Here are some shots from my Simple Herbs for health & beauty class last Saturday. We made herbal salt soaks. Each participant choose their very own ingredients to create 2 separate blends to take home and use or gift.
I love love love seeing what people come up with- it's amazing! Combinations of botanicals and essential oils that I never would of thought of...

Next months project is Essential Oil Shower Steamers. My inspiration comes from the amazing shop "Angel Face Botanicals" on Etsy (no relation to me or to  my AngelMade Eco Spa products). Click here to see her awesome product. Ours will be similar in purpose, but not packaged as fancy. Hope to see you there, it will be fun and smelly (in a good way)!

Simple Herbs for Health & Beauty
March 17th 4:00 to 5:30
Sticky Art Lab, Berkeley
$10 per participant
call Sticky at 510 981 1148 to register

If you make and sell things for a living (or just for  fun), the holiday season is always such a rush. It's busy, busy, busy. And that  may make you may feel happy, or over-worked and stressed, but whichever, you  sort of just buckle down and get it done. And then it is  January. And you have to do your taxes. And looking back at your sales and your  purchases, your successes and your failures, you start to wonder what the new  year holds... Or at least I do.

AngelMade Eco Spa had a great  2011. I met so many of my goals and learned so much. Best of all, I acquired a  whole slew of crafty friends in my life via the East Bay Arts Collective. But looking back at 2011 I have  realized that there was  something missing- no community work, no out-reach, no  real connections with  people about why I choose to make healthy bath and body  products. Sure, I did  plenty of donations and feel great about that, but i want  to do  more...

So this year I decided I am going to teach some  low-cost  herbal project classes to whoever would like to come take them. I have  the  perfect spot in which to do so- The Sticky Art Lab in  Berkeley. Every 3rd  saturday of the month, for $10 per person, from 4 to 5:30 I will present a  simple project, complete with a demonstration  and handouts. We'll have fun  discussing the ingredients and method/techniques being offered. You'll walk away  with a totally customized product that you can feel good about using, for both  the planet and your body.

Don't hesitate to email me with any questions you may have.  I hope you'll join me in this new part of AngelMade Eco  Spa-

Happy New Year Everyone!

NEW COCONUT OILS ARE READY!!!!!!!

I have a large fresh batch of my divine infused organic coconut oils!

New Name: AngelMade Coco-Luxe 
New Sizes: 2oz, 4oz, and 8oz
2 'flavors': Chai Spice and lavender/Vanilla

Coconut oil is the ultimate skin oil. It  softens, it heals, it's antibacterial,
antimicrobial and antiviral, it smells  incredible (especially after soaking
with yummy things like lavender buds and  vanilla beans), it moisturizes and is
effective in treating eczema, dandruff,  dry skin and a ton of other skin
aliments.

I can't even think of a better thing to use after a long day in the sun than my Coco-Luxe AngelMade lavender/vanilla oil.
Did I mention you can use it on your hair too? Oh yes. My Chai Spice blend is especially good for dark, curly or nappy hair types, but everyone can use it as a deep conditioning treatment.

Now available for purchase in my etsy store. I have a limited amount of wholesale available if you need a larger quantity, send me an email.

 I really wanted the satisfaction of growing something useful, something I could use in my products. So, about 18 months ago I asked my husband to build me a couple of small planter boxes. We live in an upstairs apartment and do not really have a yard to call our own. He obliged, the boxes were built, and then they stood bare for a couple of weeks. I don't have a whole lot of gardening experience having lived in apartments all of my adult life and spending my youth in a totally different climate that seemed to me (or rather, my parents) un-reliable for planting. I decided on herbs that smell good for sure, and then narrowed my selection to German chamomile (chamomile comes in three types, German, Roman and Moroccan...., each are prized for the same things, yet each have distinct healing traits of their own too), some mint and whatever else suited my fancy.

My girls helped me haphazardly sew some seeds and we watered them far too infrequently for anything to come of them. I put in some prostrate rosemary at the front of the box and a climbing jasmine at the back of the box. Weeks turned into months and soft, frilly, fragile looking plants eventually emerged and slowly grew. I had to tell my husband twice not to weed them because they looked suspiciously un-inportant. Months turned into seasons and the small plants grew taller and wider, but still gave no flowers. We casually forgot about them as the mint in the 2nd planter box expanded, took over and escaped.

Then about 4 months ago one morning I spotted a small white bloom on one of the chamomile. "Huh. That's cute, "I said to myself. "But what am I going to do with a couple of blossoms?" After a month or so more I found myself with many more small white flowers, but never adding up to any great amount. So my toddler and I started a ritual of picking all the ready flowers (their petals turn downwards) each morning and carrying our small handfuls upstairs and putting them to dry in the oven (our old fashioned stove stays warm all the time). Our meager tablespoons of fresh flowers were transformed into meager teaspoons after drying and we labeled a jar to add them in to.

