COUPON CODE FOR 10% OFF TODAY ONLY, (Cybermonday10)
COUPON CODE FOR 10% OFF TODAY ONLY (Cybermonday10)
Free delivery in the city of Paducah, KY. Send me a message through Etsy before you order and I’ll wave your shipping fees.
CYBER MONDAY SPECIAL
Happy Thanksgiving
| What is your family’s favorite dish? We usually have two Thanksgiving Dinners and this dish is a favorite at both.
Sweet Potato Souffle Set oven to 350 3 Cups Cooked Mashed Sweet Potatoes 1/2 Cup Orange Juice 1/2 Cup Milk 2 tsp Vanilla Extract 2 Eggs 1 tsp Cinnamon 1/2 tsp Fresh Ground Nutmeg 3 TBSP Applesauce 1/4 C Sugar 1/4 C Real Maple Syrup 1/2 C Brown Sugar 1/3 C All Purpose Flour 1 C Chopped Pecans Grease a baking dish. In a mixing bowl combine sweet potatoes, maple syrup, orange juice, milk, eggs, vanilla, sugar, 1 T butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, applesauce, Beat until fluffy and pour into prepare dish. Mix butter, brown sugar, flour and chopped pecans, Sprinkle mixture over the potatoes. Bake @ 350 for 35 mins Serves 6, so for me that means I multiply it by 5 or 6 Wishing you and your family a wonderful holiday of sharing and caring. THANKSGIVING DAY SPECIALS COUPONS OF THE WEEK · COUPONS · FREE GIFT BAG with each item purchased · Help us give back this season Thursday, November 27th, we will be offering 20% off, your total order all day Thanksgiving day. If you spend $50.00 or more a $5.00 coupon will be generated and emailed to you. So you can use it for your next purchase. Coupon code for Thursday, November 27th only. (Turkey20). https://www.etsy.com/shop/BaierBodyBoutique Black Friday thru Sunday November 28-30th 10% off your total order. Coupon code (Blackfriday10) Cyber Monday, December 1, 2014. We will offer FREE SHIPPINGon orders over $50.00. Coupon code (Freeshipping50). * Free gift bag with tissue paper for each item purchased. * Free local delivery in the city limits of Paducah, KY just send me a convo on Etsy and I’ll send you the free shipping code. * We will be donating 1 item for each item purchased to Merryman House, Domestic Crisis Center in Paducah, KY this holiday season.
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Life style of the not so rich and famous
Life style of the not so rich and famous
As I sit here at 4:30 a.m. thinking, “I’m not tired.” why waste my time trying to go back to sleep? I could probably give you 100 reasons before my alarm goes off in a couple of hours, but just not now.
When you work outside the home you can commiserate with your co-workers on what a terrible night of sleep you had. So you can ask them to excuse you for being a little grumpy. When you work for yourself and by yourself, there is no one there to tell your sorrows too (or, so it feels). I have a wonderful support team outside of my four walls, part of my support is with other soaping business owners. My main source of support comes with this amazing group of people (mostly women) I’ve met through Indie Business. So, I’ll be whining about my lack of sleep with them later.
There are so many things that can play a part in one’s role of not getting sleep. I’ll give you a few of mine right now.
- There are responsibilities that I have to cover before I go on vacation next week. (My hubby of 32 yrs and I are going away for two weeks.) Even though our adult children are home from college and will stay and hold down the fort. I still have to start the mile long list of things they need to cover while we are gone.
- It’s the lovely steroid therapy my physician has me on for the treatment of my arthritis.
- Everything I need to get done for my business before I leave for two weeks and get things in order so I can get production going again when I get back.
Not getting the basic things in life like sleep can start you on a downward spiral on how you might act and feel. I won’t be happy with myself that I didn’t try to go back to sleep when that alarm goes off. I might eat a less healthy breakfast just because I’m tired. There’s a good chance I could use it for a reason NOT to get on the treadmill later this morning. So now comes the self-loathing of not doing the things you know you should do, but don’t; because you can’t muster the energy it takes, due to that lack of sleep. So now this little thing, not sleeping has now become its own monster. Lack of sleep causes mood changes, loss of energy, possibly eating poorly and not exercising. All of those things also compound the lack of energy (not a very happy camper). As I’ve gotten older things like these really stick out to me. It doesn’t mean that I can’t always change them. I could go on and connect the dots even further, but I think you got the picture. Besides, I feel really tired right now.
