All About Soap Making: Basic Soap Making

by Judi ~ July 26, 2007

by Gary Everson

Many areas of misunderstanding exist with regard to soap making. I am often asked “do I have to use lye?” “just how dangerous is lye?” and “will soap making save me money?” “can I really make soap and sell it for a profit?” these and many more questions arrive in my inbox on a daily basis, making it clear to me the extent of misinformation that exists where soap making is concerned.

There are really only two soap making techniques, cold process and hot process. Other techniques referred to as melt and pour and rebatching, are not actually soap making at all, instead they involve melting previously made soaps back to liquid form, then adding fragrance and color, maybe some herbs and grains and then allowing to set again.

True Soap Making involves the chemical reaction which takes place when fats and/or oils are mixed with an alkali such as Sodium Hydroxide, also known as Lye, or Caustic Soda. It’s as simple as that really, but more complex than you can imagine.

Aside from the basic fact that a strong alkali in solution will cause a chemical reaction known as saponification when mixed with fats, the exact nature of the resulting soap is dependent upon the type of fat used, the amount of lye, the curing time and a host of other factors all of which combine to make soap making a truly interesting and rewarding craft. I call it a craft because it requires skill and practice, I would prefer not to recall the number of soap batches I made when I was starting out that had to be thrown into the trash. Its important to remember that sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right, but once you’ve got the process down, homemade soap making is easy and fun. It is a never-ending source of joy because there is always more to learn.

Soap making is an age-old skill that is currently undergoing a popular revival. Home or cottage level soap making is done by the “cold process”, however this method is not recommended for children because of the potential danger that lye poses. Soap making is a fascinating, enjoyable and creative hobby, but did you ever realize that it could actually become an excellent source of income. the beauty of soap making is its adaptability to village-sized enterprises, it represents a business that requires little space, with little cost and offers numerous possibilities.

Soap making is a great hobby and makes a wonderful gift because, let’s face it, everyone needs it. Homemade soap making is not at all a difficult process. The melt and pour process makes it even easier, although melt and pour is not soap making in its true sense, it is an easy and creative way to make your own soap. It is the easiest of all the methods and is by far the least time consuming.

The most popular soap making process today is the cold process method, where fats such as olive oil react with lye, it is the process that more advanced hobbyists and small business owners use. It is certainly a more complicated way of making your own soap than melt and pour, but can yield much more pleasing results. Cold process is a method of soap making which doesn’t utilize any external heat source. Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is used in cold process soap making. The cold process yields no waste products of any kind.

Melt and pour soap making is an easy and creative way to make your own soap. Some soap makers prefer melt and pour because the process is easy and allows the soap maker to concentrate more on the aesthetic aspects of soap making. In its simplest form, slice off what you need, melt it, and pour it into your favorite soap molds. Learning how to make melt and pour soap is the easiest soap making method that you can learn. The joy of Melt and Pour Soap Making promotes the making of soap in the home as a fun hobby and economical craft. Learn melt and pour and cold-process soap making basics then try your hand at lotion, lip balm, salt scrubs and more. Melt and pour soap base is pre-made and purchased by the block, a natural soap base is melted and poured in individual shapes. It has become very popular in recent years. Melt and pour is not actual soap making, often called glycerin soap, it can be opaque, colored or clear. Even children, when supervised, can make soap using this method. Typical un-molding time for Melt and Pour soaps is 4 hours, after which it is ready to use. Un-molding time for cold process soaps is 24 hours or more, followed by a curing period that can take as long as four weeks.

If you are careful to shop around for the best deals and buy your ingredients in bulk wherever possible, you can create batches of soap which cost between 20 and 50 cents per bar, less than commercially available soap bars with many times better quality and a lot less than the price of other handmade soaps on the market. This provides the opportunity for a reasonable profit margin should you decide to sell your products, either simply to recoup the cost of your hobby, or to fuel the beginnings of an exciting and profitable business.

Soap making is not hard to do if you are armed with just a little bit of information. It is an age-old skill that is currently undergoing a popular revival. A fun and useful hobby, soap making is a great pastime and makes a wonderful gift because, let’s face it, everyone needs it. Cold process soap making is not recommended for children because of the potential danger that lye poses. Melt and Pour soap making is the easiest of all the methods and is by far the least time consuming. Soap making is not just for your grandmother anymore; it has become a popular hobby for many creative and artistic people.