Day after day, week after week, we repeated, until, much to my surprise, I realized that our meek and frail chamomile plant had turned gigantic! It smothered the rosemary below, blocked the jasmine in back, and produces more and more small white blossoms every day. 

For the last 4 weeks we have picked fresh handfuls of blossoms, dried and added them to our jar, which yesterday was finally full enough to add 12 ounces of coconut oil to. This will sit on my warm stove for another 6 weeks while all the plant essences are infused into the oil.  20 months and possibly a couple thousand tiny blossoms to make 12 ounces of oil. Whew. That's a lot of work for 12 ounces (think one and a half cups)!

And just think, I can buy a whole pound (which is approximately 16 cups) of chamomile online for $6.89 (plus shipping), which was grown in Egypt. But I should note that there is a disheartening footnote on the chamomile page of said website that says "due to political unrest in Egypt supply is limited".

I am not even totally sure where this oil will end up, I mean in which of my creations, but today I got the idea to make some really special, gold label, top shelf, limited edition sort-of products in my line called "AngelMade, homegrown". I've got tons of mint, some beautiful sage and I have to go see if the blackberry leaves are ready for picking out back.

Look for "homegrown" in the summer, my chamomile infused oil will be ready by then and added to something spectacular I'm sure.

You are looking at 10 gallons of organic coconut oil that I just set up to infuse with delicious herbal goodness!
I know I said that there wouldn't be any until September 2011, but an amazing friend of mine gave me my first small business loan..., So, here we are, with 5 gallons each of lavender/vanilla and chai spice set up and soaking.
I am so excited!
It will be ready by the end June, and I will list it in my shop a week or so before it is ready (with a clear ship date) because last time I made these beauties they pre-sold out! If you are wondering what all the fuss is about you can read more about my coconut oils here. 

I started AngelMade with the simple idea of "if I won't eat it, I won't put it on my skin". It seems logical, right? I mean I shop at the farmers markets, buy organic when I can and make sure all my household cleaners are biodegradable and earth friendly. So why wouldn't I make the effort to do the for the products I put on my body? Unfortunately, it's not a logical connection for everyone- and it's not their fault. We consumers expect that a company is making a responsible product and furthermore we expect that the government is regulating these products. But the truth is, they're not. I already posted about this with Annie Lenard's "The Story of Cosmetics" (see below), but today I have a link to share with you for a nice, straightforward guide to label reading and what to watch out for:
How to read a personal care product label by the Environmental Working Group

I strongly urge you to look at the ingredients in your soap/body wash, shampoo, conditioner, face wash, deodorant, moisturizer, lotion, hair gel and what ever else you are using every single day... can you make a better choice?

Happy new year everyone!
I know it's a bit late to be wishing everyone this, but I am just now catching my breath from the busy 2010 holiday season and I am starting to make some plans for 2011.

I learned so much last year.  It was the first year I had a business bank account, a website and a po box. It was the first year that I sold my products on Etsy, in stores, and at a couple of craft shows. My products were well received and in fact I got more requests than I could reasonably fill by myself. I would have to say that all and in all it was a good year and a great learning experience.
It did give me lot's of ideas though, ideas of things that I would like to make, things that I would like to change, things to aspire to. I think that this is a normal process of running a small business and I am just trying to go with it.
 
I've decided that in 2011 I am going to concentrate all my production efforts to the last quarter of the year- September through December. This means that I will not be making any product until then. This is the busy holiday time, but it is also when I expect my 2 year old to be entering preschool, so that means much more time to dedicate to my efforts. I'm setting some other goals as well, I'd like to sell at about 4 craft shows, get my stuff in at least 3 more stores locally and double my online sales. I think I can do it, especially with the awesome help and support all of you- thank you!

I'll try to keep you updated and posted, please tune back in to see what I'm up to, and by all means, let me know if you have a product suggestion or feedback of any type (really).

But happily busy at least!

Ah the holidays. This year I am thrilled with how many people are interested in my things. By next year I hope to actually be able to keep up with them all!.

I'm doing a couple of really cool things next week- I'll post those tomorrow for all you readers out there (ha ha...., I don't think anyone actually reads this regularly!).

Until then......

The most amazing thing happened to me earlier this week. An incredibly talented and crafty woman named Steph Cortes featured me in her blog as the "Awesome Artist Feature" of the week. This boosted my sales on etsy quite a bit and kept me busy until, well, now. Please check out the wonderful article Steph put together (complete with links and pics and everything!)

nerdJERK blog- AngelMade Eco Spa

Thank you Steph for making me feel special ;)

Next Saturday, 11/06 join me at Knit-One-One in Oakland for the November Craft Sale- It's going to be fun and I'd love to see some familiar faces :)

For more info:
http://knitoneone.blogspot.com:80/

Here I am at the Knit-One-One sale- it was awesome! Thank you so much for coming out to support me! I see more craft sales in my future, I'll keep you posted.