Homemade Lavender Lotion with Coconut Oil

I've mentioned before that I have been on a journey of discovering ways to live more naturally since getting pregnant, but more specifically since after Reaghan was born. Giving birth to her naturally has allowed me to be in a community of women who know far more than me, and have been caring for their families in a more natural way for years! I've learned so much already, and am constantly soaking up new information. Turns out I am quite the researcher when it comes to anything concerning my baby and now, our family as a whole. 

Several months ago I decided to slowly transition our family from mainstream personal care products to some more natural alternatives. Have you seen the prices on some of these products though? It makes buying shampoo at $5 a bottle seem super cheap! I discovered that I could make many natural beauty products for less, and I hope to share a few of those with you on the blog. Here's my all natural lotion replacement -- but it doubles as so much more!! (see the end of this post)

What you'll need:

Unrefined organic virgin coconut oil

Lavender essential oil

Frankincense essential oil 

Benefits of coconut oil: 

• natural SPF 4 sunscreen
• extremely nourishing and hydrating to the skin without leaving you feeling greasy
• anti-bacterial
• kills yeast/yeast infections
• helps skin heal faster after injury or infection
• can help the healing of a sunburn
• can help resolve acne
• reduces itchiness from bug bites

Benefits of lavender EO: 

• natural bug repellent
• get better sleep
• treats acne
• decreases pain in minor burns
• put on a cut to heal wound and kill bacteria
• treatment of ecxema and very dry skin

Benefits of frankincense EO: 

• heals scars
• boosts the effectiveness of other EO's
• tones and tightens the skin
• promotes relaxation
• promotes rgeneration of healthy cells

Here's the simple how-to!

Step 1 // 

Save an old jar or use a small mason jar. Order your supplies! I like vitacost.com because they sell all natural products from food to supplements to beauty products for a fraction of the cost you'd find them for in the stores. 

Step 2 //
I never measure when I'm making this, but scoop about 1/2 a cup of coconut oil into a stand mixer. Add 10 drops each of lavender and frankincense essential oil. 

Step 3 //
Allow the mixer to whip the coconut oil for 10 minutes. This allows the mixture to incorporate and become very fluffy and soft, like real lotion!

Step 4 //

Use a spoontula to scoop the lotion into the jar. It's important to remember that coconut oil melts at 76 degrees fahrenheit, so make sure to keep it in a cool place. I keep mine on my bathroom sink pretty close to where I shower and it stays solid, but be mindful of this when traveling, etc. 

Y'all, I use this stuff for just about everything. It doubles as:

• diaper rash cream (safe for cloth diapers!)
• eye make up remover (dab a pea sized amount on a cotton ball)
• baby lotion
• lessens the appearance of stretch marks
• healing balm for dry or cracked skin
• face moisturizer 

I started using this over the winter, and at first the feel on my skin took a little getting used to. It is oil after all. After about a week I started to really love it. I thought it was a great substitute for regular lotion and seemed to soak into my skin very quickly. I thought I'd see how it stood up during the Texas summer and it has definitely held it's own! No greasy feeling, and dries completely on the skin!

What do you think? Have you made the switch from mainstream to natural? Would love to hear what other natural products you use whether toiletries, cleaning supplies, or anything else!

"Homemade Lavender Lotion with Coconut Oil" 

is part of a blog relaunch series entitled "31 Days of Responding to Him" 

Follow along here

Kitchen Table Makeover

We were gifted with a wonderful kitchen table when we got married. We both loved the wood that after several generations still looked new. There was one small problem with it: I'd been staring at the indented design since we got married wondering "how can I stop crumbs from collecting in those cracks?" I knew I could fill them in with a simple wood filler but I was hesitant, fearing I'd ruin the whole thing -- which I did not want to do since we received it for free from family!

As with many of the projects I take on, one day I just decided to bite the bullet and do it, not fearing the outcome. Well, it came out.....okay. I'm not thrilled with the results but I'm not repulsed by them either. I'm sure this is making you want to try this at home. It actually works well with our decor since it's not perfect, and I rarely like the "perfect" look when it comes to decorating our home. If that's your style and you have said crumb-collecting problem in your kitchen table, I suggest you give this a try. ;)

top left: a full picture of our kitchen table

top right: design a.k.a "crack problem"

bottom left: wood filler I picked up at Home Depot

bottom right: squeezing wood filler into the cracks

The whole squeezing filler into the cracks thing didn't really pan out for me. It was just a lot of work. I discovered that squeezing it onto the putty knife and filling in the cracks that way was a much easier route (see top left picture below). 

As you can see, the wood filler filled up those cracks nicely! Well, you can't really see, since this is an iPhone picture and I made it into a collage, so....just take my word for it. I bought a sample paint from Lowes. Valspar, in "Belle Grove Antique White." I mixed it with about a cup of grey paint I got from a friend a while back, which heightened the antique look.

I've also been really into chalk paint lately, but um, have you seen the prices for chalk paint?! Not in our budget.....so I improvised and made a paste of spackle and water. Mixed it up well so there were no clumps and then added it to the paint mixture and stirred it up. Easy trick to get the chalk paint affect for less! Then I got to work painting!

BUT, I made a terrible discovery after painting the table. The cracks were STILL visible!!!!!


So....I filled it in a little more, painted again, and let it dry. Last step was to wax it. The wax seemed to make the filled-in-cracks a little more visible as well. Oh goodness...... some projects just don't happen the way Pinterest makes it out to be.

