Miracle in a Jar: Coconut Oil

Over the weekend, my boyfriend prepared one incredible meal for Valentine's Day.  It was probably one of the best meals that I've had in a really long time.  As he was telling me how he prepared the meal, he mentioned coconut oil.  He cooks with being healthy in mind, and I have been seeing so many different posts on Facebook and on Pinterest about coconut oil.  I was determined to do some research!! 

One of the things I read was that it makes an incredible face wash.  Who would have known?  My plan is to use coconut oil for 7 days straight to wash my face.  I'll let you know how it goes!  In the mean time, I wanted to share some of my research with you.  It sounds like this is incredible stuff!

Great Uses for Coconut Oil

1. Moisturizer: Each morning while you're getting ready, smooth some on your face to hydrate your skin instead of your usual moisturizer.

2. Goo gone: Mix some coconut oil with some baking soda to remove anything sticky.

3. Improve thyroid function and digestion, as well as curing migraines: eat one spoonful per day to see amazing results!

4. Bee Stings and Bug Bites: smooth some coconut oil on for relief.

5. Freshen your dog's breath! Add some coconut oil to your dog's water every day for better smelling puppy kisses!

6. Rough heels and Cuticles: Smooth some on the heels of your feet and onto your cuticles to smooth your skin.

7. Cleaning your shower: Wipe your shower with coconut oil. Then spray with white vinegar and wipe down. 

8. Toast: Smooth on coconut oil on your toast instead of butter

9. Smoothies: Adding a teaspoon to your daily smoothie will increase your energy. (I'm trying this tomorrow, too!)

10. Body Scrub: Mix together sugar and coconut oil to make a body scrub.

11. Makeup Removal: At the end of a long day, remove your makeup with coconut oil.  An added bonus that it also encourages the growth of hair, so you will have long beautiful eyelashes!!

12. Diaper Rash Cream: Smooth some coconut oil on your baby's bottom for a natural, soothing diaper rash cream. 

13. Static Hair: Lightly smooth some on your fingers, and slide over your hair to reduce static-y hair.

14. Increase Breast Milk Supply: Breast feeding mothers who consume 3-4 tablespoons per day will increase their milk supply for their babies.

15. Indigestion: Mix coconut oil with ginger tea to sooth your stomach from indigestion.

16. Hair Growth Stimulation: Rub onto your scalp to encourage hair growth.

17. Arthritis: Due to the anti-inflammatory properties of coconut oil, rubbing it on sore joints will reduce the effects of arthritis.

18. Lice: Mix coconut oil with apple cider vinegar to treat lice.  

19. Yeast: By consuming coconut oil, you can kill excess yeast in your gut.

20. Boost metabolism: Consuming coconut oil daily will boost your metabolism.

21. Cold sores: Coconut oil helps to heal cold sores naturally.

22. Bug repellent: Rub some coconut oil on your arms and legs when venturing outside to keep the bugs away!

23. Eyelash Conditioner: As I said above, rubbing coconut oil on your eyelashes will condition them!

24. Lip balm: Smooth some coconut oil onto your lips to make them soft and smooth!

25. Shaving cream: Mix coconut oil and water together for a smooth, great smelling shave.

I hope some of these tips will inspire you to pick up a jar of coconut oil the next time you're at the supermarket.  I picked mine up at Trader Joe's for $4.99 for a 16 oz. jar.  

If you use coconut oil for any other uses or the ones listed above, please leave your comments below! I'm sure many people will find your advice helpful!

Taking a Journey into the Past

Have you ever wondered what life was like "way back when?"  This past weekend, my boyfriend and I got talking about our grandparents, especially his, and the journeys that they took through their lives.  Which really had me thinking and wondering.  Have you ever gone through that big box of old photos?  Each one tells a story!  The one thing that makes me sad about digital photography is that we delete all the bad photos.  When I was little, we would snap away.  Whatever photos you took would be developed, and you were stuck with them.  In the photos where maybe I was making a goofy grin, someone super special was in the background, caught in that moment.  Time passes, and before you know it, that person lives on in your heart, and just by seeing that captured moment can warm your heart.

Meet Mary Virginia, my grandma.  This little girl with sparkle in her eyes, and a big toothy grin was an incredible lady in my eyes.  What did this little girl see in life?  What did her childhood bedroom look like? What did she like to play?  All these questions go through my head as I look at this picture.  I'm guessing she was about 8 years old, just the age of the third graders in my class.  She looked very happy, and perhaps because she's my grandmother I am biased, but I think she was a beautiful little girl.

