This post is temporarily highjacked for the squeeage. I just got a picture of a bead that Ziggy made me.. Contact her for pricing and ordering information if you're interested.

It has sparkly eyes. Stardust eyes even. It had to be said.
She also made me a grey, and some matching accent beads.
*does the happy alien dance*

Back to your regularly scheduled post..
One of the dolls we got at the thrift store a few weeks ago was a Kelly doll with long black hair and short bangs, so I'm having W bring over his paints tonight so I can re-do the eyes/lips color to start turning it into a little Shala doll. Because I'm amused with a self portrait doll, and if I don't keep it.. I'm pretty sure I can find a home for a mini shala doll.

Wow.. I had lots of ideas for this post.. but.. I'm all alien headed now.
GOSH!!!!! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

Shoe idea from spankmyspatula. I wouldn't do it with brand new shoes though when you can find old clogs with wooden bases or Dr. Scholl's sandals for the asking a lot of time. Or hit a thrift store for the right shoes.
This looks like a fantastic shoe for E. Who loves it funky and fabulous, and with the right base, you could glitter and decoupage that as well for extra personal sandals!

Also.. You could crochet a pair out of "plarn" (plastic bag yarn doncha know) or if you have tires around that your dad isn't having you hold on to because he knows he'll need them someday even if he sold the car 5 years ago and you've had tires in your shed for the last 17 years that he was going to use someday.. you can make sandals out of tires. (Not actually the link I wanted.. Jehanna? Don't suppose you still have the link I gave you in your history? Please?)

Produce bags, this is just brilliant. I've felt the guilt of using plastic bags for produce while using my reusable bags for groceries. I don't have tulle or scrap sheer curtains, but I have a few yard of cheap lace that would probably work just fine.
Wallet made from cardboard packaging, you know I'm wild for ways you can reuses boxes. Definitely planning to make some of these today. I've got all the supplies!
Tin can pin cushions, much like the ones made from bottle caps but big enough to be more useful. I think using packaging cardboard and a little creativity you could actually make a lidded box out of a can with a pin cushion top. Use the safety kind of can openers. But since we craft with cans a lot, those are the kind we use anyway.

EDIT: I made the wallet, but I need to tune the template for my needs, because my purse is an active zone and it will pop open in nothing flat leaving my cards where they are now. Scattered all over my purse. However, the elastic cord? Brilliant. But I will need tape on mine to reinforce the folds, and I need the cord to be set a bit differently to hold it more securely closed.

and I'm working with Mike and my brother to see how we can do it and how much it will cost with stuff scavenged where ever possible..
I think we can make a heated food dehydrator in an old tower case using an older power supply (because we have a brand new old power supply in a box from about 4 years ago) and scavenged fans, and light bulbs. But I think it's such a great idea I figured I'd share.
See, the best food dehydrators has fans on the sides of it instead of at the top or bottom. Top or bottom fans don't evenly distribute air through the layers, plus if it's on the bottom, food/liquid can drip in them and needs to be cleaned. But good food dehydrators with fans on the side can be a bit pricey. Computer parts are easy.

I was also watching E turn a plastic bag into a wind sock and remembered another one of those things mom used to do with us.. she would give us washed used aluminum foil and plastic bags to make comet balls out of. We had a lot of fun batting them around with old badminton raquets.

