Elf On A Shelf

 

It has been a long time since I have blogged. Needless to say I have been really busy with my kids sports, soaping, packing and shipping orders and doing all the other Christmas stuff that needs to get done.

 

We have started a new tradition at the request of my daughter who is 8. She wanted an Elf on the Shelf. I ordered one from Amazon and it has been so much fun. I only wish we started this tradition when both of my kids were little.

 

The book comes with an elf that is said to report to Santa on whether the child is naughty or nice since Santa is busy and canno't continuouly watch each child. Well, my daughter is older and knows that the doll is not real but she really likes to wake up in the morning to search for the elf.

Here are some pictures of what her elf, named Bernard, has been up to:

 

 

 

 

 

Pantry Organization

 

I am on an organization kick lately and the first place I started was our pantry. I wish I had a "before" picture but I didn't think about it until I was finished. I buy a lot of food from bulk bins at the heath food store so there were a lot of unlabeled bags on the shelves. The kids have a tendency to finish up a snack and leave the empty boxes so there was also a lot of trash on the shelves.

 

I decided the best way to combat the clutter was to put everything in canisters. I bought these canisters from Wal-Mart and they are great! Everything that was in a box now has it's own canister. I even put the microwave popcorn bags in it's own canister.

 

I used my favorite tool, the Silhouette, to make my labels. I cut the background label with chalkboard vinyl and cut the white letters out of vinyl as well (my handwriting is hideous). I used the font,
Jaro Handwriting, from myfonts.com.

I was really happy with the end result. I ran out of white vinyl so there are a few canisters that still need labels so I will finish up next weekend. The project took me over 11 hours but I cut and labeled over 40 canisters!

Pumpkin Patch Soap

Summer is ending soon and I am ready for fall. I am already craving those comfort foods and sweet bakery smells. My first fall soap is Pumpkin Patch - I used my favorite pumpkin fragrance oil (Pumpkin Crunch). It has aromatic notes of fresh pumpkin, orange peel, sweet carrot, ground cinnamon, clove buds, nutmeg and vanilla cream. This scent will leave you craving more.

The top of the soap is sprinkled with body safe glitter to add a little bling to the soap.

Monster Eyes

I am working on creating some creepy looking Halloween soaps. This one is my monster eye soap, they have creepy eyes but smell oh so sweet. I have some other creepy creations coming soon.

Swiper

Chance from Perfect Chance Photography takes all of my wonderful product pictures for my Etsy shop. She takes the pictures when her son is sleeping for one big reason......

 

She was just finishing up taking pictures of my jumbo bubblegum lip balms when her son woke up and immediately made a beeline for them. What a cutie!

Camo Soap

It is hunting season again so I decided to make a soap for my husband and son who are avid hunters. Shouldn't all hunters use camo soap during hunting season? Of course this soap is unscented because they can't be going out in the woods smelling like a bakery. This soap is also "man sized", it is close to double the size of my normal bar of soaps. Right now the soap is still curing so it won't be listed in my etsy store for 3 weeks.

Birthday Party

My daughter's birthday is July 6 and is such a hard time to plan a birthday party since usually her friends are out of town for the holiday. This year we decided to hold off on a party for her until school started.

The party was Friday night. Ashley had 5 friends come over for a sleep over. It went great.

I made a birthday banner using my Silhouette, it was really easy to make.

I purchased these cute mason jar cups and paper straws for each girl and cut out each girls name in vinyl. It was my first time cutting vinyl so it was a little challenging for me with the tiny letters. As you can see from the picture the "l" moved a little from use. The cups worked out great and it was so nice not having paper cups and juice boxes all over the house.

 They made yarn monsters for the first craft.

The second craft I heated up river rocks in the oven and then they used crayons to color them. When the rocks are hot the crayons just melt onto the rocks. The girls then decided that they needed some bling so I brought out the glitter glue. When the were finished I used Modge Podge to seal their artwork. The blue rock is Justin's - he is still planning on adding fins to it to make it into a shark.

The silly birthday girl

Hanger Soap Results

My hanger soap turned out great! I was very happy with it. If only I would have remembered to put the fragrance oil in it though. I will be making this soap again....with fragrance.

Swirling Soap with a Hanger

Yesterday I decided to try a new soap swirl called the "Hanger Swirl". I am not a fan of wire hangers so this task did not start of smoothly. After searching the entire house I couldn't find a suitable wire hanger, luckily my mother-in-law had a few and brought them over. Since my son was bored I showed him a picture of how the hanger needed to be shaped and let him do the rest. He did a great job and then I was ready to test it.

The hanger worked great! I swirled 3 colors - black (activated charcoal), uncolored soap, and red. Once I finished and was admiring my soap I realized that I forgot to add the fragrance (see glass of fragrance oil next to my soap log). Well, it was too late to do anything about it so this soap will just have to be unscented.