Copyright © 2007 Gary Everson

About the author:
Want to learn All About Soap Making, but haven’t a clue where to start? Gary Everson’s FREE course will show you how, from the basic techniques with a detailed explanation of theraputic soaps, to cold process and melt and pour recipes, followed by comprehensive safety and legal information and finishing by turning it all into a business, with an extra bonus at the end.

Reverse Variegated Spider Plant

by Judi ~ July 26, 2007

Reverse Variegated Spider Plant

Spider Plant
Botanical Name: Chlorophytum comosum

Spider plants are an extremely easy, beginner houseplant. They are very forgiving plants, tolerating neglect and thriving in nearly all conditions. Because of this, they are also very common.

The reverse variegated spider plants have leaves with white outer stripes, and a green stripe between. The variegated have an inner white stripe with green outer stripes. There is also the common all green variety.

Spider Plants are one of the plants on NASA’s Clean Air Study as an air-filtering plant.

Light Requirements:
Spider plants prefer a medium to high light area, filtered afternoon sunlight. Variegated varieties will require more sunlight than the regular all-green variety.

Watering Needs:
Spider plants have large roots which store water. They prefer to dry out a bit between waterings to prevent root rot.

Use rain water, distilled water, aquarium water or tap water if you let it sit for more than 24 hours before using. Spider plants do not like the chemicals in tap water. Brown tipping on leaves may be due to tap water.

That said, once or twice a year, I usually stick each of my plants in the bathtub and give them a shower. This gets the leaves clean, gives them a good soaking.. and just seems like it would feel good.

Propagating:
Spider plants are a viviparous plant, in which it produces seeds that germinate before it detaches from the mother plant. In spider plants they produce both seed and plantlets growing from stolons.

As a spider plant becomes more rootbound, the more babies – or offshoots, it will produce. The plant will require more water, as well. To reduce the stain the babies put on the mother plant as they each, in turn, grow and mature, clip the babies and put the small root system in water or soil. Each baby will quickly grow into a mature plant.

The mother plant may also be divided to gain new plants.

Dividing:
I found a reverse variegated spider plant at a local hardware store. It was a reverse variegated spiderplant. There were 4 mother plants in the pot. I couldn’t resist purchasing it specifically to repot.

Here’s how I go about dividing and repotting. Pull the plant out of the original pot. This may require some gentle pulling. I use a butter knife to loosen the inside side of the plant and it usually comes out easily.

The plant had a lot of root system growing at the bottom. It had grown around the plastic drain in the bottom of the pot. I took a sharp knife and cut the bottom roots off. This may not be recommended by others, however, I have always cut the bottom portion off of a root bound plant, with no ill effects.

Now, the main plant is divided into sections – in this case, 4 separate sections.

I gently cleaned each of the plants root systems off, baring most of their roots.

I used a potting soil mixture with added sand for good drainage.

Finally, I repot into smaller pots, because spider plants do like a snug fitting pot.

I keep empty water jugs filled with tap water, which sits for at least 24 hours before use. Periodically, I add bat guano to it for fertilizer.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Judi Cox.

Ingredient and Oil Properties for Soap, Lotion, Serums, Bath and Body

by Judi ~ November 9, 2006

Ingredient and Oil Properties for Soap, Lotion, Serums, Bath and Body

To help take the mystery out of the ingredients listed in soap, lotion, serum or other products you have received from Momma Muse (or other handmade bath & body companies), here is a list of the commonly used ingredients by common name, label name (the FDA required INCI name – International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients) and description of skin benefits and properties it provides. Don’t let those mysterious names on the labels scare you off – so much of it is just a complicated name given to a simple ingredient.

Almond Oil
Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil
- An excellent skin softener and moisturizer. Almond oil is great for all skin types but especially beneficial for dry or irritated skin.

Apricot Kernel Oil
Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Kernel Oil
- High in both vitamins A and E. It helps moisturize and soften skin. Helps skin retain it’s elasticity, clarity, and suppleness.

