Spotlight Post: {Gyftia}

We are in the season of giving gifts and I absolutely love this time of year.
I get so happy when I think of giving to someone.
Running ideas through my mind of what they might like, or find useful, or would never buy for themselves and then imagining the look on their face when they open it.
Pure joy right here.
I am privileged to know some amazing ladies who are incredible at gift-giving.
So incredible in fact that they've started their own business.
I present to you; Gyftia.

Doesn't that just sound so beautiful!?
G y f t i a
These ladies have passion, talent, and an eye for all things beautiful, and they have created a place where they can share their love of creating and gifting with the world.
 There is so much time, thought, and love put into each box these ladies package up.
From fine chocolates to unique teas, and gourmet spices to creamy lotions, they have selected the best products and matched together the most amazing scents.
I wanted to take a few minutes and spotlight just one of these beautiful boxes.
I wanted to show how it comes packaged, and what it would look like to open the box so you could know exactly what the receiver of the box will see on their end.
Let's dive in!
 To start out with we have a crisp, clean white box with a blue satin ribbon adorned with beautiful, seasonal greenery.
Such elegant packaging.
So excited to open the lid and see what awaits inside!

  A personalized note can be added to any order!
(If you choose not to include a note there will still be a card included with the name of the sender).

 I grabbed the card to read the sweet note inside, and it was at this moment the most amazing smell hit my nose, I couldn't wait to open the tissue paper and see where it was coming from!

How stunning is that?! 

Can you imagine the look on the receivers face when they open this?

(Beautiful greenery is always included and changes with the seasons).

 I didn't even know there was something under the bow, those caramels were quite a nice surprise!
This is specific box is called Winter Sparkle

Included in this box we have:

- Apothecary candle (Vetiver & Cardamom - this is what I could smell before I even opened the tissue paper, I want that smell in my whole house!)

- McCrea's Classic Vanilla Organic Caramels (in the cutest pillow box)

- Collectiv Hand Cream (Grey Lavender scented - it smells amazing!)

and 

- The Joy of Light matches in a limited edition gold foil box

Like I said before, this is just one of the beautiful gift box creations over at Gyftia

Check out some of these other amazing options and find something perfect for those on your shopping list.
(But make sure to order quickly-before Dec. 18-so your gift can arrive in time for Christmas!)

This one is called Indulge

This is the Chef's Delight

There is even a Be My Bridesmaid box!

I hope you enjoyed looking at the beautiful pictures as much as I do.
To learn more about these incredible ladies and why their passionate about what they do, click here to see their 'About' page.

Check out my video below to see the unboxing!

RORAIMA Reclining, Foldable Camping Chair

Hi everyone!

First off, Happy Halloween 😊

I hope you’re having a great holiday so far!

I’ve got a review for you today for this awesome Reclining Camping Chair
(*I received the following product for a discounted price in exchange for a review here on my blog.
All opinions are 100% my own and honest).

With it being the end of October and pretty chilly outside I decided to test this out in my house. After trying out this chair I’m so excited for the weather to get warmer so we can actually put this chair to use...even though I’m pretty sure my kids think it’s an indoor chair for them now...

Anyways, on to the details!

Relief Society Super Saturday: Emergency Preparedness

I've mentioned here on my blog before that I'm in charge of planning the monthly activities for our Relief Society (women's church group). 

Once a year there is an activity that is a little bigger, more involved, and is usually for crafting. 

It's called Super Saturday.

Last year for our Super Saturday I had 2 crafts available for people to make, a temple string art plaque and a reversible 2x4 wood block craft. 

(You can find the post for that here)

This year, after discussing some options, we decided to do something a little different. We know that some of the ladies in our ward, (myself included), are behind in our emergency preparedness. We either don't really know where to start, or what the best options are, or are just overwhelmed in general and don't want to start at all.

Emergency preparedness has been a pretty big part of our church for a very long time, so we figured it might be helpful to highlight some parts and talk about the importance of it.
We came up with a title (theme) for our activity;
"If you are prepared you won't be scared"

A few weeks prior to the activity I created a poster to leave at the church for the women to see.

The poster had our title/theme across the top and then listed the following:

- 72 hr backpacks

- basic First-Aid kits

- important documents binder 

- food storage mini class 

- First-Aid mini class

- being spiritally prepared
*Lunch will be served
*Nursery will be provided

Baked Cheesy Penne Dish

I first found this recipe over a year ago on Pinterest. I needed to take a noodle side dish to a family dinner and decided I wanted to try something new.

It was a really good dish but I wanted to give it a couple of tweaks, so I've made it since (quite a few times actually), and I feel like I've got it ready enough to share with you all!

So, with out further hesitation I give you the Baked Cheesy Penne dish.

You're welcome 😊 

These noodles are incredibly delicious!

Planter Box Tutorial

I love working out in our yard!

Maybe it's because I don't get to do it as often as I like, so when I actually do get out there I've been looking forward to it and I kind of have a plan of what I want to get done.

Today I wanted to share a little upgrade I did for our berry bushes.

On the side of our house we have about a 4 foot wide gap between our house and our neighbor's fence. It receives sunlight all day long, so two years ago we decided to plant some berries along the length of the house. Might as well put that space to use!

We planted two blackberries and one raspberry.

When we first planted these little guys we laid out the garden fabric, to keep weeds from growing, and cut out a little hole around the base of each bush. We then we covered it all with wood chips.