It still is a mystery what the soap will look like until I cut it tomorrow, I will post a picture once I cut it.

Where the Soap Magic Happens

Many soapers have a separate workshop for soaping, unfortunately I do not. I make all my soaps in my kitchen. My husband says it looks like a meth lab when I am soaping but in the end I make sure there is no trace of my soaping mess.

I mix the lye solution out in my driveway because the fumes are pretty bad...I always wonder if cars that drive by our house  (I am out there in my goggles, face mask and gloves) think I am involved in something illegal.

My clean kitchen after soaping

Lentil Soup

I really should be making soap but I have been trying to spend more time making healthy meals.
Last night I made this great lentil soup. I have not made many soups from scratch (besides tortilla soup) so I was quite pleased how it turned out. I definitely will be making this soup again.

Serves 6

 Ingredients        

1 tablespoon olive oil       

1 medium yellow onion, cut into ¼-inch cubes       
2 cups Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into ½-inch cubes       
4 stalks celery, chopped      
4 carrots, chopped       
2 leeks, white and light green only, thinly sliced       
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed       
8 cups vegetable stock       
2 cups brown and/or green lentils, thoroughly rinsed and picked over       
2 bay leaves      
2 tablespoons dried parsley       
1 tablespoon dried basil      
1 tablespoon dried oregano       
Salt and pepper to taste       

1.  In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Sauté the onion, potatoes, celery, carrots, leeks, and garlic until golden, about 5 minutes.     
2.  Next pour the vegetable stock into the pot, and add the rinsed lentils, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste.     
3.  Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil.
4.  Cover, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook for 1 hour.     
5.  Make sure the level of the stock isn’t too low, adding more stock as necessary.     
6.  Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary.     
7.  The soup should be thick and creamy, and the lentils nice and soft.

Daily Veggie Smoothie

I really try hard to eat a lot of veggies everyday. I have become addicted to my daily veggie smoothie using my Vitamix. It is so easy to make and it is a great source of fiber and vitamins.

Today I made a smoothie using coconut water, 1 cucumber, kale, spinach, broccoli, 1 banana

and 1 pear.

You can add any veggies and fruit you want. Just add your liquid and throw in the veggies/fruit and blend. I have found that I like using coconut water rather than plain water because it adds a little sweetness along with electrolytes.

I have these great glass water bottles that I pour my smoothies into. They are perfect for taking the smoothies to work.

Quick San Diego Trip

My kids really wanted to go to the beach this summer so we did a quick trip to San Diego.

Friday we went to LEGOLAND, we had fun but it definitely is a place to go with little kids. My kids are 12 and 8 – my 12 year old (Justin) is not a fan of rollercoasters so they were scary enough for them and my daughter (Ashley) enjoyed all the rides. We went to the LEGOLAND waterpark in the afternoon and it was so packed, we waited in line for a log ride for 1 hour and the ride maybe lasted 1 minute. The lazy river even took a long time to get in and after that we decided we had enough of the water park.

Justin and Ashley at LEGOLAND

Saturday we went to Mission Beach and had a great day hanging out at the beach with my college roommate and her family. There were tons of jellyfish in the water, people were scooping them out with nets but luckily the kids avoided a jellyfish sting.

Jellyfish on Mission Beach

Ashley, Samantha and Danica

Justin

We headed back home on Sunday but made a quick stop at my husband’s Aunt’s house and caught up with family. It was a quick trip but we had a great time.

Tofu Eggless Salad

I am a vegetarian but aspire to be vegan. I really try to stick to vegan dishes but there are times that I will eat ice cream, cheese and deserts that contain eggs.

One of my favorite lunch dishes is Tofu Eggless Salad. I don’t like to spend a lot of time cooking so this is the perfect lunch for me to take to work and this recipe makes enough to last several days.



Ingredients:

1 package of firm tofu

1 cup vegenaise

2 celery sticks finely chopped

¼ onion – you can use more but I hate onion breath

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

¼ cup nutritional yeast

2 tbsp parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Drain the water from the tofu package and crumble it into a bowl. Add vegenaise, celery, onion, dijon mustard, nutritional yeast, parsley and salt and pepper to taste. It is that easy and it is super yummy and very filling! I usually eat 1 slice of rice bread with it.

Celebration with Friends

My birthday was June 25 but since it is so hard to schedule time with my friends we celebrated my birthday Saturday night. The four of us get together for each other’s birthdays and we always have such a great time. Saturday we went to Elote, a local Sedona restaurant, and had a great dinner then went to Reds for coffee to chat and catch up on each other’s lives. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends.

From Left: Erin, Me, Christina and Sara