Lemon Blueberry Waffles

Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-1/4 cups milk
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

5 drops Lemon Essential Oil

Directions:
Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir.  Add wet ingredients and combine until well blended and smooth. Fold in blueberries and Lemon Essential Oil. Let batter sit 5 minutes before using.

Cook according to waffle maker instructions.

Essential Oil Safety

What Are Essential Oils?
If you have ever enjoyed the scent of a rose, you’ve experienced the aromatic qualities of essential oils. These naturally occurring, volatile aromatic compounds are found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. Essential oils provide plants with protection against environmental threats and play a role in plant pollination. In addition to their intrinsic benefits to plants and being beautifully fragrant to people, essential oils have long been used for food preparation, beauty treatment, and health-care practices.

How Do I Use Essential Oils?
Essential oils are used for a very wide range of emotional and physical wellness applications. They can be used a single oil at a time or in complex blends.

Essential Oil Safety

When using essential oils it's important to use them safely. Below are some guidelines that you should follow when using any brand of essential oils.

1. Store your oils in a cool, dark place to preserve their quality. Also keep them away from outlets and electronic devices as electro magnetic frequencies don’t do your oils any favors.

2. Neat vs. Diluted: Undiluted essential oils are called neat. Oils applied with carrier oil are called diluted. What are carrier oils? Any oil that is can be used on the skin and blended with essential oils. Fractionated coconut oil is best but others will work as well. Such as: apricot oil, sweet almond oil, jojoba oil, and olive oil.

3. Less is More. Use no more than 1-3 drops of an essential oil at a time. Diluting oils make is so they last longer and you can spread them over larger areas. This also allows the oils to spend more time on your skin, thereby making the essential oil more effective. How much you dilute depends on the oil and how sensitive your skin is.

4. If an oil gives you a headache, simply cut back on the frequency and amount of use, dilute and put on the bottoms of your feet and ease into using oils. Diffuse for 15-30 minutes at a time, only. If diffusing, use fewer drops in your diffuser– say 1-2 drops of an oil vs. 3-5. Use every other day instead of daily. Give your body time to acclimate to the balancing and restorative nature that the oils are having on your body.

5. Hot Oils? A ‘hot’ oil is one that has a warming, tingling, or slight burning sensation when applied to the skin. Cassia, Cinnamon, Clove, Oregano, and Thyme are all hot oils. A hot oil can cause sensitivities to those with sensitive skin, especially babies and children. Essential Oil Safety is key, so err on the side of diluting too much vs. not diluting a hot or warm oil at all.

6. Keep essential oils out of the ear canal. Essential oils should never go IN the ear canal. You may rub them around your ear, behind the ear, on your ear lobe, or drop on a cotton ball and put the cotton ball in your ear, but never, ever drop oils in your ear. Period.

7. Keep the oils out of your eyes and away from your eyes. Around the cheekbone and above the eyebrow is close enough. If you do get some in your eyes , DO NOT USE WATER. Instead use some Fractionated Coconut oil, or another carrier oil, and rub it around your eye. It will draw out the essential oil. Water will drive the essential oil in, and a carrier oil will draw it out.

8. Check the labels. They will give you directions on how you should use that particular oil. Some oils are quite strong and the label will instruct you to dilute them for topical use. The label will also tell you if you can use the oil internally. The easiest way to tell if the oil can be taken internally is to look for the supplement facts label.

9. You can use Essential Oils 3 different ways:

Aromatically: Certain essential oils, when diffused, can be very stimulating, while others can be calming and soothing. Diffusing essential oils can also cleanse and purify the air of unwanted odors.

Topically: Essential oils are easily absorbed by the skin and can be safely applied topically.

Internally: Certain essential oils have a rich culinary history and can be used as dietary supplements for targeted wellness.

Essential oils are both exciting and promising when it comes to taking care of your own and your family’s health. Whether you’re applying essential oils topically, enjoying the aromatic benefits through diffusing, or taking essential oils internally, the positive effects of essential oils are boundless.

That’s why you’ll want to ensure that the essential oils you are using are capable of delivering on their promise. You’ll want to make sure that you are choosing essential oils for their potency and their purity.

10. Use a Glass drinking glass. If you’re adding essential oils to your water, use a glass water bottle instead of a plastic one. The oils can break down the plastic/styrofoam. They also eat petrochemicals. Sooo, you’d be drinking them. Stainless steel is ok. Lemon oil digests petrochemicals, this is why drinking from glass is best.

11. Keep bottles of essential oils tightly closed and out of the reach of children. Treat the oils as you would any product for therapeutic use. Teach your children that they are not candy and only Mommy and Daddy can open the bottles. (Until they are old enough to learn how to apply safely)

12. Learn From Others: It’s so helpful to read about someone else’s positive experience using a specific oil for a specific purpose. Testimonials are super helpful! Attending online classes, or in home classes, or meeting up with someone knowledgable in the use of essential oils one on one is a good idea too.

