I have been tapped on the soap pot to write an article for SoapNuts, so here goes........ 

I like to make as many of the things in my house as I can.  Not only are there too many chemical and non-bio friendly nasties out there on the market  today, but I love having the one and only of something... the "designer original" if you will, except I know I will love it because I designed it! Hee, hee! 

This passion of mine earned me the title of Cottager on the Frugal Living news group.  Not only are my creations original, they are often money-savers (that's the idea, anyways).  So, it goes!  Too rustic for Martha Stewart and too refined for Euel Gibbons (remember the guy who did the Grape Nuts Commercials years ago?  "Have you ever eaten a pine tree?") So they felt they had to come up with something in the middle.  A few of the members of that news group knew I was a middle ages re-enactment enthusiast and they laid before me a challenge.  What would someone in that time period who does what I do be referred to as?  A "cottager," is what I came up with.  It stuck, and it suits me to  a "T." So, I am rather proud of it!  LOL! 

As a form of an introduction, I thought I would start with the story of how my Bath-kets were born. 

It was a dark and stormy night... Really!  Hurricane Danny hit the Gulf Coast with a bad attitude. The power was out, and the phones, too! 

My DH [dear husband] is a Broadcast Engineer and is also the staff Uplink Specialist at the TV station where he works.  He is the primary operator/driver for their satellite uplink truck--it's like a TV station on wheels.  Anyways, whenever big news like, say, big storms, come up... off he goes to take pictures and video.  So, the kids (one girl is 16, the other has just turned 4) and I were staying with a friend who would have been all alone during the storm otherwise. 

I had all sorts of dried foods that I had been preparing and hoarding for just such an emergency, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself for it.  Then, dinner time rolled around on the third day without power, and the stuff in my friend's freezer was officially declared unfit. I pulled out my dried delectables, only to find out that my friend is a diabetic, and that even though I didn't add sugar to anything I dried, the natural sugars were now concentrated and so the food may have made her sick.  Here I was, with enough food to feed 6 people for over a week, and she couldn't even have any! I was devastated!  I hadn't thought of that at all.  It was a good thing that she was aware of it, or else it could have been a very tragic thing, indeed! 

Well, that little bit of background explains why, when she sobbed and told me that she can't even fully participate in all the "usual" holidays 
because everything was laced and lathered and boiled in sugar and syrup, I resolved to fix her an Easter basket that would be just as self-indulgent without being dangerous to her health. 

By then I was already an accomplished (not perfected, but....) soapcrafter. I started on this list to learn how to make the other neato goodies like bath oil and shampoo.  Boy, did I ever bug poor Becky!  For awhile there at first, it seemed like Becky and I were the only ones on the list!  So, back and forth we went, and soon others joined in the saga.... 

Then this wild idea sprang into my head (must have been a lye-induced vision!) Why not make Easter Bath-kets for my adult friends who are so tired of the calorie attacks on the holidays.  I went to work on 25 of them--a few extra for maybe later or for someone I may have forgotten. 

I was all jazzed up about it.  I found a Jell-O mold of a bunny all crouched down, and his ears laying along his back and the cutest little 
tail... and it made an 8 oz cake of soap!  Impressive, but lonely in the basket all by itself.  I made brown chocolate ones and white ones with cocoa FO in it. They were sooo cute, but alone.  More chats on list with Becky and the other new soapnutters, the number of which seemed to be growing every day. 

Then I got this weird idea to use the Jell-O  jiggler Easter egg molds (these were the older, smooth ones) to make shampoo bars (primary colors) and lotion bars (pastels).  These were just perfect!  So, the bunny in one "quarter" of the basket, and shampoo eggs in one, and lotion eggs in another, the only thing left were "jelly beans" to complete the effect. 

Oh, now one of my current obsessions comes to light.  I went (and am still going) nuts trying to find the gel balls that I could fill with my own bath oils to match the scent of the shampoo bars, or at least some fruity scent to be more like jelly beans.  I searched and searched.  The gel capsule thingies you can get at a health food store didn't work.  The oils or the FO melted them from the inside out.  I was really getting up in arms about it, when I finally decided to go to places like Bath and Body Works and Bath Boutique and such in the mall and find out where they got their bath oil beads from, so that I might write to the manufacturer about where I could get the empty ones... 

