Homemade Spa Quality Bath Fizzies

The thing I enjoy most about the Christmas season, is homemade / handmade projects. I enjoy making candies, fudge, savory treats, as well as other non-food gifts. This year I decided to peruse several recipes and suggestions on how to make DIY bath fizzies. I enjoy quality spa products, but don't necessarily enjoy the prices that come along with those products. With Oscar and Ella both loving every minute of bath time, I thought it would be nice to make some bath fizzies for them to enjoy. As well as letting them give some of them away to a few of their young cousins. 

So I experimented a few rounds and finally came up with a recipe that I feel works really well. One, that is no where near the complexity that the Martha Stewart recipe was. And one that is completely customize-able to your own aesthetics in color and essential oils used. In the end I had lavender ones, Cinnamon-clove ones, and Lemongrass ones. They all smell wonderful. 

 All packaged up in cellophane bags for gift giving.

 Complete with lime green bow.

 Another view.

Easy to make. And fun for adults and children alike.

Dan's Homemade Spa Bath Bombs (Fizzies) 

1 c cornstarch

1 c baking soda

1/4 c epsom salt

1 c citric acid

20-30+ drops essential oil

food coloring

water in spray bottle

soap mold or mini-muffin tin

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix. Add essential oil until desired scent is achieved and mix. I use my fingers and just mix it together really well. Add several drops of food coloring to water in spray bottle, to make a very concentrated color so that minimal sprays will give maximum tinting. Spray mixture with water bottle and mix with hands until barely moist. *Be careful not to add too much water as it will take all the fizz out of the bomb, so use barely as much as you need, just so that these hold together. 

Press firmly / pack into a soap mold or muffin tin. Let dry several hours or overnight.

Each batch makes about 12-16 fizzies in a mini-muffin tin.

Notes:

I did about 2 TBS water in the small squirt bottle, with 5-10 drops of food color. So it was really concentrated, and a little mist went a long way in terms of dying the solution.

Variations:

       Lemongrass essential oil, with yellow-green food color

       Orange / cinnamon / clove essential oils, with orange food color

           Lavender essential oil, with purple food color

Christmas Project

Last year for Christmas my sister-in-law gave all the siblings Christmas pillowcases. This is a tradition passed down from Dan's mom who gave the kids a new pillowcase (or got out last years if it wasn't worn out) the beginning of December to sleep on for the month. This was yet another way to make the holiday special and hype up the kids for the Christmas season :)

I thought it was such a great idea I decided right after Christmas to go out and buy fabric on sale (another Sherry tradition!) to make some for the next Christmas to give to my family. I had a lot of fun picking out fabric patterns and matching them together. It is really quite easy to do, but in my typical style I procrastinated for quite a while until I realized I need to crank these out if I was going to get them in the mail after Thanksgiving!



The original thought was to just give to my nieces, but I soon realized I had enough to give to my mom and siblings as well.





I even had enough fabric to make another set for Dan and I. I've been sleeping on mine ever since. It makes me smile every time I see it, I hope it does the same for my family.

2011 Annual Craven Candy Making

One of our favorite holiday traditions is making homemade candy, chocolates and confections for Christmas gift giving. It always reminds me of my childhood and the fun food traditions we had growing up, creating in the kitchen with my Mom. This year Holly & I had a fun time mixing it up and doing different types of fudges and caramels to share with our family, colleagues at work and various friends & neighbors.



Starting a big batch of caramel and adding chocolate to make a chocolate-espresso batch.



Cooking it down and letting it bubble, adding more chocolate a handful at a time.



Adding the espresso and cooking it to soft ball stage.



Almost to temperate and ready to pour in my prepped pan.



After the batch cooled, I cut it and prepped it for wrapping in glassine paper candy cups.



A complete batch of white chocolate, peppermint fudge.



The white chocolate peppermint fudge all cut, wrapped and cupped.



Finished batches ready for boxing. Chocolate-espresso caramel. White chocolate peppermint fudge. And a batch of cinnamon-anise golden caramel.