Fast forward, about twenty years or so.  That little 9 year old girl grew up into a sophisticated woman.  I'd imagine that my grandmother is about thirty in this photo, the same age that I am today.  She had two, if not three children at this point.  She was a homemaker, and made sure she raised her children right.  What was her life like at this point?  I wonder what she'd talk about with her closest friends.  She still has that same sparkle in her eye here, just the same that she had when she was just 8 or 9 years old.  I wish I could just have had a glimpse into life at that time.  I wonder if what I picture in my head is at all accurate.

Finally, here she is as I remember her, a happy, mature woman.  We'd call her the "Queen Mother" because she just held everything together.  This was the last birthday she celebrated in her house on Long Island before moving closer to everyone.  I remember how she would sit in this chair and visit with my parents in the den whenever we'd go over to visit.  I remember how she'd put out tons of cookies and snacks out after we ate lunch.  She'd always have ice cream for dessert, and would always have those tiny, crunchy sprinkles for mine.  She'd dance in the kitchen, and feed her little canary bird, Mr. Peepers. These are all good memories I'm so lucky to have.

It's hard sometimes to look back at photos like this, because I miss my grandmother so badly.  She was an incredible lady.  I was pretty lucky to know her for 22 years.  She has left an imprint on my heart, and I will always remember her for the wonderful woman she was, and where she came from.  If you look closely, she never lost that sparkle in her eyes.

You should go dig through those photos yourself, and find some good ones of the people in your life who you love.  Each picture has a story to tell.  Oh! And don't be so quick to delete those bad photos. You may wish you had those moments one day.  

10,000 Hidden Things to be Happy about in One Photo

 

 

 

The inspiration for this post tonight comes from Kelle Hampton. Amanda introduced me to her blog four years ago, and I've been following her ever since. She's one of the six blogs that we rated "Blogs We Love" on our sidebar to the right, Enjoying the Small Things. If you haven't visited her blog yet, you should click over now and ignore the rest of my post. She's that good, that inspiring, and you'll feel like you're a part of her family immediately.

I follow Kelle on Instagram and saw this post today:

As soon as I saw the caption, I knew I wanted to take part in the question she posed. Being the photo fanatic that I am, there are thousands of photos that leave footprints on my heart in numerous ways. Naturally, because my wedding was only six months ago, I gravitated towards sifting through that file first. So many photos came to mind and as I searched, it got harder and harder to narrow it down. I decided to choose this one though:

This photo is definitely stuffed with 10,000 hidden things: 10,000 things to be happy about all in one picture. You're probably thinking, that's so odd. Of all photos taken on her wedding day, why that one?! Here's 10 reasons why:

-My two aunts, Aunt Aliza and Aunt Rene, who I absolutely adore and still look up to, have their arms wrapped around me for a quick photo opp.
-Being that this photo was taken from behind, one can easily notice how tightly we're holding onto each other.
-I can still feel how that felt. Generations of love.
-My dress. The dress I've been waiting to wear for months. The corset and beading.
-The reactions, smiles, and silhouettes of everyone else in the background.
-The smells of delicious foods at our cocktail hour.
-The muffled voices and hum of excitement from people that I love the most.
-Music playing, glasses clinking, and forks scraping plates.
-Pretty gold chairs and stations of food.
-Everyone dressed up, looking their best, and wearing their favorite dancing shoes.
-Exchanging hugs, kisses on cheeks, and whispers of "you look gorgeous!" around the room.

I get chills writing about these details.

What a powerful activity...
slow down,
take in each detail,
enjoy,
soak up happiness.

I challenge you to do this one day. Take a look at your photos... any of them. Notice the 10,000 hidden things to be happy about in that one photo. If you try it, let me know. I'd love to hear from you!

Crumbs Cupcakes!!!

Over the weekend, we had a celebration for my boyfriend's birthday <3. (by the way....he's my boyfriend now!!)  My friend Jill and I wanted to make sure his birthday was as special as we could make it, so I baked cookies and picked up cupcakes from Crumbs on Friday.  Our celebration on Saturday began with a delicious hibachi dinner, and then a celebration after.  

I've never had a Crumbs cupcake until this weekend, and WOW was I impressed.  These cupcakes were moist and tasty.  I picked up their 12 pack of cupcakes that are perfect for a gathering with friends.  Everyone chose their own special flavor, and the room went quiet.  You know what that means...they were so good!

If you've never had a Crumbs Cupcake, you NEED to pick one up the next time you pass one of their shops.  I'm completely hooked!!

Everything in this post is my opinion.  I wasn't compensated in any way for this blog post.  I just think Crumbs are awesome!

A Classroom Bridal Shower Gift: Bouquet of Paper Flowers

Amanda and I are so excited to participate in a blogging "link party" hosted by Fry Sauce & Grits. We love that this BE.YOU.TIFUL link party focuses on beauty, fashion, inspiration, health, and design... a perfect fit for us!

