We have a winner!

Congratulations to Wendy Kelly of Vintage Day. Kelly is the winner of the business card giveaway that I hosted here recently. Kelly will be receiving 500 duel sided, full color business cards from Digital Room. Thanks to everyone who participated in this contest.

Free Workshops in the Garden this Saturday: Weeding and Intro to Solar

Join us at our regularly scheduled Fair Share Garden meetup this Saturday in Daytona Beach for free workshops. Location: 345 White St. behind the Lions club (corner of White & Willis)

At 10 am Bernadette Albright will be speaking on the importance of weeding in the vegetable garden. Don't settle for a low yield vegetable garden by letting water-drinking and nutrient-consuming weeds get in the way. Learn to identify various edible weeds.

At 11 am Scott Johnson of the SolarNetOne project will demonstrate a small off-grid photovoltaic power system designed to provide remote communications, such as for off-grid homesteading. The talk will include info on how to size and scale solar power systems to meet load size, as well as strategies to optimize load equipment for operation from solar power.



Workshops are free, however Fair Share is a 501 c non-profit and donations are welcome.

Win a Set of Business Cards

Happy Weekend everyone. I have a new contest starting on the blog here. The prize is a set of business cards and is sponsored by DigitalRoom.com. Who can't use a new set of business cards? These cards can be really useful: from the classic business card, to blogger cards, designer cards, etc.

One Winner will receive:
~500 Business Cards
~2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.75 x 3.5” (slim card)
~14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
~Full Color Both Sides; Offset Press; 3 Business Day Printing

To enter:

~ Leave a comment here about how you would like to use your free business cards.

For extra entries you can do the following:

~ Share this contest on twitter by posting the following: "Win 500 full color, double-sided business cards at http://aquarianbath.blogspot.com @aquarianbath"
~ Become a follower of this blog
~ Join the fan page for AquarianBath on Facebook
~ Make a purchase from AquarianBath leaving a comment about this contest with your order (3 extra entries).
~ Blog about this contest or add the Aquarian Bath blog badge to your blog (2 extra entries).

This contest ends the 28th of April at midnight. Entrants must be 18 or over to participate. This giveaway includes Free Shipping to US Residents. A winner will be chosen using random.org.

Next Day Shipping and Hot Weather Reorganization

Hot humid weather is slowly creeping back here in Central Florida. This means an end to my out door craft shows and soap making until around October. The heat and humidity are very hard on the shelf life of soaps and exposing them just isn't worth it. During the cool season I have my soaps organized in containers such that there are 4 or more of each variety in containers that I take to craft shows, a second craft show box for friend's to take to their shows, plus I have a number of overstock boxes set aside. This system requires a good deal of short term memory when it comes to packing online orders quickly.



With a baby due in a few weeks I wanted to totally reorganize this system for summer and make it easier for me to keep up with next day shipping from my shops. I love getting orders out as soon as possible and often they are shipped the same day that the order is placed. I picked up a number of 'shoe box' type containers for sorting soaps by type, so that they could be labeled and orders filled by myself or a helper quite easily..



I spent a day or two sorting soaps and also salves, perfumes, and lip balms so they would be quick and easy to find. The soaps are sorted by type and each box contains a desiccant to keep out humidity.


With summer weather on the way I will be doing more sewing and you can expect to find more variety of organic flax neck pillows and eye pillows in my shop. The neck pillows are so nice in the summer when stored in the freezer for use after a hot afternoon in the garden or for injuries. I have already restocked some of my neck pillow fabrics. I'm also getting ready for a second wholesale sewing project. I'll be sewing a full bolt of eye pillow liners in a couple of weeks.

Fun Kid's Activity for Earth Day: Pine Cone Bird Feeders

This year my daughter's birthday coincides with lots of Earth Day happenings. We are having her birthday party at the Fair Share Garden in Daytona. Everyone is welcome for the "Earth Day's Birthday Celebration" which starts at the garden at 11.

Moira and her friends will be getting at head start at her party making pine cone bird feeders. We practiced making on earlier last week to see how it would go. We used the basic recipe from enviro-explorers.com This is a fun activity for kids and is a nice take home party favor; more healthy than candy favors and more eco-friendly than small plastic toy favors.

What you need:
1 large pine cone
2-3 feet of hemp cord
1/2 cup suet, lard, or peanut butter (avoid peanut butter for people with allergies). Some recipes suggest vegetable shortening, but I prefer to use less processed oils.
1/2 cup corn meal
Handful or 2 of bird seed

Method:
Tie the hemp cord to the top of the pine cone. This is what you will hang your feeder from. Mix 1/2 cup corn meal with 1/2 cup fat; I would leave that job to adults or kids maybe over the age of 7. Moira had a hard time mixing the cornmeal and fat together. Spread the cornmeal/fat mixture evenly over the pine cone. Next roll the cone in bird seed

Your bird feeder is ready to hang! Try to hang it in front of a window or at least somewhere out of easy reach from cats.