SoapSight: Halloween

Can you believe it is already October!

Time for some crazy Halloween soaps ;-)

Rat tail soap by
Sunbasilgarden Soap

Bubbling Cauldron by
NewLeafSoap

Creepy Finger Soaps by
AbreathofFrenchAir

Spooky Eyeballs by
SoapmuchLove

Aren't they hilarious? I bet you can spook a lot of people with the fingers :-)

I love....silicones!

I'm still not able to get to my soapmaking stuff :-( It is going to take a couple of weeks more to get our attic ready.

In the meantime I still like spending money on items for making soap.
I'm always on the look out for funny molds, especially molds made from silicone. They are the best for soapmakers, because they are flexible and the hardened soap can be removed easily.

You can't have enough molds!! 

Yesterday I was at a store in Utrecht and I think I screamed ( or at least shrieked a bit) when I saw this Hello Kitty Cupcake mold.

I hope I can show you what the soaps look like in a couple of weeks!

ps: if you ever consider renovating your house, make sure your craft room is the first room finished!

Dreaming of....a craft room

Our new house has a garage, a BIG garage. We need to buy at least 2 extra cars to fill up the space ;-)
Or.....we can make it into an extra room. I would love to turn this space into a playroom/craftroom.

source

I imagine something similar. Big table in the middle of the room, toys and kids stuff on one side and my soapmaking stuff on the other side.

For now it just dreaming of it and my new mantra is: one day, one day, one day...

First we will:

• get a new kitchen
• get new stairs ( Ouch, budgetwise)
• get a new couch
• need to finish the boy;s Pirate room
• create a booknook in girl's room
• get curtains for our own bedroom
• etc etc etc
• ....

Soapsight: Gardener's Soap

I now have a big garden, which means I probably will need some good soap to get rid of all the dirt on my hands.

Surfing the net I found these great Gardener's Soaps

scented with Lemon
Naturesmuse 

Scrubbing with Rosemary and Mint leaves with grounded oats as a bonus
SmilingOtisStudios

Shredded loofah and apricot seed powder for scrubbing actionSuperiorBodyproducts

Want to make Gardener's soap yourself? Check out this great SoapQueen Tutorial

Skin Candy!

I love watching SoapQueen episodes on Youtube.

With this terrible weather we have in The Netherlands at the moment I could use some skin candy.
These Solid Sugar Soap Scrub would be perfect!

ooooh if only I could get to my soapmaking stuff. I have to be patient for two more weeks. Then the new attic and my craft room will be ready. Well ready... usable is the better word perhaps.

Soapsight: Birds

I moved to a little village recently and we now have a big backyard! So ever since we lived here I am waking up to a lot of birds singing and chatting away.

Bubblecitysoap

SakuraBathandBody

Momof7Monkeys

Aren't these soaps the cutest?

Hopefully I will be done with unpacking soon, so I can start making soap again.

Soapsight: Soap Dishes

To keep your soap nice and ready to go every time you want to use it, you will need a soapdish.

I love looking around on Etsy.com and besides soap there are a lot of great, beautiful soap dishes.

Very pretty birds

PrinceDesignUK

Nice wooden rectangle dish

FlatlandersSoapCo

I love the different colors of green

BPRDesigns

This would look amazing in my new kitchen with color scheme Grey, White and..Lemon!

Fruitflypie

Soapsight: Springtime

April 17th and all we have is rain, wind, rain and very hard wind :-(
It's time that we can enjoy spring!

To get in the mood I collected some soaps that Yell and Smell: Springtime!!!

LifeSoapSimple

DotandLil

SoapGarden

PureHeartSoap

Movie review - Contagion

No better time to watch Contagion than when you are sick ;-)

A thriller centered on the threat posed by a deadly disease and an international team of doctors contracted by the CDC to deal with the outbreak.
(imdb.com)


I really liked the movie, it's a fast movie and I always like it when main characters die ;-)
The movie shows the effect of a deadly virus and how actions to control it don't always work out.

Matt Damon plays a grieving husband and father and does everything to protect is other daughter from this virus.

After watching this movie I started washing my hands a lot. If you have neurotic tendencies, better not watch Contagion.

Dirty Laundry - Bath Cupcakes

Recently I discovered a very entertaining blog : Dirty Laundry.
Jeannee is supercreative and makes mini cupcake bath fizzies. Too cute.

I just had to order a few. Since I don't live anywhere near the States this must have been quit an adventure for the yummy goodies. But... they made it. Fairly quickly I might add. (Almost better service then the receiving of packages in the Netherlands itself)

Yes, cute delivery from the States! Open it, open it

oh no, 1 extra cute package to open before I see the cupcakes!

