The soaping continues...

Trent took a "day off" from work a couple weeks ago. This is what he did with his time: 4 batches of soap. He's working on his color-swirling skills, and I think they look so cool!

Purple: gardenia shave soap

Blue/Green: tea tree & peppermint

Yellow: lemongrass

Small White: super gentle baby soap

Our etsy store is going great, and T is gearing up for Christmas orders. He is such a man of many talents! As the bars of soap cure, he's been staging and photographing them for sale, and I am continually impressed with his artistry -- and ingenuity! Most of the elements are from our garden/yard or around the house. He also made a corian bee stamp to imprint the soaps! Love it!

Peppermint & Lavender Hand Balm (peppermint and lavender from our yard, honeypot from our kitchen)

Lavender Soap, my favorite!

Anise & Tea Tree Soap (star anise from a local spice shop)

Mmmmm ... Our house smells sooooo yummy!

The honey harvest this year went okay. Not as much honey as last year. But at least now we have some fun stuff to do with all the wax!

Honeybee Rescue

Someone had honeybees in their playhouse and didn't want to exterminate them. Trent to the rescue! Here is some documentation from the bees' relocation into a new hive in our backyard. 

Step 1. Build a hive with special enclosed frames in place of the normal top bars in our Warre hives. (You'll see why later.)

Step 2. Build a bee vacuum. Yes, it's what it sounds like. It hooks up to a normal vacuum hose and is very gentle for the bees. Believe it or not, he just found some plans online and did it himself. Here's what it looks like inside.

Step 3. The extraction. (Video to come. I just haven't swiped it off T's phone yet.) He cut the combs out of the playhouse, vacuumed up the bees, and brought them all home.

This is some of the honeycomb. He filled a separate container to the brim with brood comb (that's where the baby bees are, kind of like the "nursery" combs). 

Bee vac on the bottom, hive box on the top, with a cute little helper on the side.

Step 4. Suspend the cut combs in the frames with rubber bands. The bees then attach the new comb to the bars, chew off the bands, and carry them out of the hive.  

Step 5. Fill the hive boxes with the suspended combs.

A little disoriented baby bee who hatched from the brood comb on the way.

Full box! 

Step 5. Hive the bees! Luckily Trent was able to locate the queen, let her crawl onto his finger, and then guide her into the hive. After that, the rest of the bees were happy to follow.

We made them a little ramp up to the entrance with a pillowcase.

That's our established hive on the left. We added a 5th box this year!

There they go into their new house!

Etsy store

So, remember how we've been making soap and stuff? Check out Trent's Etsy store. (He has some woodworking stuff up there, too.) So cool!

"Happy Soaping!"

Trent and Camden have been watching a lot of Soap Queen TV lately. We figured since we have 3 beehives now and a cool solar wax melter that T built, we ought to know how to make some things with beeswax besides just candles.

And now ... let the Feist family cosmetic production begin! (interspersed with pictures of my cute boys staying busy)

See how cute they are???

Homemade, from-scratch lye soap, just like the pioneers used to make!

Of course Trent built his own molds and this cool cutter from scrap wood in is workshop. (He is so amazing.)

We didn't use any coloring this time, so it's all just that natural honey color because of our wax.

Mmmm ... fresh lavendar soap. The hardest part is waiting 6 weeks for it to cure before we can use it!

The baby supervisor in the background says he approves. :)

All done!

 The round ones are shaving soap, molded inside a PVC pipe and fragranced with a more "manly" scent.

We interrupt this program for a CUTE BABY ALERT! Here's Liam playing (and teething) while we work in the kitchen.

We (and by "we" I mean mostly Trent) also made:

hand salve infused with lemongrass, calendula, and lavendar and ...

lip balm flavored with our honey. Ah!

Camden and Daddy also made some bath fizzies. They don't use beeswax, but they were fun to make. The boys used one in their bath last night, and they loved it!

Planting Time

Of course we had to shoot some pictures of Liam's inaugural garden planting. Can't believe it's been so long since we planted the first one with Camden!

Camden and Daddy putting in the tomatoes.

Pretty cute overseer.

Cam was super excited about his Diego gardening gloves!

Liam offering some input: "Put it right over there, guys."

Mommy was there, too!

Cam's Big-Boy Bedroom Set: Trent Strikes Again

In preparation for the little guy, we've been shifting Camden to his new room and re-baby-izing the nursery. Trent designed and built Camden's new bedroom set, of course. It is beautiful! And convertible, which rocks. All the furniture fits under the bed for now, and if we want to convert to bunk beds at some point, it will do that too. It is solid oak, so should hold up in our crazy male-dominated abode.

Such an efficient design. Love it!

Handsome fella.

This is a shot of the temporary bed-frame arrangement
he had until Daddy finished building the bed.

We've been collecting stuff for months for the "space room": fabric and Buzz Lightyear sheets and a hand-made fleece blanket from Granmy; glowing planets and moon night-light from Uncle Beebo, space-themed clock and posters from Grandma & Grandpa; and I even managed to finish making his comforter in time.

Camden is pretty excited about it all. We're hoping it will help him feel special during the transition!

The Garage that Trent Built

My amazing, industrious, talented husband has done it again!

Just for a re-cap: here's what our house looked like when we moved in 4 years ago, Fall 2006.

Here it is now, Fall 2010. A few changes: new mailbox, porch light, porch (built by Trent) and garage (built by Trent).

Here's the scoop on the carport-garage conversion:

Before construction.

After construction.

(Doesn't it look like the garage has always been there? He did such a great job.)

The carport (before).

The garage (after).

Framed, insulated, tar-papered, and dry-walled. No skimping here. We did bring in professionals to install the door and openers. 

West side of the house (before). 

After.

He also added some personal touches to his "man cave"/workshop/garage:

An air filter he built to collect sawdust from his woodworking.

Steel woodrack.

Cool pegboard to keep things organized.

Hangers for the tools, florescent lighting.

It is going to be so nice to have a garage this winter!