As I mentioned earlier I’ll be going on vacation for two weeks and this means I’ll will be closing my business for three weeks. That means May 8th is the last day I will be taking orders (they will be shipped by the 13th), through May 27. I will still receive a notification if you message me through Etsy. I will also be taking a ton of pictures to share with you here. If I still used a normal camera I would probably take 200 pictures or so. Instead, I will use my digital (like most people do now days) which means I’ll have probably 1000 pictures or more to look through, edit and share with you all.
Don’t hate me because I’m not beautiful
I was excited to make this new batch of Goats Milk Soap and use all the bright colors my son had picked out. I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I was when the soap went into accelerated trace. It set me into panic mode. Right before my eyes the liquid mixture of melted oils, goats milk and sodium hydroxide (lye), went from a form of light trace (like melted ice cream) to almost seized soap (like play dough). As you can see in some of the pictures there are some cool designs that show up. Also there is a weird color in there it’s not grey, purple or really lavender. It supposed to be a deep purple but the goats milk likes to play with purple for some reason and it’s always a surprise when it comes out of the mold.
So the plans of making beautiful designs with these bright colors turned into hurry get them in the mold and smash them together. Now this doesn’t change the fact that it’s a super fat goats milk soap. It will still work the same, beautiful creamy lather that gives a luxury treatment to your skin.
Because it’s one of a kind in style shape and size, I’ve decided to name it “Goats Milk Couture” scented with Lavender and Palmarosa EO and FO.
I will be offering this soap at a special price when it ready the last week of May.
Don’t hate me because I’m not beautiful.
DATES TO REMEMBER:
Here are a few dates you’ll want to keep in mind for the next 2 months. I will be closing my shop for vacation starting May 8th, that means I will take orders up until that day and have them shipped out by May 12th. Then I will re-open again on May 27th. This way you will be able to order for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Vacation dates: May 8 – 27, 2014
Here is a coupon code you can use at my Etsy site for 10% off your total order. “Blog10”
Some of my favorite things
Some of my favorite things in life are priceless to me.
One of my most favorite things to do is cook and nothing says “YUM” better than a BBQ. Even though I couldn’t go outside to enjoy some time with my husband (due to allergies) while he grilled some chicken with my homemade BBQ sauce. That still didn’t stop me from making my sauce and dreaming of the lighter pollen weather. When I can sit outside on our patio enjoying the music, beautiful plants and the fish in the pond. You can find us outside almost every night during the warmer months.
I thought I would share with you my recipe for my BBQ sauce that I make during the spring and summer months. I always make extra to freeze for quick use during the busy summer nights.
2-3 Tbsp Olive Oil 3 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 Med-Large Sweet Onions, chopped 1 can of Beer if works best if it’s not a light
4 Large Cloves Garlic chopped 1/2 c Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
45 oz or 3 med cans of Tomato Sauce 1-2 tsp Sea Salt
1 1/2 packed Brown Sugar (adjust to your personal taste) 1/2 tsp Dry Mustard
3/4 c White Vinegar
Cook onions until tender add garlic and cook another 5-7 minutes. Then add Tomato Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, Vinegar, Brown Sugar, Chili Powder, Sea Salt, Dry Mustard and lastly the Beer. I use a 5 qt dutch oven to fix my sauce in. This gives me enough room so when I add my Beer it will bubble up some with plenty of room to spare. I turn this down on low and stir it every 15 mins or so and that depends on your cook top. Let it cook for 1.5-2 hrs, it will turn a beautiful deep red. This makes a great sauce that really clings to your meat. It works on chicken, beef, pork and turkey, sometimes I’ll use it in and on my meatloaf instead ketchup.
Take the extra sauce and freeze it, you’ll be glad you did.
I’m working on a limited addition of women’s shaving soaps for Mother’s Day. I took this photo just for my blog, I’ll have them listed this week on etsy.
Here are a few dates you’ll want to keep in mind for the next 2 months. I will be closing my shop for vacation starting May 8th, that means I will take orders up until that day and have them shipped out by May 12th. Then I will re-open again on May 27th. This way you will be able to order for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Vacation dates: May 8 – 27, 2014.
Enter coupon code “Blog10” and get 10% of your total order.
Influence by the Seasons
How much do the seasons influence your life? Depending on where you live it can change drastically from season to season. Growing up in Michigan I was use to 4 distinct seasons, my favorite being Fall and then Spring.
