How to Make your own Bath Salts

I don't know about you but I LOVE soaking in a hot tub to take the aches, pains and bumps away after a long day.  It's always very relaxing.


This past Christmas I made a jar of bath salts for all of the women in my family as a little something extra from me.  They were a huge hit.




Here is the basic recipe.  There are many, many, many variations.  This is just one.  The possibilities are endless.  You can do just about anything.



1 part Epsom Salt
1 part Sea Salt
1 part Baking Soda (Optional)
Essential Oils (Optional)
Herbs or other additives (Optional)



Take a zip top bag and start with 1 cup or so of each of the salts.  Combine in the bag, close and combine well.  If you're using the Baking Soda (good to help with softening the skin) add it in now as well.

Once combined well add your essential oils, herbs or other additives.  Close and combine well.

The amount of oil you'll use will depend on your personal preference.  I tend to go heavier on the oils than they recommend because I like the effects of the oil.  My favorites to use are Lemon and Eucalyptus Oils.  The combo is divine.

Let the salts dry overnight in a bowl or a tray so that way once you pour them in the jar they don't stick together.

After the salts are dry you can then add whichever dried herbs you choose.  Hole herbs end to work best.  Rosemary is always a good option to go with.

Once dry, use a funnel or a piece of paper rolled up like a funnel to pour the salts into the jars.

You can make pretty labels to go with them if you'd like.  I used quilting squares to put between the lid and the screw cap of the jar to pretty them up a bit.  I also made little cards (business card size) saying what was in the jar as I already had the materials at home.  I tied the card to the jars with a pretty bit of ribbon.  Then I got small craft paper bags at the store and with some tissue paper and I had my handmade gifts to hand out.

Find everything you'll need to get started here.

I'd love to know if you make up your own and what you did so leave a comment letting me know!

30 Day Mommy Ab Challenge

So it's day 3 of the mommy an challenge from Being Mommy on Facebook. I'm enjoying it so far. The excersises are fairly simple and easy for me to do.

The first day was super easy and so was yesterday. Today was a bit more challenging but still not very difficult. 

I'm sure that by the end it will be a bit hard as it steps up in the reps but it's progressive so I think I will adjust. 

It will just take a little bit of time. 

For anyone reading this doing it with me. 

Good luck to you!

30 Day Mommy Ab Challenge - Day 2

So the 30 day Mommy Ab Challenge started yesterday.

This was day 1.



This was pretty easy for me.  It works up to 130 sit ups, 175 crunches, 85 leg raises and 96 seconds of plank.  It shouldn't be that difficult to do for me.

In High School I ran track to stay in shape for soccer during the off season and we would do HUNDREDS upon HUNDREDS of crunches, easily 1500 each day after track practice.  I'm only a little bit concerned about the sit ups.  I know I can do them but I've never done that many regular sit ups in a row.

If you're interested in trying it here's the link again

https://www.facebook.com/events/259265530923281/260368607479640/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Enjoy!

DIY Hand/Body Lotion/Cream

So everyone wants to save a buck right?  As a single mom any way that I can save some money is always a good thing.

Lotions and hand creams can be expensive.  It's something that I use every day.  I'm sure that most, if not all women, use every day.

I was on the hunt for a hand cream/body lotion that I could make at home during the winter time.  My skin, especially my hands get super dry during the winter and most hand creams don't cut it for me.  I need to use way to much or way too often.  With a toddler and a small business to run there isn't always time to constantly be reapplying lotions.

I found something that I really like.  It's all natural, organic and SUPER easy to whip up at home.

Here's the site that I found it on.  CLICK HERE.

I used eucalyptus essential oil because of it's natural anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-viral properties and just because I love the way it smells.  It's great to add to all kinds of stuff to ease sore muscles.

I doubled the amount so I didn't have to make it up again for a while.  I didn't use Vitamin E oil but next time I make up some I will.  I've always got olive oil and coconut oil in the house for cooking so the only things I needed to buy was the shea butter, essential oil and beeswax.  The wax was a huge brick so I've got lots left over for whenever I get crafty and decide to make something with it.

I always go a bit heavier on the eucalyptus oil than normal because I love it.  But this just do till you think it's sufficient.

I also heated it all up in the mason jar I store it in in a pot of water so I didn't have to worry about pouring the hot mixture into another container.  I'm a klutz at the best of times so the less chance of maiming myself the better.

