Soap For The Holidays

Last week I participated in a holiday bazaar at work. It was a lot of fun and I sold pretty much my entire stock of soap, so this week I've been frantically busy making more!

I've made more of my most popular soaps including Peppermint Ice. I add menthol and peppermint essential oil to this soap to provide a fragrant, skin tingling experience while bathing.

The Oatmeal Ginger was a huge hit at the bazaar and I needed to make more. This soap has a lovely spicy ginger scent and is made with colloidal oatmeal making it a wonderful soap for dry skin. I think it was the scent, however, that had it selling so well.

I also sold out and remade some of my Lavender Meringue soap. The white 'meringue' on this bar is a shea butter rich soap making it extra moisturizing as well as beautiful.

My Cinnamon and Honey soap is always popular. Made with ground cinnamon and scented with cinnamon leaf essential oil this is a very fragrant bar that's also great for oily skin.

Also in demand was my Safflower and Honey soap. This is another very fragrant bar as it's scented with fennel and anise essential oil so it smells very much like black licorice. The safflower in the bar gives it it's pretty pale yellow color and is a wonderful additive for soothing skin.

All these bars will be available in a couple weeks and in time for holiday shopping.


For those who can't wait, the online store is currently stocked with plenty of other soap like Mug-o-Beer,

Pine Tar

and Patchouli Cedar Sage.

Lora's Beauty soaps make wonderful gifts for anyone especially those hard to shop for people! Who doesn't need soap? Lora's Beauty is an affordable luxury.

Easy DIY Holiday Wreath

I've got an easy, inexpensive, and fun DIY project to share with you today.

All you need is an old book, tape, hot glue, and a stapler!

So, let's start with the end product. 


Pretty nice, huh?

Believe me when I tell you, it's easy, after you get over the idea of tearing up a book.

Oh, you'll need something for the middle of the wreath. I used Christmas ornaments but I could picture dried flowers or autumn leaves.

I glued everything onto a cardboard box I cut in a rectangle shape 12" X 16" and cut the corners off.

Ok, here's the video on how to make your own wreath! I skipped the part about cutting the ragged edges off the pages and don't obsess over the rolling of the paper and that part about flicking the wrist. Just roll the paper like an ice cream code.

A big THANKS to my friend Rodney for sending me the video!

Pressure Cooker Love Times Two!

Last March I shared my love for my new pressure cooker,well today I'm going to heap a little more love on it!

I originally bought it because dried beans can be cooked in 45 minutes. Last week I discovered a new reason to love it; acorn squash in 10 minutes!

Yes, you read that correctly, 10 minutes to get squash that's cooked so completely it pulls away from it's skin. That's a game changer for me. I love stuffed acorn squash and to be able to have it in 10 minutes rather than the hour it takes to cook in an oven, well, that's *heaven*.

Here's how you too can have perfect acorn squash in 10 minutes.

First, cut your squash in half lengthwise and clean out the seeds and stringy guts.

Next, pour about two cups water in the bottom of your pressure cooker and place a steamer basketinside using caution not to scratch the Teflon coating in the pressure cooker. Now, add your squash.

Set pressure cooker to high and cook for 10 minutes.

While the squash is cooking, on a skillet cook the stuffing for the squash. You can use whatever sounds good, I usually use some sausage, bell peppers, garlic, onions, and chili peppers. Grate a little cheddar cheese (or a lot) for the top.

After the squash is finished cooking, spoon in the stuffing and top with cheese!

What's better than stuffed acorn squash? Stuffed acorn squash in 10 minutes!!!