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Miss Alli Mae’s old fashioned Lip Butter
Someone recently asked me if I had anything I could sell in their new online boutique. I didn’t. However, I couldn’t help but think this was an opportunity for me to start selling products again. I love creating with my hands and passing them along to an appreciative customer. Naturally, my response to this particular person was, “No, but I will come up with something!” I love a good opportunity to jump on.
For anyone that knows me personally, knows that I am “slightly” obsessed with lip balm, lip gloss, chap-stick….you get the point. For as long as I can possibly remember, I have always had an emergency tube of lip balm tucked away in every possible location.
Anyone remember Lip Smackers? I could always count on Santa bringing me a giant variety pack of assorted flavorful lip balms every year.
Why have I never created my own? I’m not sure.
If you actually look at the label of most chap sticks there is absolutely nothing recognizable. After a little research I realized that the making of lip balm is fairly simple and I was hooked on creating a line of lip balm that felt luxurious, smelled divine, had subtle sweet taste and created an all around comforting product.
Design by Charlotte Carver Designs
Miss Alli Mae would be my daughter. Well, one of her many nic names. I have a habit of giving my children some of the silliest nicnames. My daughter, Alex, gets a big Southern long drawn Miss Alli Mae and it gets a big gummy grin every time.
Miss Alli Mae’s Lip Butter includes natural ingredients: Coconut oil, bees wax, shea butter, coconut butter, and Vitamin E. All ingredients that are safe for you and your lips and create a natural sheen giving your lips a healthy glow.
I’m working out the last details of the flavor combinations, packaging, and pricing. Ideally, I’m wanting to work only with local suppliers or owner/operator small business on each and every aspect of this brand.
‘Like’ me on Facebook to keep up to date on the release of Miss Alli Mae’s Lip butter. Are you a small business owner that supplies anything that could attribute to my line of lip balm? Contact me at mommahenscoop@hotmail.com and we’ll chat!
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thrifted frame and scrap ribbon bow holder
After two boys I finally had a little girl. After all the dirt, bugs, trucks and cars….I was so excited to finally have my prissy little princess! Along with little princesses come lots of accessories. To keep some of those accessories at bay I rounded up an old picture frame, some scrap ribbon, paint, and a hot glue gun.
I’m not going to claim that this is an original idea. I just want to use it as inspiration to use what you have laying around. I have this frame that has driven me crazy since I purchased it. For only a few dollars at a yard sale I couldn’t pass it up. I love the girly details. The two frames in the center throws me off. No matter what I placed in the frames- I hated. Time to repurpose!
First I took away the backing and glass.
I wasn’t sure if the center would come out, but with a little prying it popped right out. I just tossed all of these pieces. I didn’t need them and didn’t see another use coming out of them. Now I have one big pretty frame to work with.
Although I enjoy the gold color of this frame it wasn’t going to work in my daughters room. Anytime I’m at our local home improvement stores I’m always sure to stop over to the “ooops paints” section.”ooops paint” is where mis-mixed paints or paints left behind in the store are placed at a big discount. If I love a color I usually go ahead and buy it. I scored this beautiful pickle green color and knew it would work perfectly in combination with the blue on my daughter’s nursery walls.
I didn’t have enough of one type of ribbon to use in this frame, so I just rounded up all the left over scrap pieces that I had.
Lay out any random pattern before securing into place and see what will work best for your frame, colors, and the amount of ribbon that you have. You could easily do a basket weave, all horizontal, all vertical, just do what works best for you.
Turn the frame over and secure into place with a staple gun or a hot glue gun. I used a hot glue gun and I feel like it is plenty secure enough to hold as many bows as I want.
Primping has never been so easy for my sweet little baby girl!
::another picture frame re-do::
(If you are wondering what ever happened to my mudroom makeover pop on over and visit me on Facebook for the details!)
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The beginning of our laundry/mud room: Self leveling compound part I
Ahhh….Spring. Spring is the time for cleaning. At the same time it’s the perfect time to make a mess!
However, when the mess presents it’s self as a renovation, it’s the perfect kind of mess to me! This is a process that I have dreamed of for a very long time. My husband is the owner operator of a frame and body shop repairing vehicles. In other words, he comes home very dirty. I’ve always wanted a mud room where he could clean up before coming into the house or sitting on our nice white slip covered sofa. Yesterday was the day that this dream has started to come true. The above image is the beginning of a laundry/mudroom.
And today my husband put up a wall and installed a pocket door. Just like that, a room was created. Isn’t he so handy dandy to have around.
Again, things have to get a little dirty before they can be nice clean and perfect. Just pretend you don’t see the mess of construction and just imagine the beautiful things to come.
Our home is old, settled, and no where near in square. We plan on installing tile in this area and wanted to ensure a good solid floor to prevent any future tile damage. To do this we decided to use a self-leveling compound. I would like to walk you through this process in case you decide to ever choose the same option for yourself.
You will see here how unlevel our floors are.
