Last week my husband was in a very minor (thank goodness!) fender bender, so I had to bring the car in this week to get repaired. This left the girls and I without a vehicle for two days and I must admit that it was a wonderful couple of days!
While sequestered we had the most marvelous of times! We read a ton, made a few more kinds of soap, and worked a great deal in the garden. It was wonderful to know how much fun we could have, without ever leaving the comfort of our little home.
There were many things my husband and I use to do sans children, and one of those is make our own soap. We loved everything about the entire process: finding the recipes, making the soap while sipping wine and watching reruns of Friends on our computer, and giving the finished soaps as gifts to our family and friends.
Needless to say once we had kids, our soap making and wine sipping days quickly came to a halt. But now that the little ones are getting bigger, we have brought it back! We picked up our oldie but good book, Natural Soapmaking by Marie Browning, gathered a few needed supplies from Brambleberry.com and we were good to go.
Now I must be clear that we have not ventured into the true soap making realm of making our own lye, although we would like to make that jump in the near future. Instead, we start with a natural soap base that we purchase through Brambleberry and go from there.
The process is so fun and even the tiniest of the family is asking Mommy, “When do I get to make my orange and cinnamon soap.” I love it 🙂
When a member of our family celebrates a birthday, that festivity does not only last one day, but several. We share multiple meals, eat a plethora of desserts and of course exchange a multitude of presents.
As I’m sure many of you know, the little ones in our lives are always making gifts for others. Whether it be a drawing, a hand-strung necklace, a small piece of fabric that is a “mini blanket,” my girls are always at the ready to shower any birthday celebrant with many a gift. Because of this, I am always trying to find new and creative ideas for gifts that the recipient can actually use, yet my kids can make as well.
Well in one short day a special lady in our life is celebrating her birthday and the girls and I found the perfect gift idea…bath salts. It is very cost effective, very useful (especially when the birthday girl is quite the athlete), and is very easy and fun to make with the kids!
The basic recipe is as follows:
1 cup Epsom salt
1 cup course sea salt
20 drops of essential oil of your choosing
Any glass jar with a lid (We reused an old honey jar.)
Place the salts in a bowl and mix well. Take out about ¾ cup of the salt mixture and place in a smaller bowl. Add the essential oil and mix well.
Then add the salts with the essential oils back into the large bowl with the remaining salts. Mix well. Pour into a glass jar and tightly fit on the lid. That’s it!
I hope you all enjoy this fun, easy project with your little ones!
Making of a Home 