Two Tips Tuesday

Tip #1: A Very Decorative & Different Guest Book


I saw this idea is Real Simple magazine a few years ago (July 2006 Issue) and put it away in my little inspiration notebook of fun ideas. I tried to find this on their website and could not or I would link back to it.

Anyway, this is a glass container filled with river rocks. The original idea from the magazine is to have each person sign their name with a paint pen and put the rocks back in. This way you can keep your guest book on display. Last summer, my friend Jenny and I did the decorating for a baby shower. Our friend was having her third baby and this was a shower to celebrate HER. The theme was more for Mommy than baby. I remembered this fun idea but we put a different spin on it by having each guest put an attribute of the guest of honor on each rock. After the shower, she took it home to display and remember all her friends who love her.

This is what it looked like when you walked into the house. Wasn't it lovely?

Tip #2: Making Bar Soap Kinda Fancy...Shred it. Yes, Really.


I am giggling. Right now.

Just completely tickled over this random and possibly questionable tip. But I have to do it because I so love this and I am nothing if not a bit quirky.

First off, I don't have a lot of bar soap lying around. I am the girl that stocks up on the Bath and Body Works pump soaps and use them throughout the year. I just love anything that smells good and those soaps got it going on.

But my Dad, God bless him, is not a fan of antibacterial soap so I try to have on hand some natural soaps for when he comes around to visit. And really, nothing is wrong with a good old bar of soap. But if I leave it on the sink it gets messy, if I have it in a soap dish, I gotta clean it, blah, blah, blah. So I have these wonderful soaps...
Love 'em because they smell so good. I also love that they cost .99 at Publix. Honeysuckle is my fave. Well, the other day I got this crazy idea to peel it with a peeler. I just wanted to see if I could. When hubby came home that day, he comes out of our room and says,

" Far be it from me to question you in your craftiness but why is a vegetable peeler in our bathroom?"

Good question, hubster. The alarming part is when he does not even bat an eye when I told him what I was doing. He is way too used to my enormous level of weird. I just thought it might look fancy like chocolate shavings on a dessert.

But alas...no.

Yet it smelled so goooooooooooooooooooood! Then I thought, "No. Not a peeler. Lets grate it like cheese!" I am brilliant! So I did.

Two things I love about this discovery (a discovery that only I find fabulous). One, is if it is in the right dish or bowl, it looks lovely and unique. The other is that not only does it smell heavenly, but when you wash your hands it dissolves quickly. Fragrant, simple, and useful.

This is my only worry... will some guest think it's a bathroom snack chip and eat it? Do you post a sign that says, "Not for consumption?" I am thinking that will ruin the aesthetic.

Happy Tuesday My Friends!