Homemade Body Scrub (Oh, and I'm Back... Again...)

Hello again!  I deleted my last 'I'm back' post because (obviously) I wasn't really back.  I fully intended to be, but you know, life happened.  So... Much... Life...  So first, I will update.  I mostly blog for myself, my family, and my friends.  I hope I can help a few others out there too, but it is primarily for us.  This is basically a catalog of information through our crazy journey.  It all started when I had my own medical struggles and then my daughter had hers too.  Now, I see so many others going through similar struggles.  I hope I can help them too.  I thought about just making the blog completely private so it didn't matter when I updated.  However, I have had so many through my daughter's issues ask me to keep going, that I am going to keep it mostly available for others as well.  However, posts may be sporadic and mostly caught up during summer break.  I am on summer break right now.  My summer breaks aren't really breaks.  I spend a lot of time at professional development and meeting with my team to plan our curriculum for next year.  The rest of the time, I spend planning our year of food and health at home for my family.  If you remember, my daughter cannot have corn.  Corn is in everything.  And I mean EVERYTHING!  I have learned much more about all of that since I posted last so I will try to update on that as I go.  We have also learned more about the delays this has caused for my daughter as well as other possible special needs for her academically.  We are still working on those.  It is a work in progress, but so far, we have had very supportive networks and teachers working with us even though we've had a not so supportive history of doctors.  She fits all of the newer research for learning and food needs.  I am thankful for the teachers, therapists, and specialists who have been so supportive and helpful.  Also, since my last post, I have had surgery and my husband has had a few surgeries.  Crazy, I know.  I had to have a hysterectomy.  Apparently, things were much worse than were showing up in blood tests and ultrasounds but I was in so much pain.  We only did a partial so I still have PCOS to deal with.  It was basically choose the hormone problem I'm used to or the opposite hormone problem.  Ugh!  So I am still fighting with hormones and weight.  Luckily, I've just gone back and forth and not gained all of what I lost back.  I am still smaller than I was when I had L by almost 20 pounds.  Hopefully, now that all of that is done, I can get back on track and keep losing.  J has lost a ton of weight though.  Good for him...  (*insert eye roll here*)  So there is a bit of an update for now.  Here is a recipe that won big as Christmas gifts this year: 

Coconut Body Scrub

Ingredients: 
3/4 cup raw organic sugar

1/2 cup coconut oil

preferred essential oil (optional)

Directions:

There are a few ways you can do this.  On my lower legs and arms, I use the sugar as is.  If I make one for my face and upper legs though, I put the sugar in my Ninja (food processor or blender) to make it a finer grain.  This is a preference though.  First I went ahead and softened the coconut oil just a bit. 10-15 seconds in the microwave is plenty.  You don't want it all liquid.  Mix it with the sugar. I used my hands and a good spatula to do this.  Then, if you want, you can add a few drops of an essential oil.  You can leave it just coconut.  I like this sometimes during the summer because coconut oil on it's own provides some UV protection.  But lavender oil (for relaxation) or lime (to wake you up) is sometimes nice too!  I mix it up.  I love to play with my oils.  Easy peasy!  

I didn't get any pictures of this when I did it at Christmas.  Silly me!  I will try to remember next time.  When I fixed these up for gifts, I just put some in little red ramekins with ribbons around them.  

Christmas Crack

NOTE:  This is not corn-free as is.  I may work on a corn free version later.

This is a great candy for the holidays.  Everyone who tried it liked it.  It didn't stay as hard as most toffee type candies so I left it in the fridge most of the time.  My mom left hers in a bag on the counter though and loved it just like that.

Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 sleeve saltines
1½-2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips (the original recipe was for 2 cups but I prefer a little less chocolate) 

Directions:
In a small saucepan, melt the butter and combine with brown sugar.  Bring to a boil.
Preheat oven to 350°F.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil.  Line the pan with saltines.  Pour the butter and brown sugar syrup over the saltines.  Some of the crackers will float so you will have to line them back up and make sure they are covered by the syrup.  Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and pour chocolate chips over the top.  When chips are softened, use a spatula to spread it evenly across the candy.  If you need this to harden very fast, you can put it in the freezer.  I put it in the fridge over night.  Freezing might actually help with the hardening problem I had.  When it is hard enough, dump out of the pan and remove the foil.  Break into pieces and enjoy.

This was eaten up before I could get a picture of the broken pieces.  Obviously everyone liked this stuff.  Next time I will make sure and get a picture of it broken into pieces.