Yesterday, my son asked me about using cloth bags. He knows we've been using them for a couple years, but it's only recently it's become "trendy" and most people still don't. I hope it's different for you when you go shopping, but here, I think I've spotted 4 other people in the last 3 months of shopping using them. Plastic bags certainly have their purpose in my craft supplies, but since I don't throw them away when I do forget my bags sometimes, and I can always ask people for them, I'm fine on plastic bags.
Using cloth, with the amount of shopping we do, and the 5¢ discount we get for using cloth instead of plastic, will, in a year, save me 14.80 after the cost of the bags.
If you aren't spending 50 dollars on a bag for shopping, a lot of greener choices do save you money. A lot of ours are done because they are thrifty and I'd rather have the money for books or beads. Like going no shampoo. The shampoo that worked best for my hair type was 16.00 a bottle, and another 16 for conditioner. ACV is 3.00 a gallon, and baking soda, in big bags from a warehouse store is 6.00. So in a year, I save close to 200.00 on shampoo. Well.. a little less because every so often I splurge on a locally made shampoo bar for 5.00. That's not counting savings on hair trims because I've found that my hair splits a lot less.
There are a lot of great Christian living sites that have tips and hints from pioneer times. I don't think I'd like to be a pioneer, but what women did in those days out of necessity can save a lot of money now, as well as being the greener choice. I don't want to come off as being virtuous because we craft and re-purpose. It's not about virtue. It's thrift a lot of the time. The side-effect of also being green is a benefit, but not always the original intention.
When I was a kid.. (insert flashback sound effects).. my mom was thrifty, and also very into luxury. It was a contradiction handled by her creativity. She dumpster dived for clothes, and she hit thrift stores for everything under the sun. She grew edible flowers to decorate her salads with, and people thought my mom was so classy and elegant in her own quirky way. She'd bring home things she found to make stuff out of, and got terribly annoyed every time she saw a hand crocheted afghan at a thrift store. She valued handmade items, prized them. Along with her fine jewelry, she also had a lot of funky handmade jewelry she wore regularly. When I started beading, it wasn't quiet pieces I made for her, but big, bright, fun pieces.Growing up with her was magical. She was fae and fun. One of my fondest memories of her is from a year before she died. Mike was grilling food at her house for all of us, and she had this used karaoke machine she found somewhere that she played cds on. She pulled it outside, and was dancing on the walk outside her house, just so happy. Her barefeet were dirty, they often were, she hated wearing shoes if it was nice enough not to, and she was wearing jeans from a thrift store that were too long and she never hemmed them up, so the hems were ragged and softly frayed. Her dancing style was influenced by the native villages she taught in when she first came to Alaska. So her little feet patting out rhythms on the ground and her happiness at just being outside in the sunlight, with good food being cooked and her family around.. that was my mom.
It's not about green for me. It's somewhat about thrift, but even more then that, it's about my mom. What would she do. Can I see the world as she did? Full of ideas and creative uses? Can I teach that to my kids like she taught me? Can I teach them to value handmade over instant and the satisfaction it gives you to know you did it yourself? Or to enjoy something that was made by a local artist and appreciate the time and thought that goes into it?
So far, the answer has been yes. My son doesn't want a commercially produced case for his ipod, he loves the one I crocheted for him that has the button made with a scrap of wire and a bottle cap. My daughter makes cool things from cardboard boxes and thinks ThreadBanger is one of the greatest shows ever made.
E and I were talking about making a zine together, but she's not sure anyone would be interested. I told her she was wrong. That there are people already interested. Possibly the first one will just be a collection of stuff I've posted in here, crafts we've done together. I know if my mom were alive, she would be encouraging us to do it. She would have been absolutely enthused and full of ideas.
I really think, and it will sound arrogant, if I can influence people at all through the stuff I have on the net, then the legacy of who my mom was, will never die. She won't have just affected my life and the people who knew her, but also a lot of other people who she never met, who I'll never meet.

While I was working on more printables, (I'm to cards now! Yay!) E was making nice things out of duct tape and the box from her dinner last night. She had Winnie the Pooh cheddar filled ravioli because she thinks my spaghetti sauce is gross (all those vegetables and meat, she thinks spaghetti sauce should be just a plain smooth red sauce).
( come see what she made )
She seems to be having much more fun then me today. :) But we are henna-ing later.

So... I walked into my room, and E was sitting on my bed with the remnants of probably a saltines box, and her duct tape sword on the bed, and a top hat in her hands. I watched her pull up a piece of tape from the sword.
"Why are you taking apart your sword?"
"How else am I going to make this top hat?"
I asked if I should pick her up some more tape when I go to the store. She said "That would be great!" and we talked a bit about the armature of the sword, which, despite having several layers of cardboard from packages, is a bit floppy. I grabbed one of Mike's wire coat hangers from drycleaning and started bending it and started to say "Have you thought about reinforcing with coat hanger wire?" She beat me to it. "THAT would work!"

The top hat is made from cardboard from some sort of packaging, like I said, I think saltines (we get big boxes), the crown of it was wrapped in red paper from our reclaimed giftwrap stash. And duct tape. And you know something?

I think it's incredibly neat my daughter can look at stuff most people think is trash, and make things.

