Miracle Body Butter

The post you've all been waiting for...drumroll... My Body Butter!!!

Hopefully you have already read my post on shea butter. If you haven't, go there first. It explains all about shea butter and its natural benefits to our skin's health. Unrefined shea butter is a major ingredient to my body butter recipe. 

Another ingredient for this body butter is coconut oil. Many of you may already know the benefits of coconut oil to our skin. Coconut oil is so neat because it does so much for our body both inside and out! Inside, coconut oil supports the liver, kidneys, digestive system, heart and brain, fights inflammation, promotes bone strength, stabilizes blood sugar and cholesterol, and can also be used for constipation relief. On the outside of the body, coconut oil is a natural sun screen, insect repellant, wrinkle reducer, moisturizer, hair conditioner, makeup remover, and wound salve. Coconut oil also has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties so it eliminates bad odors, skin rashes, fungal infections and more. 

A less common natural oil that is very healthy for our skin is apricot oil. It is pressed from the kernels of apricots. It's full of anti-oxidants and has many anti-inflammatory properties. It's is great for clearing pores and retaining moisture. 

Beeswax has non-allergenic properties making it very useful on skin as protection against allergic irritations. Especially when the wax is local! Beeswax also acts as a barrier that helps lock in moisture, and enhance healing and protection. 

All of these action packed ingredients put together make one powerful moisturizer for your body! My hands are constantly dry. Being a nurse, I am constantly washing my hands and using alcohol based hand sanitizer. They last thing I want is for my skin to break and something nasty to be introduced into my bloodstream...yuck!

Ingredients:

1 oz Beeswax

1/2 cup Unrefined Shea Butter

1/4 cup Coconut Oil

1/4 cup Apricot Oil

How to: 

Place a glass container in a pot of hot water and melt all of the ingredients in the order listed above (double boiler concept). Once all ingredients are melted, stir gently until all signs of separation are gone. Remove container from the double boiler and set aside to cool. Let mixture cool until it's stiff (this may take a while). You should be able to push on it easily but it should hold your finger indentation. Take out your hand mixer and beat the mixture till fluffy, making sure there are no clumps. Place mixture in desired container. Be sure to store in a cool place so your oils do not melt. If it does melt, no biggy! You can re-whip and re-store. 

I have a friend who's young daughter had some moderate eczema on her legs...I offered her some of this body butter knowing all of its properties should help it heal. In a couple days she got back to me and said that her daughter's skin was nearly cleared up! Seriously, miracle cream! My husband also came to me today with both of his hands having quite the rash from an unknown source (probably the baseball field). He got to be my experiment with mixing the butter with a couple drops of tea tree oil. We'll see how his hands are tomorrow! 

Peanut/Almond Butter

 Do you remember the many salmonella outbreaks in peanut butter? Do you know what caused these outbreaks? Unclean conditions. Cockroaches, rats, bird feces, grease buildup, improper processing and more. Do you wanna know how to avoid said problems? Make your own peanut butter!

What you'll need:

16 oz dry roasted peanuts (recipe also works with almonds)

1 TBSP almond oil

1/2 tsp salt

5 minutes of time (seriously...that's all it takes!)

When choosing your peanuts you need to consider how they were cooked. Raw nuts can sometimes carry illness-causing bacteria. Salmonella has been reported from eating raw almonds and pistachio nuts. Cooking the raw nuts is important to kill that bacteria. A couple ways that is done is with steam and dry heat. This reduces the risk for contamination with bacteria from raw nuts. You can look up on the label how they were treated. I bought dry roasted peanuts and made sure there was no other additives in them like oil or salt. 

How to:

Pour peanuts into food processor and blend until they look like the picture below. Pour almond oil and salt over mixture and continue to blend. It'll feel like your blending forever but it will soon turn into a paste consistency. Test your texture until it's to your liking! I like it a little grainy so I didn't completely purée mine. 

When your finished, place it in a sturdy 16 oz container. This peanut butter needs to be refrigerated because there are no preservatives in it. But that's it! Happy homemaking!