Self-leveling compound comes in about a 40 pound bag and resembles sakcrete (concrete.) We’ll get to that part later. First, it’s important to prime your surface just as you would if you were going to paint something. This type of primer is specific for the product called “underlayment primer.”
For wood subfloors: Sand wood to a clean, solid surface. Shake the solution well and then apply the floor primer at full strength to the clean wood subfloor with a short napped paint roller. Cover the entire surface. allow the coat to fully dry, then reprime with a second coat of primer diluted 1:1 with water. Allow the second coat to completely dry (about 24 hours.)
Be sure to read the specific directions for the brand that you have purchase as all brands will require different steps. We used HENRY brand (pictured below.)
And now we wait. There is a lot of drying time….see you next time when we lay out our self-leveling compound and we will be one step closer to a brand new pretty space!
Are you doing any projects this Spring?
Spring cleaning
If you haven’t already started, it’s time to start Spring cleaning!
What are your favorite cleaning methods? I tend to almost always use the all natural route with my cleaning methods. I found this great little chart from heandsheeatclean.com that shares some really great recipes!
Don’t replace your dishwasher…yet.
I’m going to embarrass myself for a minute and let you all know that my sink almost always has dirty dishes in it.
There I said it. I don’t care if I clean 24/7 I am convinced there will always be at least one dirty dish in my sink and it drives me crazy.
Click to see entire home renovation [ MommaHen's first home]
In our first home we did not have the room for a dishwasher. I just had to suck it up and always do the dishes. Granted, this was when we only had two children (Technically 1 and 1/2) and was able to keep a hand on all the house work. I remember when we first moved into our new, much larger home and being very excited that we finally were going to have a dish washer. Until we used it.
The dishwasher we have is terrible. I first have to wash the dishes before I put them in. Then when I take them out they are cloudy and dirtier than when i put them in! I hate our dishwasher. So, back to manually doing the dishes myself. Trying, anyway.
Now with three children and my new working from home job, I just simply am not able to keep up. Recently, I decided to try going back to using the dish washer; In the hopes to help myself out a little. I tried running cleaning liquid through it and spot dry liquid. Nothing was working. There were two options: Buy a new one or throw this one out the window in anger. Both of which were not a very good option. We don’t necessarily have the money to just go out and buy a new appliance and if I throw it out the window….well…it’s just not a good option all together.
My last ditch effort, I took the entire dishwasher apart to figure out what was wrong with this thing! Wow, with an instant I realized what was wrong with my dishwasher. Remember, I told you that I had already ran the store bought dishwasher cleaner and “cleaned” it per the directions. This is also embarrassing, but hopefully i will use it to shock you enough to give your dishwasher one more chance!
Disgusting, right? Would you believe this is AFTER I scrubbed it all with dish soap and water? I filled my bathtub up with hot water just above the top of all the attachments and then poured in a 50/50 ratio of vinegar. After less than a minute the calcium and crud just started falling off. The funny thing is, when you opened up the dishwasher and looked inside (before I took it apart) it all looked spotless. All of the nastiness was hiding within all these little parts and pieces.The general rule of thumb of taking all of these parts apart and out of the dishwasher was the oppostite of what we usually do. Most pieces were “lefty tighty, righty loosey.”
As these soaked, I went back to the dishwasher. Using about 1/4 cup of baking soda and a teaspoon-to-tablespoon of water, I created a paste and scrubbed anywhere I felt needed a little extra cleaning. I then filled two small wide mouth glasses in the top rack, right side up, closed the door, and ran the dishwasher without soap on a regular wash setting. The vinegar filled cups will fill with water during the cycle and continue to clean the inside of the washer. I love vinegar. It has so many uses. It’s basically the only cleaning solution I use!
Before cleaning the dishwasher I did a quick little experiment to prove to my husband that the dishwasher was in fact not cleaning our dishes.
I placed a clean glass in the top rack right side up to collect the water that circulated during the wash and here are the results.
Is your dishwasher not cleaning your dishes? This may be why!
Vinegar and baking soda: Miracle workers!
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medicine cabinet makeover
It’s hard to believe we moved into our home a little over one year ago.
It’s even harder to believe that we are still sane after living in this home a little over a year ago.
Sometimes in life we ask for lemons in the hopes to create your very own customized pitcher of lemonade. LIke our house, for example. We jumped in head first knowing that this was a total fixer-uper. We were up for the challenge and dreamed of how amazing the before and after photos would be. Before we could tackle any huge renovations, I wanted to start making things bearable. Like our bathroom for instance.
See the entire make-over by clicking this image
Do you have a space in your home that you just can’t stand to see? You run in and out slamming the door behind, hoping no one sees what is actually behind those doors. Well, we didn’t have that option. This was our main restroom. While we couldn’t make it exactly what we wanted, I could fluff it up a bit and create a brighter and happier space to get us through until our total renovation. The best part is, we didn’t spend a dime.
For instance, this outdated medicine cabinet.
It had yellowed over time and was the first thing that greeted you as the door was opened.