You know how plastic marked with a 6 for recycling is shrinkable right? I knew the deli containers from the salad bar* at my supermarket are made with it.
Well.. so are the black bottoms of Mc Donald's salad containers. How cool is that? We save them for disposable "bento" type containers, or for paint palettes or.. but I never bothered to look at the recycle code on them (Alaska? Not big with the plastic recycling, which means if we are going to recycle plastic, it gets shipped out on barges. Which is also incredibly bad for the environment.)If you don't go there often, but you have friends with kids who do, who eat the salads, have them save the bottoms for you! In my case, my daughter loves the place, my son frankly hates it except for breakfast, but if we stop there, he orders a salad. So does Mike except when the Mc Kinley Macs** are calling him.
Hmm.. I'm seeing shiny hard plastic bat necklaces with glued on swar eyes in my immediate future.
I made the template for the paper lj icon beads. I'm going to test it later. It's 1"x1"x .30" so it should work fine with my 1/8 inch hole punch.
E is considering things she can make in black, but she likes the idea of bat necklaces.
#6 plastic shrinks considerably more then Shrinky Dink or regular shrink plastic. I really recommend making your first project a ruler, as long as the pieces you use regularly (like deli container lids, or some espresso stand/shop cup lids) and mark it at 1 inch intervals. Then when you shrink it, you have an idea of the finished size, and can figure out how many inches you need to start your design at.


*Yeah. I'm an awful person. I do use reusable grocery bags and all that, but I also have chronic pain issues, and pre-cut veggies help a lot. I can get just as much as I need of what I need for the meal I'm making, and it cuts down my standing time. I also sort of resent the fact I feel like I need to excuse my use of salad bar containers.
**A Mc Kinley mac is a big mac made with quarter lb patties. I don't want to know how many calories are in it. I also don't want to know which marketing genius decided to completely ignore our name for that mountain. Denali. The Great One. It's an Athabaskan word, and darnit, we were here first.

Well, my last call for ideas, 101 Things To Do With An Empty Cereal Box is still at 10 things. But I'm going to try again.

101 Uses for Plastic Grocery Bags
1. Reuse them as bags. Obviously. Who hasn't run to the gym with stuff in a plastic bag because it's convenient? Well, I haven't,because I've got my big happy Hello Kitty bag, but my son takes his sneaks to the gym in a grocery bag.
2. Donate them to your local library or charity, used bookstores can also use them.
3. Keeping yarn pristine while working on a project.
4. Fuse them, fused plastic bags make a very tough material, and with a bit of duct tape for people who don't have a sewing machine, or with sewing, you can make all sorts of neat things, like re-usable grocery bags, or messenger bags.
5. Sculpting, I love this project, and E and I are so doing it. She's a HUGE Simpson's fan, and this is so clever. Plastic bags can be used to bulk up things lightly for all sorts of projects.
6. also by dadcando, a golden snitch using plastic bags for wings.
7. Crochetor knit a bag with them. I don't actually cut mine that way, I lay the bag out flat, and cut completely across in about 1.5 inch wide strips that are loops, then I loop them together like you probably did with rubber bands as a kid to make chains. I like doing it that way, because I can just have a stack of strips and just loop on a new one as I need it rather then dealing with rolling balls of plastic , plus doing it this way also means if you do accidentally rip one, you just have to replace that section without having to tie a knot.
8. A variation of 7, white plastic bags cut a little thinner then you would for a bag and worked with a size J or K hook make nifty weather proof stars and snowflake ornaments. Pick your favorite pattern.
9. Toy clothes. I know, it sounds silly, but they've been used for petticoats, skirts, raincoats for plushies in our home. Usually taped, but I'm going to have E try our Eurosealer as well.
10. About toys? Plastic bags also make good stuffing for amigurumi. I've only handwashed things I've stuffed that way.
11. I haven't tried it yet, but how about a water resistant sit upon? I have made pillows to keep in the car to keep under my back when it's really bothering me, and I like them.
12. Pom poms! My mom used to make these for some of the kids in our neighborhood (I never wanted to be a cheerleader).. iirc, she may have used empty pill bottles for handles. I think she'd cut across the handles, and make vertical cuts into the bag leaving a couple inches at the bottom sealed end, then roll up the ends and glue them into the pill bottle or something like that.
13. Kites! Plastic bags rock for kites because they don't weigh anything. My dad was a cloth kite snob until he found out how easily and high plastic kites can fly.
14. From lupabitch, packing! Nice soft packing for moving, packing pretties you've made for friends to mail et cetra
15. This only uses a tiny bit, but when I was a kid I used them in dioramas with a bit of paint to make campfires, what other modeling uses I wonder?
16. From taimatsu- Use them to stuff a duct tape dummy
17. Also from taimatsu- try making a shower curtain out of fused plastic bags, there is a link to fusing plastic bags above.
18. Crochet a scrubbie

So, leave your suggestions in the comments, or links to other projects!

