Lip Scrub

Who or what is LUSH!?! I should probably know this right? maybe I don't get out much or maybe because I'm in a small town that doesn't have many shopping places... But they are pretty popular, no?

Well anyways I found on Pinterest a copycat recipe for their lip scrub and thought it was fairly simple enough to try er out :)

This website has sooo many cool DIY, I'm actually very happy to have stumbled across it!

I wanted to make more than just the small little container she shows so I made a bigger batch using the container to measure the ingredients which might have been a mistake because I ended up adding more sugar until I found the right constancy.

Once I found the right constancy, I added in pink food gel and mashed it all up. I added more than needed obviously because it looks red not pink.

And because I had to add more sugar I ended up with four of these little containers. I guess I'm stockpiling lip scrubs now!

Christmas Peppermint chocolate Bark

December 24 2015

Ahhh it's Christmas Eve and between the rush of wrapping and last minute shopping and traveling 1 hour and a half to visit some family. I made some chocolate bark for my neices and nephews.

It was easy and fun and every step tasted just as good as the step before!

Took maybe an hour to make but just because you have to cool the bark after the first step.

Here's the link to the recipe.

I added a little extra since I was making them for children.



The idea for the coconut oil, was a really good idea. Made the chocolate sooo smooth.

I didn't really measure out any of the ingredients, played it by ear. I also didn't add any peppermint extract. I thought it might be too much for the kiddos.

After you do the dark chocolate and chill it. You do the same with the white chocolate.

I had lots of fun crushing the candy canes. Andy however got annoyed as he was trying to watch t.v. and trigger thought I was playing with him and added in a few barks.

oh, how I love my little family :)

After I spread the white chocolate, I added all the deliciousness... which included the crushed candy canes, mini eggs that were red and green and then I sorted through a bag of swedish fish, you can say I was FISHING for the red and green ones. HEHEHEH....

Crack it all up and put em in bags and let the kids enjoy them...... and get hyper.... and annoy their parents.... oh how I'm glad they aren't coming home with me :D

Candy Canes

December 19 2015

Nothing feels better than the sense of accomplishment you feel when someone looks at you and says "YOU MADE THAT?!?!?!"

Today I made candy canes! :D Proud of me? I am :)

Got the how to here :)

Fist of all, I didn't get a lot of pictures, because the gloves I was wearing wouldn't really allow it,and also because you want to move fast so it doesn't get hard to fast on you.

I was lucky and didn't have to use the oven to warm mine up to make it more pliable.

First thing is you want to get all the ingredients ready ahead of time.

 And then you let it boil. It has to reach a certain degree before it's ready. It took somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes for mine to boil to the right degree at medium temperature.

This is where you want to start working fast So I have no pictures. While I was trying to pull and fold the mixture, (I did pink and blue by the way) if you don't wait long enough before using your hands, the mixture that is really sticky will literally stick to your gloves making it ten times harder. So you might want to use your spatula or whatever you used for a good few minutes until you're sure it'll hold it's shape.

Then you roll them out into a log together.

The part where you twist and pull is a little hard at first but once you get a good rhythm going it gets easier and kind of fun.

Oh, and I ate a piece. VERY VERY VERY sticky. The whole 'let it cure' is for your own good, so listen up! 

 I didn't make them all look like canes. They work just as easily as candy sticks.

Winter Red Velvet Fudge

Winter Red Velvet Fudge
December 17 2015

It's almost CHRISTMAS!!!!! yayyyy :) I love christmas, This is when I start to bring out all the red and green desserts. I found a recipe on pinterest for Winter Red Velvet fudge. This recipe in my opinion would also work for Valentines day.

Props to the one who created this recipe. There is a lot of steps and there is even two ways to make it, stove top and microwave.

I got the recipe from This Website.

I started doing the microwave version, but then I realized, I didn't have enough microwavable bowls, oops. So I switched over to the stove top version.

Also the recipe calls for half and half. The writer says that evaporated milk works just as good so that's what i did.

Adding red food colouring to dark chocolate chips. I would suggest using a bigger bowl on account of the fact you'll be adding to this and you will need to stir it.

