Soothe Winter Skin with this Homemade Sugar Scrub

Winter skin has been an issue for me, for as long as I can remember. All summer long I swim, garden and hike around in the Southern California sun. Occasionally I will leave my skin outdoors for too long, turning it bright pink (never the deep, creamy brown my mom and sister have) but it always bounces right back to my soft, milk-white and freckly skin. 

In the winter months however, my skin completely dries out on me. Winter is when my skin should love me! I'm indoors a lot more during the colder months, and pay more attention to diet, lotions, and even the temperature of my showers... and yet without fail, every year my arms get itchy and dry patches that resemble the lower half of Daryl Hanna in Splash. 

This year, I'm fighting back against winter skin with a homemade sugar scrub. I have probably spent thousands of dollars on bath products over the years, but the idea of making a moisturizing scrub at HOME, never occurred to me... until last year, when I had to make serious cut-backs to my personal spending.

This scrub not only feels amazing, it also smells amazing, is so cheap to put together, and it requires only FIVE ingredients.

White sugar

Whole Vanilla Beans

Brown sugar

Olive Oil (Or Mineral Oil)

Almond Extract (Or Vanilla extract, mint extract, lavender essential oil- Whatever you've got handy!)

I started this project by putting some white sugar in a jar with two vanilla beans, and leaving it alone for a few days. Vanilla sugar is great to have around the house for baking, sweetening tea, and it would probably makes cereal a lot yummier too, but I thought that some vanilla-scented sugar would make for a great base to my scrub. (Spoiler alert- it did!)

After a day or two in the jar with the vanilla beans, your white sugar will be ready to use. The vanilla is totally optional, so feel free to skip it if you need an emergency sugar scrub and don't have any in your pantry...  

Next, choose a container for your homemade scrub. This will dictate how much sugar you need to use. Plastic is ideal since this is going to be used around the tub. I only had glass jars, so that's what I used. 

Measure out equal parts vanilla (or plain white) sugar and brown sugar in a bowl, and mix. You will get a sandy looking mixture like this:

Pack your container with the 50/50 brown and white sugar and slowly pour in olive oil. I poured in a tablespoon or two at a time and let it seep in.

Once the oil had penetrated about half of the packed sugar, I added about a teaspoon of almond extract, let that seep in as well, and then dumped the entire contents out into a bowl to mix it up.

I then re-packed my jar with the sweet-smelling mixture. The almond extract complimented the brown sugar scent perfectly, and it did a great job of masking the faint olive-smell.

I put a label and a ribbon on my new jar of Sugar Scrub, sat back and admired my work.

Then, I tore off my clothes, and unscrewed the lid of the jar to try it out in the shower!

Heavenly, heavenly, HEAVENLY! The scent of my skin during, AND after the shower was intoxicating. The sugar was a gentle abrasive, but made mean work of my little patches of dry winter skin, and the olive oil felt nourishing and satiny.

I would ABSOLUTELY recommend making this scrub to use the night of a romantic date, or after a long and exhausting day when relaxation is a must. I felt like I was glowing after using this. 

For Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, or Birthdays- this is a fantastic gift for anyone. It's soothing, thoughtful, and made from ingredients you probably already have in the pantry. I hope you will try this homemade sugar scrub, and enjoy!

* Hi friends! A little update: If you are going to keep your sugar scrub in your bathroom, you may want to use a tongue depressor or spoon to scoop out your mix. If you use your hands (like I do) you might consider keeping your scrub in the fridge to keep the possibility of bacteria at bay... If you use all of your scrub within a day or two (*cough* like I did!) this shouldn't be an issue :) Happy scrubbing! And thank you reader for bringing this to my attention!

Photo Saturday: Driving on Water

Taken in the hills somewhere above Santa Barbara, CA...

I'm restless from a full week being sick at home. I'm so ready to feel better, see my loved ones and then hop in the van and EXPLORE!

A Pop-Up Heart for Valentine's Day

I love pop-up cards. Paper that moves feels magical to me. I have a little collection of pop-up books that my nieces and nephews always run to as soon as they visit, so I don't think I'm alone in my love for paper that pops.

Assembling pop-ups can be challenging since there is often so much precision required. I wanted to find an easy-to-make pop-up card that would look cute, take very little time to make, and would be uncomplicated enough that children could enjoy making it. After looking at some of the books on my shelf, I found a design that I could modify and make into a simple heart pop-up card. This is what I came up with:

To make this card you will need the following:

Heavy stock paper (1 sheet)
Lightweight paper of a different color (1 sheet)
A pencil
A pair of scissors
Glue stick
Colored markers
Glitter, stickers etc..