Cupcakes, relaxing sample and a sweet little note

They look and smell AMAZING!

aren't they the cutest?? off to bath!

I used the Morrocan Mint and it is really great. The cupcake is small, but it gave the whole bathtub a lovely aqua look, made the entire room smell o so nice and did some great fizzing in the first 10 minutes I was in the bathtub. When I finished my bath my body felt silky smooth. Yummy Yummy Yummy!

I will keep my Birthday Cupcake for a special occassion. The cupcakes have a reasonable price but since I'm overseas they cost me €6 a piece (including shipping costs) so I will order only for special treats to myself :-)

Watch out, Jeannee's blog is addicting

Bramble Berry S.O.A.P search

Ever since I started making MP soaps I relied on the expertise of SoapQueen aka Anne-Marie Faiola
Her blog and video's are a continuous source of inspiration for me.
This video was what made me a soap-addict and I still haven't beat the addiction yet. Well there is no Soapy's Anonymous in my neighborhood ;-)

My favorite product is the baby onesie mold ( rompertje). You can get so creative with it and it always is a big hit with the receiver of the soap. (and the grandma's and usually the daddies as well)

Ok, not so creative on my part yet :-) , but still very adorable

I would love to be in the S.O.A.P panel because I have a European nose which probably will be amazed with all the scents of American Fall. Scents we don't have over here and my nose is dying to smell some amazing new scents.

Soapsight: Red

I'm angry today, very angry! So this week's Soapsight is al about angry RED soaps

Devil Ducky made bij thePigandthePeacock

Rose Heart made by Joniprittie

Bloody Skulls made by Artistamuerta

Red Crystal made by Helewes

Soapsight: Grey

This week soaps that match the color of the weather today.
Again it's grey in the Netherlands
Luckily I found some amazing soaps in this color. Hopefully it will brighten up your day :-)

soap made by Karenssoap

soap made by Paintbox

soap made by SoapMooseBathCo

soap made by Sunbasilgarden

Aren't they amazing?!! I found them all on Etsy.com.

SoapSight: Pink

Browsing the web I see alot of pretty, pretty soaps. It's time to share. Every week I will choose a color and delight you guys with fantastic soap pics. Enjoy!

This week the color is PINK! Why, 'cause I'm a girl and just love, love pink

soap from Sunbasilgarden

soap from Pinkparchmentsoaps

soap from So Stinking Sweet

soap from Froosh Handmade Body Treats

True history of the Kelly gang, Peter Carey

In True History of the Kelly Gang, Kelly is writing a series of letters to his unborn daughter. In these letters, he attempts to explain why he first became an outlaw—because he had no choice, he says—and provide her with a true history because, he explains, he knows "what it is to be raised on lies and silences." His own father was an Irish convict, shipped along with his mother to Australia during the Great Transportation. The past has long been dead or silenced for the transported, as if the memory of what was left behind is too painful to talk about. Kelly himself is painfully aware of what that means for him and his culture: they are a people with no cultural memory, adrift, rootless, and left without any meaningful future.
Kelly's "letters" are urgent, raw, and largely unpunctuated, but they are vivid and uniquely written. He speaks the rough language of an Irish Australian and makes easy references to stories and myths that might be lost on a contemporary audience—or on the daughter whom he addresses—if Carey were not so careful to place them in context. Carey's decision to write Kelly's story in Kelly's voice gives readers an opportunity to understand the man behind the legend. ( source: e-notes.com)

At first I really loved the book ( after I got used to the language and tone of voice) It tells a great story of a boy born in unfortunate circumstances. Set in Australia the author describes the outback and in the way it is written you can feel the heat of australian summers.
After a while the story wasn't as compelling as it was in the beginning. It was more and more of the same and not really getting to an end. The end seemed rushed to me and didn't seem to fit into the story.

Unthinkable

Somewhere in the United States, three nuclear weapons are about to detonate. Younger (Michael Sheen) has hidden the devices and the authorities lead by FBI agent Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) with the help of H (Samuel L. Jackson), an interrogation specialist, must find them before time runs out. How far will they go to get the information they need and will they do the unthinkable?

Well, would you do the unthinkable? What is the unthinkable you might ask. It is truelly unthinkable. Before I saw this movie it had never ever ever crossed my mind that this was a way to stop terrorists or to get them talking. Awful and so intriguing.

It is not a actionpacked thriller, but it will keep you seated and most important, keeps you thinking about the world we live in nowadays.

