The Rock House

Here is the view of the rock house from the garage.

We call it the "rock house" ...well because it is made of rocks.

This used to house tools and junk...and when I was little I found it very scary! Now all grown up and all cleaned out...its a pretty cool place.

It's main purpose though is to house the pump for the well but it still makes a great tool shed and just needs a new tin roof put on.

Unplanned Absence

Sorry to have just disappeared, but we had a crazy twist to our life as we end 2011. Wouldnt even begin to know where to start to explain, but short and sweet story is we have taken custody of a disabled family member, and as a bonus we "inherited" grandmas house.

I grew up in this house...my daughter grew up in this house. We were VERY close to grandma, my daughter called her Grandma Mommy all growing up... so this house is beyond special to us.

Unfortunately it wasnt cared for properly in the 4 years since grandmas passing, and so The Hubs and I have basically been gifted a project house....lets hope it isnt a money pit lol.

Here she is in all her green splendor! Cant tell you how many evenings we spent on that porch...we didnt get but 2 channels on the TV so back in the "good ol' days" we hung out on the porch rocking chairs until bed time.

The house was moved here waaaaay back when, that sure had to have been a sight to see an entire house moving down the road. Of course as a kid I never paid attention to the story, now as an adult I want to learn more, so I hope to find that out later on.

The house and garage sits on about an acre and a quarter, so plenty of space. The Hubs wants to make the 2 car garage you see there on the left...my soaping room...totally not going to fight him on that one!! LOL

Side view of the house...we will re-side with concrete siding in a couple years.

Not sure what was planned with these posts...but they are soon to be.... outta here!!

Back of the house, this door leads to Jenny's room which was added on at some point.

So...here is the house, we hope to restore it while keeping its old country charm...you wont believe what the inside looks like, I was shocked and saddened...but saving that for future posts...

Soap Mold Update

Slid out like a dream........

I am one happy camper!!! Thank you Al for ending a huge frustration for a fraction of the cost.

So in about 3 weeks these gorgeous creamy white fresh linen bars will be ready for sale. :)

New Mold

The Hubs has a special cousin that is fabulous in making things...like seriously fabulous...he should be selling some of his gorgeous items. He made my soap cutter which we use A LOT!

Lately we have been looking into molds. We currently use the molds The Hubs made me over 4 years ago...absolutely nothing wrong with them...except we have to line them. Coming up on 5 years with a larger production than our hobby stage...well its getting a little old. BUT...for the amount we need we are talking $1,000 buckeroos or so...well we are still too small for that cost just yet.

So dear sweet Cousin Al and his handy hands stepped in for a possible solution...look at the gorgeous mold he has fashioned for us to try out....


So here we fill in our first batch for a test drive...


No leaks...huge plus here....

He made these tops for bowing...but it didnt bow a bit...

So our first lil baby is in the oven...the true test will be at unmolding...if it doesnt stick...well Cousin Al best get to cranking more of these babies out for us...so cross your fingers and stay tuned.
(oh and the scent is Fresh Linen...we wanted a no frills scent to try out out, and this scent needs no colors)

Etsy Seller Spotlight - Jennie's Home Made Goods

I purchased a cat nip filled cat toy from Jennies. My cats are pretty picky about EVERYTHING, but I thought I would take a chance here since the lil pup always seems to get surprises and toys all the time. So I threw it on their bed.....

Hmmm...what is this?????

Charlie is the first to claim it....

Yum!

Simon says "my turn!"

Smells soooo good!!

Tastes good too....

Awww, I think Simon is in love!!

Charlie....

Hogging the water dish again. Mr Bills patiently waiting...again. :)

Diary of a Pumpkin Soap

We make pumpkin soap only once a year, in the Fall. It is a warm and yummy scent perfect for the season. We use real pumpkin puree and then add a pumpkin scent that makes it smell good enough to eat. (but we wouldnt recommend that!)

Pumpkin tends to make the soap heat very fast and quite hot, so it is one of the few soaps I do not insulate. After a couple hours I realized that maybe this soap is not going to go through the gel phase after all....but I made that thought to soon and within a matter of minutes this baby heated right on up and went into full gel....


The dark spot in the middle is the gel phase turning the soap translucent....

And soon the entire log is in full gel.

And in the morning we find it cooled off and back to its original look....

And here is our finished product....Pumpkin soap with a line of cocoa sprinkled in.

Spotlight on Neem Oil

Neem oil is a vegetable oil that is pressed from the Neem tree, which is an evergreen prevalent to the Indian subcontinent.

Raw Neem oil is well-known for its strong unpleasant odor, but aside from that it does have many positive attributes. Not only is it known to relieve and soothe dry and irritated skin, but it is also known to be antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and insecticidal.

Neem oil is great for use on acne, eczema and psoriasis. It isn’t a miracle remedy, but has shown to be very helpful with noted results. In addition, it is high in vitamin E giving it moisturizing qualities.

So how does Luster Canyon use it? We use it in one of our facial bar soaps, adding tea tree essential oil and activated charcoal to further compliment the bar.

