Santiago Botero - In the Book of Colombian Culture

...my spread in Rhanes book

A new round for the Cultural Book on Altered Art Europe

soap tray

....now cut to the final size....;-)
It still needs to be leaft alone for four weeks until it is finished and I can test it. I keep you informend...;-)

handmade soap

Coconut Cream Soap

I have been really hot on making my own soap ever since I got a new book about soapmaking. However there was allways something to make me do something else. But today was the day...yeah!! I made my first own handmade soap!!

Of course I was soooo curious that I had to take a look after just a couple of hours....this ist what it looks like...;-)

Sunflower Calendula Soap

surprise in the mail

this week i gor some lovely surprises in the mail:
one ATC from Fiona from New Zealand....that was a little trade...;-)
one RAK ATC from Anette from Sweden...Wonderful!
and two postcards from Friedericke for taking part at the naming contest
Thank you all for the lovely surprises!!!

extreme distress - distressing with a thunderstorm

....it is really hot here in Berlin at the moment, but then we often have thunderstorms, too. Today it hit me like a flash of lightning ( pun intended!) who I would like to distress my book: in the thunderstorm!!! my kids were really happy about helping me and we had lots of fun exposing my book to the water!!! It is standing outside now, but on our balcony and I will leve it there until it will get try. Hopefully the heat will get to the pages and take its toll, too!!! We will see....!!!

To learn more about this project, please go to the "la casa de papel" blog!!

tea cup swap

tea cup swap
Originally uploaded by huana - (Anke from Anart Island).

...this swap package finally found its way to me...I have been waiting for a loooong time for it and I have been really desperate, since a lot of the swaps I have done lately seam just to disapeare and I will have to think if I can do more swaps. They are lovely, but very costly , especially the postage from Germany anywere else has been rediculusly high after they have changed postage again!!!

..... where has my time gone???

I have not been posting anything on my blog the last couple of days. My time just flew by and I had no time for anything!!! It is the last week at my kids schools and there are a lot of extra activities and I keept on runing back and forth to get everything done.... From wednesday on the will be on holidays for real.....
I think I will take a summer break from blogging for the school holidays and only write when I can manage to and Free Friday will take a break, too!
!
I did arrange some new things during this week, though....you know me, I just cant go without that!!! I opened up a new blog for the "La casa de papel - extreme distress" project for AlteredArtEurope , my yahoogroup, and I have to say that I am very pleased with it sofar!!! Go and have a look here. I will write more about my book love later on...;-) and about my ideas for distressing the book I have chosen.

Aloe soap makro
Originally uploaded by macsoapy.

Another thing I found this week is: SOAP!!! I had ordered a new craft book at amazon and it arrived last weekend. It is called "handmade soap" by Melissa Coss. The pictures are heavenly and I just read through it like that. I had made my own shampoos and washing lotions some while back, but the shop were I bought the ingredience closed down. I kind of stopped doing it after the close down. They opend again on a much smaller base now, but I did not really get back to make my own cosmetics again. Some years back on a trip to England I had discoverded "Lush" and completly fell in love with their way of making soap....and after some time they also opened a shop in Berlin!!! Lucky me I thought at first, but they have very costly soaps so this had to be a very rear treat for me. But you can belive that I was completly in heaven when I got the book about handmade soaps and realized I could make my own soaps, just like the ones I so much adored and maybe even better ones!! I surfed the net a bit and found two very good site in German!!! That is very rare and it is very hand, becaus sometimes it is quite hart to find all the proper translations and the sources of were to get the things you want. Especially if you only have the English words...!!! Sometimes it took me quite a while to figure out what exactly the German word is for some crafty equipments! I do not want to hid these wonderful site so here are the links: one is called Naturseife ( Natural Soap) by Claudia Kasper and the other one is the Forum von Naturseife ( messageboard of Naturseife). I will let you know about my first soaps once they are made...;-)

Oh and there is one other thing I must tell you: my friend Shakti is praising me on her wonderful inspiring blog!!!Here and here...I do not want to repeat it, so please go and have a look for yourself!!! ;-)