baby shower gifts! Elements' cute muslin bags would be perfect! The possibilities are endless really. You should check them out too. Then come back and tell us all about what you're making!

breakfast for (little) champions

Christmas Craft Try #2

Now that I have all this felt leftover from last night's project, I'm on a mission to make some play food! After consulting numerous webpages all across the world, I'm now armed with my own homemade patterns and some fabric scissors. All I need is the right thread and I think I'll be on my way. Take a look at these awesome sites I ran across today. They are my inspiration!

felt food pictured is from no assembly required's Etsy store

A Different Kind of Odd by Lanna
Etsy's wonderful assortment of crafty folks
this Japanese site that's going to keep me busy for years

There's crocheted and knitted food too that I can't help drooling over. My friend Steph over at Adventures in Babywearing and And She Knits is an avid knitter and encouraged me with some good suggestions for how to get started. I also found some patterns for sale at Etsy. That's my project for 2008, to learn to knit and/or crochet a few (albeit, one-dimensional) toys like these here. I've even roped some local mamas into making some toys to donate next Christmas! We'll begin after the new year and I guess I'll be posting here about our progress. I'm so psyched!

Martha's way

Christmas Craft Try #1

I'm going to give this stocking craft by Martha a try tonight. My stepdaughter needs a sock craft for school tomorrow so I just bought a couple yards of white felt, some colored felt sheets, and a bit of fabric glue from the store. It looks simple enough for even me to do so we'll see what happens.

the Season for Giving

Now is the time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and how I'm living up to the values I say I believe in. For me, that means focusing on the birth of Christ and spending time with my family. To reinforce those ideas, my husband and I have agreed to forgo giving each other and the kids individual presents this year in favor of more family-oriented gifts. Even though last year we opted for arts and crafts gifts almost exclusively, which was nice, this year we will take it a bit further and buy only items that promote family activity and interaction and that we can enjoy all throughout the new year. I'm thinking things like board games and museum memberships. I've wanted memberships as gifts for years but it seems to have taken us a while to get here. Now that Zoë is 2 and understands everything we say and do, I feel much more compelled to get going in this direction than before. I don't want her to get in the habit of the Christmas "gimmes." No, we'll save birthdays for that!

We began our Season of Giving by cleaning out many of her old toys they weekend after Thanksgiving. I explained to her that Thanksgiving is for saying "thank you" to those we love and that we say thank you to God by giving all the "lonely" toys she doesn't play with to other kids without toys. And now I've been explaining to her that Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday. Whenever we see a Christmas tree with presents, I tell her those are for Baby Jesus and she bursts into the Happy Birthday song!

As for the rest of the family, the plan is to make gifts to give this year. That way we each have hands-on involvement in the making of others' gifts, which promotes the family bonding thing I'm working on. That's been the plan every year for a couple years but we always fall short, lose time, and end up buying a bunch of half-arsed stuff at the last minute. My biggest pet-peeve. But anyway, that's the plan. And like a lot of my plans, this one is lacking creativity & skill. I loathe tacky hand-made gifts and since Zoë is only two, tacky is about all she can make right now. I suppose my parents would love it anyway, but I still cringe at the thought. My husband will probably be making his world famous spaghetti sauce but I have nothing up my sleeve. My goal this week is to browse as many craft sites as possible and post about the ones I deem worthy of giving this year. Do you have an idea for me? Let me know!