10 Something Tuesday ~ Useless Facts

Growing up I was always rattling off random things. If I could have a dollar for every time someone told me I was full of useless information I could pay my electric bill! LOL

Here are a few I found funny, odd, or just plain useless! 

10) Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing gas in a spacesuit actually damages them

9) A person sneezing was the first thing Thomas Edison filmed with his movie camera

8) Your eyes are always the same size from birth, but your ears and nose never stop growing

7 More people are killed each year by bees than snakes

6) A ducks quack does not echo, and no one knows why

5) The original name for butterfly was "flutterby"

4) Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels

3) The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in jelly

2) A toothpick is the most common choked on item by Americans

1) It is illegal to frown at cows in Bladworth, Saskatchewan

Throwback Thursday ~ I'm from the 80's

Welcome to my first Throwback Thrusday 

On Monday I was in Springfield, MO visiting a cousin. As she was showing me her new house I noticed a set of old maps hanging on the wall. I immedietly went back to elementary school. 

Yesterday I saw a post on Macaroni Kid Boonville MO asking, "What crazy fads were popular when you were a teenager?"

This is what lead to my idea for Throwback Thursday. 

Follow me as I journey back in time with pictures from the old days.

Remember these maps in the classroom? Do you remember you had to be very careful when you tried to roll them up so they wouldn't snap and fall off the wall. YIKES! 

How many of you remember MC Hammer? What about his pants?  I can not remember what else they were called but if you grew up in that time you know exactly what I am talking about. What were we thinking to wear these out in public?

 How about sitting infront of the TV for hours playing Atari. Packman was my favorite!

I always wanted to be on this show. Do you remember Double Dare?

How about begging your parents for a magazine at the grocery line checkout just so you could rip the posters out and put them all over your wall? 

Or Mix Tapes and recording your favorite song off the radio. I always missed the first part of the song and got the DJ talking after the song. 

Did you ever call in to send a request to your secret crush? 

Come back next week for a step back through your classroom days!

Please send your ideas for future Throwback Thursday blog ideas at creationsbycc1@gmail.com

Follow my Pinterest Board "Throwback Thursday". 

10 Something Tuesday ~ Netflix

Welcome to my very first 10 Something Tuesday! 

So what the heck is that? I don't really know. I just made it up while sitting in the waiting room the other day. My idea was to come up with 10 random things every Tuesday. Like today, 10 of my favorite shows on Netflix.
A few examples might be 10 cheap road trips, 10 weird fruits, 10 things to grow easily, 10 goofy selfies.
Who knows what I will come up with, BUT this is not all about me. This is where you can contribute also. Come up with 10 Something of your own, email it to me at creationsbycc1@gmail.com and I might feature you as a guest blogger!

So why 10? Because 5 is not enough and I had just watched How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days.  What better way to get the idea! LOL

Now on to today's Netflix 10. 

If you live paycheck to paycheck like our family then you are always looking for ways to save money but still have a few fun things. We started on Netflix about 6 years ago but we had the plan where you picked 3 DVD's and they would mail them to you. When you were done you mailed them back in a prepaid DVD case. Which was OK, but sometimes you wanted to watch something spur of the moment or we would lose one or all. Don't get me wrong, this is a good plan, it just didn't work for us.

Then we found, in my opinion, THE BEST THING EVER! For $7.99 a month you can watch TV shows and movies, anytime, anywhere!

How do you watch Netfix? 

If you have a game console that connects to the Internet or is wireless you can usually go through that. For example, we have a WII. You download it on the WII for FREE. You will use your controller and your Netflix log in. It's that easy!

A week or so ago we bought a new Blue Ray Player. We don't have any Blue Ray's but we needed a new DVD player. $58.00 and a trip to the local Wal-mart, I was surprised to find that when I plugged in the new Blue Ray Player I not only had options for other online apps, but my remote had an actual Netflix button. We moved the WII to the kids room where they could watch Kids Netflix while we watched our favorite shows in the bedroom. Yes, you can watch on different machines at the same time! Not to mention I can watch on my laptop, my Nook HD+ and Smartphone. All of this for $7.99 a month!

I am a stay at home mother, and despite what I try to tell my husband, I really DO have all sorts of time on my hands! But let's try to keep that little secret to ourselves. After a few days of Netflix I became completely and utterly obsessed. And when I say obsessed I mean at times I was staying up until 1 and 2 in the morning because I just had to see what was going to happen next. One example was Prison Break. And to be totally honest, I loved the show and the plot was gut wrenching, but the eye candy was the sweetest treat. (wink wink)

Board yet? Sorry, I tend to ramble on. As promised here are my

Top 10 Netflix picks:

10) Gator Boys-  

 Gator Boys follows the death-defying exploits of Paul and Jimmy, two extraordinary alligator trappers who risk injury and death to hand-capture nuisance alligators that have invaded the back yards, pools, garages and bedrooms in Florida.