Citric Acid –

Cocoa Butter
Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter Sodium Cocoa Butterate
- Cocoa Butter is absorbed quickly into the skin to soften, lubricated, moisten and nutrients the skin. Works great to prevent and treat scars, stretch marks, and damage skin.

Coconut Oil
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil Sodium Cocoate
- Coconut oil makes a hard bar of soap which lathers beautifully.

Colorants
- We use a combination of micas, oxides, spices, and clays to achieve colors in our products.

Cyclomethicone
Cyclomethicone
- Used to prevent a greasy feel and impart a soft & silky feel to lotion. Commonly used in lotions to provide a “powdery” feel. Also used in body sprays and bath items (bath salts, etc).

Distilled Water
- We always used distilled for safety and purity.

Emulsifier (a.k.a. ewax)
Glyceryl Stearate (and) Cetearyl Alcohol (and) Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
- Because lotion is made with mixture of both oil and water, an emulsifier is necessary to blend and hold the two together. We have chosen a natural self-emulsifier which helps to provide a natural moisturizing factor found in the skin. Our emulsifier provides a conditioning and softness to the skin.

Ewax – see Emulsifier

Fractionated Coconut Oil
Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
- This light oil helps carry therapeutic oils under the skin. Containing medium-chain triglycerides, it also helps moisturize and soothe the skin.

Fragrance Oil
Fragrance
- Fragrance oils are added in small enough quantities to not be an irritant for most people. Yet, we add enough to give a light scent which, in your favorite fragrance, you’ll have a hard time resisting the urge to sniff your hands (again and again!). May not be included in all our lotions, as we are able to make available unscented, scented naturally with hydrosols or with essential oils – usually by special request.

Glycerin
Glycerin
- Glycerin is a humectant, meaning it draws moisture to the skin. This is the whole idea of lotion right? To moisturize our skin, keeping it soft. Good stuff.

Hydrosols
INCI depends on the hydrosol used.
- Hydrosols are also known as floral waters, essential waters, or distillates. They are purified waters which occur during the process of extracting essential oils from plants and flowers. The hydrosols we use are all natural, containing no added fragrance.

Infusions and Teas
- In some recipes, infused oils with herbs, or create a tea, using distilled water and herbs are used to maximize the benefits of specific plants. Not to mention, it’s lovely label appeal.

Jojoba Oil
Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil
- Jojoba oil contains protein and minerals. It is similar to our own sebum which is secreted by our glands, helping lubricate, as well as, protect our skin.

Lye
Sodium Hydroxide
- This is the chemical used to make soap. Without this chemical, there is no soap, period. Sodium hydroxides causes a chemical reaction called saponification. Once saponification is complete, the finished product is soap – and there is no lye in the finished product. You will see sodium hydroxide on our ingredient list, however another way to list it is as a saponified oil – for example, for an olive oil soap we could just list it as “sodium olivate” – which means the same as sodium hydroxide, olive oil.

Monoi de Tahiti
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil (and) Gardenia Tahitensis
- A moisturizing and naturally fragrant oil, which quickly penetrates the skin acting as a natural barrier helping prevent dehydration (and wrinkles) of the skin. A wonderfully, naturally scented oil excellent for all skin types.

Olive Oil
Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil Sodium Olivate
- A moisturizing oil used in soaps – castile soaps are generally 100% olive oil, but there is no requirement as to what percentage must be used. It softens skin while attracting moisture to your skin. Makes for a mild soap which keeps your skin soft, supple and younger looking.

Olive Squalane
Squalane (Olea Europea)
- Squalane is a very light, fine oil which is absorbed deeply and quickly into the skin, leaving no oily residue. Squalane is a wonderful oil for skin issues such as eczema, dermatitis, rashes, psoriasis, cracks, so far as helping with bruising or healing of the skin. Because squalane is naturally present in the skin (a botanical lipid) having an identical molecule structure to human lipids, it is effectively used in facial products to help reduce wrinkles and rejuvenate the skin.

Palm Kernel Oil
Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil Sodium Palm Kernelate
- Very similar in qualities as palm oil, it produces a cleansing, hard bar of soap which lathers well.

Palm Oil
Sodium Palmate
- Used as a base ingredient in many luxury and expensive soaps. It is considered a vegetable tallow which produces a hard bar of soap which is both mild and cleansing.