To begin the pop-up card, fold your heavy card stock in half. Run your thumbnail down the fold. This will be the spine of your card, so you want it to have a crisp edge. On the folded edge, draw half of a heart shape in pencil. Now draw a horizontal line halfway through your heart and across the length of the card. Erase the horizontal line from within the heart. You should be left with a shape like this:

Next, cut along your pencil line. Half of the heart will be taller than the rest of the card. If you erased all of the pencil within your heart, lightly re-draw the rest of the heart half, like this:

Fold the half-heart along that pencil line, and crease with your thumb nail. Turn the card over, and fold the heart in the opposite direction along the same crease line.

Now open your card slightly and push the heart shape down inside of the card. Since you folded both sides, the heart should fold up nicely into the card as seen here:

Crease the spine of the card with your thumbnail once again for extra stability.

Now when you open your card, a heart should pop up from the center!

Next, take your lightweight paper, and cut out a heart that is smaller than your pop-up heart. With your glue stick, paste the smaller heart down in the center of the larger heart. It may help to fold your smaller heart in half first.

Now your pop up card is ready to decorate!

Don't forget to add a special message to the outside of your card before giving it to someone you love!

Hope you enjoy this quick and easy pop-up Valentine's Day card!

Kale Chips: The Tastiest Vegetable Snack Ever

I always thought that kale was grown and harvested to be used as garnish and garnish alone. I had no idea that people ate it. We never ate it growing up. I only ever encountered it underneath my "real food" when I went out to eat. Fish tacos look sooooo inviting on a bed of stiff and waxy green kale. But this year, I (permanently) borrowed the juicer at my in-law's house while they were out of town, and while looking for juice recipes I noticed that several listed kale as an incredible source of iron, beta carotene and Vitamins K and C. The more I read about kale, the more I wanted to be friends with it. 

I was chatting with some friends about my stolen borrowed juicer, and they told me to try baked kale chips immediately. Like, leave this conversation, skip the juicer, and for the love of all things tasty, go and bake some kale chips, woman! 

Armed with their confidence, my quickly developing love for this cousin of cabbage, and a little online research, I found it: The world's easiest baked kale recipe. I baked my own kale chips that evening, and have made several more batches since then. I had no idea a vegetable could taste so much like a tortilla chip and still be really super good for you.

Without further hesitation, here's the ridiculously easy recipe:

1 bunch kale 

1 tablespoon olive oil 

1 teaspoon sea salt  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F  

Wash and dry the kale. With a knife, remove the leaves from their stems and tear the leaves into pieces. Place the kale pieces in a large zip-seal bag. Add olive oil, sprinkle in the sea salt, and shake to coat completely. Toss the pieces of oiled, and salted kale onto a baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes until the edges brown but are not burnt.

They are so, so, so good. Salty, crunchy, and completely guilt-free! And while not as sturdy as tortilla chips, they taste INCREDIBLE with homemade guacamole delicately spooned onto them.

I cannot recommend these enough, or thank my friends for turning me on to them! Kale chips!! Who knew that garnish would be my new favorite snack?

DIY Valentine's Day: Cupid's Fortune Cookies

Being reminded that I am loved and appreciated is just about the quickest way to make my day. I was thinking about Valentine's Day, and how it's become *the* day when we all look our partners-in-crime in-the-face and say, "Hey, thanks for being awesome, I really really love you." 

In an entire year, I need more than just one day devoted to love, and I certainly am a girl who appreciates a compliment. And is there a better way to get compliments, than by writing your own? These "Cupid's" fortune cookies are indeed tasty, cute and easy to make, but they are also a terrific way to tell your loved ones, and tell yourself that you are pretty darn fantastic. Oh and when that message comes wrapped in a cookie? All the better!

Writing up the fortunes is the first part of the fun. My little notes ranged in sentiment from things like, "You make your family proud," and "People like you for you," to "Have you lost weight? Your butt looks sensational," and "You have the best hair, your friends are all jealous." I used a single sheet of sketch book paper and filled it with thoughts, hopes, and predictions that would be appropriate for me, my husband and the the handful of friends who drop in for surprise visits.

Once I cut out all of my papers to about the same size (approximately 1/2 inch by 2 inches) I started working on the cookie batter.

Cookie Batter:
1 egg white

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
Red food coloring
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Generously grease 2 cookie sheets.
Mix the egg white and vanilla until foamy but not stiff. Sift and blend the flour, salt, and sugar into the egg white mixture. I started out with plain cookies, and gradually added more and more red coloring to the batter as I baked, so that I ended up with a nice assortment of white, pink and reds for my "any time" Valentine's cookie batter.

Place teaspoonfuls of the batter at least 4 inches apart on one of the prepared cookie sheets. Spread batter into thin circles with your fingertip. Carefully make the batter as round and even as possible. Do not make too many at once, because the cookies have to be SUPER hot in order to form them- and once they cool, they will start cracking. Start with 2 or 3 to a sheet.