9) Gold Rush - 

In this sign-of-the-times reality show, six victims of the economic downturn decide they have a better chance of striking gold than finding new jobs. As a result, the Oregonians soon find themselves in Porcupine Creek, Alaska, panning for ore.

8) Life -

Exonerated after 12 years in prison, former LAPD cop Charlie Crews has his life as a job restored, but the unconventional thinker brings a new Zen attitude to his work, as well as a fierce resolve to catch the real culprits in his own unsolved case.

7) The Glades - 

Abrasive homicide detective Jim Longworth hopes to massage his recently bruised ego by moving from Chicago to Florida's everglades, but a new romantic relationship and the unusually high murder rate thwart his plans for relaxing on the golf course.

6) Army Wives - 

This drama series follows the emotional ups and downs of four women and one man, each married to a soldier and living on an army base where they contend with infidelity, PTSD, their spouse's long deployments and other heartaches.

5) Switched at Birth - 

In this ABC Family drama series, a pair of unsuspecting teens discover they were accidentally switched at birth, setting off a chain reaction of life-altering changes to the families they've always known.

4) Hart of Dixi - 

New Yorker Zoe Hart's dreams didn't involve patching up the locals in a tiny town in the Deep South, yet that's exactly where the fast-talking city girl finds herself when she ends up inheriting a medical practice in Bluebell, Ala.

3) Hell on Wheels - 

Former Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon seeks his wife's killer as post-Civil War America struggles to rebuild its identity. His quest traverses the history of Reconstruction, peopled with railroad bosses, emancipated slaves and immigrants.

2)Sons of Anarchy -  

 After seizing control of its town, gun-running motorcycle club the Sons of Anarchy soon butt heads with rival biker gangs, racist groups and the law. Meanwhile, young Jax Teller finds himself torn between protecting his son and loyalty to his gang.

1) Prison Break - 

When his brother, Lincoln, is wrongly convicted of murdering a powerful politician's brother, structural engineer Michael Scofield resolves to bust his innocent sibling out of the Notorious Fox River State Penitentiary.

******PLEASE NOTE: All of the show descriptions I got directly from Netflix*******

Creations By CC Soaps & More
Where you will find everything crafty at a reasonable price
Follow me on Twitter, Like me on Facebook, Purchase on Etsy Store, Pin me on Pintrest

Etsy store:  Creations By CC Soaps & More                        Facebook page: Creations By CC

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Mulberry Fragrance Glycerin Soap Bars $4.50 each                                                Chalkboard $7

Etsy? What? The Beginning

Have you heard people talking about Etsy or their Etsy Store and wonder what the heck they are referring to. About a year ago I was in the same boat. Had heard of Etsy but wasn't real sure what it was. One day I just Googled it.

The following is what Wikipedia says:
Etsy is an e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items, supplies, as well as unique factory-manufactured items under Etsy's new guidelines, released in October 2013. These items cover a wide range, including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, food, bath and beauty products, quilts, knick-knacks, and toys. Many sellers also sell craft supplies such as beads, wire and jewelry-making tools. All vintage items must be at least 20 years old.

OK, so here is a page with what appears to be handmade items but now what?
I am NOT an expert on Etsy.com by any means, but I have discovered a few things and decided to share on here what I've learned along the way and what I continue to learn.

~From the start~
When you open Etsy.com you will notice it's pretty easy to navigate. The search box should be your best friend! It will help narrow your search considerably. But with this said the search also works off what the seller has added as a tag.
For example the following is a Superman Glycerin Cupcake Soap that I have listed.

As a seller I try to think of things the buyer would search for. The tags I have added to this are Birthday Favor, Party Favor, Spiderman, Spider Man, Superhero, Marvel Comics, Soap Favor, Kids Soap, Children, Fun Soap, Boy Soap. Etsy also automatically searches by title of item as well as the section the seller added to. So this one will also have tags of Bath & Beauty, Soap, and Glycerin. Which is the main section and sub sections. 

~Listing~

This particular listing (listing is what each item is called on the seller side because you are "listing" them to sell) says ******Custom Order***** in the title. This means I will custom make this item for the buyer but this particular item is not pre-made. A lot of sellers do custom orders and you might see this a lot. Don't shy away from them. It's a good thing if you like things made just for you! For example: I have this Spiderman figure but I will let you pick the style, colors, and fragrance and it will still be the same price. Custom Order are a way for sellers to still show their products to purchase but not waste their materials on a color or fragrance people might not want to buy. 

~ What's in a listing?~

So now you have opened the listing and see the details of the product. Below the pictures you will find 3 tabs. Item Details which is self explanatory. Read over the entire tab as there might be something important about the product. The next tab you will see stars. If you click this tab you will see comments from people who have purchased from this seller and ratings based on 5 stars. 