Preservative
Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynl Butylcarbamate
- The preservative we use in our lotions is a broad spectrum, non-paraben bactericide and fungicide. It is highly effective against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, yeasts, molds and troublesome house organisms. We do not have our lotions tested, other than to give to family and friends, however we always use the recommended percentage of preservative to provide maximum safety for our users.

Rice Bran Oil
Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Oil
- A nourishing oil and a powerful skin protectant, high in gamma-oryzanol as well as anti-oxidants, which will protect and replenish the skin. RBO is rich in phytosterols, helping to help reduce inflammation and soothe discomfort. It also contains the highest quantity of vitamin E in liquid form. Beneficial to mature, sensitive and delicate skin.

Shea Butter
Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Fruit
- Shea Butter is deep penetrating and long acting. Is needed to restore the skin’s moisture balance and prevent visible signs of aging and wrinkles.

Stearic Acid
Stearic Acid
- We use stearic acid 100% palm derived (i.e. vegetarian friendly). Stearic acid is used to help bind the oils and water together, but also to help thicken, as well as stabilize, lotion.

Vitamin E –
Tocopherol
- A natural skin antioxidant, promoting healthy tissue – healing and rejuvenation.

Copyright (c) 2007 Judi Cox. (updated 1/16/08)
Judi Cox is a work at home mom living in the Ohio Valley with her husband and 4 children. She enjoys gardening for fun and for the birds, playing with the kids, reading, and promoting other mom businesses. She has been making soap and lotion since 2001. Find her on MySpace & Cre8Buzz.

SEO – Building a Successful Website – The Basics

by Judi ~ June 28, 2006

Content

Content on site is a must. The more pages of relevant content your site provides, the more pages the search engines will index. Index pages equal search engine saturation. The more pages of relevant content you provide on your site, the more of an authority you become to the spiders and bots.

Linking

This is another important way of getting your site seen. By trading links with other relevant sites, you reinforce your sites content, thus making your site “important”. The more relevant the links you trade with, the more important your site becomes. If you are a gaming site trading links with a pharmaceutical site, you are not going to appear very relevant to the search engines.

As it sounds trading links is a link swap.. you post my link on your site, I’ll post yours on my site. However, there are places you may “purchase” a listing without reciprocation.

Remember, the more friends a person had in high school, the more popular they were. Link exchanges are a similar concept. The more links you have (remember, stay relevant) coming into and going out of your site, the more “popular” your site becomes.

What’s your Niche?

Narrow down your topic. “Computers” gives a Google search result (as of this moment) of 1,720,000,000… the chance of being found in that ocean of results is about a good as finding a penny in the Atlantic ocean. Narrow down your topic, get more specific. A search for laptop computers receives a Google result of 106,000,000 – that’s better, but still an ocean. Get the picture?

Build your keywords around your niche. If you are aiming your site at light weight laptop computers, build your keywords around that… “Computers” as a keyword isn’t going to be very helpful. Get specific.

Articles

Writing articles and listing them on free reprint article sites allows for other web publishers to print your article, with your author byline in-tact. Author byline would include a link(s) to your site(s). This gives “links back” to your site.

Become an Authority in your field. :)

There are also paid article submission sites. The more you pay, the higher in their site your article is placed.

Remember, basically what you are doing is offering your knowledge and free article for a link or advertising for your site.

Blog

A web log (later shorted to just blog) started as an online journal for personal websites, but have begun to infiltrate the online business world. They give a business a quick, easy way to update several times a week, daily, or even several times a day. Search engines like blogs because they are typically updated often. Therefore, they send their spiders to those sites that are most frequently updated.

There are blog directories to which your blog could be listed – free.

Keywords, Site Description, Title

Make sure each page has a relevant page title, relevant keywords and a good over-all description.

Search Engine Smarts

Search engines look for site relevancy. Each page must relate to the site topic/theme. Each individual page must have a specific topic. Where possible, name the page specifically for that topic. If your page is about Light weight Sony laptops, name it accordingly. Ex: http://www.yoursite.com/light-wieght-sony-laptops Note: Hyphens signify to spiders and bots separate words.

Make use of h1, h2, h3 tags header tags within your content pages. Why? This tells the search engine bots and spiders that this is keyword, a relevant topic.

Use title tags in any links and alt tags in all image tags.