I use the lotion all the time.  It's great as an all over body lotion just out of the shower, a great massage lotion, the oils in it keep it from absorbing into the skin to fast so a little goes a long way.

It's kept my hands, feet, elbows, ankles and other body parts happy all winter long and I use it after showers and before bed still.  I made it in December and still have 3/4 of the mason jar left!

Cool alternative to Waxing facial hair

Like many other women I know I've got extra facial hair that is dark.  I've been waxing or tweezing for YEARS!  And I do mean years, I've been waxing my eyebrows since I was 11, that's 22 years of waxing people!  My lip and chin followed not long after.

Years before I had my son, who is 3 now, I had laser hair removal on my lip and chin.  Got one of those buy one area get one area deal.  It worked great, until I got pregnant.  Then the hormones went all whacky and the dark hair started growing back.

Not so fun let me tell you.

Anyway, there's a salon down the road from my apartment that I've had some other services done and I decided to get my eyebrows done there.  I used to get them done at my nail salon or at my hair stylist.  I could still get them done at my nail salon but I'm currently in the market for another hair stylist again, it's a long story for another blog post.

They are Indian so they thread eyebrows.  I never had it done before.  It was awesome.  SO much faster than waxing.  Added bonus is that my skin isn't red or inflamed afterwords, not red at all in fact, and you don't have all that gross wax residue left over from waxing.  Another thing is that you don't have to worry about potentially getting burned by the wax being to hot.

I wanted to see if I could find instructions in the Internet to see if I could do my lip and chin at home.  I'm more than happy to pay the $6 every few weeks to have my eyebrows done as, quite frankly, I'm not that coordinated when it comes to making sure my eyebrows are even.

There is TONS of info out there.  HERE are my favorite instructions I've found.

Now a few notes about getting started.

It says to use 2' of thread.  I think that, at least for me, that's to much.  Around 18" or so seems to work best for me.

It does take a bit of practice to be able to yank out the hair.  Once you do get the hang of it it's certainly faster than tweezing and, in my opinion anyway, faster and easier than waxing.

As for the thread I seem to like just a standard all purpose thread.  I've got some upholstery thread that works decently as well.  The article says that the type doesn't matter so just play around with different types and just pick one that works best for you.

I didn't practice on my leg like they say to in the article as I had just shaved the other day so I didn't have enough hair there to try it out.  I did just fine with the mirror on my face once I got the hang of the motion required to pull the hair out.

The big bonus of threading is that you don't have to wait for hair to be a certain length like you do with waxing.  You can do it every other day if you feel like it so you never have hair on your eyebrows, lip or chin.

Sure you'll still need tweezers just like with waxing but that part is no worse than before.

30 Day Mommy Ab Challange

So this is pretty cool.

I follow Being Mommy on Facebook.  They have fun little giveaways and other posts about being a mommy.  I've even shared a few of there posts.

Well, now in the month of June they are doing a 30 Day Ab Challenge.  I've seen it around Facebook and apparently it's a thing.  During the month of June you;ll do a series of ab exercises where each day you up the number of reps, every 5th day is a rest day.

It starts out pretty easy, 10 sit ups, 5 crunches, 5 leg raises and 9 seconds of plank.

You can check it out HERE

Now my abs muscles are pretty strong to begin with but I am excited to try the challenge to see if I'll get any other toning and tightening out of it because even though my muscles are strong my post-baby belly isn't quite the same.

Ways to earn some extra cash

So do you ever wonder how you can earn some extra money on the side?

Me too.

I was doing some research a while back and I came across ways you could earn some extra money.  Now some of it was silly stuff like donating plasma and selling stuff on craigslist but I also came across some sites where you could take surveys and get points that you can exchange for cash.

I did a bunch of research to make sure the sites were legit and all that fun stuff.  My favorite of all of them by far is Opinion Outpost.  I've started playing with SwagBucks, SurveySavvy, InBox Dollars and MyPoints.  Opinion Outpost is the one that I've had the most luck with so far.  In 3 weeks I've earned enough points for $20 worth of paypal money.  And the best part is that there aren't any fees with paypal for the transfer of the money to my bank account.

Most of these sites take some time to go through to earn points or dollars.  They are all pretty much free (though you can shop on retailers websites by clicking on the links at each site and earn points or extra dollars, except for Opinion Outpost).

I've been enjoying it so far.  I do it in my spare time when I'm not doing anything other than watching TV or something else like that.

Being a single mom every little bit helps.  I may as well earn something in my spare time.