BONUS RECIPE:

Greek Yogurt Fruit Dip

(Not one of my recipes that I made up but I have altered it to my liking and OH MY GOODNESS it's so good!) 

16 oz Vanilla Greek Yogurt

1/2 cup homemade peanut or almond butter

2 TBPS raw honey

Using a hand mixer, blend all ingredients in a small bowl. Chop up some fruit- apples, bananas, strawberries, etc and place on a plate. Dip the fruit into the yogurt mixture and prepare your tastebuds for journey they will never forget! Enjoy! 

Layton Lancer Jacket

As some of you know, Jaron is the pitching coach for Layton High. Lately, we've had to restock on Layton High gear considering we had to downsize due to moving twice since we've been married. What's left of Jaron's old gear is rather faded or roughly worn. 

The other day, we were at SavOn Sporting Goods picking up baseball helmets and getting Jaron some coach's pants and found a navy blue pull-over jacket for $15! So we snatched that deal and I gave it a little makeover... 

I didn't do much but get on my design space on Cricut.com and typed "L". The only obstacle I came across was finding the right font. Since Layton's mascot is the Lancer, it had to be an Old English font...and the font on design space cost $5. Being as frugal as I am, I tend to do things the hard way and get around a cost. I wasn't paying $5 for one letter! So I went to my favorite free fonts site: 1001freefonts.com and downloaded the Old English font called "Cloister Black", imported it to my cricut design space  and created away! After my cricut cut out the L, I removed any unwanted material, trimmed the clear plastic around the L just in case the plastic removed color from the sweatshirt. The ironing took longer than expected. I had to use a paper towel as a barrier because a wash cloth was too thick. Since it was a very angular font I made sure all the corners were down tight and that was it! No color change either! Super easy, cheap and Jaron has another Layton jacket for a third of the price!

Beeswax Candles

Let me just say that I am IN LOVE with beeswax! The more I read about it, the more I want to use it! My obsession started with making candles. When I started making candles, I just wanted some nice natural smells like pine, lemon grass, sage, etc. I went to Hobby Lobby and found a candle making kit that had everything I'd need to get started: double boiler, wax, scent, dye, thermometer, molds and wicks. I made my first batch of candles and wasn't very impressed. It was an easy process but the wax crystallized, it wasn't smooth. When I burned them, they burned all too quickly, left horrible black soot stains on the containers and anything it was around, and they didn't hold their color or scent.

I later bought some beeswax and honestly I was more into how pretty it was. I really do love the natural color of beeswax! But I dug a little deeper to find that beeswax, when burned, purifies the air! And here's how: Beeswax releases negative ions when it burns. Pollen, dust, dirt, pollutants, and any other floaters in the air all carry a positive charge (that's how they stay in the air). As the negative ions are released from the burning beeswax they attach to the positive ions from the pollutants in the air and become neutralized, making them heavier and fall to the ground where they can be swept or vacuumed up! With that being said, beeswax pulls all this crap out of the air, meaning asthma and allergies will improve! If there's no pollen, dander, dust or dirt in the air, there's nothing to amp up those allergic or asthmatic reactions! Yay! 

Beeswax is a very hard wax and it often cracks. When I made my first candle I had problems with the wax cracking and tunneling. It would look perfectly fine and then I'd light it and the wick would be gone in seconds and I'd find all sorts of hidden tunnels under the top surface of my candle. With some research I found that the wax was drying too quickly and couldn't settle properly. So I needed something to make the wax softer and would slow the drying process. I found that coconut oil does just that! You can use other oils too but they need to be solid at room temperature. After combining the two, my candles were an even prettier color, smooth, no tunnels, and took longer to dry but also took longer to burn. They really stabilized each other! 

The wicks I decided to use are different than the normal cotton wicks you always see. I chose wooden wicks. They look like a flat stick in the middle of the candle. Besides the fact that they look cute and rustic, they crackle like a campfire, add a hint of campfire scent, and they last SO much longer than a regular wick. Their flame can get bigger than a regular wick's flame so use caution. Wooden wicks also come in different sizes. The bigger the wick, the wider the burn radius. So if you're wanting to make a wider candle, you'll need a wider wick.