With a quick coat of white spray paint, a fresh new appearance appeared. With some fun vintage yardsticks I was able to create my own little style in the space. Simply measuring each side of the medicine cabinet and then cutting the yard sticks to size using a utility knife and adhering with construction grade adhesive the piece was finished in a flash. Removing the front gave me an option to make this a focal point in the room and allowing me to keep people’s eyes away from the less attractive parts of the space
See the entire bathroom makeover for $0!!
kumquat marmalade recipe
More and more I find myself forcing our family to digress into an old fashioned way of life. While keeping modern traditions, I try to adapt some forms of self sufficiency. Is our society going to depend solely on fast food or grocery stores to supply our next meal? What do we do if those are no longer options? Okay, maybe I’m starting to sound a little radical. I just don’t want to lose sight of the traditions that got our generation to this very day. I also want to be able to pass down some of these traditions and teach my children the skills, I feel, they deserve.
The problem is: I don’t know all these skills first hand. Sure, I’ve watched from an innocent glare below the counter top while inhaling the essence of my grandmother’s ways. I need to learn first hand of how to tend to a garden, can my fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.
While we raise the majority of our fruit and vegetable intake during the Summer months, I haven’t quite tackled the preserving for Winter part….yet. Also, we mainly stick to the basics; Potatoes,tomatos, corn,green beens…you get the idea. For anything else I depend on farmer’s markets or grocery stores. I like to experiment with the unfamiliar and possibly grow it in our garden.
These little mystery citrus beauties caught my eye while strolling through the produce department. Have you ever had a kumquat? I asked you the same thing on FaceBook. One response revealed that she had a kumquat tree in her back yard, but never eats them!
I’ll let you know that they are actually pretty good. Strangely, the outer peal is sweet and edible and the inside is tart like a lemon. It’s an inside out orange!
While delicious, It wasn’t something I would want to sit down and eat all day. Not wanting to let them go to waste, I had to figure out what to do with them. Marmalade! Perfect opportunity to hone in at least one family tradition. Canning jellies, jams, marmalades, etc. is a good opportunity to kind of stick your toe in the water as apposed to jumping in head first. This process of canning doesn’t involve a pressure cooker. Simply boil the fruits and sugar combo. , boil the jars and lids, pour in the liquid, seal, and done. My grandma passed down a Ball blue book (aka canning bible!) Get it, use it, love it.
As much as I loved this marmalade on some homemade biscuits, I crave a combination of this and chicken. What do you think? Will you try some kumquat marmalade? What is your favorite old fashioned tradition?
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Spring and St. Patty’s Day inspired mantel
After sitting bare for months, my mantel is now full and bursting with Spring inspired items.
Are you ready for Spring?
Dark chocolate, coconut, and almond snack
This time of year there is no lack of sweet treats. With every turn we are tempted with flashy displays of tempting sweets. That doesn’t mean we always need to fall into temptation. One of my most desired delights are of a famous milk chocolate, coconut, and almond treat that we are all familiar with. Picking apart its star ingredients I have created its healthier cousin. With only a few minutes and ingredients a craving is conquered with out unnecessary calories. continue reading
Pin ItA Visit From FOLK {Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Pancakes}
Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Pancakes
By: FOLK Magazine {Ben Ashby + Rikki Snyder}
Good morning! As you enjoy your morning coffee let me introduce myself. I’m Ben, the Editor-in-Chief of FOLK Magazine. It is a true pleasure for me to be the guest blogger today. I want to share one of my favorite recipes from our current issue with you. The fabulous recipe is for cinnamon chocolate chip pancakes. I know you will fall in love with these. The recipe was created by one of my writers—Rikki Snyder.
RECIPE:
2 cups pancake mix 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup milk 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1/2 cup chocolate chipsStir pancake mix and cinnamon in large bowl until well blended. Stir in eggs, milk, oil and vanilla just until blended. Add in chocolate chips. Pour 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto preheated lightly greased griddle or skillet. Cook 1 to 2 minutes per side or until golden brown, turning when pancakes begin to bubble. Serve pancakes with syrup or fresh fruit if desired.
I hope you enjoy the recipe, I know it is certainly one of my favorites. Be sure to check out FOLK Magazine, I know you will love it too, however I may be a bit biased. To subscribe visit www.magazinebyfolk.com As a special treat use the code #FOLK to receive 50% off your order.
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Hello! I'm Amy, also known as Momma Hen. It's no secret that a large majority of adults are living from paycheck to paycheck. Being a family of five and our main source of incoming being from two parents living their dream and working from home; There is no doubt that I know that feeling all too well. Through all of our financial struggles, I have always managed to continue to create a beautiful home, seasonal projects, rich and hearty homemade meals, all while raising the most amazing children and loving the most amazing husband. Don't let frugal living dampen your life or style. Here on mommahenscoop.com I strive to inspire everyone to live a life full of beauty without a lot of fuss or expensive pre-made things. Follow along with us while we renovate our fix-er-uper farm house, DIY and homemade seasonal projects, and a whole lot good ol' fashioned comfort food recipes. This is our life, won't you join us? Be sure to subscribe below and get update in your in-box!
