For our Steeldrivers show tonight we wanted to strip our instrumentation down a bit and do more of an acoustic set, so I set out to make the perfect suitcase bass drum.  I also needed a bigger washboard (who doesn't?!) which I scored on Etsy. Eventually I will sand it down and paint it red but for now I think it looks pretty rad all old-timey! 

First I needed to know how to get started.  I found an awesome Instructables tutorial online by this drummer who has spent years perfecting this.  It was complete with pictures and YouTube videos!  If you are interested in doing this yourself then definitely check it out:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Suitcase-Drum-Set/

Now I needed to find the perfect suitcase.  I can't believe I found one on my first stop!  I love Flower Child on High Street!  It's a vintage shop on High Street that has different levels and tons of rooms of vintage clothes, furniture, jewelry and just about any other novelty you can imagine!  I swear everytime I go I find an undiscovered tiny room tucked away filled with some peculiar but extraordinary treasure I never knew I needed.  After explaining what I was looking for, the clerk pointed me toward the downstairs where they kept most of the vintage suitcases.  After examining the shelf, I didn't see the perfect suitcase so I combed some other rooms and there it was.  I knew that baby blue suitcase was mine as soon as I laid eyes on it.

After finding the perfect suitcase I needed several other materials to get started.  The tutorial recommended a Super Pinky Ball as the beater so I ordered one from Amazon for 3 bucks.  I then needed various screws and some rubber from Goodale Hardware.  The hardest part was finding the right sized metal piece to attach to the bottom of the suitcase (this is what the bass petal will clamp on to).  My sweet and helpful hubby ran around Grandview with me scouring for the perfect piece.  Turns out we had one in our own basement!  

Since the hubs was out of town I needed a friend proficient with a drill to put the metal piece on the bottom of the suitcase.  I recruited my friends Melissa and Jeremy (of the Hocking River String Band - check them out, they are fantastic!) to help me.  By that I mean Melissa and I would drink a bottle of wine while we watched Jeremy go to town on a baby blue suitcase! 

We also recruited our four-legged friends Jack and Cooper!

Every girl needs accessories!  I made a trip to our friends at Music Go Round and Columbus Pro Percussion to gather a small cowbell and random parts to mount that and a small splash cymbal.

Chris at Columbus Pro Percussion was great and dug through some boxes of old parts he had to find me the perfect pieces.  He drilled some new mounts on the side of the suitcase and voila...the suitcase was done!  Now I just needed a rug, which we found in Molly's living room. 

I gave the suitcase a spin at Melissa and Jeremy's one night.  It sounded great!  It will need a little tweaking here and there but I was so happy with the result!  I can't wait for it to make it's debut at the Steeldrivers show tonight!

So...when I get excited, I get crafty!  I have been wanting to try my hand at making lip balm for some time now.  If the Steeldrivers' show is so lip-smacking good that you feel em' a-crackin' then come find us (we'll probably be shakin' it in the front somewhere)!  

This was so much simpler than I expected.  I ordered some beeswax from Ebay and paid a visit to Grandview's Earth Elements since I like to shop local whenever possible. They were so helpful!  The sweet lady mixed my sunflower and apricot kernel oil all in one container with the essential oils we picked out after some major sniff testing.  Since I am obsessed with cooking with olive oil, that was one ingredient I didn't need. I tried to get as close to caramel as possible with tonka bean and bitter almond.  It smells delicious and feels so soft on your lips with the cocoa and shea butter!  

All it took was a little mixing and melting!  I recruited my eager and creative stepdaughter to help me.  We melted all of the solid fats in a pyrex container in the microwave in one minute intervals until it was liquid and then combined the other ingredients.  One everything is mixed together you simply pipette the liquid into the lip balm containers and wait for them to harden.  I left mine overnight.  Such a fun and easy project!

I had a good time designing the labels but probably had the best time shrink-wrapping the tubes.  You buy the plastic already cut for the tubes and use a hairdryer to melt them on!  It is so cool...but then again I am very easily entertained by simple things. 

I can't wait to experiment with more flavors!  Maybe we will actually put salt in the next batch of Salty Caramel lip balm.  Who doesn't want a little exfoliation, right?!

I thought I would use this first blog entry to give those of you who don't know much about the Salty Caramels a little bit o'background.  If you live in Columbus and have eaten Jeni's ice cream (if you say you haven't then I will likely not believe you live here), you probably caught on to the ice cream references that named this blog.  The Salty Caramel's original line-up was named after a delicious - not to mention my favorite - of the Jeni's ice cream flavors.  After two of the original members moved on to their own projects, Molly Winters decided to get another group of saucy women together to carry the torch.  After our first rehearsal, we all knew it was meant to be!  The new ingredients of Molly Winters, Sarah Overdier, Emily Eng and Paige Stricking(me) blended together perfectly!  

We have so many exciting things ahead this spring and summer that I hope I can keep up with blogging about all of our upcoming new projects, songs, gigs and festivals! We are really stoked to do some recording in March! I personally moved here from Alabama in April and have been so lucky to find such a wonderful group of women to introduce me to Cbus (Molly gives an awesome bike tour, by the way)! 

At the present, we are SUPER pumped to open for the Grammy nominated Steeldrivers at Woodlands Backyard Saturday, March 2nd at 8pm!