MORE CHICKEN WIRE AND DIRT

Almost there!  Lined the boxes with chicken wire and now the soil is going in! YAY!!!!  Just need water and seeds.....I think:// and to use the weed wacker.....again.

WOOD CHIP ANYONE?!

Had our Gardners help me with this one! Looking Good!!!

TIME FOR PAINT!

My kids helped me to paint the boxes Red:)) After it dried I added a coat of clear flex seal to the inside and tops of the boxes to keep moisture and mold out.  Hopefully it'll help my boxes last forever!:)

BUILDING BOXES!

 

Oh my Goodness!! I'm pretty impressed with my self!  Had a few issues with the screw gun but I worked it out:)

GOT WOOD?

Watch out, I'm using a saw guys!! I managed it without loosing a finger:)

I dug holes to plant roses and berries around the fence.  I did a few things out of order.  The weeds were growing so fast it was hard to keep up with it! I rented a roto tiller and brought it back to get the ground ready and leveled out but the ground was solid as a rock and the tiller went right over it doing nothing:(  So I went back to the store and traded it for a huge, strong rotto tiller.  Almost killed myself trying to get it out of the truck and over to the garden.  It threw me around a bit tilling the ground but many hours and bruises later, it did it, the ground was pretty level and ready to be covered!!

I THINK I CAN!!

Finished glueing and piecing the fence together! Its looking more like a fence! I used metal wire to tie the chicken wire to the fence.  I bought 6 foot chicken wire to cover my 5 foot high fence and to also have 1 foot of chicken wire slide out the bottom of the fence to help keep critters out.

MOVING ALONG

Luckily I grew up watching my dad using pipe glue so I enjoyed the smell and the memories and seeing this come together:)

New Adventures!

I forgot that I even had this blog!😄 Luckily I think only Lynn and Darcy see it and since it's been a long time, it may just be my secret blog now. I'm on to some new adventures! I haven't made candles for awhile since Walmart now sells the better home & garden candles which are amazing and inexpensive so that put me out of business😁.  I have continued with the soap and I have an etsy shop now with all my soap there (thelilyshop.etsy.com). Nice little side hobby.  So my new adventures!  For the last 5 years or so, I have had the same simple goals. One of them I have achieved but the other ones I just dream about and wish they would magically happen on there own. I'm finally realizing that I've got to work and make them happen and I'm also realizing that I'm glad that I have to work!  I'm enjoying the process and seeing the progress! and I am learning a ton along the way! My goals aren't too crazy.  Here they are:
1.  3 kids (that is crazy but I've grown and pushed out 3 babies! That may have been the easy part! Raising them pushes me beyond my limits more than anything ever has! I love it though and hopefully I don't screw them up.)
2. A large Garden (I built a greenhouse. Several times actually because the wind kept blowing it apart.  It was behind our back garage and one day I was in the back putting it back together, after it being blown apart again, and I was cleaning it when one of my husbands employees came back to take a wiz right where I was standing. Drenched in bubbly water, from scrubbing the green house,  I discovered that my greenhouse was being used as a shield for the boys to take a pee and I realized why the water I was standing in smelled like pee and was bubbly.  So that green house went in the trash, plus it had been blown apart again.  Next step, I decided to buy some wood and try to make some garden boxes.  They turned out amazing! I moved them out to our weed covered field because that's where I eventually want to grow my large garden.  A big tractor came to disc the tall weeds in our field and they plowed right over my garden boxes, ripping them apart. Okay, next step.  Lets build a garden fence! My hubby works a lot so I don't have help building these projects, I just have a sugar daddy which is good, but I have to get creative on figuring out how to build these things on my own.  I actually prayed about this one for some guidance and the thought came to me to use PVC pipe.  So I maped out my garden and my fence, went to home depot and bought all my supplies!  At first I thought it'd be best to put each side completely together with the chicken wire already zipped tied to it so that way it would all just have to be slid over the top of the stakes.  So that's what I did.  When it came time to move the pieces to the field, it fell apart while moving it. It had to all be taken apart, glued and pieced together where it was going to stay.  Big set back but it ended up being a good thing and the fence is going to look so much better now than it would have.  Next problem, but also a good thing, is all this rain we're getting!  I just worked in the drizzle yesterday but today is a full on rain so I'm

blogging about it instead of building it today:) Here's pictures of my progress.
3.  Raise some chickens ( once the garden is set up, this will be my next goal!  The coop will have to be inside the garden fence because of all the coyotes and wild animals around us)
4. Honey Bess! ( I'm excited about this one!! Id like to get a flowhive (flowhive.com).  We actually already have a few hives on our property but they don't belong to us and the beekeeper never gives us honey from them....weird.  I want to learn beekeeping myself anyways and I'm sure the beekeeper will help me to learn:)
5. Fruit Stand (why not!? The goal is to have honey, fresh eggs, fruits and vegies, why not share it:) I also could sell my soap.
So those are the goals.  One step at a time and I'll get there.  I want to document my progress, hence the blog.  Here I go!

👍

👍👍Going back in time a bit.  Here's some pictures of the beginning of our fence making!

Halloween Candle Creations Coming Soon!