For me the seasons influence almost every aspect of my life, including the creativity I have for my business and the products I create. I don’t think there is a person in the USA that isn’t really longing for the warmer weather that comes with Spring. I’ve been going around my yard looking for signs of life and taking pictures of what I could find.
My newest creation to my lotion bars was influenced by the longing for Spring time. I used colorful organza bags that I thought matched the scent of the bar. For one of my dearest friends and loyal customers Grace B., I created a Cucumber Melon lotion bar with a bright green bag. The scent is bright and light very uplifting.
Cucumber Melon Lotion Bar
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BaierBodyBoutique
The other Spring inspired scent was lavender, I love lavender. I created a lotion bar with Lavender Essential Oil and of course the color matching the scent was you guessed it lavender organza bag. This is amazing to use at night before you go to bed. For me lavender is such a relaxing scent. I find the scent that relaxes a person is very individualized.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BaierBodyBoutique
I also created a lotion stix for those who wanted to moisturize on the run. It’s twice the size of my regular lotion bars. It’s the most requested scent of a relaxing mix of essential and fragrance oils of Spearmint and Eucalyptus in my lotion bars.
Spring cleaning isn’t just for indoors
Spring is time to start a new. This weekend my husband and I started on Spring cleaning in our back yard. We practically live outside, weather permitting. My husband has already taken the cover off the pool, I think this is the earliest it’s ever been removed. I would have to say a lot of that had to do with the long and cold winter we had this year.
I got my herb garden beds cleaned up and realized that my 5 year old Rosemary plants died due to the harsh winter weather. They were more like bushes than plants. It’s always sad for me when I lose a plant that I’ve had for so long.
So, now I’ll have to decide which herbs I will grow from seed and which herbs I’ll buy as seedlings. There are a few herbs that will not last all summer. Depending on how much you use an herb like Cilantro, you might want to plant a row every few weeks so you’ll have some all through the warm summer months.
The herbs I like to plant every Spring after the last frost are:
Basil: Spicy Bush, Sweet, Purple Ruffles and Sweet Thia,
Parsley: Flat and Curly Leaf
Rosemary
*Thyme: regular and Lemon (which survived the winter)
*Oregano (also survived the winter)
Dill, what I don’t use I dry and put in air tight container and freeze
*Chives, they come back every year without fail
Cilantro, I pant seeds about 3 weeks apart so I’ll have some all summer
Mint, Always plant in containers off the ground unless you want it to take over everything.
*Echinacea, once you plant them they will come back every year.
Sage
Lemon Balm
Chamomile
*Lavender, (many different verities)
Pot Marigold
Cat Nip
*These are the herbs that return every year.
Since we live within the city limits, we don’t have endless amounts of land to use. Being creative where to plant my herbs is part of the fun. I use a lot of my herbs as part of my patio plant arrangements for decorations. Over the years I’ve learn to be very creative with what space we’ve had. I have always had herb gardens, even when we lived in NYC. I still had all my herbs and basic garden plants, I just used containers.
Trying Something New is an Enlightening Experience
I love trying new things the hardest part is finding the time to do so. There are few things I don’t care to try, like skydiving. I’m always game to try new recipes. Being a military wife for 24 years we were exposed to many different cultures and foods. We even belonged to an Officer’s Wives International Gourmet cooking club in NYC. That was a fun learning experience, we took turns hosting dinners in our own homes. Each time we would have to cook traditional dishes of a region we were given.
Lately I’ve been seeing some of my soapy friends posting pictures of a Vietnamese Soup called Pho. I took a little artistic liberty if you will yesterday when I made it for dinner.
So here’s to trying something new:
I used Pinterest to get the basic recipe and adjusted it for my husband and I. I usually use Pinterest or Foodgawker to try and get a recipe that is pretty authentic. They may not be 100% but you usually can find something that you can adjust to what your family will be adventurous to try.
In the spirit of trying something new, I’m going to offer 15% off until 3-1-2014. So try something new or buy some of your favorites from Baier Body Boutique and receive 15% your total order.
Coupon code “trysomethingnew15”
Picture of our Pho last night.
- 8 cups chicken stock (store bought or homemade)
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breast
- ½ onion
- 1 3-inch chunk of ginger
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 to 2 Tbs fish sauce
- 8 oz Pho noodles, prepared according to package
- 2 cups bean sprouts, washed and tails pinched off (I used water chestnuts instead)
- Fresh cilantro
- ½ cup shaved onion
- ½ lime, cut into wedges
- Sriracha chili sauce
- Hoisin sauce
- Sliced fresh chili peppers
To make the Broth: Place onion and ginger under the broil to char it. Broil for about 10 minutes, or until the skin of the onion is dark and the ginger is soft. Peel the onion. Peel the ginger and cut it into several chunks.
