Master balm and salve making and make your own products just the way you like them. Save money at the same time. What’s more, making these kinds of products is a lot like candle making and soap making.

Candles, soap, salves and balms all go together too. If you get in the business of selling soap or candles, then the salve-type-products complement the others.

Get these tips about putting together salves and balms to use or sell.

Tip 1 – Salves, balms and body butters are all made about the same way. Containers are usually different. Other than that, the main difference in just in the proportions of the materials used to make up the products.

Tip 2 – Salves and balms are really just combinations of a wax and butters or oils. That simple combination is all it takes to produce a salve product. Using more waxes generally gets you a harder product. Using more oils and less wax results in something that is softer.

Tip 3 – Combining essential oils into the products is a way to get a certain fragrance to the mixture and a way to impart some herbal essence to the product as well. The practitioner of aromatherapy sees a salve as a carrier for the essential oil.

Tip 4 – If you make your own balms, tweak recipes to allow for changes in weather, temperature mainly. As the weather gets really hot, it’s nice to have a harder product, that’s less likely to melt and run. Conversely, in the cold part of the year or in cold locations, a softer product is more pleasant to use.

Tip 5 – People like to buy these kinds of natural products. That’s so partly because there is a lot of interest in avoiding synthetic chemicals on the skin.

That means folks are getting away from most lotions. These kinds of products are much the same as lotions, but without all the chemicals.

Of course an almost endless variety of variations on the salves theme are possible.Vary the ingredients in these mixtures and vary the proportions and get all kinds of results. This makes putting together these kinds of materials really an interesting hobby.

It also makes salve and balm making a possible profits generator as well.

I’m telling you: people really go for the salves and balms. Think about lip balms for example… Lip balms are big business! And so are many other related products, like body butter.

You can get in on this! Make your own lip balms, herbal salves, body butters and more for a fun hobby, and maybe a little money-maker too…

It’s happening again; tension in your shoulders squeezing you, stomach clenching, and that familiar vice grip of pressure in your head. Here comes the stress and overwhelm, visiting you with the same familiar list of stressful thoughts.

Great teachers like Buddha, or in our day Eckhart Tolle, offer present moment awareness as a way to reduce stress, release anger and improve health. We’ve all heard how wonderfully healing it is to be in present moment awareness with its seemingly illusive calm, so how do we get there?

Our mind unceasingly interprets the never-ending flow of information pouring into our brain. Every day, we experience upwards of 10,000 of these interpretations as thoughts, many of them running like a newsreel ticker, repeating the same stressful stories.

To fully experience the present moment we must find a way hush those thoughts, even for just a minute.

A quick, easy way to release the grip of stressful thoughts is with a gratitude practice. Gratitude instantly shifts the focus out of our head full of thoughts, and gets us back into the present moment.

Most of us weren’t taught a gratitude habit, instead we’re encouraged to consume a daily diet of bad news; things going wrong, diseases we could develop, and dangerous conflicts. We’re conditioned to stress by an unrelenting flow of information telling us to worry.

The primitive part of our brain that insured our survival kept us focused on danger; ignoring a rustle in the grass could result in becoming another predator’s next meal! Today, that part of our brain still functions, but instead of the tiger in the grass, we react to the stories stalking us; the tanking economy, the deteriorating environment, or the personal conflict we keep replaying in our mind. When we can’t turn it off, that fear brain overwhelms us with chronic stress.

The good news is that fear and gratitude can not occur together! It’s impossible for the mind to think stressful, fearful thoughts and be grateful at the same time! Gratitude quiets the fear brain and snaps us back into the peace of the present moment.

Gratitude Formula

First, find one thing that fills you with thankfulness. It can be the smallest of things; your brain will respond positively without caring about the size or value of your choice. Dwell for a few moments on why you are grateful for this thing, then let the why settle to the background of your gratefulness, like the blue sky on a softly clouded summer’s day.

Now, make a statement of gratitude: I am grateful for ____________.

For a few minutes repeat your gratefulness statement to yourself. Remember there is a subtle difference between thinking about gratitude and practicing gratitude. Let yourself feel grateful.

You can change your wording, such as; I am so thankful for______, or thank you so much for______, but stay with a simple phrase.You can thank yourself, your higher power, God, Gods or Goddess, it doesn’t matter as long as you feel grateful.

Are you so stressed you can’t come up with something? If you are reading this you are probably in the top percentage of the world population that has clean running water, food, and a bed. Are you able to take a breath? Focus on being thankful for your breath, softly repeating the word yes on your in-breath, and thank you on your out-breath.

After practicing your gratitude statement for a few minutes, notice how you feel. Are you more relaxed and calm? Did your muscles relax, even slightly, and your mind slow down? When practicing gratitude, your brain floods with specific neurotransmitters, the good stuff that creates pleasant feelings and counteracts stress!

When you feel stressful thoughts taking you out of the present moment, use this gratitude practice to bring yourself back. Keep a gratitude journal. Practice gratitude statements every day. Besides bringing you back to the present moment, reducing stress and increasing positive brain chemicals, you may find there is an abundance of things to be grateful for in your life, coloring your world with joy and peace!

Business presentations can make or break a business proposition. Understanding key design elements and setting up your presentation can go far to assure success. There are specific items techniques that will assure a quality product. While there many other approaches, permutations, sources, and skills, these will produce a very high quality product.

The first item we want to consider is the presentation theme. Microsoft PowerPoint is probably the most readily available product. Because of this, we will focus on a presentation using this product. First, Microsoft PowerPoint offers a variety of themes as part of the package. These are not very imaginative, but in general they are conservative and will not make a bad impression. Moreover, you can tailor the color pallet, font selection, and font size on the master for each of these themes. Don’t stray too far from what is expected, but keep in mind that a good impression is the objective. Since this is the case, you probably should perform a search for free downloadable PowerPoint themes from the Internet. This will expand the possibilities, increase the impact, and improve the professional feel of your presentation.

Next, ensure the text in your presentation offers correct grammar and spelling. Nothing destroys the impact of a presentation like the immediate sense that the product is sloppily prepared.

If you are making a presentation, you are selling something. You may be selling your expertise. You may be selling the conclusions you reached from research. You may be trying to close a contract or win an investor. While you may not be a sales person, you need to expect that by definition a presentation means you are selling. Therefore, you need to decide what conclusion you expect your audience to reach. Then you need to set up your presentation to deliver that conclusion. This means that your charts need to tell them what you want them to understand, explain why this is important to them, and emotionally involves them in reaching your intended conclusion.

Now for the individual charts of your presentation. Keep your audience focused. This implies that every chart should be animated. This feature will take a few minutes to master, but choose appropriate animations that bring the audience’s focus to the charts with each main bullet. Follow the main bullets with animations bringing in subsequent bullets one at a time or in groups as the presentation objectives support. Changing it up can be valuable. A single very consistent display of items may not be the best choice. Instead use a variety of animations considering what is appropriate given the intended message and the audience.

Next, apply transitions between the slides. Transitions again help bring your audience back in focus as the motion of the change helps regain their attention.

Finally, apply graphics that support emotionally the conclusions your presentation intends.

As a presenter, these hints for visual appeal, quality appearance, solid fundamental form, and impactful display go far to assure the desired presentation result.