Boxed and ready for lids, and custom designed labels from Holly.



The finished goodies. Have been shipping to friends across the country, making local deliveries, shipping to family, and sharing with neighbors and colleagues. A very fun tradition indeed. Grateful to have learned from my Mom, and to be able to share the talent with my many friends.

Major Accomplishments!

This weekend we celebrated 2 major accomplishments, 1- Dan ran his fastest half marathon 2- I finished my quilt!!! Okay, so my accomplishment isn't quite as grand as Dan's but I'm still super proud of myself for FINALLY finishing it. I don't even want to tell you when I started this, honestly I can't even remember it's so embarrassing. I want to thank Kelly and Rebecca for helping me with lessons, advice and supplies I couldn't have done it without them! Here are some photos.

Fabric Crush

So yesterday as I was out and about with visiting family (Mom, Renae, Olivia and Nicole are up visiting for a week) and we ended up at Wallingford Center. First and foremost to get cupcakes at Trophy *YUM!* and while we were there I discovered Fabric Crush. The name is so fitting for me, I really do have a love affair with fabric. I love the colors and patterns and this store is so light and bright I couldn't help but smile as soon as I walked in.




I also had to buy something, even if it was something small...2 fat quarters fit that bill perfectly. As I left the store (with a smile on my face) I had no real idea what I would do with my purchase until I walked over to the toy store my nieces were playing in and saw little girl patchwork aprons. They were so cute and seemed like a perfect next project especially since Olivia and Nicole had so much fun this weekend helping Uncle Dan cook in our kitchen! I'll post pictures as soon as I start...which will hopefully be soon :)

Eat your heart out Martha Stewart

Usually I go to Martha for my easter egg dying techniques (silk dyed eggs from last year here), but this year I read in Sunset Magazine that if you dye brown eggs, leaving them in the dye for 10 min, they turn a lovely jewel tone color. I am going to dye a few white eggs too using Martha's idea of electric tape as stencils...I'm skeptical, but we'll see. I'm excited to try these this weekend! I'll post pics if they turn out :)

I Heart Felt

I have been wanting to make this little project since last year. I saw it on Purl Soho just before Valentine's Day and knew I wouldn't have time to whip any of these together to make it worth my while. So this year, with plenty of time, I ordered some beautiful colors of felt from Purl Soho and began.

They are a little trickier than I thought they would be, at least my perfectionist side of me is not happy with the uneven stitches...but oh well, they are adorable. It is kind of hard to tell, but these are tiny. Only about an inch and a half wide.

I hope to make a few more this weekend and put them in a low white dish for display.

One Stop Shop

I just discovered today that my favorite place for drooling over fabric now has letter pressed cards, beautiful ribbons and wrapping paper. I need to go back to NY and actually go to this store.

Check 'em out http://www.purlbee.com/

Silk Eggs

We usually dye Easter eggs every year, and every year I practically gag at the smell. All that vinegar really gets to me. I also get frustrated with my egg design, I always thing using the wax crayon will yield beautiful eggs and it never does. Anyway, this year I saw on Martha Stewart (yes, I watched it when I was home sick) that she dyed Easter eggs by wrapping them in old silk scarves and boiling them in water with just a little vinegar. I was intrigued!
So, on Saturday Dan and I tried it. We went to our local Deseret Industries and bought some old silk skirts for bargin prices. (Martha Stewart used her old Hermés scarves, yeah, like I have any of those hanging around)



Then you cut them into squares.



Wrap the silk around the egg and secure with a twist tie. You also need muslin to wrap around the eggs to keep the fabrics from bleeding into each other. We bought old pillow cases in stead, they worked just fine. Secure muslin with another twist tie.




Put them in cold water with 3 TBS vinegar and bring to a boil for 20 minutes.




Pull out of the water and let cool until easy to handle. Then unwrap!





I think they would have turned out more vibrant if we'd boiled them longer, but then you wouldn't be able to eat the eggs inside. They would also probably work better with silk that had less white in it and more saturated colors. But, we were pleased with our first attempt and will definitely try this again next year.