A Handmade Christmas All Wrapped Up! Onto Valentine's Day!

With Christmas all wrapped up, it's time for me to start thinking ahead to the next "gifting" holiday - Valentine's Day! Of course, I haven't forgotten New Year's, but I ate so much over the past few days I'm not sure I want to think about another carb filled party just quite yet. I'll let that one sneak up on me. Valentine's Day, however, I do like to plan for. I love finding unique, handmade treasures for my sweetheart and I enjoy making them! But first I want to share a few of the handmade finds I gifted for Christmas.

For Christmas I gave my sweetie a handmade guitar wallet from Found. As you can see from comparison it was greatly needed. Scott's old Family Guy wallet was in such poor shape it had a huge hole in the middle. Regardless, he was very reluctant to let it go. The wallet from Found was the perfect replacement. It was hand crafted from remnants of leather hides and upholstery samples and has a spot inside not only for money and cards, but also a guitar pick. (See photos.) Perfect since Scott is both a bass player and guitar player. Where the guitar pick goes, rather than putting a traditional pick in that space, I included a hand stamped guitar pick necklace for him from Wyoming Creative. He was very excited by these new gifts. However, I still had to be the one to throw out his old wallet. For anyone who has ever been married it was sort of like tossing that old, holey t-shirt he still wears when he's not looking. There's that sort of mock devastation.

And, just for fun - because all sane men love bacon - I gave Scott some handmade Crispy Sizzling Bacon Lip Balm from Soap Art. Not only was he a huge fan of this very bacon smelling lip balm, but my dog Jasper wanted a lick too!

Now that all of the Christmas gifts have been opened, I've been working on some love inspired soaps for Valentine's Day. The soap log pictured above was just unmolded today and sliced into bars with my handy Chef's knife. It's a cold process soap made with a combination of olive oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, rice bran oil and others and is scented with a Red Velvet Cake fragrance and a Red Currant scented soap heart center. Once it's been exposed to air for a bit, the entire bar - minus the red soap heart - will turn a dark, chocolatey brown the same as the edges. I'm still working on a name for this one though, so if you have any ideas feel free to share them! I'll also be introducing a White Chocolate Raspberry scented soap for Valentine's Day as well. (Take a peek.) And I'm currently working on sketches for some Valentine's Day gift wrap and gift tags for a free downloadable pdf.

I wouldn't want you to go without while we're waiting on this lovely soap to cure though! So from now through the end of the year - that's December 31st, 2011 at 11:59pm - you can receive a whopping 35% off all of my handmade shea butter and goat milk lotions! Just shop Rebecca's Soap Delicatessen and apply coupon code: LOTIONLOVE to your cart before final checkout. Supplies are limited so shop early! These rich, luxurious handmade goat milk lotions boast a long lasting scent while feeling fabulous on your skin. They contains a skin smoothing blend of nourishing ingredients including goat's milk, shea butter, honey, aloe, sunflower and soybean oils. Formulated for hydrating dry skin, these handmade goat milk lotions can be used all over as a body lotion or as a daily facial moisturizing cream. Heard enough? Shop now and choose from the following fragrances: Blue Ridge Rose, Mango & Papaya, Pomegranate Cream, Star City Seduction, Red Velvet Cake, and Lavender Vanilla. They'd go perfect paired with your other handmade Valentine's Day or Easter basket gifts!