Tag Archives: DIY

Easy Oat and Quinoa Bars

Posted in Nutrition Now by

I am obsessed with breakfast bars.  They make a great snake during the day and there are so many different flavors!  So recently I tried making my own breakfast bars using oats, quinoa, and peanut butter as the main ingredients and I absolutely loved them!  I just had to share with you this quick and easy recipe!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/4 chia seeds or flax seeds
  • 1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth depending on your preference)
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup dried fruit or your choice (if desired)
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Bake quinoa, oats, and seeds about 10 minutes until slightly golden
  3. Allow mixture to cool completely
  4. In a microwavable safe bowl, heat peanut butter, honey, and brown sugar for 1 minute
  5. Stir mixture and microwave for another minute
  6. Mix in oats, quinoa, and seeds
  7. Add in dried fruit if desired
  8. Mix well
  9. Grease you desired size pan
  10. Press mixture firmly into pan
  11. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving

I love how diverse this recipe is as well.  If you want to add chocolate chips you can.  Or if you want to use 100% maple syrup in place of the honey to give it a maple flavor you can do that as well!  The options are endless!!

Do you have a favorite recipe I should try out?  Share it in the comments below!

Until next time,

Kat

DIY Lip Scrubs

Posted in Lifestyle Lessons by

Winter is still upon us and along with dry cracked hands, wind damaged skin, and frozen hair, it also brings along with it extremely dry and chapped lips.  Let’s face it, there’s not much worse than the feeling that your lips cracking when you smile or feeling like pieces of your lip are actually tearing away!  Sometimes moisturizing lip balms are all you need to remedy the problem, but other times, the damage is just too extreme.  That’s when exfoliating your lips comes in handy.  Similarly to the way you would exfoliate your face with a sugar or salt scrub, you can do the same thing with your lips!

Of course, you could dish out $10 and buy a lip scrub from a store like Lush.  And although I am all for supporting Lush (some of their products are to die for), when it comes to lip scrubs, they are easy enough to make at home and are much more cost effective that way.

popsugar

photo from popsugar.com

 

So today I want to share with you some recipes for homemade lip scrubs that will help make your dry, chapped lips feeling soft and healthy again!

Flavored Lip Balm Scrub

  • Petroleum jelly
  • Flavored lip balm (Any flavor you want. I suggest something fruity)
  • White Sugar
  1. In a bowl, mix together a spoon full of petroleum jelly, a large chunk of lip balm, and a spoon full of sugar.
  2. If you would like a coarser scrub, add more sugar. If you would like a smoother scrub, add more petroleum Jelly.
  3. Mixture should all clump together.
  4. Transfer into a small lip gloss jar.

Simple Brown Sugar Lip Scrub

  • 1 part Brown sugar
  • 1 part White Sugar
  • 1 part Honey
  • ½ part Oil (Olive oil or Avocado Oil)
  1. In a bowl, mix all ingredients in a small bowl adding as much sugar as you would like for consistency.
  2. Transfer into a small lip gloss jar.
  3. Leave in the refrigerator to make it last longer.

Easy Peppermint Lip Scrub

  • 2 part white sugar
  • 1 part oil (Olive oil or avocado oil)
  • ¼ – ½ tsp peppermint extract
  1. Mix ingredient together. (If you use coconut oil, melt it before mixing).
  2. Add peppermint until flavor is as strong or soft as you wish.
  3. Transfer into a small lip gloss jar.

Strawberry Lip Scrub

  • 1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 strawberry
  • 2-3 tablespoons white sugar
  • Small squeeze of lemon juice
  1.  Mix oil and honey together.
  2. With a fork, mash strawberry with oil and honey mixture until well combined.
  3. Add sugar to your desired texture.
  4. Add a quick squeeze of lemon juice in to help retain color and keep strawberry longer.
  5. Mix together again.
  6. Transfer into a small lip gloss jar.
  7. Keep refrigerated.

These are just a few of the many amazing lip scrub recipes that are out there!