Use CSS to style a page – this reduces clutter within the page code making it cleaner for the spiders and bots to navigate the pertinent information. Too much clutter and the spiders and bots are likely to hit the road.

Frames are NOT search engine friendly. They are difficult for spiders and bots to index, because of the way they are put together. If you want to optimize your site, ditch the frames.

Flash – it’s flashy, visually fun, appealing to some… but it’s a killer in the search engines. Spiders and Bots cannot read flash. If they cannot read your page, how do the index it? Again… when it comes to optimizing your site, if search engines spiders and bots can’t read the file, why bother? Just because it looks good? Sure, ok… but if the search engines can’t or won’t spider your page, and you aren’t in the index, no one knows your site is out there, who is going to see it? You have a great looking site sitting there doing nothing.

Splash page – this is the page you come to that has a cool flash file, cute image, etc and says “Enter” (or similar). Re-read the Flash information and ditch the splash page.

WWW or not?

If you type “www.microsoft.com” and “microsoft.com” into your browser window, you get the same page right? We see it’s the same page, we know, as site builders they ARE the same page. But search engine bots and spiders DON’T know that. They view with and without www as two different sites.

Why does this matter? If your site is out there on the web with both links, you stand the chance of penalization from certain search engines – they view it as duplicate content. Duplicate content don’t typically get indexed, at least, not very high in the rankings.

The work around on this is a redirect, or an .htaccess mod rewrite. Tell your server to point to one page, either with the www, or without it. Ex, point to www.mysite.com and when someone types in mysite.com (less the www) it will automatically add the www to the link.

Is it absolutely necessary to do this? Maybe, maybe not, maybe one day the search engines will be programmed to view with and without www as the same. Until then, do you want to take a chance the search engines dump all your pages because they can’t figure out which is the original?

Advertising

How many times have you moved past the first couple of pages when doing a search? Chances are, not very often. Yet, as a site/business owner, it may take forever and a day to get your site to the top 20 in a search engine for any given keyword. Are you ready to get your name out there NOW? Consider advertising on the major search engines. Google has Google Adwords, Yahoo has Yahoo! Search Marketing. Both will get you listing within the first couple pages, depending on your willing bid amount.

Newsletters

Now, you have visitors coming to your site. Is your site sticky enough to keep them coming back?

How many times have you been to a site you liked, wanted to browse more… so you bookmark it, never to return again. Life is busy, we forget. And you lost a visitor and potential customer.

Offer a free newsletter subscription. Entice visitors to join by offering free tips, valuable information, free products, etc. Once a week, or every other week, send out a newsletter to encourage and pull those subscribers to your site. They may turn from a newsletter subscriber to a customer.

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Judi Cox is a work at home mom living in the Ohio Valley with her husband and 4 children. Judi’s interests include working websites (two of her websites http://www.momslittlegarden.com and http://www.mommamuse.com). She enjoys gardening for fun and for the birds, playing with the kids, reading, website design and promotion.

Attracting Orioles with an Oriole Nectar Feeder

by Judi ~ May 9, 2006

Attracting Orioles

Similar to other homemade wild bird and butterfly nectar recipes, Oriole nectar requires only two main ingredients; water and white sugar.

Oriole nectar feeders are available through wild bird retail shops. Feeders are similar in look to a hummingbird feeder, but are orange rather than red and have larger feeding holes. Designs vary, but some include an area to put fresh fruit (oranges, mashed bananas, grapes, etc). Or, if you prefer, skip the nectar altogether and just feed fresh fruits – there are other more specific feeders for fruit.

Directions for Homemade Oriole Nectar Recipe

Oriole nectar is made in a ratio of 1 part white sugar to 6 parts water.

1. Bring your water to a boil.
2. Add sugar.
3. Stir and remove from heat.
4. Let cool.
I like to let fresh nectar cool in the feeder, but I don’t put the feeder outside until it’s completely cool.

Nectar storage: it stores up to 2 weeks in the fridge or several months if frozen. I put my nectar in a clean 1/2 gallon (obviously empty!) milk jug, which clearly I write Oriole Juice on the side.
(Tip: Use an ice cube tray. Once frozen remove and store in a freezer safe baggy.)

