Adventures With The Sage

Let’s color the world! Oh. The world colors are actually pretty. Let’s mimic the world! This blog entry will use a Bubble Bath Gift Kit and the dyes we mixed yesterday. Today I’ll demonstrate the Purple Raspberry dye in Bubble Bath scented with Cotton Candy Fragrance Oil.

#1 Collect the items you will need.

• Bubble Bath Gift Kit
• Premixed dyes from Jan 12, 2009 post
• Paper towels

#2 Pour the fragrance oil into the Bubble Bath Base. Cotton Candy is one of the fragrances that can be used at 1 fl oz for a full gallon of Bubble Bath, so don’t worry about using the whole bottle!

#3 Add color.

I added 4 drops of color. You can always add more color. It is very difficult to take the color away once it has been added though!

#4 Shake well. This will take several minutes. If your arms become tired from the shaking, recruit a family member, the next door neighbor kid, or others that come to see what you are doing. You may have to bake cookies for payment!

#5 Test. If you stir the pump around in the jug and then pull the pump out, you can check to see if the color and fragrance have blended or not. Whoops! This time I didn’t shake the Bubble Bath enough, so I need to shake some more! Maybe I’ll go find the neighbor boy and bribe him with cookies.

#6 Look at that! The Bubble Bath is now all mixed. The small amount on the pump is hard to see compared to the Bubble Bath that wasn’t completely mixed. The color and fragrance are now thoroughly mixed into the bubble bath, we can pump into the bottles. Yippee! We’re almost done!

#7 Cap the bottles. Sometimes I’m lucky and I can bribe someone to cap the bottles for me as I fill them.

#8 Once the bottles have been capped, you can label them. We follow a labeling rule that is easy to understand and catches the eye. The two-thirds rule is really simple. First, take a sheet of paper and set the bottom of the container even with a edge of the paper. At the shoulders of the container (bottle in our case), draw a line. Find the 2/3 point between the line that you just drew and the edge of the paper. Next, we are going to mark the 1/2 point. Once these points have been marked, you now have an outline for keeping your labels at an even height on all your bottles. To place the label, you will want to cover the 2/3 point of the bottle. Wonder if I’m right? Raid your kitchen, laundry room and cosmetics to check other labels. 2/3 is the point where your eyes focus first. Most companies have the product name in the area of 2/3. Wow!

#8 Tada! These bottles of Cotton Candy Bubble Bath are now finished. Don’t they look fantastic?

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Today, I’m going to show how you can mix a dye and keep the mixed dye ready for anything you want to do. We’re going to use the Water Soluble Colorant Kit for this post.

#1 Collect everything that you need.

• Water Soluble Colorant Kit
• Water
• 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon (preferably metal)
• new paper, preferably kitchen parchment
• Paper towels for cleanup
• Rubber gloves are highly recommended

#2 Measure dye, level spoon. Form paper to make a funnel for an easy transition, deposit dye into 1 oz Dropper Bottle.

#3 Add water up to the neck of the bottle.

#4 Place the tip on the bottle and cap. Now you can shake it to make sure the dye is completely mixed. Repeat with remaining colors.

#5 You are ready to go! I will use these premixed dyes in future posts.

Careful! If you don’t wear gloves while making these premixed dyes, your hands could look like this. Regular soap won’t remove the dye from your hands. I use dishwasher detergent granules, specifically Cascade. To avoid this mess, I highly recommend wearing rubber gloves.

This is my paper towel after wiping down the counter. I would recommend some Windex to help clean the counters. Clorox Clean Up with Bleach might be needed to clean any stubborn dye stains from the counter.

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Do you want to know about the new posts right when they come out? We have an option that will e-mail you a copy of a new post right when it comes out! The best thing about it is that you are guaranteed that you will only get e-mail from Adventures With The Sage.

Simply click on the Posting Subscription tab at the top of the screen. Once you are there, you just need to fill out your e-mail (highlighted in yellow), click on the Subscribe radio button (highlighted in green) and then click Submit. You can also click on the image above to view it in a larger size.

The daily blog will come to your email so you won’t miss a tip, recipe, or technique. Tomorrow I will show how to mix the colorants because next week we are making lotion, soap AND lip balm!

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Currently severe weather in Washington and Western Idaho is delaying deliveries.  Lower elevations are experiencing severe flooding, while I am aware that the major 3 Cascade mountain passes are closed due to avalanche and mudslide dangers.  I have been told by our UPS representative that UPS cannot guarantee delivery to these areas.  The United States Post Office has closed 51 offices in the area.  The following zip codes are currently affected.

Washington 98000-99499

Idaho 83500-83599 and 83800-83899

If you live in these areas, I hope your packages get to you safely.  If you need information regarding your package, please call our office (435.755.0863) between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm, Monday through Friday.  If you are needing assistance after hours, e-mail <info@thesage.com> and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

If you have anymore questions regarding the flooding, please refer to the following links.

UPS: http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/about/news/service_updates/flooding_wa_id.html

USPS:  http://www.usps.com/communications/news/serviceupdates.htm?from=home_ftpromo&page=mailserviceupdates#waflood

We are always looking for feedback about our products. I recently received this great feedback about our Christmas Tree Fragrance Oil from Terry.

You were asking for feedback about your Christmas Tree Fragrance

FABULOUS!!! We have a place in the mountains of So. Calif. and I would not be able to tell the difference between your scent and the real thing. I am renaming it for my soaps to Mountain Pine.

Terry

PS, I ran out of your Baby Powder Fragrance and got some elsewhere, not half as nice.

Thanks Terry! I’m glad to hear you like it. There is a reason it was featured in our Top 10 Fragrance Oils in October of 2008.

Our Baby Powder Fragrance Oil is also great. It may not be in that same list, but we do sell quite a bit of it. I hope everyone who tries it will enjoy it as much as Terry does.

I entered our front office after lunch today and I saw that someone had changed the diffuser reed bottles on the counter. Some of our staff obviously had fun decorating these with a little bit of ribbon. I think these are adorable.

I was excited to discover the new scent is just like a spiced wassail. That smell always brings the feeling of the holidays home to me. I asked around to find who made this scent blend.  I finally got it and I can now share it with you!

HOT SPICED WASSAIL (For your room)

2 parts Cinnamon Essential Oil
1 part Clove Essential Oil
16 parts Orange, Valencia Essential Oil
6 parts Lemon, USA Essential Oil
3 parts Natural Vanilla Oil

I also had to pull out a wassail recipe for those of you who want to have the actual drink!

HOT SPICED WASSAIL (For you to drink)

1 gal. apple cider
1 qt. cranberry juice
3/4 c. sugar
2 c. orange juice
16 whole cloves
1 tsp. whole allspice
1 (6 inch) stick of cinnamon

Tie spices in cheese bag and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. For a party or a carry-in, heat in a crock pot on low temperature. This hits the spot for any wintery evening!

Enjoy!

Andee

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December 12, 2009:  We are open between 8 AM and noon today.  You may schedule advance orders for pickup on this day!

December 5, 2009:  We are open between 8 AM and noon today.  You may schedule advance orders for pickup on this day!

December 21, 2009:  Let’s ring in the new year!  Tomorrow is 2010!

December 21, 2009: The official first day of winter!  Celebrate our Winter Solstice.