~Shipping~

The next tab is VERY IMPORTANT. It is the Shipping & Policies. Make sure you read this entire tab. You will see how much it costs to have it shipped to you as well as Exchange/Return Policies and any other store policies the seller might have. Mine also tells you HOW to purchase the item. 

One question you might have is, "Why does it say Cost and With Another Item?" 

This line is the shipping cost, which is the first amount (Cost) and the With Another Item is the cost of shipping if you buy another product FROM THIS STORE ONLY. That part is very important. Say you picked my Spiderman Glycerin Cupcake Soap and had that in your check out but you also bought some Spiderman birthday invitations from another seller. You would pay me $2.50 for shipping and the other seller what they have for their shipping cost. This is because we, as sellers, have to package your product and ship it to you. If you think of it as a big craft show and you walk from booth to booth you are not going to pay for my product in another sellers booth. 

~How do you buy something?~

Purchasing the item is easy. Click the green bar in the section next to the picture. It is below the title, cost and materials. If the seller filled out their profile it will also tell where it ships from. For example mine ship from Blackwater, MO. 

After you click the green Add to Cart button you can proceed to checkout or you can continue shopping. Later, in a seperate blog post,  I will explain in detail about the Checkout process but for now I will just say you need a credit card, a Pay Pal account or an Etsy gift card. 

~Favorites~

You don't want to purchase this item now but you want to find it easily for later? That's easy too! 

Below the green Add to Cart button and in the next section you will see a gray heart button that says Favorite. Click this, the heart will turn read and it will be added to your favorites. I will explain more in detail about this section at a later date as well. 

The button next to this that has lines and Add To with a drop down arrow is where you can add it to a certain group of favorites you have made. Again, more on this later but pretty self explanatory. 

~Tweet It, Pin It~

Below this is Tweet or Pin It. By clicking Tweet you can Tweet it to your Twitter account. By clicking Pin It, you can pin it to one of your Pinterest boards. 

~Sellers other items~

Below this is a section of other items this seller has in their shop. All the way to the bottom of the page is the seller's profile picture and a link to learn more about them and their shop. This is usually where the seller shares personal information or how they got started. Below that is the tags I told you about earlier. 

~Etsy Bar~

At the very top of the page is the same bar you saw when you first opened Etsy. That will always be there and I will talk about each one on a later post. But I do want you to know if you ever want to go back to the start of Etsy you can click the red Etsy box. That is just like a home key. Oh I almost forgot another good feature. Below this main bar you will see the sellers profile picture, shop name and right under that is another one of those grey heart boxes. Click this one and you can favorite the entire shop and not just one item. 

~Feature items and Seller's Shop~

Beside the seller profile picture and the Favorite Shop button you will see 4 product pictures. These are "Feature" products the seller has listed. They are things the seller wants to make sure every buyer will see when on their store page. And next to that is a box with a number and Items. The number is how many products the seller has in their store. You can click this box to open up a page to show all of their products. If they have more than one page you will see the page numbers listed at the bottom. You click on the arrow buttons or the page number to switch pages.

This was just a quick overview of Etsy.com. I hope it helped in some way. Please feel free to ask questions. I will do my best to answer it for you. If you have any tips or comments leave those as well! 

Crystal :)

Ways to see my products or contact me

www.facebook.com/creationsbycc1                           www.etsy.com/shop/CreationsByCC1

https://twitter.com/CreationsByCC1                                 www.pinterest.com/creationsbycc1

creationsbycc1@gmail.com

Laundry.....it NEVER stops!

Happy Thursday Ya'll !
It's been a rough week already. My 3 year old had to have double eye surgery in St. Louis on Monday. While stetting in the hospital room waiting for the recovery nurse to call I had some time to think about this blog. I don't want to narrow myself into one specific category but I also don't want to be so spread out that I don't have a direction at all. With that said I have a lot planned for this page and I hope others find something useful in it. What are some things you would like to see?
Keep an eye out for Throw Back Thursdays and 10 Something Tuesdays!

Now that's all out of the way let's get to the laundry.....I heard that moan from all of you! I don't really like doing laundry either but I've found a few things to make it easier and cheaper.

First up, lets keep some of that hard earned money in your wallet so you can spend it on Creations By CC. Ok, shameless plug but I had to throw in something about my business! ;)

My husband and I have been married 6 yrs and have been trying to find ways to save money all 6 of them. Between my husband and my 5 year old they change at least 3 times a day. It seemed like we were buying a thing of laundry soap every week or so. And even though we bought the cheap stuff from Dollar General that still adds up. I started researching how to make your own laundry soap and it's SUPER EASY! I have been making our own for almost 2 years now and I will never go back to buying at the store.