This is where I decided to switch over to stove top. So there we have butter, evaporated milk and sugar. So glad my stove has a round that has like "power boiling", because you have to constantly stir this mixture, even for 4 minutes after it starts to boil.

This is what the boiled mixture looked like for me.

And this is what Trigger looks like when I drop something between my counter and stove....

 Now you add in the white chocolate chips and marshmallow fluff, which by the way is a genius, yummy, great invention! and you stir until it is all incorporated.









Then, this is where the bigger bowl comes in handy, you add half the white chocolate chip mixture to the dark chocolate chip mixture. Stirring them together is suppose melt the chocolate chips and incorporate it all into a smooth red mixture....

ummm... not very smooth.... this is where something went terribly wrong, But I continued anyways. I tried a chunk and it still tasted fine..

So it didn't swirl....

It looks horrible....

Still tasted pretty good....

In the freezer it goes.....

It didn't as pretty as on the website, but it still tasted like some really good chocolate fudge...









I wouldn't wrap it and give it away, but I'd eat it. Maybe share with my family.... maybe....

Just a note: In the end it tasted fine but my chocolate didn't incorporate very well. Next time I make it, I'll double the white chocolate batch and divide it in half and add red food colouring to one half and then swirl them together.

SALT DOUGH ORNAMENTS

Salt Dough Ornaments

December 16 2015

okay, I did not sleep well last night! Too bad it's getting chillier out,

 maybe the snow would stay this time (yes I am one of the few, who love the snow :) ) I just feel bad leaving the dogs sleep on the cold laminate flooring in our house. So I Let them on the bed, now just let me make something clear... I may be a small 5 foot lady and my fiancee not that much taller, but our dogs, OMG our dogs are MASSIVE!!! They take up SOOO much space!!! but it's just SOOOO cold on the floor, and I mean dogs don't wear slippers.... well mine don't anyways. So I feel guilty, and Trigger well he's not a lie at your feet kind of dog, but he's also not a snuggle up next to you kind of dog, or a steal your pillow kind of dog (that's Beau), He's a jump up on bed all clumsy like find your body and lay on top of you kind of dog.... he's I swear got to be like 150 lbs at least. So yup there we are lying in bed smashed together on account of Beau stealing Andy's pillow and then BAM! We get pushed down into the bed because Trigger decided one of us to squish wasn't good enough but both of us maybe.... So tryin to toss and turn and get comfortable all night, leads to literally no sleep.

Anywaaays....Lets get to the actual post... Salt Dough Ornaments.... Yeah or Nah? Well I can say, thus far …. fairly easy, if your participants are willing.... I have them in the oven right now as I write. I saw this post on pinterest.com it came from the website http://www.irocksowhat.com/2012/11/salt-dough-ornaments.html?m=1.

I like to read the comments first before I start, Just to see what others have tried and what worked for them. So I decided to do the 200 degrees for 4 hours instead of 250 for 2 hours. And also instead of painting them after they cooled I added food colouring to them while I was kneading, just to maybe make it easier, (post pictures) I am in no way an artist, If I would've waited chances are I would've tried to do something a little more fancier and probably would've just screwed them up anyways.

I started with an empty bowl

obviously....

  Added the ingredients

I had gotten a good idea that I wanted to do my dogs and rabbits paw prints, So I doubled the batch. Just to make sure I had enough. Oh and by the way that's a ton of salt!! glad I'm not eating these, ewwwww..... Trigger obviously doesn't care how much
….I'll still eat it ma...

Then you gotta mix and knead and knead and knead.... It says for 7 minutes.. So I stopped at like 3 minutes... Because Uhhh I wanted a break.... and to add the food colouring... I divided into 3 pieces

for 3 animals.

 And decided I would do one white and then being festive like I like to think I am, I did a red

which to me looks more pink....

  and a green
which looks green :)

…. still waiting for my piece ma.....

 after adding the colours I kneaded them a little longer.

 giving up but staying close.... just in case I change my mind and let him have a piece...

I rolled out the white portion first and brought out Root Beer to try his paw....

didn't work out very well, he was less then thrilled, and just left a bunch of holes













I think it might be time to get somebody's nails trimmed...