One Size, One Price

All my candles are made with pure soy wax, lead and chemical free wick, colorant free, and the purest fragrance oil which is also used on skin!! I use the maximum amount of fragrance oil so you have the best scented home in the neighborhood!! The puriest quality for a seriously great price!!

$8.00 each

Candles and Chocolate!! What more could you want?!

O.K. so a few months ago I found this brand new company called Dove Chocolate Discoveries and I am loving it!!! The best part is that it isn't that difficult to book parties!! I have two booked in the next two weeks! The perfect part about it is it gives me a chance to get my candles out there as well. So my next party is August 11th. Hopefully all goes well and I stay motivated and confident. It's super scary for me to do these parties but at the same time, for some reason, I love it! and I hope I can continue to do them and do well!! Because its so new and no one out here is a chocolatier, besides me:), people are excited about it! Well, I'll post how the party goes.....fingers crossed:)

Swap Meet Thursday Night!!!

I need to update myself:) I sell chocolates now along with my candles so I can do chocolate tasting candle parties!! Tomorrow night, me, my mom, and Camie are renting a booth at market and I'll be selling candles and if any buys some then I'll put a advertisement for the chocolate tasting candle party and I'll hopefully I'll get some parties booked! Well, hopefully all goes well!:)

Sooo Much Fun!

Everything is going great! I wish it would never end:) My dad's candles turned out great- It was a fun night of candle making. Our whole house smelled so delicious:) Since then my mom has also ordered 25 for Christmas gifts. I'm thinking of maybe making a flyer to pass around to companies to sell them, or even just in my neighborhood! I had to go back
down to
Hollywood to get more
supplies so I
went with Brady to an
appointment
he had in that same area.
Brady went more nuts then me! He was putting all sorts of things in my cart:) He even set up a table for me in the garage and went and bought me a double burner. It's perfect because the garage is warm and that helps make a good candle. Anyways, I am loving all this candle stuff and I hope the sells continue to grow! (P.S. sorry about Brady's middle finger:)

My first Sell!!

I can't believe it! I've been hired to make 100 candles!! Andy Gardner, our tax guy, wants to give out candles to his clients and he's hired me to make them!! Yeah......so if you want one, have him do your taxes:) The cool thing is that I was at my parents house last night and I was online looking for supplies and my dad asked me what I was doing. So I explained to him that I was making candles for someone to give to their clients and he thought that was such a good idea that he ordered 100 himself!! He has a convention he is doing on the 29th so I have to be snappy! I found a wholesale candle supply store out in LA which is going to be very helpful since now I wont have to pay shipping and I don't have to wait for everything to be shipped!! I also went online and ordered some labels of my own that I can stick on the bottom of my candles, and I opened my etsy shop. There isn't anything on there yet but there should be after I finish my candles. Yikes....... So wish me luck!! It's going to be a busy candle week:)

It worked!! day 4 cont.

I'm going to call it chocolate almond soap! It doesn't smell like that but that's what it looks like:) I couldn't get the last batch to melt all the way so I went ahead and just added the oatmeal, coco powder, coco butter, and I also added ground Cinnamon and more olive and coconut oil. After it set and I cut it, I could see that the chunks that didn't melt didn't change color either so now it looks like it has almonds in it. A cool thing to know to make something else creative later!! I went to Walmart and in the poppuri section they sell all different kinds of fragrance oil but I wonder if that is not something you can use in soaps and whatnot. Probably not, it says to avoid contact with skin:) Anyways, another great soap day!! P.S. the powder on top is just ground up oatmeal that I had left over. Not sure if that looks good or not. It kind of looks like powdered sugar on almond brownies. I da know:)

day 4- - it will be awhile:(

I still love the idea of having my own etsy shop but the thought of it scares me just a bit cause I know I'm not ready yet so I think for awhile I will just make soaps and candles for my family and friends. Right now I am remelting my last batch and I'm going to add some oatmeal and ground Cinnamon to it. Maybe in a year I can start my shop. I also need to invest in some more fragrance oils. It is definitely a fun hobby and is something fun for me to think about:) I'll post some pics of my soap when I finished

Day 3 - vanilla sugar cookie soy candle

It's been busy and I've been lazy but here is a soy candle ready to go! It is filled with vanilla sugar cookie fragrance!! I want to burn it but I've got to make some inventory:) Good news! I've been using my very own home made soap and it works great!! No burns so that's a good sign:) I think I'm going to remelt my other bars and add some fragrance and cocobutter to make the bar a little more smooth- I'll post how it turns out!!

Day two!! not actually day 2 but day 2 on my venture

I tried soap again for I think the 5th or 6th time and this time is even closer!! I figured out what was wrong with all my other batches!! I didn't add enough lye and the way I figured that out is because I added too much Lye this time and my soap set up before it even got to volcano stage!! so I added more water and oils and melted it again but I think I stirred too fast because now my soap is like chocolate muse! it will be floater soap:( but it's soap and at least it's not a gob of gue!! so I'm happy, I'm getting closer to getting it right and I learn more about how it all works with each batch! Another cool thing is that I had emailed a lady who has the most awesome soap making website! Her whole website is helping people make their own soap. She has every bit of information on there to help you! I emailed her and asked her some advice and she emailed me back!!!! What a cool lady!! She attached a bunch of links to help me with my soap. Any who, hopefully my next batch will be even closer........I hope:)