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DIY Essential Oil Hostess Gift Basket

November 14, 2016 by Larisha Campbell 1 Comment

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #StimulateTheSenses #CollectiveBias

While we having been exploring our own semi-crunchy journey for a little over four years now, we know that many people in our family still think we are a bit on the hippie wagon. Yet and still, I’m always looking for ways to get our family and friends on a more natural journey of their own. One of the ways I love to do this is by introducing them to essential oils. They are so versatile and amazing that it’s no wonder that people typically fall in love with them after just a few uses.

With the holiday season officially here, we came up with this awesome DIY Essential Oil Hostess Gift Basket. This is a super simple idea for any parties that you are going too where you want to bring over a gift for the hostess or hosting family. You could even just do one of the projects if you have a smaller budget.

Inside our basket we included Nature’s Truth Essential Oils, a pair of fuzzy socks (who doesn’t love fuzzy socks!?), DIY Homemade Bath Bombs, DIY Homemade Room Spray, and DIY No-Sew Rice Heating Pack. Everyone always wants to make sure that their houses look and smell amazing for company, so we bust our butts cleaning every last detail and cooking food for 3x the amount of people we invited. While the get together goes off without a hitch and no one realized that you completely forgot to scrub an entire section of the baseboards in the kitchen, you melt into a puddle of exhaustion the second you close the door behind the last guest. This type of exhaustion needs pampering and that’s exactly why this is the perfect hostess gift.

Cinnamon Room Spray

40 drops Nature’s Truth Cinnamon Essential Oil
2 tbsp witch hazel (can use rubbing alcohol as an alternative)
water to fill bottle

**Directions: In a 4oz glass spray bottle, add the witch hazel and essential oils. Fill with water to top. Use as needed. Store in a cool area away from sunlight.

No Sew Heating Pack

10 drops Nature’s Truth Peppermint Essential Oil (optional)
1 lb white rice (uncooked)
1 sock (ensure sock has no holes)
2 pieces Thick yarn or thread, 10 inches each

**Directions: In a bowl, add the essential oil to the rice. Using a funnel, add the rice to the sock. On the open end of the sock, quadruple knot the thread to seal the hole. Then tie in a bow or snip the excess thread. Repeat on the close end of the sock. Heat in microwave 30 seconds at a time until desired temperature achieved.

**Optional: If not adding the essential oil to the rice, include a note with the gift that explains to recipient to add 2-3 drops on the outside of the sock with every use.

DIY Lemon Bath Bombs

1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup Epsom salts
1 tsp water
2 tsp Nature’s Truth Lemon Essential Oil
1 1/2 tbsp Nature’s Truth Almond Oil
6 drops yellow food coloring

**Directions: In one bowl, mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk until very well combined. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients. Slowly combine wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Note: if the mixture is foaming, you are adding too fast. Keep whisking together until very well combined. Using silicone baking molds, firmly pack mixture in each mold. Let air dry for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight. Pop out and keep in an airtight container.

Some other DIY projects you could think about making with Nature’s Truth Essential Oils to add to your hostess basket are: soaps, candles, dryer sheets, massage oil, and a mini diffuser.

You can find Nature’s Truth Essential Oils at Target.com

Or inside the vitamin aisle at the following stores (essential oils available vary by store): , CVS, Walgreens, HEB, Meijer, Albertsons, ShopRite, Rite Aid, and Stop & Shop.

Dye Free Mini Red Velvet Cake Recipe

December 21, 2015 by Larisha Campbell 2 Comments

While Andrew may not be writing as much as we had hoped yet, he is contributing to a lot of the behind the scenes aspects of running the blog. He’s been taking all the food pictures (soon to be all the pictures) and helps with our editorial calendar. When we sat down to discuss what we would write about for our December Mini Chef Mondays’ posts, he immediately said something with Red Velvet Cake. My first thought was EWW, gross. No one here is eating that. He looked at me with utter confusion. He had no idea that I had never tasted red velvet cake before. Once he heard that he said that we must change it immediately. He had a recipe that he had used before to make one a long time ago and I glanced over it.