Onder druk - David Baldacci ( Saving Faith)

Yes, another Baldacci book finished!
This one was not as good as I hoped it would be. Too much political blabla and too little blood, killings and suspense ;-)
Some nice twist, but you can see them coming 100 pages before it happens.

Faith Lockhart, lobbyist and reluctant government witness, is caught in a mess of interagency rivalries and shadow governments. Circumstances compel her to join forces with Lee Adams, an everyman PI with the right mix of skills and motivation to help. The story travels from Washington to North Carolina's Outer Banks as Faith and Lee avoid being captured by the bad (good) guys and killed by the bad (bad) guys. Complicating matters is super lobbyist Danny Buchanan, Faith's boss and mentor, who is cutting his own deals while watching out for Faith. Will FBI agent Brooke Reynolds believe them? Do you?

I read this one in Dutch. After I finished I discovered I have this book twice and had already read the other version years ago. It didn't leave much of an impression I guess.

Haar naam was Sarah / Elle s'appelait Sarah/ Sarah's key

I read the book first, which is a must read. I was so in awe with the book I just had to see the movie.
What a great movie it is. Sober, dark and you can't breath for 1,5 hours.

It is so unbelievable that the majority of this story really happened. The world has so many dark pages in history, but what happened during this war is so incomprehensible. Mothers seperated from their children for no reason.
The story about Sarah is a sad sad sad story, that unfortunately could easily have been a true story.
I cried my eyes out when the scene with the little brother was showed.

Our generation knows about the war, but what do we really know? This movie ( and the book) helped me understand more about the horrors human beings had to endure just because in the eyes of other human beings they were different.

In english this movie is called Sarah's Key

Absolute Power - David Baldacci

I'm a Baldacci addict. Before I start reading a new book I think : "let's read Tolstoy this time.", but I usually end up reading a Baldacci thriller. They are not too easy, not too difficult and with the amount set of twists and turns in the story.

Today I finished "Absolute Power"

In a heavily guarded mansion in a posh Virginia suburb, a man and a woman start to make love, trapping Luther Whitney, a career break-in artist, behind a secret wall. Then the passion turns deadly, and Luther is running into the night. Because what he has just seen is a brutal murder involving Alan Richmond, the president of the United States.

How far will the government go to protect the president?

Set in Washington, D.C., this fascinating thriller of unparalleled suspense dares to explore an unthinkable abuse of power and criminal conspiracy: a vicious murder involving the President and a cover-up orchestrated by his most trusted aides. One unlikely witness saw everything, but will America ever learn the truth?

There are a lot of characters that want some airtime in this novel. Luckily enough of them will dissapear or die during the novel, so you are left with only a handful of storylines to keep track of.

Very wel written and twists in the story at the right time.

This book had me literally gasp for air more then once.

I just found out that the book has been made into a movie ( already in 1997 with Clint Eastwood)

Hope that it is just as good as the book, but I noticed that they left the most important character from the book out of the movie???

pages:        549

language:   english

For all the moms out there

Mother Courage

It took me only two days to complete this book. Can you write a book full of humor when you're dying? The mom in this book could. My god what a life she had, that comes to halt way to soon.

In France she created a media frenzy, because she wanted to make sure her 4 childeren would stay with the same family after her death.
If you like true stories, this is a recommendation.

The power of a dying mother is more powerful than 10 tsunami's
Respect

De Kracht van een moeder (2009)

Van Marie-Laure Picat

Waargebeurde verhalen

208 pagina's

Het gevecht van een stervende moeder om een pleeggezin te vinden voor haar vier jonge kinderen. In de herfst van 2008 krijgt de Franse Marie-Laure Picat te horen dat ze kanker heeft, in de terminale fase. Haar eerste gedachte gaat uit naar haar kinderen: Julie van 11 jaar, Thibault, 9, Matthieu, 5, en Margot, 2 jaar oud. Wat zal er van hen terechtkomen? Marie-Laure wil dolgraag zelf een pleeggezin uitkiezen – maar stuit daarbij op een ondoordringbare, bureaucratische muur. Na haar dood zal niet zijzelf maar een rechter over het lot van haar kinderen beslissen. Geschokt door deze absurde situatie vraagt Marie-Laure de pers haar boodschap te verspreiden. Heel Frankrijk leeft mee en ze ontvangt meer steun dan ze ooit had durven hopen. Marie-Laure heeft dit boek in de eerste plaats voor haar kinderen geschreven, maar ook met de hoop dat de administratieve ketenen voor gezinnen in nood in de toekomst losser zullen worden.