Computers, crocheting, cozies and chocolate.
Computers- Got a used computer last night, Mike's working on getting it up to what I need. Happiness!
Crocheting- A cozy for W's iPod. He saw the one I keep my nano in, and said "I hate to ask,but I'd really like a case for mine." and I said "Not a problem, will a crocheted one work until I find a good deal on one?" and he said yes. So I'm crocheting him one. He wants a neckstrap like my nano case has, and picked out a dark blue yarn. I couldn't find any buttons that would go well with it, so I made one with a bottle cap and a bit of wire. He says he likes it. It's kind of rough and neat looking.
Chocolate- Fred Meyers, or Krogers carry a lot of Disney themed kids food, which you know if you have one locally, and right now they have their big PotC and Princess chocolate bars on sale for 69 cents. Which I'm including just to include something about chocolate. E loves them. Because the wrappers are fun to glue on things.

They also have mini kid sized icecream cones, which are about 2 inches tall and so cute! So Sunday night after dinner, I offered everyone icecream cones. (Peppermint icecream is one of my favorites, it reminds me of mom who loved it so, and it was on sale for 1.50 for a half gallon). Mike didn't know we got mini cones. E did. So I served up the icecream, and giggling insanely in the kitchen, I had E bring it out to him, because I knew I couldn't without laughing too hard. She handed him the tiny icecream cone and he shouted "WTF?", at which point, E , W and I just convulsed in laughter. He grumbled, and ate it in a couple bites. And refused seconds. He said the icecream cones made him feel like a giant. But I love tiny things so much! I think I want to make mini lace cookie cones for tiny servings of sherbert this summer.

Check out this ipod case made from milk jug plastic. Very clever reuse!

Remember my recycled packaging mini matchbooks? I decided the small scale was the perfect thing to try the aluminum foil thing I want to do on comp books with the kids.
( shiny shiny )
I just have to say, I *love* this camera for taking nice close up shots!

We skipped E's craft class because of a bead show downtown. Before we left, we checked the mail, and my books from Microcosm were there. More on those in a bit.