To use all of these scrubs, simply apply to your lips, scrub for a few seconds, and then wipe clean with a cloth.  You’re guaranteed to see results after just a few uses!

Have you ever made your own lip scrub?  Share your favorite recipe in the comments below!

Until next time,

Kat

DIY Sugar Scrub

Posted in Lifestyle Lessons by

I have talked numerous times on this blog about how much I love using a sugar scrub once a week to exfoliate my skin, keep it smooth, and remove any dead skin cells.  I have recently began running out of my normal sugar scrub, a little gem I picked while I was in Hawaii, and I figured that instead of forking out the cash to buy a new container of it, I should try to make my own scrub and how I liked that.

So today, I want to share with you the sugar scrub that I made in my own kitchen and give you an idea of how you can make your own at home.

What you’ll needwpid-20150421_152818.jpg

  • Pot or jar to put everything in (I used a recycled pot from one of my old Lush products)
  • ¼ cup sugar (Amount may vary depending on the size of your container)
  • Liquid Coconut Oil
  • Kukui Nut Oil
  • Tea Tree oil (or other essential Oil)
  • Fragrant Essential Oil (make sure it is safe for skin)

How to put together

  1. Make sure that your pot or container is clean.  Your pot can vary in size depending on how much scrub you would like to make.
    wpid-20150421_152852.jpg
  2. Place sugar in pot. You can use normal white sugar, cane sugar, or even brown sugar if you prefer.  In my recipe I used normal white baking sugar.
    wpid-20150421_152911.jpg
  3. Soak the sugar with Coconut oil. Make sure to stir it around so all the sugar is soaked.  Add a little extra so there is some to continuously soak the sugar.  (I used a little over ¼ of a cup)
  4. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of Kukui Nut Oil. You can use more or less of this as you please.
  5. Add about 10 drops of Tea Tree Oil or other essential oil
  6. Because I do not like the smell of Tea Tree Oil, I used about 10 drops of a Fragrant Essential Oil (Serenity Blend) to buffer the smell of the Tea Tree Oil. Lavender, found in Serenity Blend, is also great for the skin.
  7. Mix well.
  8. Use on face once a week. Store at room temperature between uses.
    wpid-20150421_153322.jpg

What essential oil to use

I used Tea Tree oil in my blend because it works as an anti fungal and is therefore great for fighting acne and break outs.  The Kukui nut oil is great for keeping skin moisturized, so together they are a great combination.

Other essential oils great for skin include Frankincense, Geranium, Lavender, and Neroli which are beneficial for acne prone, oily skin.  Geranium, Lavender, Myrrh, and Ylang Ylang are great for dry skin as well.   Check out this article for more information on essential oils that are good for skin care.

I found my Tea Tree oil in my local grocery store for around $6.  They also had plenty of other essential oils as well.  Some are more expensive than others, so keep that in mind when thinking of what blend you are going to use on your skin.

Overall Review

As far how much I liked my DIY sugar scrub, I can definitely say that it worked at keeping my skin feeling exfoliated and soft.  I think next time I would use a larger gradient of sugar, maybe a larger cane sugar, just to feel like it was exfoliating more, but overall it felt a lot like my usual sugar scrub.  My face isn’t currently breaking out, so I can’t say too much for if the Tea Tree oil worked for that, but I can say that my face hasn’t broken out in the days since I used the product, so that’s good!

I was afraid that the smell from the Tea Tree oil was going to linger.  Tea Tree has a very spicy, strong scent to it, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it stayed on my skin for awhile, but it didn’t!  My face didn’t smell like Tea Tree oil at all after use, so that was a bonus.  It does not detour me at all from using Tea Tree oil again in a sugar scrub in the future.

Overall, I do prefer the scrub that I got from Hawaii, it has more natural oils in it than just the few in this and I like the smell a lot more.  But as far as a cheaper, just as effective sugar scrub is concerned, I think this works just as well or is a good alternative for in between buying scrub!

Have you ever made your own sugar scrub or body scrub?  Share your recipe in the comments below.

Until next time,

Kat