I immediately cringed and told him we had to figure something else out. Again, he looked at me with utter confusion. ((this is pretty much the story of our relationship…me saying things, him looking confused…we’re working on it)). Anywho, I showed him that the recipe called for two ENTIRE tablespoons of red dye. Dyes are one of the things that we really ty to avoid in our house. Don’t get me wrong, Skibbles has had things with dye in them, but we try to avoid if we can, especially if it’s something that I’m making from scratch at home. So I research my options and had heard about people doing red velvet cakes with beets before. Don’t cringe, but I had never had a beet before either.

SAYY WHATT!?

True story.

So here Skibbles and I were standing in the kitchen, getting ready to make this cake for the first time together. We were planning to make a cake roll. Fast forward and I failed miserably the first time. The cake didn’t come out red once baked and when I tried to peel it off the baking sheet it cracked in like four places. Crap. So I turned to the internet. Why did it turn brown?

Well, this is one reason I love Mini Chef Mondays. I get to teach Skibs things and today’s recipe turned into a science experiment. While she’s only 3, and really has no idea what I’m talking about, it was fun to teach her that things, like beets, have a pH level that needs a lot of acid in order to stay red and not brown. So I figured out a new recipe and VOILA, you have a red velvet cake recipe with no dye.

But wait….this was still supposed to be a cake roll. Obviously it didn’t work out and it was great to start to teach Skibbles about how some times things don’t work out how we plan and we have to adapt what we are doing. Low and behold, we give you Dye Free Mini Red Velvet Cakes.

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Dye Free Mini Red Velvet Cake Recipe

Author: Larisha Campbell

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 1/4 cup Flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp 100% Cacao Cannot be sweetened or special dark
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar divided
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk
1/4 plain greek yogurt
2 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 cup oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup beet puree recipe below
6 strawberries pureed

For the Frosting

4 oz cream cheese softened (*MUST BE SOFTENED)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup homemade whipped topping
3 oz melted white chocolate

Instructions

For the Cake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 15x10 sheet pan very well with butter.
In one bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cacao, and cream of tartar. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla, milk, yogurt, vinegar, oil, and lemon juice together.
Fold in the beet and strawberry purees.
Evenly spread onto greased sheet pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Cool for 5 minutes.
Using a 2 inch biscuit cutter, cut out circles of cake.

For the Frosting

Combine all ingredients except homemade whipped topping until very well combined. Fold in whipped topping. Spread a small on top of a cake circle and place another cake circle on top. Repeat until you have the desired amount of layers. Then frosting the top and edges if desired.

How to Make Beet Puree

Preheat over to 425 degrees.
Wash off beets, remove stems and placed them on a sheet of foil with edges folded up. Lightly sprinkle with salt.
Roast in oven for 30-45 minutes or until a fork easily pierces through the beet.
Remove beets and let cool long enough until you can handle them. Peel the skin off.
Place in a high powered blender until pureed. (May need to add 1/2 to 2 tbsp of water to get consistent depending on your blender)

*If you’re looking for a round or sheet cake recipe, you will need to double the ingredients above to have enough batter

I am hosting Mini Chef Mondays along with 11 fabulous bloggers!

Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts as well. We would love it if you would share your Mini Chef posts with us each week, too! Follow along socially and join in on the fun by using our hashtag #MiniChefMondays to share creations your mini chef created in the kitchen. Additionally, if you have a kid-friendly recipe that kids can easily recreate link up! Don’t have a blog? Share the URL of your instagram photo in our linky below.

