I love juicing vegetables. I am fully addicted to it and love how I feel when I start my morning with a big glass of veggie juice. Whenever I juice though, I’m left with all the fibrous pulp from the vegetables and I hate throwing it out. My friend Jody Bergsma taught me how to make “Raw Crackers.” There are a lot of different types of recipes on the internet to make raw crackers. The reason I like this one is because it gives me something to do with the veggie pulp. [Read more…]
Archives for January 2012
Craxy Week 2: Recap
Crazy Sexy Diet, 21 Day Cleanse: Week 2
Jamisen and I are juicing. He loves it!
Craxy Week in Review
Can you believe that we are almost three quarters of the way through our journey? Eight more days to go and I hope you all are feeling as revved as I am. This week has been GREAT! I can’t believe we have over 50 participants involved in the cleanse now. It has been amazing to hear inspirational and encouraging words from all of you. Here in the BB office, we are all feeling happier, more energetic and even slimmer. Weight loss is one of the lovely side effects to our nutrition reboot. It’s almost impossible NOT to lose weight when you cut out sugar, alcohol, dairy and gluten (wheat). Though we are on our “cleanse high” we do have to keep our long term goals in mind. I would really love to hear some of your plans, tips and goals for after the 21 days. [Read more…]
LOVE Soap Mold Debut Tutorial
Loveable soap is easy to make. In truth, all soap is loveable but this tutorial will teach you how to make the LOVE soap pictured below. If you have never made melt and pour soap before, this project is for you! Check out the fool proof layering tips below and follow the step by step instructions for beautiful results.
4 oz Clear soap
12 oz White soap
15 drops Liquid Violet
6 Mini Scoops Red Blue Mica
1 teaspoon Tangerine Wow Neon
1 teaspoon Electric Bubble Gum Neon
Buy everything you need in the click of a button! [Read more…]
All You Need Is Love
Swoon!
Check out Bramble Berry’s new Love Mold, ready to make it’s debut to the world tomorrow, Friday 1/27/2012! I know what you’re thinking, “Where’s the tutorial, Anne-Marie? It’s tutorial THURSDAY!” Hang tight, Soap Queen Pals, we’re going to show you how to make the fabulous soap above. You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. One. More. Day. =) How about a little baby love to keep you entertained?
I remember bubbles in childhood as fun and magical. Naturally, I wanted to introduce Jamisen to this fun and magical concept.
Whoops. Is that a look of terror on his face? Hm. Still terrified. Wait, if I can remember bubbles, how old was I when I played with those bubbles? But, proving he is my son, he did eventually warm up to the bubbles and even tried to use his slow baby reflexes to catch a few.
That’s my boy! Check back tomorrow for the LOVE tutorial. I swear, it’s coming!
How to Sell Consignment
Recently on our Facebook Page, someone asked about selling their products consignment. If one person is having that question, you can bet others are. Selling consignment is often a first step to getting into a retail store. Consignment means that a store owner will take your product and instead of buying it, they will pay you for the product when they sell it. You own the product, in their shop, and are responsible for stocking the store shelves. You and the shop owner work out a deal for a percentage of the sales – generally a 70/30 or a 60/40 split with the store getting 30% or 40%. The reason that the store gets less than 50% is because you, the small business owner, are taking all the risk. First you will need a contract with the shop owner.
(1) The percentage split – Are you getting 70% of the sales price? Less?
(2) Rent or extra fees – Is there administration cost every month? Is there any rent that the owner would like you to pay for your part of the store?
(3) Theft and damage – Mistakes happen and unscrupulous people happen. Who pays for that inventory? You or the shopowner? Or, is it a split?
(4) Payment – How often are you paid?
(5) Removal – If things aren’t selling, when and how can you pick up your products?
(6) Inventory – Are you keeping track of inventory or is the store? What if there is a discrepancy?
(7) End Date – How long does this contract last? Under what circumstances can you get out of the contract?