The bead show was missing some of my favorite sellers, but I did manage to find entirely too much to spend money on. Fish Lips and Bird Teeth had a couple wonderful poly clay pins, no magpies though! She said she would have some at the next show, after finding out that jays, while corbies, weren't my favorite. I like magpies. I got a pin from her that says "I'm not bossy, I'm just always right", Mike and the kids thought it was hilarious, and entirely too perfect for me. Alaska Bead Company had a trunk show going with sparkly after market coated riviolis. Too shiny, too pretty, and too much. I spent a lot of money on 6 pretty crystals. One of them is triangle shaped and just incredible shine. Since I'm getting some gold beads from Pamy, I think the triangle crystal will be my "Not a Christmas Party" necklace this year. I also got a pretty blown glass angel to hang from my window, she's holding a rose.
After that, E and I went for lunch at the Brewhouse, yeah, I know, tight budget I totally blew yesterday, but it was fun. She had halibut fish and chips, and I had a garlic-y pasta/chicken dish I love. I did not have creme brulee. See? I was watching the budget.
We walked for a bit, and going by town square, we ran across Eyes Wide Open, an exhibition done by American Friends Service Committee. It was amazing. In the center of town square was a neat square marked off with American flags, filled with neat rows of combat boots representing a small part of the soldiers that have died in Iraq. Surrounding that, on the small hills around the center were pairs of regular shoes all marked with names and ages of Iraqis that have died in the war. They were everywhere, baby shoes, kids shoes, slippers for elderly women, all with names and ages. I started crying when I saw a pair of shoes that represented a 12 year old, with my 12 year old daughter next to me. There were a lot of people looking at the names in the section with the soldiers boots, but for me, it was the rest that was heartbreaking. The servicemen and women who died signed up for it, and even if they didn't really know what they were getting into, they knew there was a possibility they would be asked to fight for their country. A 6 month old, an 80 year old, a 12 year old, they don't ask for it. They weren't waging war. They were trying to live. I picked up literature about the exhibit for my son. I didn't realize until I'd gotten home I should have picked up extra copies for Mel. I'm sorry!
After that, we walked over to Nordstrom's for coffee. You know, when I was 16, it was 25¢ a cup, it's gone up to 2.50. E and I each had a cup of coffee, and split a piece of chocolate cake (it's really rich and dark chocolate, even sharing, we didn't finish it, E did NOT want to admit the cake had her beat). After you've seen an exhibition like that, and when your shopping bag is filled with catalogs from a place like Microcosm, you feel strongly like saying very rude things to people spending hundreds on dresses and shoes, you know that? I settled for leaving a couple catalogs in the ladies restroom lounge.
Then we walked to the hotel, and just when we were a block away, Mike called to say he was off work, so we waited for him by the door, and he picked us up. Then we went to get Wm.
About the books-
The cookbook, Hot Damn and Hell Yeah/The Dirty South had a recipe in it for a mushroom gravy, that modified a bit, made a marvelous "safe to eat even when on a diet" gravy for Mike. So last night, he had leftover chicken instead of halibut with the rest of us with gravy on it. Since he hasn't had gravy in a month, he loved it.
( gravy recipe )
Before bed last night, I read some of Stolen Sharpie Revolution, which is as amazing as it sounds. I know at least one person on my flist has a zine, and I've considered starting one a few times. This book is absolutely chocked full of information. The real question is, who would be interested in a zine I was doing? It would be a lot like this blog, a mix of crafts, politics, ideas, and journalling, in print form.
Making Stuff and Doing Things is full of a lot of ideas I won't use, but it also has some great ones I will use. One of them is to make buttons using safety pins, bottle caps and can tabs. Which I had some of. So I tried it out.
( Bottle cap buttons )

( making little purse notebooks from junk )
Check out this post for more ideas or to contribute your own uses for lightweight cardboard boxes.

I also found myself wondering if you could use prong set rhinestones to hold together a little notebook of this sort. Wouldn't that be fun? Bedazzled mini notebooks?

being followed by paper sharks, and when I woke up, I asked Mike how a sheet of paper wound up sheet of paper sized? Because really? It's a neat rectangle. If you fold in half the right way, it keeps the same proportions. If you fold down the top diagonally to make a square, what's left is a dollar bill proportioned piece. He didn't know the answer though. But he did pat my back and tell me the paper sharks weren't going to cut me to pieces.

But that made me wonder what all could you do with a cardboard box? Not the big huge kind you get occasionally, LOTS of uses for thoses, but the lightweight kind like cereal boxes.

101 Things To Do With An Empty Cereal Box
(list in progress, please make suggestions)

1. Cut yourself a set of tangrams.
2. Use to create the skeleton of a duct tape purse
3. Make little gift boxes with it in different sizes.
4. mini notebooks. Seriously, scratch paper or paper that's only been printed on one side cut down and stapled into a little "matchbook" made of cardboard that size is handy in a purse.
5. Make a boat out of it. My daughter has boats out of all sorts of things, she saves her drinking straws from when we go out for the masts.
6. HEY! Cool holiday/movie themed packaging. If you have a spiral binder, spiral bind a small notebook.
7. This stuff? Really perfect for ATCs if you aren't too worried about acid content, but also you can cut a window template with it, where you cut a window out of a sheet that's the size of an ATC, then you position the window on your magazine page or whatever your using and find a piece of the page that looks right. The neat thing about this method is that it lets you look at a magazine page differently, in diagonal or whatever until you find that just right piece.
8. Quilt templates or patterns for all sorts of things.
9. Build an armature for a paper mache piece.
10. Put a cat toy in it, and make your cat paw it out. Hours of entertainment! beaddreamer maybe cut holes in it, and put in a crocheted ball filled with catnip then tape the box shut? A little more challenge?
11. valentine boxes from omega85
12. Stencils, a little sturdier then paper.
13. foil and cardboard go together nicely. Not just notebooks, think crowns and costume accessories as well.
14. This wonderful waller!
15. Weave a placemet

I don't wanna work on the scarf. I know the only way I'll get faster at knitting is to practice, but it's still inspiring many other things to avoid working on it.