After confusing the managers of two out of the three shops of this type in the mall, I went to the third which turned out to be a privately run operation (not a chain).  I sure had a tough time trying to get her to understand what I wanted.  She was hung up on what I wanted them for.  I guess she was certain that I was trying to disguise drugs or something, because she sure didn't want to give me the information  I was looking for.  Finally, determined that this lady was certain I was up to no good, I went out to the car and got one of the Bath-kets I was driving around with all day, looking for these blasted gel thingies.  I was going to show HER that I was not some sicko... 

I went into the store with the incomplete Bath-ket and she just fell in love. She asked me if I had any more... I told her a total of 25, but none were finished yet as I wanted the bath oil gel thingies... She cut me off with an excited "How much do you want for them?"  I didn't know what to say. Here I was trying to sell my proper image to this lady and all she was buying was my Easter gifts!  I was actually angry at first!  I didn't want to sell my bath-kets.  I wanted bath oil beads.  She was just not listening to me!   

I went over to a bin and scooped out a handful of her beads she had out to sell by the ounce... and tossed a few of this kind and that kind in the basket on the counter... to illustrate what I wanted them for... and the lady is taking out her business checkbook!  "I must have them.  It is that simple." She said.  At that point, some little guardian angle must have kicked me in  the shin because it was then I realized that I was about to make some money. 

I told her that I could only sell her 24.  The last one was for a very special friend and I didn't have time to make up another one.  She says "Yeah, I understand... how much, please?"  Geeze... pushy I thought. 

I knew exactly how much money I had tied up in each one so far... as I was trying to budget them so that they wouldn't wind up putting me in the poor house.  I had about $12 in each one so far. 

I really was antagonizing over not having any for my other friends, when I noticed what her hurry was--one of the other ladies I spoke with about the bath oil beads was "working her way" through the crowd toward the end of the mall we were at, trying to pretend that she was just "moseying" on this way. 

"Thirty dollars each, as they are." I blurted out. 

"Fine! That's perfect! " she answered and figured up how much the total should be... $720.  I almost fainted!  About the time I was folding up the check and putting it in my pocket, the lady from one of the other bath stores "wandered" in and said hello, what was Linda (She asked that I not use her real name for the purpose of this newsletter--nothing personal, just that she doesn't know all of us.) up to for the up-coming holiday?  Linda was already wrapping the basket up in some colored shrink plastic and putting a huge pink bow on it.  Then the final touch... a price tag of $50! 

I left.  Linda called me back.  "You forgot your package...." she said.  She handed me a bag that must have weighed about a pound or more.  When I got out of the line of sight of the Bath Boutique, I peaked in the bag--bath oil beads in every color she carried. 

On Easter morning, a very teary dear friend of mine got her very own Easter Bath-ket.  I honestly thought she was going to call her mother or something... big news, doncha know?  I was so happy that I could make her holiday special.  And I thought, "What an adventure!  Glad that's over!" 

Wrong!  The Monday after Easter Linda  called me.  What did I have in mind for Mother's Day?! 

So now I make Bath-kets for all the holidays... including some for birthdays and such.  My masterpiece was the Thanksgiving cornucopia I made last year; I had to "carve" the pumpkins from ball molds.  However, the Easter Bath-kets will always be my personal favorite one to make... because that was what started it all. 

They got named "Bath-kets" to make it sound like the baskets of goodies that my friend missed out on so much, and yet different enough that no one would mistakenly eat any of it! 

Right now I am working on Mother's Day again... and Father's Day.  The Father's Day ones are actually little cheap-o plastic "tool boxes" that can be had at the Dollar Store, and each one is filled with soaps shaped like some tools.  DH found a mold for a light bulb and made soap on a rope (we call them s.o.a.r.p.'s) that remind one of a drop light!  This is the first year for something that adventurous for Daddy Day... but hey, Dads have to get clean, too! Ya know what, though?  I STILL haven't found the gel thingies that I can fill with my own bath oil! The search continues! 

So, there you have it.  Next time, I will have to tell you the story of the Valentines Day bath-kets I did this last year.  A smart-alek clerk and a quick-witted gentleman made the experience worth my while!