Last year the plants got so tall, and the branches were weighed down with berries, so we tied them up to the white trellises you see pictured.
It worked, but it looked a little messy and I know these plants are just going to get bigger. I wanted the area to look cleaner and have a wide opening at the bottom so it would be easier to water them when needed.
So this is the solution I came up with.

Bird Feeder Craft

My middle son is at that magical age of curiosity and fascination.

Age 3 1/2.

I absolutely love it.
He is constantly asking about things he sees and is genuinely curious about everything.

I've wanted to make a bird feeder with him for a while, and a few days ago was warm and sunny so we decided it was the perfect time.

We wanted to make the feeder out of things we already had around the house, and we wanted to make it functional and give the birds a place to sit while they eat.

After a little searching online we put some ideas together and created this little feeder.

I've included pictures and details of how we put this together.
From start to finish it probably took us around 20 minutes.

The Best Pancakes

Ok I'm not even joking when I say these pancakes are the best!

These pancakes are soft, fluffy, and delicious.

Try them and you'll see for yourself!

My boys request these pancakes on a regular basis, and since these are so quick and easy to make I don't mind it at all :)

Heart Garland {For less than $5!}

For our monthly activity for our Relief Society (women's group) for February we put together a Valentines dance.

This dance was for couples, singles, friends, whomever wanted to come.

I am the one in charge of planning these activities, and after a little brainstorming with my committee (1 other girl), and some scrolling through Pinterest, we had a plan of what we wanted everything to look like.

I took over all of the decor, and I was really excited because I've never really done much in the way of decorating for Valentines, so I was ready to take on this new challenge.

We knew we wanted to do a little photo booth area with props and a simple background.
The background of the photos was just plastic white table cloths from the dollar store, and this heart garland I made.
This is the first garland I've ever made and I was pretty excited with how it turned out!
The nice thing is this garland isn't just for Valentines, you can whip this up for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
I've got pictures and instructions below for you to see how this all came together.

M&M Cookies

I love homemade cookies.

Warm from the oven with a nice cold glass of milk...mmmmm.
Can't get much better than that!

These cookies have been a favorite for a while, and I'm excited to share them here on the blog!

It all started one year, a little after Halloween.

My boys had lots of packs of M&M's and I thought this would be a good way to use them up.

We've had a chocolate chip cookie recipe we've used for years, but this time we had decided to add the M&M's and it was magical.

Relief Society Super Saturday

First of all, I am well aware that this post is long overdue.

At least I'm getting it done people! 

For those of you who aren't familiar with what I'm even talking about here, I'll quickly explain.
Once a year the women's group in our church gets together for a 'Super Saturday' where we basically eat some good food and make some crafts.

Who wouldn't want some of that?!

I am the one in charge of planning this, and I was really excited with what I had come up with.
I had two crafts available for the women to make, and I brought them to church a couple of weeks before our big day so the women could see what we were offering and decide if they wanted to come.

The two crafts I had available for the women was the DIY Temple String Art and the DIY Reversible 2x4 Craft. These linked posts are tutorials to show you how to make each craft.

This post is to show you how we set up everything for our Super Saturday.

Volcanoes and Dancing Raisins

My 3 year old is obsessed with volcanoes.

A few months ago we had done baking soda and vinegar volcanoes and I was looking through those pictures at the huge smile on his face and I knew we needed to do it again!
This time we took it up a notch and we ended up playing with this for almost an hour.

When we first started out we were planning on just making some volcanic eruptions.

My {Realistic} New Years Goals

This past Monday night my husband took over the weekly Family Home Evening lesson and I loved what he presented. It helped inspire my goals and get me motivated to work on myself.

He talked to our boys (mainly our eldest while our 3 year old colored...) about the importance of the new year, setting goals, and trying to continually work on ourselves. 

He had our son list categories of his life (i.e. academics, spiritual, musical, etc.) and asked him to set one or two goals in each category. 

He talked about how important it is to work on multiple areas of life to help us be more well rounded.

He told our son to also make sub-goals (smaller goals to help build up to complete the bigger goals). I loved this because I feel like it doesn't set him up to be overwhelmed. It gives him almost check points to work up to so he can actually complete things.

So with all of this in mind I set my goals as well and wanted to share them here in hopes that it might help someone else.

Hallway Closet Organization

Guys, I am so excited we finally got this checked off our to-do list!

I am loving how this turned out.

This is our hallway closet.

It's supposed to just be a coat closet, but the way the layout of our house is, it doesn't really work for just that purpose.

On our main floor this is really the only storage space we have, which meant we needed it for a lot of different items.  

Let's get a better look at the 'Before' picture to see what we were working with...

Shoe Rack Tutorial

In the winter months, since we're stuck indoors so much,  I start to notice projects around the house that I haven't gotten to yet.

This would be one of them.

When we first moved in to this house over 2 years ago I was bound and determined to make some sort of shoerack/shelving in our master bedroom closet. 

It bothers me when stuff is spread out when I can have it stack up, if that makes sense.

Well, throw in yard projects, painting projects, being pregnant, and having a baby, and our closet kind of got pushed to the back of my mind for a while.

A few weeks ago we made a trip to The Home Depot to buy some stuff to organize our hallway closet and while we were there my husband grabbed some shoe racks that were like $30 each (!!)

He told me it's been 2 years of me talking about building something, and he just wanted to get the shoes off the ground. 

Reluctantly I let him buy the racks and the next day I put one together.

I hated how it looked and it was too small and way too boxy.

This kicked my butt into gear and I took it apart, boxed it back up, and made shoe racks myself.

For a ton cheaper.