Anyways, it looks quite nice with the placemats, water, etc on it. ;)

OH yes, and I forgot to mention that I distressed it a bit with a very light sanding paper. It matches our hutch perfectly, and to be honest, my decorating style is definitely the imperfect pieces that people are throwing out anyway. This is TOTALLY up my alley, imperfections and all. 

“Kitchen Table Makeover” is part of a blog relaunch series entitled "31 Days of Responding to Him" 

Follow along here

How I Made Kombucha

Since having a baby naturally, our life has been an ever-revolving door of information concerning health, natural living, etc. etc.  Well, it didn't take me long to learn about Kombucha, a fermented beverage that turns sweet tea into a carbonated probiotic drink! (healthy soda=yes please!) Kombucha has many health benefits including detoxifying the body, promoting digestion, healing the gut, and improving the immune system. 

Dealing with some very normal but annoying post-birth health drama, I wanted to get my hands on this stuff. And being the frugal-do-it-yourself-girl that I am, I wanted to find a way to save money while doing it. Another priority was to find a method that could be done EASILY. I started this experiment talking to several friends and doing a lot of research. I found several websites that all seemed to have differing instructions, so I tweaked them a bit to fit my preferences. I wanted to share this how-to project with y'all as it can be easily recreated by anyone!

Ingredients:

- approx. 14 cups filtered water

- organic white sugar

- organic green or black tea

- SCOBY (stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) very high school science experiment...I know ;)

Supplies:

- 1 gallon glass jar 

- old t-shirt, cheesecloth, coffee filter, or clean towel
- rubber band
- funnel
- 8 jars for bottling (these are commonly used)
* don't use any metal in this project as it will effect the chemistry negatively. 

If making your own SCOBY:

- bottle of original flavor Kombucha (I used Synergy Kombucha)

How to Brew:

1. First of all, you'll need a SCOBY. If you have a friend who makes their own Kombucha, you can get one from them. You can also buy them online from Amazon or places like this. 

But if you're like me, you drive to Natural Grocers and pick up a bottle of plain ole Kombucha and make your own! I got the original flavor, poured it into a mason jar, covered it with an old t-shirt and let it sit in my pantry for about 2 weeks. (You can see this in the picture above) Just let it sit and the SCOBY will grow. You'll want it to be about 1/2-1 inch thick. 

Here is a helpful video on how to do this. 

2. Once you have your SCOBY, bring 8 cups of filtered water to a boil. Turn off the heat and add 1 cup of sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar with a wooden spoon. Steep 8 tea bags in the warm water. Let it sit until just cool, but not much longer to protect the tea from growing any mold. 

3. After the tea has completely cooled, remove the tea bags and pour the tea into your 1 gallon jar. Fill with 5-6 additional cups of filtered water. 

4. With very clean hands, place the SCOBY along with any remaining Kombucha tea into your gallon jar. 

left: tea bags steeping

middle: what my SCOBY looked like after two weeks. A soft white/brown disk

left: the brand of tea I used, just the cheapest organic green tea I could find 

5. Cover your jar with an old t-shirt/cheesecloth/whatever you're going to use to let it breathe, and secure it with a rubber band. You want to let it sit for between 8-14 days, which will allow time for the tea to ferment. Basically the SCOBY eats away at the sugar in the tea, creating the probiotics and enzymes that make this drink so amazing! I kept mine on top of the fridge to make sure it was in a warm place. Warm environments will allow the tea to ferment quicker than cool environments, so you may need to adjust the time depending on where you live and what time of year. 

After day 8 I tasted my Kombucha and I liked it! The end result yielded a very mild Kombucha tea, definitely lighter than the ones I've tried from the store. I'm excited to try it with black tea, and even let it ferment longer to see how it affects the flavor! The longer you let your tea sit, the more vinegary the taste will be. The less time it sits, the more sweet. It really is all about you when it comes to the flavor! 

Bottling:

A friend actually donated a ton of old Kombucha bottles to me for this project. I am sooo grateful because this made it even easier and cheaper!

To bottle your Kombucha, place a funnel inside your bottles and use a measuring cup or spouted bowl to pour. You can just pour it in straight from the gallon jar, but this tends to make a huge mess, and you don't want to waste any of this tea!

Make sure to reserve about 2 cups of tea along with the SCOBY and keep it in a mason jar just like the first step. At this point you can go ahead and brew up a new batch. If you can't get to it right away you can keep the reserved tea + SCOBY in the fridge and the SCOBY will be "dormant" for up to 3 months. When you want to make another batch, just take it out and use!

The finished product, flavored with pear juice

Flavoring your tea: 

The easiest way that I've found to flavor my tea is to purée some fresh or frozen fruit and add it to my bottles before pouring in the finished tea. You could also just pour some fruit juice in! Fill the bottles about 2 inches high with your juice or purée. Come to think of it, you actually don't need to purée the fruit at all, just cut up a few slices and plop them in! Do whatever works best for you. 

So far I've tried fresh strawberries, frozen mixed berries, frozen mango, and organic pear juice. My favorite has been strawberry by far! So light and refreshing :)

Here are some helpful links if you want to learn more:

Stupid Easy Paleo

Choosing your ingredients

Flavoring and Bottling

Easy How To for Beginners (video under "more views")

What about you? What's your favorite flavor of Kombucha, whether store bought or homemade? Do you have any other tips or tricks for making this at home? Any questions? Would love to hear! 

"How I Made Kombucha" is part of a blog relaunch series entitled "31 Days of Responding to Him" 

Follow along here