Beyond nectar, Orioles like to munch on a variety of bugs (caterpillars, beetles, wasp, etc.) and are particularly fond of grape jelly. I have read they are fond of cherries (maybe some cherry jelly next to that grape?) and blackberries (some jam, perhaps?). They also like fresh ripe fruit, such as oranges, raspberries, cherries, mashed bananas, apples, pears, …. etc.

Enjoy! Have fun attracting wildlife and happy bird watching!

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar Recipe
[http://www.mommamuse.com/2006/04/23/homemade-hummingbird-nectar/]

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Judi Cox is a wife and mother of 4 children. Her hobbies include making handmade soap from scratch, gardening, crafts, web design and maintaining Mom’s Little Garden ( http://www.momslittlegarden.com/ ), an online resource for pregnant mothers, as well as her personal website, Momma Muse (http://www.mommamuse.com/ ).
—
Copyright (c) 2006 Judi Cox
Permission is granted to copy and reprint this article keeping author byline in tact.

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar Recipe

by Judi ~ April 23, 2006

Attracting Hummingbirds and other Birds

No need to buy the powdered Hummingbird Nectar mix from the store for this rewarding hobby. Instead, make your with this simple hummingbird nectar recipe. You only need water and white sugar – super simple and easy to make.

Use the following proportion:
1 part regular white sugar to 4 parts water.
Example: 1 cup sugar, 4 cups water

1. Boil the water. Debatable*
2. Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
3. Let cool.
4. Refrigerate in a designated hummingbird feeder pitcher.

Using a microwave works too. Put the water in a microwave safe container and heat to boiling point. Carefully remove and add sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. I fill my clean feeders and set them aside to cool and let the rest cool a bit before storing in the fridge.

Note: There is some debate on whether the water needs to be brought to a boil to make the nectar safe or not. In the past I have always heated my water to hot, but not boiling and mixed from that point. Anyway, one commenter below says it does not need to be boiled as it is the birds tongues which put bacteria into the water. However, another commenter says it does need to be boiled to get the chlorine out of the water and bacteria off the sugar.

Wondering about the concerns of fermented nectar, check out Sheri’s post Vampire Hummingbird Expert & Myth Remix or read more information regarding the proper nectar recipe for hummingbird feeders.

Back to the Nectar Recipe and Directions:

That’s it. Nothing extra: There is no need to add anything extra to the mixture, i.e. coloring, honey, etc. It’s not necessary and could be harmful. Honey will quickly ferment becoming poisonous to the birds.

Storing hummingbird nectar: I store all varieties of my wild bird (Orioles, Hummingbirds, Butterflies, etc) “juice” up to two weeks in the fridge, but generally need to make it more often than that.
Tip: I use a Rubbermaid container or a clean milk carton, clearly marked, to store my hummingbird juice in the refrigerator. Another idea I recently read is to freeze the extra. I may try this by putting it in a freezer bag and freezing flat. Once it is frozen, it would break up easily to place into the feeder.

Discard: If the juice in the feeder(s) becomes cloudy, or mucky, empty, clean and refill.

Cleaning: Make sure bird feeders are cleaned every few days to a week to prevent any ickies. Cleaning with a solution of vinegar and hot water is good.

Location and Feeders: More than one feeder, placed strategically around the yard, will encourage more hummingbirds to visit at a time. They are territorial birds, so place feeders out of the line of sight of each other.
note: however, I have had more than one at a feeder at time with no ill-will directed towards each other. Experiment a bit.

Enjoy your visitors!

Want to attract Orioles? Here’s our Homemade Oriole Nectar Recipe – and a few other Oriole feeding ideas.

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Judi Cox is a wife and mother of 4 children. Her hobbies include making handmade soap from scratch, gardening, crafts, web design and maintaining Mom’s Little Garden ( http://www.momslittlegarden.com/ ), an online resource for pregnant mothers, as well as her personal website, Momma Muse (http://www.mommamuse.com/ ).
—
Copyright (c) 2006 Judi Cox
Permission is granted to copy and reprint this article keeping author byline in tact.

Photo Mosaic created by BigHugeLabs using photos from these flickr users: 1. Hummingbirds, 2. Ruby Throated Hummingbird, 3. Ruby Throated Hummingbird, 4. Hummingbirds