Other things that you will want to take into account are general business questions – is this store in a good location? Will the store owner give you good placement in the store? Can you work with them on in-store promotions? Will you be proud to have your merchandise in the store?
It’s important for you to do the research into the store before you approach the shop owner. Is the store in good traffic location? Will the store owner do a good job promoting her store (and your products)? Your soap will be tied up in the store, while you still own it. It is a big risk and that’s why you are normally paid more than 50%. If you get a chance, talk to other people that are consigning in the store about how their products are being treated in the store and how their products sell through. Past experience predicts future experience.
Summer 2012 S.O.A.P. Team [CHEER]
Announcing the new S.O.A.P. Team for Summer 2012!
[APPLAUSE]
Andi from We Love Soap: Twitter, Blog
Alanna from Peach Blossoms Cosmetics: Facebook
Dawn from EcoSations: Etsy, Facebook
Rose from Brooklyn Bath: Blog, Etsy
Jean from Soap Art: Website, Blog
Nicole from My Quest for Health: Blog, Facebook
April from April’s Soap: Blog, Facebook
Lucky Lucky Neko: Artfire, Blog
Attention S.O.A.P. team: Please email SOAP(at)brambleberry(dot)com with your contact and shipping information! We’ll be packaging up your fragrances and getting them out the door by the end of the week. Oh the suspense of not knowing what fragrances you’ll receive! Could one be Bacon? Or Wet Dog? You’ll soon find out!
[LAUGH] [Read more…]
A Birthday Dinner Without Sugar
We’re officially into Week Two of Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse. Woooooo HOOO! And in our office, all of us made it through Week One with **no** slip ups. We are so lucky to have each other to cheer us all on AND to peer-pressure us into staying on the straight and narrow. There’s something to be said for being inspired by others’ successes. I am sending out daily updates to our email group of virtual cleansers with recipes, experiences and support. If you’re missing those emails, be sure to post and let me know and I’ll get you on for the last 14 days of this great experience. The most positive part about the entire first week? I have found *so many* amazing vegan and gluten free blogs online with inventive and interesting recipes. This week has got me back in the kitchen and excited to be there!
I had a fun challenge this weekend. It was my Dad’s birthday (happy birthday Dad!). I wanted to make him a fabulous birthday dinner but needed to do it vegan, gluten free AND sugar free. Holly in Customer Service is doing the Crazy Sexy Diet Reboot with us (and she’s been incredibly inspiring to do it with – I love her exuberant attitude!). She had a great suggestion: poached pears! Voila, my Crazy Sexy Vegan No Sugar Poached Pear recipe below! [Read more…]
Snowmageddon Came and Went
Greetings from a fantastic weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Though our snow has melted now, it has been quite a week! These photos are from my Dad’s medical office (in Olympia, WA). They got a bit more snow than we did 3 hours away but we were colder, with temperatures down to 9 degrees. [Read more…]
Craxy Week 1: Recap
Craxy Week in Review
It has been nearly a week on the Crazy Sexy Diet 21 day Cleanse and we are over 20% of the way through. I have been sending out daily e-mails to everyone who signed up to join me on this journey. Let me know if you want on the mailing list by emailing craxy(at)brambleberry(dot)com. For those of you not on the mailing list, here are some highlights from the week including this weeks findings, recipes, motivations and challenges.
Motivation, Love and Support
Group support has been awesome! Six people here in the office are doing this cleanse along side me as well as a bunch of you. It has been great to chat about recipes, how we are feeling and keep each other motivated and accountable. It has also been fun to find really nifty blogs with people who are doing juice cleanses like Fred Dursts (lead singer of Limp Bizkit) is on a juice fast. Fred gives a really honest perspective of his experience. My current blog crush is Healthy Happy Life, which has a ton of recipes, reviews & videos. One of the biggest things to remember is…YOU CAN DO THIS, WE CAN DO THIS.
For extra motivation I created a Pinterest Crazy Sexy Diet Vegan Board to share exciting new recipes and ideas. Don’t you just love Pinterest?