I'm nearly done with the bag of bags. Like.. within an hour. So I'll finish that and get a picture up today.

The stole thing? Honestly? I want to start over with motifs. Motifs are easier because the end is in sight with each motif. Emily likes the pattern I'm using for it though.

edit:( it's finished! )

-Shala

A marble counter at the hotel fell and broke into 3 pieces, so Mike's bringing them home tomorrow. Happy Shala gets a piece of flat marble for cooking for nothing!! Mike's keeping a piece for his leather work. The last piece, well.. we will see. He dropped bricks for hints that me baking my Sooper Famous Sooper Sekrit Cookies wouldn't go amiss. These are the cookies that have garnered me wedding proposals from strangers and caused grown men to crawl across a room begging. The cookies are sexier then I am.


These are nifty bags right? They are from Science and Surplus which is one of the greatest places in the world to spend money. I should know. I tend to meet the minimum. Then double or more it. Even at their prices. I just can't look at some of the things they have without thinking "That's incredibly cool and I always needed it!"
Back to the bags. And actually back to one of my loves. Recycling. If you buy them from Science and Surplus (click the picture to go there and find all sorts of things you never knew you needed), you have helped save them from landfills. Because it's all surplus there.

But what I was thinking was why not make them? And possibly make them a bit bigger, so tomorrow I'm going to try to make a pattern that will be printable off the net. But what about the very cool recycling bit?
Ahh.. yeah. That.
Well.. this only works if you have the right resources, family, compulsive redecorating friends, that sort of thing, but I'm going to try it out of an old plastic shower curtain. I was talking to Mike about the idea, and I said "Of course, the thing is getting an old shower curtain from someone because I'm not going to just replace out for no reason, and I need to do it from recycled materials" and Mike said "And you don't think I have plastic shower curtains?" which is of course all part of my secret plan. I *know* he does. They don't get ruined often, but rarely in a hotel with over 100 rooms is still a lot more often then here at the house. Plastic shower curtains. He's had them on hand for YEARS and it never occurred to him I could use them? Let me see.. water resistant linings for purses.. makeup bags, all sorts of things that I could do with plastic shower curtains.

And happy happy news! I'm getting more slippers! Well.. at least one more pair. *wiggles cold toes*
And I think I figured out what I'm going to for Awfief since she made me a pair.

Okay everyone, send me your chopsticks. The disposable kind. *grins*

-Shala who is entirely too hot with the idea of hotel surplus.

Last time I bought mayo, I got one of those plastic containers with the flip tops. You've seen them right?

When it was empty I washed it. I do that somewhat automatically with a lot of containers, I never know when one is going to be the perfect size for something. Emily just found the empty container, I was boringly and expectedly enough thinking "Purse"

Emily saw it and thought..
ant farm
bug catcher
snow globe
planter (it's clear plastic, she could see the roots)

In other news, I tried something different with my hair last night. I admit, sometimes I miss suds. When I do, I usually use Dr. Bronner's peppermint before I use the baking soda/acv. Last night I used my bar of Dr. Bronner's lavender on the theory lavender helps keep oil production down. It really does, a couple drops of lavender oil on a brush run through your hair will do wonders to keep it from getting oily.
Results- It took a little longer to dry, but it's SHINY. Really really shiny and soft. I'm happy with it. I won't do it regularly, but for those times I miss suds, it works well.
I think for those people who live in areas of the country where they don't have great water and can't get the baking soda completely rinsed out, you may want to try mixing it with Dr. Bronners. Dr. Bronner's is real soap so it isn't damaging. It's very mild. If it seems a little expensive, realize you don't need much.
Last night while I was combing my hair, I was just stunned, I was leaning forward and brushing it over on shoulder, and the fact that ends were all nice and neat even though my last trim was at least 5 months ago just stunned me. The ends aren't thinned out or wispy. Part of it is being healthier, but part of it is also giving up shampoo. It's just healthier, fuller and stronger.
The other thing about Dr. Bronners Lavender soap is that it's *really* cut down on my acne, so I'm going to try it on William. I knew it was a good soap for acne, but never really used it exclusively on my face for any amount of time, I've been using it for a couple weeks now and it's cleared up my skin considerably.

-Shala