Ornament Wreath

Here is one of my many Christmas crafts. They are all over Pinterest and the blogosphere and now it is here too.  Part of keeping a blog is to just keep everything together in one place along with sharing it with others.  I like to share my experience if it could help others but I also like the fact that all of my projects and recipes are in one place for me to go find.  I know exactly how my blog is organized and how to find everything.

Materials (with cost):
wire clothes hanger (Free!  They come with my husbands clean uniform shirts.  We send most back because I hate wire hangers in the closet but I kept a few for projects.)
wire cutters (Free!  My husband is so handy.  He always has the tools I need in the garage.)
duct tape (I can't remember exact cost.  Approximately $2-$3 I used a red duct tape.  Did you know they have a million colors of this stuff now?)
tons of cheap Christmas ornament balls  (I used about 60 and it ended up smaller than I originally planned.  I bought them at the dollar store but by the time I realized I needed more, they were out of every color except gold.  Yuck!  So I made do with what I had.  Originally I spent $6 and had 6 tubes of 10-12 ornaments.  So all in all this is a cheap project.)
big festive bow ($2 at Walmart)
hot glue gun with extra sticks of glue (Free!  I already have a bunch in the drawer at home.)

Directions:
1. Cut off the hook of the wire hanger with the wire hangers.
2. Hot glue the tops on the top of the ornaments.  Trust me, do not skip this step.  I went through and if it was easy to pull the tops off, I hot glued.  But I thought the rest would be okay.  Boy was I wrong.  Every time someone opened the door, an ornament fell.  Most of them ended up hot glued after the fact and I still have 2 ornaments I found while cleaning up decorations.
3. Start stringing the ornaments on the wire hanger.  You will have to move them around to get it to look full. Pack the ornaments on there tight so they don't move and it all looks even.
4. Duct tape the ends of the hanger together to make it a wreath.
5. Attach the big pretty bow to hide the ends and the duct tape.

Voila!

I'm pretty sure I will try this again next year with more ornaments to make it bigger.  But I was pretty happy with how it looked hanging on my door.

Chai Tea Latte Mix

UPDATE:  I've received GREAT reviews on this.  Everyone who likes chai tea loves this stuff!

This is another great mix for gift jars.  This recipe made five pint jars.  When I am not making it for gifts, I will probably try to quarter the recipe.  It makes way more than I could ever drink by myself.  It's good though.   I don't think it is quite as good as Starbucks Chai Tea Latte but it is good.  Not to mention, it is MUCH cheaper.  I will definitely keep this recipe around.  One note though, this is the only recipe on this blog so far that is NOT corn-free.

Ingredients:
1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered non dairy creamer
1 cup French vanilla powdered non dairy creamer
2½ cups white sugar
2 cups unsweetened instant tea
2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. allspice
¼ tsp. white pepper

Directions:
Combine all ingredients.  Add three tablespoons of tea mix to one cup hot water or milk.

Note:  This recipe was modified from HERE.

Mother's Day

So every year I try to do at least a few homemade gifts for some holidays.  This year I got crafty for mother's day.  This is the second year in a row to get crafty on Mother's Day.  I will post some pictures of last year's gifts at the end of this post.  For now I will explain this year's craftiness.  I've never been the artist of the family. My sister got that talent.  Unless it is the art of music, I'm lost.  But I've been trying to change that a little bit when I can.  Part of the reason for this is that I don't like to spend money.  Yes, I'm a tight wad.  Just ask my husband.  This year I saw some yarn wreaths (on Pinterest of course), but most people were selling them, not telling you how to make them.  So I figured it out myself.  Here is what I did:

At first I was looking for foam wreaths at my local Hobby Lobby.  However, they are in the middle of a remodel so it was slim pickin's.  The only foam wreath I found was a circle but it had squared edges.  Well I didn't want corners on my wreaths so I found some straw wreaths.  With a few adjustments to my plans, they worked quite well.

Here is a picture of what I started with:

I bought two, one for each mom.  I used yarn I had laying around.  I used to do plastic canvas so I have tons of yarn laying around.  I just tied one end to the wreath and started wrapping.

Like so:

I wrapped in one continuous wrap although I'm sure you could do it in small pieces too.  Add some ribbon, some cheap fake flowers and some ribbon (using hot glue when needed) and voila:

I was pretty proud of myself.  I know these have been done, but none of this just comes to me easily.

Last years gifts were tote bags with L's hand and foot prints along with some monkey stencils.  We've called L a monkey since her first ultrasound where she was always flipping and moving.  There were three totes:  L's Mama, L's Nana, L's Grandma.

I also made these little card boxes.  I printed her picture on card stock and folded them into a box.