Jeanee from Dirty laundry emailed me this week too and was just the refreshing burst of energy that I needed. Check out her super cute blog post on her gluten free bread here. It looks like she’s been combining a couple of different recipes from the Crazy Sexy book to make her own fabulous creation. You definitely have to get creative on a diet like this to stay sane. Thanks for the pick-me-up, Jeanee!
Here are this week’s recipes
Spicy Peanut Ginger Kale Salad
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups wild rice
3 1/4 cups vegetable stock, low sodium
1 carrot, grated
handful or so fresh cilantro, chopped
4-5 large leaves collard greens, stems removed and chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 bag frozen peas
1/4 bag frozen corn
olive oil
coconut aminos (optional)
raw olives, chopped (optional but add great taste!)
Directions: Cook rice in the stock until done, about 35 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the beans, peas, corn, and collards. Top the bowls with cilantro, carrot, and olives. Drizzle on olive oil and coconut aminos to your liking. Easy, yes? The leftovers are wonderful too. The possibilites are endless, so feel free to get creative or keep it simple like this recipe. You basically just want a gluten free grain, topped with raw and/or steamed vegetables and add a couple flavors and textures to the top like olives, avocado, bell pepper, carrot, etc.
Remember
MP Loves CP
I’m still in love with our new silicone cube mold (I’m sure you can tell from the recent cube mold tutorials: Holiday Cubes and Crazy for Cubes). I even designed a brand new mini heart mold specifically for embedding in the cube mold (now that‘s love). The technique of combining melt and pour with cold process soap is super simple with lovable results. It’s even easy enough for CP beginners!
Valentine Etsy Linkspiration and Love
Valentine’s Day is less than a month away which means you still have time to purchase your valentine goodies. Or even better…MAKE your valentine goodies (Pushaw! As if we’d recommend anything but handmade). If you decide to buy instead of make, check out some super cute and homemade finds from Etsy and support the handmade soaping community. Chris and I are planning on celebrating Valentine’s Day as a family with little Jamisen by our side. Though we go on date nights, I’m pretty sure finding a friend to babysit might be impossible on the date-iest night of the year!
Lemmers SoapWorks Co. LoveLee Soaps, Howards Home
Big T Ranch Soap, Herb’n Development Handmades, Sunbasilgarden Soap
Robyn’s Nest Boutique, Be Greatful Shop, Dallas Soap Company
Apply for the Summer S.O.A.P. Team
S.O.A.P. Summer 2012
We’ve got some great fragrances that we can’t wait to try out for the next round of the S.O.A.P. panel, Summer 2012! We need to enlist 8 soapy soldiers to help us decide on the new fragrances for Summer 2012.
What’s up with the S.O.A.P. panel? Soap Opinion (Awesome) Panel members will receive 10 one ounce fragrance samples of our top fragrance choices for Summer 2012. Give the cutting-edge fragrances a sniff AND test them in any product you like (CP, MP, lotion, scrubs, body balms, candles, anything!). Then fill out a survey to help distinguish the top choices. We want your honest opinion and notes on testing! In the past, we’ve really enjoyed the fact that our S.O.A.P. team members have taken no liberties in expressing exactly how they feel about some of the samples. If the fragrances don’t pass with the SOAP Team then they don’t pass with the BB testing team either.
- “Smells foody, but then a bit antisepticy at the end, a bit like acetone at the end but at first foody…not sure which food, cookie, vanilla but definitely acetone, burning to the nose at the end.”
- “Fruity, orange (dreamsicle), popsicle scent or fruity chewing gum, kind of want to lick it.”
- “Fruity again but with some floral at the beginning, strong at first but then relatively subtle, a bit perfumey, not something I would want to eat.”
Thanks Mommy You Soap It for those super creative and funny quips, taken from this blog post: The actual notes from my sniffer when I first popped the bottles open {SOAP Panel}
How do I get in on the action? Tweet, Facebook or Blog about your favorite Bramble Berry Fragrance Oil (including links) and why you should be selected for the S.O.A.P. team. You have until Tuesday January 24th to get your links out there, and then we’ll choose and announce the finalists soon after. Be sure to get your tweets, posts and blogs done by next week! Note: your Tweets should have @brambleberry someplace in the body of the Tweet (but make sure they don’t just get directed directly to @brambleberry or else no one else can see them)!