I scratched that one.

 my turn?!?!? why yes trigger it is! This is the part where my “participants” weren't very helpful, after taking a nibble and I told him no and tried to grab his paw to push into the dough,

 he stared at it.....for a really long time.... took like 15 minutes to get him to stop trying to eat it and co-operate, but I finally got it!

 It's not as deep as I wanted.

Beau's turn!

See his ears perked up a little? looked like he might be co-operative :)









after trying a piece..

... he was a little confused, and possibly didn't like the taste(probably the salt...)









 he gave me his paw (post picture) again, not very deep.

obviously not the treat he had hoped for....

that'll cheer em up.

Now what to do? To make sure you can actually see the paw prints? Oh I know I'll do a little food colouring mixed with water to fill in the holes, add their names and actually they looked pretty good. So in the oven they go...

And we wait....

Start a blog entry

And we wait....

...do the dishes...

And we wait...

 build a coffee station in my kitchen for Andy

And we wait...

and I think finally after 4 long hours they are done.

. I wish the green I used on Beaus ornament would've finished looking green...
None the less they turned out great :)

I don't have a tree this year, because we left it in our other house. We have renters there so we don't want to bother them by going in the attic, but I am positive my mom will love these huge ornaments in her tree :D

GIFT BASKET MONEY

December 15, 2015

So I recently moved to the next town over. It's about 45 mins from my home town, and I don't drive. Well I could if I wanted to, but I don't. So I had to give up my job doing laundry at the hospital. NO BIG DEAL. Wasn't my thing really anyways. Well I've been here for going on 3 months now, and I still haven't found a job. I guess we can blame the economy for that, eh. Well it's almost Christmas, and since there's all these facebook pages for selling items in this town, I decided to take to Pinterest.com and try my hand at crafty things that I can sell, to make some extra cash for the holidays. pinterest has a lot of good ideas and the first thing I saw that I thought would be perfect, and I figured if they don't sell I can just give them as gifts to my family. DOUBLE BONUS! Gift Baskets! Who doesn't love a basket packed with goodies to enjoy. You can make all sorts of themed ones, like cooking and manicure/pedicure or even just coloured theme. Spa coloured theme seemed to be my favorite ones to make. Their nice, perfect for those who need to relax, and these days who doesn't need to relax?

With everything being easy to find, and cheap to purchase.. I bought almost everything at the dollar store. I even got my baskets at a second hand store for dirt cheap. And they SOLD! People loved them!

Here are my examples:

 This one I called the winter warmer's one, on account of all the nice hot drinks added, to a DIY mug.

 These ones are my spa colour themed ones.

 This is the cooking one.

Of course you can customize these any way you want, to suit you or your customer needs.These baskets had only cost me each about 5-10 dollars to make and sold for around 15 dollars.

The other thing I saw on pinterest, that I was really interested in are the night before Christmas boxes for children. Now the only children I have are 4 legged ones, so they weren't really something I'd make for my house, but I thought you know, these boxes have lots of stuff to keep the kids occupied. Especially the ones that have babysitters, their perfect right. I figured, depending where I got the movies I'd be paying somewhere between 15-20 dollars for each and could probably sell for 25. I adjusted it a little bit, to fit the different ages. The baskets on pinterest included pj's for the child and I didn't want to have to go out looking for Christmas themed pj's for kids that I've never met,so I canceled those out. I basically took the idea and made it my own. I included movies, juice boxes, chocolate and candy canes,along with popcorn. I added in a few activity things like colouring book and pencil crayons, and then because everyone likes to leave cookies out for Santa I added in a batch of my homemade sugar cookie mix so they can make Santa cookies! As a child growing up I had this one aunt who gave me an ornament every year and I saw different pinterest posts about making your ornament, So I added in a personalized ornament in every box. I thought it was a great idea, but didn't wanna pay that much for something that wouldn't sell (seeing as I have no kids of my own to give them to), So I just posted the description. And YUP they sold! Now I had to go and make these boxes. I had nothing except the boxes. Went shopping, did them up all nice and pretty.

Then I added the picture to my post on facebook and BAM! They went like hot cakes!! The parents loved them, they were actually really excited and I had to make like 15 more of them! So if it's Christmas and your short on cash for gifts, this is definitely something you can do for your community, that would make you a ton of extra cash. I just hope the kids are just as excited for these boxes as the adults were!!