You can find everything you need at Wal-Mart and some stores even have the ingredients right together. I searched a ton of blogs and found one that had it all. Blissful and Domestic.
 http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com/p/blog-page.html#comment-form

I use her recipe but I add a little extra for smell and to help with any stains.

Laundry Detergent

4lb box of Baking Soda $2.24

4lb box of Borax $3.97

4lb box of Super Washing Soda $3.24

3 bars of Fels-Naptha Laundry Soap .97 x3
A Capfull or 2 of Purex Crystals $3.97
2 scoops of Oxi Clean $3.86
(Prices are from the Wal-Mart I use in Boonville, MO)

I pour the boxes in a 5 gallon bucket. 

When I first started I used a cheese grater like all the other Blog pages said to do to cut the Fels-Naptha bars. This was hard and very time consuming!  Then I would put them in a food processor to make them very small. I finally got wise the other day and found an easier way to cut the bars.

I put them on a cutting board and cut them in chunks with a knife. Put the chunks of one bar and a scoop or two my ingredients I had already poured in my bucket, into the food processor and grind until very small. Pour into the bucket and do the same for the next two bars. I use my hands to mix the 5 gallon bucket and your done! 

Personally I like to start the water on my washer. I let it fill until there is enough water to cover the bottom. I pour 1/3 cup into the water and then put my clothes in. 

This 5 gallon bucket will last our family of 4 about 3 months. But we do at least 2 loads of laundry per day and if my husband does laundry for some strange reason he pours 3 scoops in. YOU ONLY NEED 1 SCOOP!!!! Hopefully everyone else listens better than my husband! LOL

***Works well for HE washers as well***  

***All tools including the food processor are separate from what I use to work with food. This is a personal preference as I make custom soaps so I have the extra set of equipment on hand***

How Frightening, It's My FIRST Post!

Hello, my name is Crystal. Or should I just start talking about myself, or my business.
Do I even talk about myself or my family? AHHHHHHH, these are the questions I was agonizing over. I Googled "First Blog Posts" and anything else I could think of to help me figure out what to say. I thought I needed help on this "Make It or Break It" first post. Apparenlty it's a big deal. After about 2 hours of note taking from self appointed blog writing specialists, I realized they know nothing about me or what I want to say! I'm not exactly what you would call a "by the book, cookie cutter" type of girl. I have always done things my own way and on my own schedule. So why not write my blog this way too?

So here's the selfie lowdown with, yes, a selfie! ;)

My name is Crystal Casteel. I grew up in small town Missouri where everyone knew everyone bla bla bla. Don't get me wrong, I loved the town I grew up in. I have many fond memories of it and as you follow my blog you will probably read many of my crazy adventures from there. But then I grew up. I realized that everyone knowing your business even before you knew, wasn't all that cool! So I moved on. And then back. Needless to say, this happened a few times and my hometown is what I like to call a BLACK HOLE. It somehow always sucks you back in! But on my timeline of life, right now, I'm living in an even smaller town and I'm loving it!

In my blog I plan to share with you some of my adventures, which I can promise you, are MANY! Life is never boring with this Casteel clan. So who is the Casteel clan you ask? Well, it consists of myself, my husband, Rod, our daughter, Haven Riley, and our son, Ruger Landen. YES.....like the gun! Stick with me and you will learn where my kids got such off the wall names and many other quirky facts.

I will also give you the 411 on why sometimes I just might know what I'm talking about. Please note I said SOMETIMES! Although I have issues with spelling, grammar and punctuation, I can promise you a good laugh a few times a week. So now that I've got my oh so scary first post down, I am ready to blog it up, or get to blogging or whatever the lingo is.

Oh ya, I almost forgot.....the "know it all" bloggers told me I'm supposed to tell you about my business so here it is. The name of it, if you haven't already guessed, Creations By CC.  I create custom design glycerin soaps. I say custom because most of my sales so far are custom requests from people, but I do have already make soap bars, gift sets, lotions, bath salts, bath bombs (oops, since 911 I'm supposed to say bath fizzies), party favor soaps, cupcake soaps, shower gel and anything else I can think of to make a buck or two. You should check my stuff out sometime. I make some pretty cool Post-It note holders, bow holders, picture frames, and chalkboard stuff too.
You can see (or if you are feeling frisky, you can purchase) my creations on either my Facebook page or my Esty.com shop.
www.facebook.com/creationsbycc1
www.etsy.com/shop/CreationsByCC1
Check out both of them and get back to me by leaving a comment on this blog page.
Guess I should add I have a Pintrest page and an email also.
Email is creationsbycc1@gmail.com
Pintrest page is www.pinterest.com/creationsbycc1
And if you are wondering why there is a one after everything, it's because plain ol' Creations By CC was already taken. And you will soon see I can't have anything plain and simple!

I look forward to taking this bumpy, loopy, backwards flowing blog of a ride with you!
Chat at ya in a few days.
Crystal :)