Some chocolatiers may say that chocolate candy making is an easy process. Nothing is farthest from the truth though you may thing so otherwise because the equipment needed to make confectioneries are easy to acquire, like a thermometer to gauge temperatures, a double boiler to melt chocolates on, bowls for mixing, spatula for folding and spreading melted chocolate, cookie cutters or candy molds to create chocolate shapes, and the basic chocolate ingredient (your choice).

The chocolate bar is cut to be melted easier; and during this melting, you must keep stirring the contents continuously to prevent burning. After air-drying this melted chocolate on a baking sheet, you can make candies of charming designs using candy molds or a cutter; you can also make coated-fruit candies.

When you casually make chocolate candy for offering to your friends and relatives, you need not give much importance to tempering so there is no need for a thermometer. But, if you venture into commercial sales, you should temper them properly for which you’ll be needing a thermometer.

Without tempering, chocolates cannot be shiny, smooth, crisp and creamy because these are not their natural qualities. In tempering, you follow the three steps of heating, cooling and re-heating and you should maintain correct temperatures during these three steps. Otherwise, chocolates remain untempered and would result in unappealing chocolate candy.

Every chocolate typelike the dark, semi-sweet and whitehas their own tempering temperature. Cocoa butter is composed of fatty acids that can solidify into six crystal structures which multiply at six unique temperatures. Additionally, type IV crystals get produced with the type V crystals but they melt away sooner than type V crystals so you don’t need them.

When there is a necessity to temper large quantities of chocolates, you should opt to use a tempering machine because it comes with a computer chip to maintain temperatures at accurate levels; you won’t have difficulties that will rob you of the fun in chocolate candy making. Tabliering, a manual tempering technique, is the preferred method for artisan chocolatiers.

Chocolatiers should have to learn how to temper by hand because this is a skill that would allow you to face unforeseen situations when chocolate will have to be tempered manually. In tabliering, chocolates are tempered by using a marble slab in the cooling phase of tempering. In the other method of manual tempering, called “seeding”, tempering is done by using little chocolate solids, tempered by the manufacturer, as “seeds” for the loose crystals to copy.

If there is a lapse in sustaining tempering temperatures, you’ll need to temper till the chocolates achieve an ideal tempered state.

It is getting progressively patent that mates are no longer taking to the aisle in hordes. People just don’t like the idea of marriage so much any more. It’s a bitsad really that this tradition seems to be kicking the bucket. Aside from those strong Christians, a church ceremony doesn’t always attract. It is more the dress, the presents and the reception that brides get excited about. Of course everyone loves staring into the eyes of their lover and professing their love for them, but this doesn’t necessarily have to be in the context of an recognized wedding ceremony. People think of marriage as a huge step, an ceasing of something in a way, though it is of course the kickoff of a new adventure too. The fear is that the whole action of marriage and divorce is a knotty and costly one and therefore shouldn’t be tackled lightly. You have to be serious about marriage in order to go through with it, and this puts many people off. There is besides a fear of change for some people, who believe that marriage will put an unnecessary stress on the relationship. Others just don’t consider in it, and what it intends, preferring to just live in with their partner alternatively.

Love and its attendant passions has been the favorite subject of Spanish poetry since the time of the troubadours, medieval poets who earned their keep by singing for the people at the village square or for the nobility during royal gatherings at the palace. Composers in their own right, these court poets sang about courtly love and the bittersweet pain of unattained love for an idealized woman using the jarchas, a form of love song that was actually poetry written in very short stanzas.

It is important in the study of Spanish love poems to differentiate between poems that originated from countries outside of Spain including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, The United States, Uruguay and Venezuela which were written in Spanish but whose authors were not from Spain. All these poets and their respective poems have contributed in some way to the development of Spanish Poetry as a genre because they all wrote their work in Spanish albeit in the form of Spanish common to their country of origin. Although some of them wrote patriotic poems about their motherland, most of them utilized images of love to depict the sorrow of a country that has lost its freedom.

Some of these well-known Spanish poets and their popular poems are:

Carlos Alberto Garcia - Amor
Que soy
Quisiera
Yo te conozco
Olvidarte
Nestor Oscar Morris - Quiero decirte algo
Pienso solo en ti
Jorge E. Diaz Leyton - Tu
Manuel M. Mendez - Pertenencia

Focusing attention on Spanish poets who trace their origins to Spain, however; poets who lived, loved and wrote their best work within the Spanish Peninsula or the so-called ‘Poetas de Espaa’, we come up with a list of illustrious writers whose works contributed to the development of Spanish Literature as it is today.

* Rafael Alberti - La Amante
* Vicente Aleixandre ( Nobel Laureate 1977) - Destruction of Love
* Dmaso Alonso - Hijos de la Ira
* Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer - Rimas y leyendas
* Saint John of the Cross - Dark Night of the Soul
* Luis Cernuda - La realidad y el deseo
* Francisco Domene - Arrabalas
* Len Felipe - Drop a Star
* Federico Garca Lorca - Sonetos del amor oscuro
* Luis de Gngora - Soledades
* Jorge Guillén - Cntico
* Miguel Hernndez - Nanas de cebolla
* Santa Teresa de Jess - Laughter Came From Every Brick
* Juan Ramn Jiménez (Nobel Laureate 1956) - La Poetica
* Antonio Machado - Nuevas canciones
* Jorge Manrique - Coplas por la muerte de su padre
* Emilio Prados - Veinte poemas en verso
* Francisco de Quevedo - Flores de poetas ilustres
* Ana Rossetti - Where is My Man
* Pedro Salinas - Ayer Te Besé en los Labios
* Garcilaso de la Vega - Hora de Nuestra Seora
* Lope de Vega - La Arcadia
* Esteban Manuel de Villegas - Las Erticas
* Leopoldo Mara Panero - Dedicatoria

