Guests staying for the holidays?

Freshen up their linens with this sleep-enducing linen spray!

1/2 cup distilled water

1/2 tsp witch hazel

6 or 7 drops lavender essential oil (or to desired scent)

Mix up in a spray bottle.

Spray linens before guests arrive, leave on nightstand for them to use or use on your own linens before bed. Shake, shake, spray, allow to dry then drift off into snoozville!

We included this in our Christmas baskets to help our friends/family get some much needed rest after the holidays!

(apparently I don't know how to work my camera these days! sorry about all the blurry photos!)

Kick those winter blues!

With this delicious smelling diffuser blend:

12 drops Orange essential oil
8 drops Grapefruit essential oil

Mix in a glass bottle.

Place a few drops in a diffuser and enjoy!

Mean Kitty Song

I just had to share this! This is totally like Gidgey!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo

Look @ my big ears!

We've had a few people tell us that Gidgey has big ears. I've never noticed that her ears are abnormally large, but tonight while I was looking through the pictures on my phone I saw this...

Her ears do look a little big in this photo!!! It gives her character! ...not that she needs anymore, she's crazy!

Forget those pesky chemicals!

Another homemade Christmas gift post...I also made homemade liquid soap. With the H1N1 panic going on these days people are turning to harsh chemicals to help ward off illness. Why?! Go natural!

As the bubonic plague decimated Europe in the year 1413, four thieves were captured and charged with robbing the dead and dying victims. When the thieves were tried, the magistrate offered leniency if they would reveal how they resisted contracting the infection as they performed their gruesome acts. They explained that they were perfumers and spice traders and told of a special concoction of aromatic herbs, including cinnamon, lemon, eucalyptus, cloves and rosemary, that they rubbed on their hands, ears, and temples. This is how the combination of these oils came to be called 'Thieves Oil'.

(sorry about the blurred photo)

I purchased some organic castile soap online and the necessary essential oils to mix up my Thieves Oil. I then mixed up the Theives Oil into a separate glass bottle using equal parts of each oil. Then, using foamer bottles, mixed about 5oz soap with 2oz water and added Thieves Oil...voila! Homemade liquid soap with illness fighting Thieves Oil!

*update*

This can be used with less soap and more water...the castile soap we used was just picky and would separate if mixed with more water.

My new love...

We have been cable-less for a few weeks now and have replaced it with seasons on dvd. Bob purchased seasons 1 & 2 of Smallville and BAM(!) we were sucked in...I am now officially gaga over Tom Welling (Clark Kent). We have already watched seasons 1-7.

I mean, look at this...

How could I not be?!?!

(and these aren't even the best pics!)

My latest obsession...

Mint nonpareils...YUM! I can't seem to get enough of these lately! I have a bowl of them sitting next to my laptop and sewing machine now : )

21-25 of 103 Randoms About Me

25. I have a horrible and disgusting habit...I bite my nails something awful : (

24. I have only moved twice in my life. Once when I was around 2 and the other when I was 20. I only moved an hour away from home and have lived in the same apartment since! I'm 27 now!

23. My favorite movie is Wicker Park with Josh Hartnett. Which is great because it's supporting a home-state hottie!

22. We've been without cable for a while now and have been watching LOTS of Smallville. Seasons on DVD are the best thing ever! I am now officially madly in love with Tom Welling! <3

21. I am a HUGE procrastinator. It is 5 days before Christmas and I still have gifts to make!

For the kiddos

I needed to come up with something to do for the kiddos in the families we're giving gifts to...so keeping with the homemade theme I made a few things for them!

Simple memory game with fabric instead of commercialized name brands or characters...

I then took scrap pieces of the fabric used for the game pieces and made a little baggie to store them in : )

I also used scraps from the same fabric to make bean bags filled with dried beans (of course!)...

They need something to do with the bean bags right?! I connected a few pieces of pipe cleaner together then wrapped some around it for more strength and covered it with a piece of black fleece...simply lay the ring on the ground and try to throw the bean bags into the ring. (For pretty young kids, so it didn't need to be too complicated.) There are many other uses for bean bags too, I can only imagine the things kids could come up with!

Squeaky Clean

I've wanted to learn how to make my own soap for a while now and Christmas seemed to be the perfect reason to learn! It would make a nice addition to the other homemade gifts we're giving.

My brother had made soap before so I emailed him asking him for his recipe. When told me that he would bring the recipe and the stuff needed to make it up with him when he came up for Thanksgiving, I was thrilled!

I was so excited to make it that I asked him to show me how to make it the day after he arrived, haha. He brought the recipe and enough lye for two batches of soap. We quickly made a run to the store and picked up the olive oil, shortening and coconut oil. That's it! That's all you need for a basic bar of soap. Simple enough, right?!

The lye scares me because it is a little dangerous if you don't know what you're doing with it...and I didn't have a clue! You must be careful to make sure you don't get any on your skin! However, we made it through the soap making process without incident.

After we made the soap was the hard part...you have to wait 3-4 weeks before you can use it!

Homemade Lip Balm

Since the theme of Christmas for us was homemade, I decided to make some lip balm for the ladies. Because I had never made lip balm before I went with a really simple recipe. Less ingredients = less loss if it doesn't work, right?!

(sorry for the slightly blurry photo, this was taken with my phone)

This recipe is soooo simple!

• 1/4 cup beeswax shavings not compacted, but not super loose (make sense? haha)
• a tiny bit less than a 1/4 cup sweet almond oil
• a few drops of whatever essential oils you prefer

I say a tiny bit less than 1/4 cup oil because when I used a full 1/4 cup I felt it was slightly too oily. Simply combine the wax and almond oil in a glass microwave approved vessel and nuke at 30 second intervals stirring in between each. Do this until completely melted but not burnt. The first time around I added the oils to the lip balm jars (only if using jars) until I figured out the desired scent. (Usually 3-6) Then simply fill the jars or tubes with the wax/almond oil mix and stir! Once I've gauged how many containers a batch makes I just mixed the proper amount of essential oils into the wax/almond oil blend.

You should try it! Simply adjust things to the way you like it, but this is a good starting point :) Some people like to add honey to this recipe...I wasn't a fan, because my honey never seemed to mix into the wax/almond oil blend well. Good luck and happy melting!

More posts after Christmas!

I am excited to tell you that I will officially have stuff to blog about after Christmas! We went with homemade gifts this year and I'll have blogs to show you them : )

We gave Gidget, our kitty, her Christmas gift early because unfortunately she will be spendy Christmas day alone : ( because we are going up north to spend the day with family. We are saving up to purchase a fancy-schmancy kitty tree for her, they're spendy! The 'cheap' one we like is $170! Ugh. I found for WAY less to be a 'for now' one...

The picture isn't the best because it's taken with my phone, but you get the idea...nothing fancy. She loves it tho! She's still a little scared of getting down from the top platform though.

Internetless

I have been internetless for a few weeks now...that's why no recent posts! Soon! Soon, I will be posting again! I just wanted to let you know : )