Bake for 5 minutes or until the cookies have a golden outer edge. The center will remain pale. While one sheet is baking, prepare the next.

Remove from the oven and, with a wide spatula, place the cookies upside down on a wooden board. Quickly place the fortunes on the cookies, close to the middle and fold the cookie in half. 

Place the folded edge across the rim of a measuring cup and pull the corners down on both sides of the rim.

Place folded cookies into the cups of a muffin tin to hold their shape until they harden completely. Recipe yields 8-10 cookies

I noticed that the first few cookies I made had a wrinkly/cracked look to them. I think I was trying to make too many cookies at once and was making them too thin. By the time I got to my all-red batter, I had the proper thickness, quantity (no more than 2 baking at a time for me) as well as the proper spatula-scooping skills to get a smooth, almost restaurant-quality cookie. The prep time is so quick, and the ingredients so few, that I could have easily made another batch of cookies to continue honing my cookie-folding skills. 


These really do make a terrific and cheap Valentine's Day card AND gift! If you know someone who needs a little pick-me-up, or just have someone special you want to share Valentine's Day with, I highly recommend these homemade fortune cookies!

Felted & Framed: The Monarch Butterfly

I'm a sucker for framed insects, display cases of fossils and skeletons suspended from ceilings. Curio cases of natural history will hypnotize me for hours, so when I visited Melbourne Australia and came across Wunderkammer, I nearly died, was embalmed, stuffed into a jar, and placed on a shelf. (Or, if you like, I nearly died and went to heaven.) 

While needle felting is still relatively new to me, I've been having lots of fun pushing my own limits and boundaries. I wanted a project that would force me to practice blending multiple colors of wool roving, and I wanted to see how precise I could get with fine lines. What better inspiration for this project, than a felted and framed Monarch Butterfly! 

I started by blocking out a basic butterfly shape in yellow wool roving. As I matted the wool together, I began to blend in orange around the tips of the wings. 

After working in the orange, I turned my piece over and felted the "other side" of the body, then trimmed away the excess wool. With a well blended base, I started to work on the "front" of my butterfly exclusively, so that I had more control over the precision of the lines. I added thin black lines on the upper and lower wings, accents of white and yellow, and finished up by adding the center "body" of my butterfly.

Once I was happy with the look of the butterfly, I began to trim away all of the frayed edges with my sharpest pair of scissors.

Before boxing up my Monarch forever, I decided he needed to enjoy the world beyond my craft room...

So I let him flutter around...

Enjoy the sunshine...

And smell the flowers...

Before I snatched him up and brought him inside. 

It may seem cruel, but I know there are lots of felted predators out there who would like nothing more than to snack on him, so he's really much safer among my collection of fossils, pressed seaweed and oddly-shaped seed pods. At least, that's what I keep telling him.

Miniature Gardens: Tillandsia Terrariums

There is something about small gardens that I find magical. Small gardens, terrariums in particular, have a way of sweeping me off to a day-dreamy place where walnut-shells are used for beds and I become pocket-sized.

Making these wee little wonderlands is exceedingly easy. So when I found myself with a surplus of jars, vases, and old candle containers, I immediately set out to create Tillandsia terrariums to give to others, and keep for myself. 

By using Tillandsia, (air plants as they are commonly known) you can create a very low-maintenance garden with a high reward. Tillandsia do not require any soil to grow, as they get all of their nutrients from the air. With an occasional spray of water, you can keep these Tillandsia terrariums in dorm rooms, on office desks, and at home with very little worry about them. 

The materials needed for this project are the following:

Assorted Tillandsia (air plants)

Clean jars, vases and other clear glass vessels

Potting soil

Decorative Rocks

Spoon

Dried moss

Soapy water & Paper towels

Start out by cleaning all of the glass jars well. Remove any labels, glue or fingerprints with warm, soapy water. Next, add several spoon-fulls of potting soil into the clean jars. While Tillandsia do not need the soil to grow, I tend to think that these tiny plants (part of the bromeliad family) resemble trees (in a Dr. Seuss kind of way), and look quite happy when "planted" in the soil. Additionally, anchoring a plant is always a good idea. Whether you are hot-gluing your Tillandsia to a stick, or simply nestling it in a foundation of moss, a secured plant is a happy plant.

Next, take enough decorative moss to cover the potting soil completely and tear a small hole in it to allow for the air plant. Push the moss into the jar with a spoon and press down firmly. Add the Tillandsia by gently pressing it into the space you created within the moss. This will keep the plant steady, and happy.

For a more modern look, skip the decorative moss and place the Tillandsia into the potting soil and cover with decorative rocks.

With just a few materials and a few minutes you can make your own tiny Tillandsia terrarium! If you need help finding the plants or any of the materials listed above, here are a few of the resources I use:

For Tillandsia: Rainforest Flora

For Decorative Rocks: Amazon.com


Happy planting!