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My Endless Love

If I could carry sunsets home
to bring before your eyes
My love would travel with the sun
within a ray of light

If I could bring you sunny days
with clouds so puffy white
My love would be within the clouds-
upon an angels flight

If I could bring you happiness
and cheer to make you laugh
My love would give you songs of hope
so tears would never last

If I could lift you-when you fall
to ride upon my back
My love…once more
would carry you-
my endless love surpassed

I am Your Fondest Maiden

I am drawn to your voice
with spattered thoughts-
encased by silent dewdrops
on my hearts sentiments

You give me dreams
of white knights-
saving damsels
once before…crushed
by love’s heartaches

It is you-whom I love…
with my breath
and with my kiss-
and I am woven
into the fabric
of your…
soul’s silken lining

I am like a spider-
crawling
onto a web
made by a prince…
and I-
am your fondest maiden

Sing a Song for Me

If you should dream upon a star
with sparkles in the sky
then you should be the one I long
My heart could not deny…

If you should give upon my soul
your body’s tender love
then you should be the one I kiss
A lasting scent behold

If you should lie upon the grass
with lilies in the field
then you should be my only man
to make love and hold dear

If you should sing upon a harp
with heaven’s music nigh
then you should sing a song for me
for tears would not run dry…

Antoinette Kopperfield lives in Gilbert, Arizona (about a half hour drive from Phoenix) with her husband and two grown sons. She is currently working on her Masters Degree in Creative Writing along with composing songs.

Writing is Antoinette’s breath and her life. Without it she would wither like a folded rose in an old book of literature. Though she has many interests writing is the companion to her soul.

She is married to a wonderful artist. Many times their days are spent with Mentis’ at the easel and herself writing. Television and movies are an entertainment, though most of their time is spent creating. Along with school Antoinette has other projects in the works. Her long term goals include writing a book of poetry, a novel and a screenplay. She divides her time between all her interests and this keeps her working towards her goals.

Essential for a unique enriching experience, bath salts are easy to make with the simplest of ingredients, available in all stores. They can be used separately or in combinations for therapeutic, medicinal or similar salutary reasons.

The ingredients for bath salts are simple and easy to find. They include a mixture of baking soda, bath salts such as Epsom or Dead Sea salts, essential oils, and coloring. Glycerin can also be added if your skin requires additional moisturizing. It is a by-product of soap making, and available in stores. The process is not lengthy, and requires simple mixing and airing and storing in fancy glass jars.

A shorter and entirely different process requires distilled water, unscented shampoo, glycerin, and essential oils. A good substitute for unscented shampoo is castile soap. Castile soap is made from olive oil, and is used to soften and moisturize the skin. It is easily found in all health food stores, drug stores, and major department stores. The process involves mixing and storing ingredients, after which water is poured into the container. Adding a few attractive seashells can enhance the beauty of the bath salts.

A longer process requires sunflower oil, essential oils, a corked container, and a funnel. The process involves pouring the sunflower oil into the container, adding a few teaspoons of essential oil and leaving it for a few days, shaking the bottle at regular intervals. A few attractive beads, crystals, and dried flowers can make the container pleasing to the eyes.

A variety of options are available for those who wish to experiment. There are 21 different types of essential oils, colors, and textures, each to suit your need. Whether you’re looking for an ideal inexpensive gift, a new craft project, or something to help ease your aching muscles, learning to make bath salts is entertaining and rewarding.

Bath Salts provides detailed information on Bath Salts, How to Make Bath Salts, Wholesale Bath Salts, Lavender Bath Salts and more. Bath Salts is affiliated with Glass Beads.

There are so many reasons out there to scrapbook! For one, it’s history, right? And it’s important for us to remember and cherish these memories, especially for our generations to follow. I would have been so thrilled had my mother saved stories to go along with all her photos. She still keeps my baby photos and photos of her and her family in shoeboxes. Awful thought isn’t it?

Well, we all have those tons of photos of our ancestors, at least most of us do, but there are so many other memories to cherish besides family trees. How about a baby’s first year? You can document month-by-month how your baby is growing and all the things he or she is learning. This makes a great present come wedding time.

Apropo wedding, of course you’ll want to save your precious wedding memories. Not only the professional photos, but also those of the reception, the church, maybe even your engagement party. There are subthemes such as the ring, the dress, the bride, the groom, the kiss, etc. There are entire lists!

What about your vacations! You don’t want to just slap these photos in a regular album! That would be a waste! You’ll want to share your story about where you went, what you saw and did, right? Names, places, dates are all very important for scrapbooking. That is the reason we scrapbook, to tell our story! The same goes for holidays, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc.

Do you have any pets? There are so many cute ideas and embellishments for pet pages out there. It is incredible! I’ve scrapped my big red tabby cat Pooky and made really adorable memory pages. To some people, pets are like children!

Ever remodeled an old house and have shot before and after pictures? Now, there’s a super scrapping idea. You can journal in all of the work you’ve done to restore the house, how long it took, and any blunders that occurred along the way!

Scrap your feelings about something. There doesn’t even have to be a picture on the page, just use your imagination and create a nice layout using just your words and emotions. It’s kind of like writing in your diary, except it might be something you’ll want to show someone else. So keep it clean! What about your hobbies? I’ve made scrapbook pages about scrapbooking!

Just a few more to get you going: graduation/school years and your job (in case it’s worth scrapping). Have FUN scrapping!!!

Author: Jacqueline M. Schimmel

Jacqueline Schimmel is a Professional Scrapbook Designer based in Stuttgart, Germany. Her website is Memories Artwork.