In a large pot, add ginger, onion, stock, chicken, sugar, and fish sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 20 minutes, skimming occasionally. Remove chicken and shred with your fingers or with two forks. Strain the broth and discard the solids. Diving chicken and noodles into bowls and ladle the broth over them.
Serve the remaining ingredients at the table, so each diner can customize their own bowl.
Love of Lavender
I thought I would show you a few things that go into making a small batch of shaving soap. This batch I’m making is Lavender Oatmeal Shaving Soap.
The book on the bottom right is a very large binder with labels of all my different products I make.
So I start with collecting all the ingredients I need for the batch I’m making. I measure and weight everything out before I start.
Here in these pictures you see clay, oatmeal, colors, oils and EO of Lavender. You also can see a couple of my tools I can’t do without no matter what soap I make. One is my spray bottle of alcohol and my mini mixer, I’m lost without them. Without these tools my oils and dry ingredients just wouldn’t mix properly for me.
So, here we have the base getting prepped for the oils, colors and dry ingredients. The last photo on the bottom right I had added the oils to the base, the oils were much cooler.
So everything is all together and now we stir and stir and stir. I find if my kitchen is very cool it takes a lot more stirring.
Here is my handy dandy alcohol spray bottle. A little sprits to check if I need to stir some more and a little more stirring and we are ready to pour. Now I tried to pour and take a picture at the same time, what was I thinking? I over poured a couple of soaps.
Now it’s time to clean up my mess and wait for the soap to set up.
Here it is the Lavender Oatmeal Shaving Soap. I have to finish wrapping the rest and get them ready to ship out on Monday.
Fifty Shades of Grey inspired me
Fifty Shades of Grey and what it has to do with soap.
When I tell people why I read Fifty Shades of Grey, I would say 99% don’t believe me. I really didn’t know much about the first book much less the trilogy. I had heard a few things on a couple of morning talk shows and that was about it. I normally don’t read for entertainment, mostly education for my business. Having dyslexia really takes the joy out of reading for me.
So, it was just before New Year’s 2012. I came down with pneumonia and ended up in the hospital for a week. Needless to say when I went home I wasn’t allowed to do much at all. I needed to work, but how I’ll go crazy just sitting. The way I felt; no soap was being made for a while. Ok, I can do research. So I looked to see what’s trending. You guessed it, The Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy. I thought if I could find out what Christian Grey’s favorite scent was, or how his scent was described by Ana. This would be my new scent for men’s soap and shaving soap. So I ordered the trilogy from Amazon.
When I got the books in the mail, I couldn’t wait to start my research. So after I opened them the first thing I had to do was defend my purchase. My adult children wanted to know why I bought “mommy porn”, as they called it. I just had to laugh, because not much really phases me.
I opened the first book and started scanning for the name of herbs or scents. I looked and looked and nothing was standing out, so I had no other choice than to start reading them. I must say E. L. James did a fantastic job painting a picture for me on the very first page. I was hooked. You wanted to know what was going to happen to Ana.
Now I’ve heard it all. About the different titles people have given these books. Let me just say, you can’t judge a book by its cover or the rumors. First and foremost there is a very heartbreaking story about this little boy who was abused as a very young child before he was adopted. Like a phoenix he rose from the ashes and became a very successful businessman. Like most highly demanding jobs he needed a way to relax. He wasn’t a heavy drinker nor did he do drugs. He liked kinky sex and only on the weekends until he met Ana, the sweet innocent soon to be college graduate.
Christian came across as a hard nose person, but he had a very caring and warm heart. He felt a need to take great care of the people around him. Christian had a huge philanthropic heart when it came to world hunger.
Never in my life have I re-read a book, other than my law books. I never really found anything that really described his scent. But that didn’t stop me, I was on a mission.
I have come up with a men’s Shaving Soap and Shaving Soap Kit named Fifty Shades. It’s a clean and sexy scent with a hint of amber. It’s intoxicating without being overwhelming.
Men’s Shaving Soap
Men’s Shaving Soap Kit
P.S. I’m a huge fan of E.L. James and I can’t wait for the movie to come out in 2015.
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