Scrubbin' for Christmas

Sooooo, you know those awesome bags that I made for the school's Jingle Bell Shop? Ya- you know, the ones I spent a long time sewing? Well, you wanna know how many sold at the Jingle Bell Shop?




Zero.



I feel like I was sabotaged! The woman putting it together was a little confusing when explaining to me as to what the prices should be for the items. When I finally understood them, I thought the price we agreed upon was fair. Well, when I took the kids to go buy presents at the Jingle Bell Shop, I only saw one of my bags laying out. I thought "Wow! Everyone must really like my bags! All but one sold!" Well, to my surprise when I came to pick them up, I was told not one sold! I was totally bummed! I said "Well, I only saw one out the other day. I wondered where they all were." And she said "Yah we just put them out today." Which was the last day of the shop and was only open for like an hour! Weird.....Well, needless to say, at least my friends and family will be happy with them! I guess I just psyched myself up for everyone else liking them! *tear*

That evening of disappointment deserved a breakfast of champions!

 

Chocolate Chip Pancakes and OJ, I know your mouth is watering right now :).

I had the busiest day yesterday! Just so much running around getting everything together for The teacher presents because Christmas Break is upon us. Now, I always have these good ideas (i.e. the soup in a jar) and really only follow thru with 50% of them. Telling you about it does help me because then I have the idea in my head and I feel I need to follow thru for this blog, but I just wasn't feeling the soup jars. I found something WAY more fun and easier to make.

I have always wondered about sugar scrubs and how to make them. I did some research and found this wonderful blog called Under The Table And Dreaming By Stephanie Lynn. She has a lot of great ideas! One is the Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub.

Stephanie Lynn's Version.

This was a very easy-on-the-wallet gift idea. I made 5 jars of hand scrub and still have a lot of the ingredients left over. I used a little different variation from her recipe, but followed the same guidelines.

My ingredients are 2 1/2 cups of Granulated Sugar, 1 cup of Olive Oil, 5 tbsp. of  Lemon juice, 2 tsp. Lemon Extract, and 1/4 tsp. Lavender Oil

You can use any essential oil that you have. I thought peppermint might also be a fun one for a variation of this hand scrub.

You can get essential oils at your local health food store

I found these 15 oz. glass jars at Michael's. They were about $3 each (They only had 4, so I bought all of them!). I also purchased some plastic containers from the dollar store which I will use for future batches.

Begin by mixing Sugar with Olive Oil. Add in the Lemon Juice, or essential oils to your liking.

This is the point where I smelled the mixture to see how "lemony" it really was and all I could smell was Olive Oil. I purchased the Lemon extract because I was afraid of this. I mixed in 2 tsp. of lemon extract and tested it on my hands. Still smelled like Olive Oil, so I then added a 1/4 tsp. of Lavendar. That made a big difference! Now it turned into...

Lemon Lavender Hand Scrub!

This mixture made enough to fill my 15 oz. jar, but I left room for the lid to fit on so it didn't spill everywhere.

My version after mixing.

I filled my jars and cleaned them up a little bit so they were not too slippery. (That oil tends to get everywhere, so do not do this on your best table cloth when making. Washable surface preferred)

The mixture will settle after a bit, and that is ok because we will be topping these off with something to mix it with.

I found a website with the most amazing FREE templates! Ruffledblog.com . It is actually a wedding website. I have been married for 6 years so I wasn't looking for anything for a wedding, but it was still dreamy to see all of the unique, amazing photographs and ideas she has!

Anywho, I downloaded and printed up these free templates on regular computer paper.

I purchased contact paper from the dollar store and after cutting out the labels I wanted to use and writing with permanent marker what type of hand scrub this was, I measured the contact paper larger than the label. I put some alcohol on a cotton swab and rubbed where I wanted the label to be ( just in case there was any oils left over). I positioned where I wanted the label and stuck it to the front. I topped it off with this pretty ribbon, which was also on sale at Michael's. It was tricky to find spoons that would go with what I was making. But I actually found some in a set of forks, knives, and spoons at the dollar store. I used all of the spoons, but my kids added some forks and knives to their utensils.

Finished product!

When I packaged these for travel, I wrapped them in tissue paper and added a decorative plastic bag around it. I also used the left over tag's from the brownie oreo gift bags.

I gave them to L's bus driver's and his kindergarten teacher. I hope to make different variations and maybe body scrubs for Christmas gifts. I know, I only really do 50% of what I say. So, we'll see!

Here's a little playlist to play while you are making these, because as I said before, after awhile the Christmas music gets to me!