13. Invest in a couple of great resources to help you learn the safest and most effective way to use your essential oils. Resources that I trust are listed below.

The Essential Life @ Oillife.com

Modern Essentials @Aromatools.com

14.  Do your own research!  Don't just take my word for it.  Find out what will work best for you.

THE BEST Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls Ever!

Believe me when I say I have spent YEARS trying to come up with something gluten free that even remotely looked like a real cinnamon roll.  All my attempts were dismal failures.  Just last month I was introduced to this recipe.  I thought I could make it into a cinnamon roll cake or something.  Imagine my SHOCK when I actually got this:

Actual dough that I could roll out and turn into a cinnamon roll!?!?  I was so excited!

It was so yummy! I'm still in shock!

I followed this recipe from Our Best Bites.  Pictured is the Orange Rolls.

Here is what I did to make them Gluten Free:

The only change I made to the actual recipe is the flour.  I substituted the flour with a gluten free rice flour mix.  Otherwise I did as I was told!  Then to roll them out I put the dough on a silpat baking mat and flattened it out with my hands.  I then placed a sheet of plastic wrap on top and used my rolling pin to roll it out to the size of the silpat mat.  Top as desired.  Gently and very carefully use the silpat to help roll the dough up starting from one of the short sides.  Your patience with this will definitely be rewarded!  Cut into 8 rolls and bake as directed.

I've made these a ton and every time I am not disappointed!  YUM!

Texas Humor

Not being a Texas native, I find it very funny how Texans react to the weather. And more in particular, how the country thinks we react to weather.  I have seen a few graphics floating through Facebook recently depicting these Texas nuances, and I have to admit I find them rather hilarious!  

Here are a few of my favorites:

And this is probably my favorite:  "HOW DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS??"

and "IT'S 38*! SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!"

 

CTR Cake

I get asked to make cakes for people more and more.  I really like making them.  For this one I got to do whatever I wanted.  I decided I wanted to try the petal look.  It was really easy, and turned out great!  I YouTubed an instructional video and got to work.

Everyone loved it, especially the person it was for.  Yay!

Family Birthdays

This Family Birthday sign has been on my do to list for quite some time now.  We were finally able to make one a few months ago.  I love how it turned out!  

My husband cut the big board out for me.  We bought all the little circles at the hobby store and then had to drill a million little holes in them.  But I'm glad there is an easy way to add more names as the family grows.  Each family has it's own color so it's easy to tell who belongs to who.  

Just about everyone who comes over to my house asks me to make one for them.  Hmmm... maybe we should go into business or something?  :)

Brush Your Teeth!

I recently took my children to the dentist. No cavities thankfully, but I was told after all three of them went back to have their teeth cleaned, that they need to

BRUSH THEIR TEETH!

Like I don't already know this.

So... I set out to do something about this.

I made them a sign.

A cute little sign with a gentle reminder to

BRUSH YOUR TEETH!

and hung it in their bathroom.

I hope it works.

Ghost Clippies

Someone was selling some very elaborate and fancy hair bows at a craft show I went to. I am so impressed that others have the patience to make hair bows. I do not. I like to once in a while, and certain ones are much more fun to make than others, and I would make a million for my friends if they asked me too.

There was this one being sold that I fell in love with. Maybe it is my love for Halloween that I was so drawn to it, I don't know. But I knew I had to make a couple of them for my girls to wear this October!

Don't you love them?

Halloween

It's no secret around here... 

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

I saw this on Pinterest a while back and thought it was time.

I absolutely can not WAIT till my kids come home from school and hear their shrieks of laughter or shrills of terror!  {I'm such a mean mom!}

This little beauty is up for sale in my Etsy shop.  

Now all of you can terrify your children too! Oh.. I mean decorate for Halloween. ;-)

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I while ago (March) I found a recipe to make your own laundry detergent.  It sounded pretty neat and I'm constantly on the lookout to save some cash, so I gave it a try.  

I bought all the ingredients and mixed up a batch.  I have to say I rather like it!  It's now 5 months later and I think I still have at least half of it left.  Nice!  When it runs out I will definitely be making some more.  

Here is where I found the recipe: Being Creative to Keep My Sanity Blog

This is everything you need to make it.  I found it all at my local Walmart for just under $20.

Click on over to her blog for the full directions on how to make your own.  

I use it in my HE front loader just as I would regular powder detergent and it works great!

Some Yummy Goodness

I think I just found my new favorite treat. Pretzels, peanut butter, chocolate.... mmmmm.

I followed this recipe except I had to add more powdered sugar to make it easier to handle. It was still pretty sticky. I think the next time I make this I will use this recipe for the peanut butter filling:

1/2 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar

Stir peanut butter and butter together. Add powder sugar and mix till combined. Shape into balls using about a teaspoon of the mixture per ball.

Sandwich peanut butter ball between two pretzels.  Then dip pretzels into melted chocolate. Allow to cool on waxed paper.