 

The lifestyle post that I'll be linking to tonight is about my classroom bridal shower! SO FUN!

As our school year dwindled down last year, my partner teacher, Lauren, and all fifty of our students threw me a huge surprise bridal shower in the classroom. It was such a special memory and one that I will never, ever forget. Of course there were treats, cards, scrapbooks, and gifts, but the one thing that I treasured most of all was the tall bouquet of paper flowers that my students and colleagues made me.

Teaching is such a huge part of my life and I wanted to include at least a tiny part of it into my ceremony/reception... I just didn't know exactly how I wanted to do this. As soon as I saw the tall bouquet of flowers at my classroom bridal shower, my heart melted and I just knew that was it! It needed to be included in my ceremony, cocktail hour, or reception.

Each student wrote "words of wisdom" about marriage on a paper flower. Then, three students' flowers were glued together to make a 3D version. Lauren hot-glued bamboo sticks onto each, positioned them into a large glass vase with stones at the bottom, and voila... a gorgeous and meaningful bouquet of flowers! How special is that?! What a beautiful way to send me off into married life!

Some of my students wrote very funny things (see below about the farting), while some researched very profound statements. I was mesmerized throughout the entire bridal shower and brought them home reeling in excitement as I shared with family and friends.  

 

 

 

Knowing that this would be on display at the wedding, I cut up extra flowers for guests to write on, too. These were the  most hilarious things to read after the wedding. I kept those flowers in a  wedding scrapbook!

 

 

 

 

A few from our reception:

Gotta love my brother-in-law! ;-)

 



This gorgeous paper bouquet display would be a great addition to any celebration! Consider trying this at your next event! Bridal shower, baby shower, anniversary party, or wedding! Leave me a comment below if you have any questions about how-to details! :-)

 

Picture Frames: The Perfect Gift

For this Valentines Day, I decided to give my special someone a gift of chocolates and a picture frame.  Since things are so new, I decided to keep things simple, but I still wanted him to know how much I appreciated him.  He was cooking me dinner (which was AMAZING, by the way).  So I felt that this little gesture, included a decorated gift bag by yours truly, was a gift straight from my heart.

Did you know that you can find all sorts of themed framable printables on the internet?  Pinterest is FILLED with all different ideas.  On my snow day this past week, I was getting ready for this weekend, I started to put everything together for my gift.  I decided that instead of just giving him a frame with the cheesy generic picture inside the frame, I wanted to make it a little more personal.  I started to look on Pinterest for different designs that I liked, and finally I stumbled upon this one: Catch my Party

Once I had the image downloaded, I saved it as a .pdf file, and when I went to print it, I chose the size of paper that the frame would fit.  For my particular frame, it was a 4x6 photo.  When it printed, it was the perfect size to fit into my frame!

I'm sure you can find all different printables for different holidays and occasions to dress up your gift.  It makes your gift more personal.  Some printables even allow you to write on the frame with a dry erase marker to leave someone you love a message.  

In our case, I don't really have any photos of the two of us, so I made sure to indicate on a cute sticky note that we had to a take a picture to place inside our frame.  

I really loved this gift and the way it turned out.  The next big holiday is Mother's Day.  What mother wouldn't love to open a gift like this?

You can find more ideas like this at: 

Dollar Store Crafts

Photo Booth Possibilities

I stopped into Michael's today to purchase a few materials for a soon-to-be DIY project. I fell upon a new aisle (or new to me) that was quite intriguing... an aisle for photo booth props! No, this wasn't an aisle filled with feather boas and other accessories like that, it was an aisle filled with unfinished wooden props to design and decorate on your own!

I thought this was so awesome because there are endless opportunities to make your props fun and fabulous... grab some scrapbook paper and Mod Podge them up! Add some glitz, glitter, and sequins! Play with fun paint colors or coordinate a specific color theme! It's all up to your imagination!

I especially loved these wooden props because I knew they would last much longer than the paper ones that are normally used. Reuse them from party to party, and don't worry about wear and tear.

I created my first photo booth this past New Years Eve and whipped it up in no time. It was really easy finding free printable props online. I found mine over at I Heart Naptime and In the Treehouse. I printed them on cardstock paper and attached a shish kabob stick to each (grabbed anything I had in the house!).  :-) 

 

 

 

I found an adorable and free printable Happy 2014 banner from Paging Supermom and began cutting away! I then taped a roll of gold wrapping paper to my wall (husband wasn't happy) and voila!

Although I saved the props for another party, I definitely think the wooden props would be a great addition to what I have. I didn't purchase anything today, but you should! If you're interested in making your own photo booth anytime soon, check out Michael's and the links above to help you out!