Actually.... I was never a girl scout.

So today I baked cookies. Sorry, no pics of these, they were plain ol chocolate chip, you know what they look like anyway. Diane hosted a cookie exchange this afternoon and it was really a lot of fun! There must have been 40 different kinds of cookies there. Even though we voted on our favorites, no way could anyone taste them all! The ones I had were all delicious! If I didn't thank you earlier, thanks Diane for doing this today, it was great!

So driving home with all these cookies, because I still had a few of mine that hadn't been taken and tons of other cookies since I was the next to last to leave, I was thinking that there was no way I'd ever eat them all (I was feeling a little sick from all the cookies I'd already eaten!). So I stopped and got some little tins. I was thinking about baking cookies for my neighbors, we don't exchange gifts or anything, but I do appreciate them and I do have some awesome neighbors. So here they are, all packaged up and ready for their doorsteps tomorrow morning. I was telling Karen that I was doing this and she said: You're just a grown up girl scout aren't you? To which I believe I replied, fuck you, I was in 4-H. She thought I would be offended by the 'grown up' part of the statement, and the more I thought about it, maybe I am.

Anywho, got home and it was still fairly early. I got some Stearic acid last week and I wanted to make a batch of molded candles with it to see if once they set they would be solid enough for votives and pillars. So I whipped up a batch of candles, just 1 pound so they can be curing and hopefully I'll have my answer tomorrow. I'm really learning a lot about this whole candle process. The stearic acid really takes a long time to melt. I was gentle with the heat last time because the flash point of wax makes me nervous. This time I was more confident with the heat and cranked it up! It helped a lot with the colorant mixing but it took a loooong time to cool to the point where I wanted to pour. I still don't think I waited long enough. Next time I will try to be more patient. Here's what I made though. The silver pots are the votives I poured tonight and the blue mold in the back is an oval I poured tonight as well. The glass jars are candles John and I made last weekend that I never got a chance to post.

Here's my faithful helper Starsky.

I promised a coworker like a month ago that I would make her a wine cork board. I don't know why I've put it off so long, it only took about 20 minutes (and one giant blister from my very hot glue gun). Here it is though. I made some little cork tacks for it too, it looks very cute on my wall, she still might not get it any time soon. ;o)

Finally, I wanted to do something *different* and I saw these sequins sitting around. Wow, glad my balls are only 2" (heh heh). This took for-freaking-ever. Yeah, it's pretty damn cute, but I don't think I could make these to sell. I'd make them for friends, but I'm feeling all whiny now after making it. I should have used a thimble. Each of those sequins I put in with a straight pin. There's like 4000 sequins on that little ball I swear! I do love the different shades of green and since I do a lime green tree, I think it will look lovely on my tree. Don't know that I'll be making any more of these though.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and let's hope that next week is better than this past one!