So yummy!!!

Rock-a-bye!

Apparently more and more people are acquainting themselves with some of my talents.  This is a good thing!  I love to share what I can do with others.  It makes me happy!

My latest project was a cake and cupcakes for a friend's baby shower.  The theme was Rock-a-bye baby/Rock and roll.  So I made an electric guitar cake and a ton of somewhat matching cupcakes.  They were all really cute!

The cupcakes have chocolate guitars and chocolate duckies on top of them.  They were really cool, but they kept breaking.  Which was kinda frustrating.  But the ones that held up were awesome!

Garden Harvest

Here in Texas we can garden pretty much year round. Among my winter crop is green onions, lettuce, kale, and cauliflower.

The green onions were ready, so I harvested ALL of them. I think I planted way more than my family will ever eat. You could say I now have a "year supply" of green onions!

So... I cleaned them up...

Chopped them up...

And put them in the freezer.

I'll never buy green onions again!

I also cut some kale and lettuce to have for dinner.

There is something immensely satisfying about growing and eating your own produce.

This post would not be complete without pictures of my very cute, golf ball sized cauliflower. I think I may have a year supply of these too. I'd say there are about 20 + plants.

Aren't they adorable?

And finally some signs of spring...

I love roses.

Baby Shower Gifts

I recently went to a friend's baby shower. I think my talent as a cake decorator is becoming more well known. I love the opportunity to make something! The theme of the shower was rubber duckies. This is what I came up with.

Everyone loved it! I think it turned out really great too! Yay!

As my gift for my friend I made her some burp cloths. I found this tutorial from Petit Lemon Blog and got to work. They were easy to put together and turned out so nice! Why didn't I make myself some of these with my babies?

Wrapped Bracelet

I found this tutorial on Pinterest and fell in love with it. I'm not really a bracelet person, but this one is really cool!

DIY Wrapped Bracelet

So you have leather cording, a ball chain, waxed linen cord, and a large bead of some kind. They used a hex nut. I just used a large wooden bead. And then you wrap them around each other and voila! You have a neat wrap bracelet.

Here is mine. I like it a lot! Now I have something to do with all those ball chains I have laying around!

Here is another wrap bracelet I found on Pinterest that I want to try next. They just look so neat to me!

This one can be found here. And I really love that elephant!

Mini Pies

A while ago my mom bought me these mini pie molds. I think she likes getting me new kitchen gadgets to see what I'll come up with! We finally gave them a try. I bought already made pie crust from the store for those that can eat gluten and then had to make some gluten free pie crust for those who can't. {I am now a believer in store bought pie crust! So much easier! Too bad they don't make a gluten free one!}

So we first rolled out the dough. And cut out the shape with the mold. This is the wheat one, gluten free pie crust has to be rolled out between two sheets of plastic wrap.

Then place the cut out on one side of the mold and fill. We used blueberry pie filling. Love it! Then you have to brush an egg wash around the edges to help seal the pie filling in.

Place the other cut out on top and squish the mold together to get that nice crimped edge.

Place on a cookie sheet, brush with more egg wash, and bake. I think I sprinkled them with a little sugar too.

Oh my! They were delicious! I hadn't had blueberry pie in a long time!

This is one of the GF ones. They turned out so nice!

Absent Minded Reason #3

I've recently learned not to garden while wearing flip flops.

I was fixing the broccoli I planted. It was way to close together and I FINALLY got around to doing something about it.

Things were going pretty well when one of the bricks came loose.

This is what happens when a 25 pound landscaping brick falls on your foot. Ouch!

It looked way worse a few weeks ago when it happened. That alone should says loads about how it looked a few weeks ago! I can barely wear shoes some days it still hurts a lot!

So here is my very nicely spaced broccoli (I think it's broccoli, nothing got marked!). It actually survived my replanting. I hope the broccoli starts to grow soon!

After telling my husband what happened and showing him my foot, he very politely says,

"Now what did you learn from this experience?"

{sigh}

Yes dear... do not wear flip flops while gardening.

Some radishes I harvested. They are so pretty!

My 3 Pinkalicious Girls

For Christmas I made my girls dolls that look like Pinkalicious. They were wrapped with a ticket to see "Pinkalicious: The Musical" this spring. They were SO excited! I mostly can't believe I finished all three dolls in time. I love them all! They do such a good job portraying each of my girls perfectly!

They each had their own little sewing challenges, but turned out so beautiful! I must admit though, I am really digging those braids!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Since it is Valentine's day soon I thought I would make some cool Valentine's for all those special people in my life! It was super easy to make. All I did was wrap a regular size Hershey bar with pretty paper and embellish. So easy...and who doesn't like chocolate?

Minnie Mouse Clippies

A friend of mine asked if I would make her a pair of these mouse clippies. I can't believe how cute they turned out. I got the instructions to make them from the Girly Things website. All their instructions are free, and they have some cute stuff!