Fine Print: We will be sending the fragrances out by the end of next week and we would like the surveys complete by February 27th, which gives you about a month to test the fragrances. Please keep these dates in mind before you enter. We are looking for an accountable and enthusiastic panel, so be sure that this works out with your schedule! Because these fragrances can’t ship internationally, we are not able accept international entries.
Still curious? Check out the results from previous S.O.A.P panels!
Fall 2011, Summer 2011, Floral Edition 2011
The darling soap above was made by Emily from Soap and Restless. She was on the Summer Soap Team for 2011 and did a fabulous job testing the fragrances in her cold process soap. Check out Emily’s Blog Posts about her testing experience: SOAP Opera Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5.
Remember to Tweet, Blog and Facebook about your favorite Bramble Berry Fragrance Oil.
Crazy Sexy Reboot Starts Today
I’m excited! The Crazy Sexy Reboot starts today and I’ve already juiced up my juice breakfast (see below for recipe and see above for one big fan of the green delicious juice and yes, for the record, the black kale can and will stain). I’m ready to eat my Tofu Eggless Salad on Gluten Free bread for lunch. Tonight, I’ve got a Thai faux-Peanut sauce vegetable with Quinoa already prepped. It should be delicious!
It’s Day 1 and we’ve got about 25 virtual participants joining us. I’ll be sending out emails frequently with fun recipes, support and good cheer. If you’d like to be in on the emails, just ask in the comments and we’ll get you added. [Read more…]
Favorite Books of 2011
I love to read. I love it so much that even with a baby, I still find time to read almost every night before bed. My tastes vary widely from serious business books to action books to chick lit. I read it all!
I finished over 50 books last year (curious about which books that I’m currently reading? The complete 2011 list is on the About Me page with 2012 coming next week). These were my favorite books of 2011:
Bossypants – Tina Fey’s book was everything I want in an autobiography by a funny person. It was downright funny, funny and made me like her even more (if that’s even possible!). I laughed out loud many times reading this book, enough to wake my sleeping husband.
Story of a Beautiful Girl – This book has a heart wrenching start as it delves into the mentally indigent in the ’60s and their horrible treatment. From there, the book follows the lives of a mute man and a woman, in love but
torn apart through circumstance, and of the daughter they were forced to give up. It is deeply moving, beautifully written and its ending does not disappoint.
Unbroken – Louis Zamperini crashed on a mission in World War II. He fought of starvation, sharks and the ocean for over 40 days before he was taken as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese. This book tells the story of his time in captivity, at sea and his life before and after the war. It is an exceptionally well-written book, reading like fiction, with an absolutely inspiring message.
State of Wonder – I love Ann Patchett’s writing (if you haven’t read “Bel Canto,” you should). This story line is particularly convoluted. It involves a researcher in the Amazon who is tracking a method to make women fertile their entire lives. What are the ethical implications of this? There’s a mystery thrown in (missing researcher) to keep the plot line moving and engaging.
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Wide ranging, spanning decades, this book could practically be a series of short stories. Though the book took full concentration to follow (read this one in large chunks, not ten pages here and ten pages there), the writing and storyline(s) were unique and inventive. I kept reading to see how the author would pull it all together and was sad when the book ended.
The Paris Wife – I don’t like Ernest Hemigway’s writing (I know, I know, millions do and I am clearly in the wrong for this opinion) so I was incredibly surprised when not only did I devour this book, I found myself getting worked up (in anger; Hemingway was not the best husband) over the fictionalized account of Hemingway’s first marriage and child. The book is well researched though the author does take some liberties in retelling the story of Hemingway’s early years of writing in Paris.
If you’ve read any great books that you think I should read (or have my book club read), let me know! I always am looking for thoughtful book suggestions.