Crispy White Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge // Courtney’s Sweets
Snowman Cheeseball // Momma Lew
Peppermint Almond Bark Recipe with Pretzels // Baby Loving Mama
Dye Free Mini Red Velvet Cake Recipe // We’re Parents
Rice Krispie Treat Presents // Frugal Novice
Tasting Cooking Games for Kids // Eating Richly
Magic Reindeer Food Recipe // Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps
An Online Cooking School for Kids! // Step Stool Chef
3 Ingredient Apple Fruit Leather // Vegging at the Shore
Baking Cookies with Cookie Monster at Beaches // Mom’s Messy Miracles
6 Must Have Kitchen Tools When Cooking with Kids // O’Boy! Organic
Christmas Cookies for Your Dog! // Can’t Google Everything

An InLinkz Link-up

7 Unique Star Wars Stocking Stuffer Ideas

December 18, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

This post contains affiliate links

Ok, I have a confession….please don’t hate me….I’ve never seen Star Wars. Like none of them. Maybe 5 minutes here or there but never start to finish any of them. However, we know that there are some serious fans out there. And for what it’s worth, Andrew has seen them, he wants to see the new one, and he’s begged me to watch them with him. So hopefully that counts for something. We started our Family Finds Fridays last week, where we share some really cool things we’ve found and we thought this week would be the perfect day to share some really awesome Star Wars stocking stuffer ideas that we found on Amazon.

What’s even better is that if you act quickly (order before 12/22 with Prime Shipping) they will be at your door to unwrap on Christmas ANNDDDD every gift on our list is under $20.

{{{{ Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial}}}}

So what are you waiting for? Oh yea, us to give you the list! Here you go!

Star Wars Adult Coloring Book $11.53
Lightsaber Pens, Set of 2 $7.99
Silicone Ice Cube Trays, Set of 6 $18.79
Darth Vadar Tin Lunch Tote $10
Darth Vadar and Stormtropper Salt and Pepper Shakers $14.95
R2D2 Rotating Head Kitchen Timer $19.95
Star Wars Yoda Stocking $13.52 (after all you have to have something to put everything in from above!)

We hope you love our list and are inspired to buy something for those Star Wars fans that you love. Join us next week for our next Family Finds Fridays to see what we found!

10 Christmas Traditions We Have

December 16, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

Affiliate links contained within this post

Someone recently asked me what our family Christmas traditions were and I was like Uhhh??? I really had no idea. Did we even have traditions? I quickly said make cookies, but left there really wondering what we did that my girls would grow up considering traditions. I quickly came up with a list of ten things that we’ve been doing since Skibbles was little and some things that we are adding this year now that we have two girls.

Things we’ve been doing with Skibbles

-Baking Cookies While Listening to Christmas Songs – This is probably my favorite thing to do. We started Mini Chef Mondays so that we can show the versatility of things that kids can do in the kitchen and Skibbles has been helping us since she was just over a year old making them. Adding the Christmas tunes put you in the Christmas spirit no matter what (including it being 70 degrees this year in December in New Jersey…what!?). We also do a Christmas cookie swap with the cookies we bake with our friends! Our favorite cookies to make is our Pineapple Orange Glazed Cookies and Snickerdoodles!

Go see Santa – We admitted before that we weren’t even sure that we were going to “do Santa”, but we’re super happy that we are now. We absolutely loved this year and both girls did too. We’ve seen Santa at the mall, at the aquarium, and on a firetruck and watching Skibbles eyes light up each time is so magical.

Read the Night Before Christmas – Last year, we read The Night Before Christmas and it was just one of those special moments that is so special. We’ll do this every year from now here on out.

– Go pick out a tree and decorate it- Confession. We didn’t go pick a tree out this year ((::Sad face::)). We were supposed to travel and I decided that we should just put up a fake tree instead and then I cancelled our traveling plans and regret it either way.

Watching a movie the night before– After reading our book, we love watching a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve. This year Skibbles has been really loving Shrek and I found Shrek The Halls at a consignment sale for cheap! I think it’s going to be a fantastic one to watch with them this year.