Through much trial and error, I found the perfect mix of oil to wax and perfect size of wick to jar/candle size. They are so pretty and they put off this subtle sweet honey odor all the while wood crackles in the background. I have been burning the same candle for an hour or two every night for 3 weeks now and it's not even halfway gone. Perfect for not just enjoying but power outages and emergency kits. AND there's no ugly black soot on the glass! Pure goodness to the air! I LOVE BEESWAX!

Banana Bread (sugar free)

Another SUGAR FREE recipe! But I can't take credit for this one. I only made some slight alterations 

Recipe makes 1 loaf.

1/4 cup butter

1/2 greek yogurt

1 cup raw honey or agave nectar

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  In your mixer combine the wet ingredients and beat thoroughly. Combine wet and dry ingredients in the mixer and beat again. Fold in almonds.

Pour batter into greased and floured loaf pan. Sprinkle more almonds on top. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. When finished, insert a toothpick to be sure the bread is done.

After making this I can certainly say it has an awesome rich flavor. Its smooth and moist thanks to the yogurt and honey! AND it doesn't give your teeth fluffy sweaters! I particularly like mine served warm with slightly melted butter and a thin slice of cheddar cheese on top...mmm...

Original recipe from: http://thechalkboardmag.com/save-the-bananas-quick-banana-bread-with-yogurt-and-honey

Fried Pickles (my weakness...)

WARNING: NOT the healthiest recipe. ;) I LOVE FRIED PICKLES! I've tried recreating them many times but could never get them like restaurants served them. And then I lived down south...

They don't sell the same stuff at grocery stores here as the do down there. What you need: Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasoning (BEST STUFF EVER), Cajun Classics Frying Batter, 1 egg, milk, Ranch seasoning, sour cream, dill pickles, oil to fry in (I used peanut oil), and shish-kabob sticks!

Pickles: Pour enough peanut oil in a pot to be able to cover pickles and place on medium/high heat. Dry however many pickles you want with paper towels and set aside. Put egg and 1/3 cup milk in a bowl and beat until combined. Pour some of the cajun batter (its a powder) into a glass pan (I didn't use all the batter at once..I didn't want to waste what I didn't use). Once your oil is hot, start preparing your pickles: dip into egg wash, then roll in batter (do this twice). Poke the shish-kabob stick into the pickle and place into the oil (this allows for easy placement and removal). Fry until golden brown. 

Dipping sauce: Prepare ranch sauce according to the ranch lable with sour cream, then pour 1 TBSP of Slap Ya Mama into the ranch and mix. 

Be sure to wait until the pickles cool a littlle before you start to dipping and munching. We don't want any burns. CAUTION: these are HIGHLY addicting. Once you taste one, you can't get enough! 

Shea Butter

Raw, unrefined shea butter is produced from the nut of shea karite tree which is native to Central and Western Africa. 

There are so many of uses for unrefined shea butter including uses in cosmetics, medicine and cooking.

Unrefined shea butter (which is what I use) has many benefits to your skin. It is full of antioxidants, Vitamin A, E, and F. These are responsible for all sorts of skin benefits and treatments. Shea butter can reduce wrinkles, treate symptoms of eczema and psoriasis, soothe itching from allergic dermatitis, prevent stretch marks, treate acne, treate burns, sunburns and small wounds, act as a natural insect repellant, and moisturizer. Because of the anti-inflammatory properties in shea butter, it has been used to treat sore muscles, joint pain and stimulate diabetic skin too. 

Most stores don't sell unrefined shea butter and if a product in stores have shea butter in it, it's usually refined shea butter. Refining the butter takes out most of its natural beneficial elements. Such a shame!

You can use shea butter by itself, or you can infuse it with other oils and ingredients (which is what I've done). Be sure to check back and see what I've made with my unrefined shea butter!

• Protect and Moisturize

  The texture and water-resistance of beeswax allows it to act as a protective barrier for irritated skin. When mixed in lotion and applied to rough patches or chapped areas, it prevents further damage and seals in moisture, allowing the skin to heal. It also helps soften skin without synthetic chemical additives.