To purchase a bar you can find them in our store in Prescott or online in our Etsy Shop.

A Dragonfly?

When I let the lil pup in last night a moth flew in....or so I thought...just look what flew in...


...and is flying about tormenting the furbabies....
(I love it when Charlie does his chattering)

No worries though, with the help of a box and a sheet of paper, the dragonfly was safely caught and returned outside where he belongs.

Jumbo Lip Balms Coming Soon

Now here is a gift for your favorite lip balmaholic!! Jumbo lip balms that are 3 times the size of our normal lip balms.

They contain over a half ounce of moisture for your lips...and well they just make me giggle! Plus they take me back to when I was a kid and had that jumbo bonnie bell soda flavored lip balm necklace...you know you remember those!

Our lips balms are made from scratch and contain avocado oil, cocoa butter and jojoba oil and feel wonderful on your lips.

They will sell for $5 each and I think they will make fabulous stocking stuffers.

Look for them to be listed soon.

ORANGE??? What Happened to my Pink??!!

Sometimes when you cut a log of soap you get little surprises...sometimes wanted, other times not.

Like this fabulously unplanned, perfectly defined, crescent moon floating in my heart instead of the usual planned swirly blobs....this is cool!

Cutting my planned gorgeous shade of pink soap to find orange.....sooooo not cool!!!

But hey in soapmaking land this happens. I was going to use pink clay but opted for my pink mica instead. I went a little light on the coloring, and my first thought was it too light to withstand the high heat gel phase, so it morphed into orange....but what I am sure happened is my sample raspberry mica pack was mislabeled and is actually strawberry pop mica, which is known to morph to orange. It is still a pretty soap, but not quite the look I wanted for my egyptian geranium essential oil soap.

I tried a couple of new (to me) techniques. One is the spoon swirl....Baby Girl and I hand spooned each glop here. Takes a bit of time, and I obviously need more practice. Also I did my first soap curls and added on top because I love this look for florals.

All in all I think the soap looks great, and of course it smells wonderful....not quite what I was going for but the beauty of soaping is the buyer doesnt know what my intentions are, just that they ended up with a fabulous bar of soap. :)

I Made Pineapple Upside Down Cake

OK...OK...so I cheated...I used a box. :)

But there was still assembling to be done. First off...the box does not come with pineapple or cherries, you have to get that separate. You melt butter and sprinkle the brown sugar around...makes quite a messy look....

Then I arranged the pineapple...I opted against the cherries.

Mix up the cake as normal with water, eggs and oil. Pour over the pineapples....I made sure I poured directly onto the pineapples until I created a base layer, otherwise the sugar was wanting to float to the top.

(I realized I spent time making sure I had the correct cake pan that had the lid that fit....forgetting that this cake doesnt stay in the pan....so a foiled cookie sheet to the rescue!!!)

Bake and turn out onto the pan....Look...One Piece!!!!!! Of course I needed Baby Girls help to flip as I was a bit unsure about it.

Pretty easy to make really, hope it tastes as good as it looks. :)

Big "Beefy" Bars...Coming Soon...

What is a Big "Beefy" Bar you ask? Well not only is it a bigger heftier bar of soap in comparison to our usual size....but it contains beef tallow as one of the oils.


Why beef tallow when vegan/vegetable soap is more popular? We like to offer a variety of products to suit everyones needs, and there are quite a few people who enjoy Beef Tallow in their soap. It does makes a nice bar of soap with a rich and creamy lather.

Here is a size comparison to one of our regular bars...



Coming soon we will offer a few Big "Beefy" Bars in a variety of scents....pictured is Green Tea Cucumber...

...And Gingered Apples.

First Time Broiling...

...and I think it went pretty well!!

I have never broiled before....well I think partially because it scares me a little bit....but I was making spaghetti and I realized I didnt buy any garlic bread...hmm how to improvise when your kitchen skills are....well pretty lacking??!!

I had some sandwich bread and this garlic festival brand garlic all purpose shake-on...



I also realized we were out of parmesan cheese....thank goodness we had some leftover packets from our last pizza run. I mixed some butter with the garlic powder, spread it on the bread and sprinkled my lil bit of parmesan...and...voila!!



I popped it into the oven on broil...you know how they say a watched pot never boils? Well I say a watched broiler never broils. I thought it would be much faster....but then me opening the door every few seconds probably didn't help it along.

All in all I think I did a pretty good job!! It was quite tasty!

Leftover Soap

When making soap sometimes I have some leftover "batter". I really hate wasting it into the garbage can, so I thought what would happen if I just chunked it all into a mold? So this weekend I made 4 different batches of soap. One of the batches filled the mold perfectly, but I had some leftover of the other three, not much in 2 of them, but enough to add some splash of color.

Here it is poured into the mold...


Here is the bottom side where you can see the different batches more clearly...

And here they are all cut up and ready to give away as samples. Perfect way to use up the leftovers without it going to waste.