Sunday, October 19, 2008

Homemade Holiday Gift Making... SUGAR SCRUB



Sugar Scrub is WONDERFUL!  It exfoliates, and leaves your skin soft and wonderful!  

Recipe:  1 cup Brown Sugar
                1/2 cup White Sugar
                2 TBS Oil (your favorite- except mineral, it dries out skin)
                 2 TBS vanilla

For this recipe I quadrupled the batch and filled CD tins I purchased at a HUGE discount last year in the Wilton Wedding section.  Printed labels that were provided and Wow!  LOVE LOVE LOVE this SCRUB!

Give-a-way...


Welcome Fall!  We are back from a pastor's conference, and a short vacation.  I don't have a post of my own, but check THIS out!  Blessings! 

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Wool Wrapped Soap

Homemade Holiday... I was inspired by Homespun Heart's posts recently and we always love hand making gifts for our Christmas gifts.  Also, I have an abundance of  wool blankets that the quilting ladies have given me to re purpose.  So...This year one of the items we are giving are wool felted exfoliating soaps. 

 
Here it begins...



We are using Ivory Soap, but 
really wanted to make our own...
 just going with 
the easiest way so far... Wool blanket cut 41/2 inches by 7 inches...




Soak the soap and the strip of wool in hot water and then begin "felting" it with your hands
 until it is part of the bar of soap, pinching seams together as you go and continuing to saturate in the hot water.



Trim the corners as you go...I made two slit marks at the edge and then cut the square off completely before pinching the seams together.







After I worked the edges I placed it in the toe of a stocking and tightened it as much as possible and saturated it again in the hot water... the picture would  not cooperate with me to show you this step, I don't know if it really is necessary.

Dry completely on rack and package in a celophane bag with a nice label, as you can see my dd made a nice teddy to go along with this bar, out of the same blanket, how sweet.








Monday, October 6, 2008

Harvest Soup for fall


I keep a "white sauce" mix on hand (recipe following) and brought it out to make this creamy carrot soup with a cheesy bread (in Montana we called this Bobbybread- don't know why?!) 

 My dh is not a soup fan, so on Wednesdays when he leads a Bible study far away from home, and visits congregation members who are considered "shut-in" we enjoy soup. 

 This was a new recipe for the children and I...btw, I was blessed with this set of dishes this summer from a yard sale- get this -$7!!! for the set, service for 6, with the servers and sugar and creamer too!  

We also enjoyed our favorite cookie recipe too! 

 WELCOME FALL!

White Sauce Mix
2-1/3 C. Powdered Milk
1 C. All Purpose Flour 
1 C. Butter flavored Crisco
Combine the three ingredients in a food processor, or a mixer until well combined.  Can be stored at room temperature in a covered container.

This mix is a wonderful base for White Alfredo Sauce, Macaroni and Cheese, puddings, soups and many more items. Just Add 1 cup mix to 2 cups water and heat in saucepan until thickened.  This is also a great base for any cream soups, just add in your favorite seasonings and herbs with chicken or beef bullion cubes at time of mixing and store in the same manner.  

With the above soup I added garlic, chicken bullion, salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and brown sugar and a can of carrots.  Blended with a stick blender (you could use a regular blender as well) and served with cheese on top.