Make homemade gifts – I love doing this! We’ve been doing them together, but I can’t wait to actually let them do things completely on their own. There’s something magical about getting a gift from a child. These DIY Bath Salts are super easy to make with kids and a great hostess gift!

Things we’ve added this year now that we have two

– Matching PJs We’ve been getting Skibbles Christmas PJs, but we’ve never done it as a family. I had already gotten the girls matching PJs when Tipsy Elves reached out and offered to send Andrew and I matching PJs. We are absolutely in love with the softness of them and while Andrew thinks it’s hilarious and a bit weird to wear a jumpsuit, truth be told, he’s wore them every night since we received them. I’m praying that they start making baby and toddler sizes before next year so that we can all four wear the same ones because they are so amazingly comfy. ((The girls PJs are from Target and Andrew and I are both wearing the Blue Reindeer Jumpsuits from Tipsy Elves)).

-Go see the lights– We’re adding this to our Christmas Eve line up. After dinner, we’re going to drive around and see the lights, then come home read our book and watch our movie. We’ve seen some great lists of local lights and we’re going to go check out some of the places.

-Making a DIY Advent Calendar – This was one of my favorite things to do this year, but I know as Baby gets bigger that we will enjoy making them together even more. Who can resist a 5 minute DIY Advent Calendar!?

Things I plan to add in the future

-Volunteer – I love giving back and want to instill those values in our girls. Skibbles is a bit too young this year, but we plan to volunteer at a local soup kitchen and I’m also going to find a local senior center that we can visit next year since the baby will be a bit older.

I’m dying to hear your traditions too so I can add more to our future list!

Let me know in the comments below!

Santa HQ at Deptford Mall in Deptford, NJ

December 10, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

A have a confession. Before this year, I didn’t know if we were going to “do Santa”. It’s something, even as I type this, I go back and forth on in my head, but it’s something that Andrew has really wanted to do and after seeing the magical nature of Santa come to life in our three year old this year, I couldn’t say no. We were watching some Christmas shows a week before I knew we were going to go see Santa HQ at the Deptford Mall in Deptford, NJ. I wanted her to understand more about Santa since she was just newly three and this is her first year really “getting it”.

When we went there were a ton of super cute moments throughout the entire visit. We came in on the top floor and she squealed with excitement as she saw “Christmas Time mama”, “Christmas Time”. She had no idea that we would be seeing Santa. We rode the elevator down so that she could see the whole village and it was such a magical experience for her. Since we arrived before 10am, we actually got to watch as Santa came in and he even came over and greeted all of the kids before going to sit down.

The Elves were amazingly friendly and helpful at each station. The stations included:

Naughty and Nice List that adds your child’s name to the nice list
Photo taken at “The North Pole”
Elfie Selfie movie station
- Takes your photo and then puts it into a Elf dancing video. Check ours out here.
Elf-ray Vision station that allows children to look into a tablet and see the elves working, Santa’s sleigh and more.

And then there’s Santa! With a REAL beard. It was pretty awesome. I was so excited that both girls sat on Santa’s lap and neither cried. It was a winning and successful experience. And Skibbles has asked to go back about 519 times since we left.

The entire production is run courtesy of HGTV and on-line reservations can be set up ahead of time. (We recommend this so you aren’t waiting in line). It’s free to do the walk through and each of the stations, but any photos of Santa are taken only by the production company and paid for at checkout. ((PSSTTT — you can bring your pet too!)). They’re there everyday through Christmas Eve! Have a blast

DIY Essential Oil Hostess Gift Basket

Cinnamon Room Spray

No Sew Heating Pack

DIY Lemon Bath Bombs

Dye Free Mini Red Velvet Cake Recipe

I am hosting Mini Chef Mondays along with 11 fabulous bloggers!

7 Unique Star Wars Stocking Stuffer Ideas

10 Christmas Traditions We Have

Santa HQ at Deptford Mall in Deptford, NJ

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