Montagne Jeunesse Manuka Honey Peel Off or Creamy Coconut

I know this is my first blog in a LOOONG while!  I'd like to change that. And I'll be re-vamping it so this will include all of my interests. Which vary quite drastically.

Recently I've been participating in Influenster.com.  This is a page that offers complimentary products to participants for the purpose of review.   I will always give my honest opinion about all products I receive for review.

Up until recently my boxes have been lack luster. One or two items that were ok.

But my VivaVovBox was simply amazing!  I assume the theme was getting ready for a night out.  (which i rarely to ! HA!  But pampering myself I love to do).

The only one I'm going to review will be the Montagne Jeunesse Noix De Coco Cremeuse.  I am so excited to try it, this is the first mask I'm going to try.   I have received many of these masks in gift exchanges, they are quick easy and inexpensive way to through in an added bonus to a friend, coworker, or long distance friend.

 

SO LETS DIVE RIGHT IN! 

1. Prewash - Before I started I cleaned my face with the #gentlepower of Cetaphil.  Another product I received in my Vivavox box.

2. Application - this mask is super creamy and smells wonderful. It feels like buttercream frosting.... mmm... cupcakes....

3. Waiting 10-15 minutes.  Most of my time was spent writing this post. The mask it tightening as it dries. I am imagining stress and toxins leaving! (real or imagined?)

This is my How-does-this-phone-work look.

4. Removal - Well, it's hard to tell -because I could never get the hang of the face washing routine without leaving a puddle behind.  (see the cetphil post). 

So by my standards, GREAT!

5. My face after:  Feels great! Smooth, revived. ahhh.... Now I'm ready for my last week of school and 8th grade graduation.

Please follow, visit add the following links to your social media to stay up on all the news for Montagne Jeunesse. 

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I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.   If you are interested in signing up for influenster (no cost) please leave me your email, and I"ll send you an invite...

Zipper Tutorial

Did I mention my son was born?  Oh.  I forgot about that.   He was born on Friday August 24th after a long 18 hr labor and 2.5hr push.    I'm in love.  More on that later.

A mama from my Real Diapering Circle was curious about sewing in a zipper.  Here's a simple tutorial of one type of zipper.

I'm making a simple zipper pouch.  I will be showing you one side, after you finish, repeat with the other side and then sew it together in whichever fashion you deem necessary. 

As shown above, you will need:

- a zipper foot ( this one is for bernina)

- two pieces of fabric (mine are 5x8 pieces) Birds: outside fabric, dots: Inside fabric.

- a zipper about 8 inches long.

1

Step 1:  Pin your two pieces right side in to the opposite side.  Visualize how it will fold over.  The birdie fabric is the outside fabric, and the blue dots is my inner fabric.make sure the match up.  I line them up to the edge. it makes it easy to keep everything even.

2a

2b

Step 2: Make sure your zipper foot is all the way to the left and the needle is really close to the zipper.  The foot will allow you to scoot as close to the zipper as you can. On mine, the part of the foot that is flat (where the 4 is) sits on the flat part of your zipper.  Picture 2a shows how i hold mine, making sure the zipper stays under the sewing foot.  2b shows what it WOULD look like if the top fabric wasn't there.

3a

3b

Step 3: When you get to the zipper pull, it can sometimes make your stitch look all wonky.  So, set you machine to that your needle is in the down position and your foot lever is up (3a).  Then wiggle the zipper past the needle to the other side (3b) and continue sewing. 

4a 

4b

Step 4: Admire your work (4a), and then press the edges down. Careful, since my zipper is just plastic, i don't want to burn or warp it (4b)

5

Step 5: top stitch the fabric in place.  Notice the placement of the zipper foot:  The back is on top of the zipper, and the flat foot part from the front is flat on the machine.

6

Step 6: Needle in down position, foot lever in the up position, and move that zipper to the other side and then continue sewing.

7

The finished stitch.  Now go do the other side.  

DIY Cloth Wipes

So today I reached 41 weeks.  and no sign of my little man.  What better way to celebrate then another nesting project!

Now, I made these weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to organizing photos and such.  So don't think i'm waddling around 7 days over due wasting away at my sewing machine.   I was 38 weeks pregnant waddling around wasting away at my machine. HA!  I had previously stated that Tad and I are jumping head first into Cloth Diapering and creating cloth wipes seems like a logical next step.

I really like this idea mostly because its part of the three-fold reason why we want to cloth diaper.

1.  Its Economical.  buy once, wash and reuse unlimited times.
2. It's Eco-Friendly.  I don't have to worry about putting more and more things into a landfill.
3. It's cute.  In this case, it's not that its cute so much as - it's something I get to be creative about.  And I get to pull out my sewing machine. And I get to use the yards and yards of flannel sitting in my fabric stash.  So its win-win-win. For me.

This is so easy its crazy!

First... pick out your flannels. Then decide on a size.  A friend gave me a stack of them, i decided to make mine a little smaller for no reason then I wanted to make sure they would fit in a container.  I decided upon a 7x7 square.  I assume after the wash and trimming some edges, they may slightly smaller than that.   Then sit with your cutter and cutting board and cut away.  this takes a long time and I did it over two or three sittings.

There you go.  A nice stack of about 50 or so flannel squares.  

Next, find your matching sides, I choose coordinating sides, face them right sides out.

We aren't going to turn, press and top stitch in these suckers.  

You could, but can you image how long THAT would take????

Then, sew like the wind.

I left about a quarter inch on the edge.  I used a zigzag stitch all the way around.  (Mostly because I can't sew straight lines.  Who needs that? It's not handmade if there aren't imperfections, I say.) 

If you have a serger, now is the best time to serge the edges for a cleaner edge.  You could also zigzag all around the edge.  Many options here. You decide.

Next my fav tool: pinking sheers.

In retrospect, I probably didn't have to sew that far inside. You live and learn. 

Lastly:

Sit back, admire your work.

As a friend said: That's the cutest thing even made to wipe a butt.

Beyond this, i'm working on a cloth wipe solution that will moisten these guys up.  

Generally, Most recipes call for the same thing just different types I've found:

 cups of water

tbs of oil

tbs of soap

couple drops of essential oils

then sometimes other additives.

My plan is a 2, 2, 2, 2 plan.  or half that for a 1, 1, 1, 1 recipe:

1 cup of water

1 tbs of coconut oil

1 tbs of baby wash

1 drop of tea tree oil

1 drop of lavender oil

I'll get back to you with an update on how that solution goes.  

For MORE DIY nesting projects: go here!

DIY Crate Book Shelf

As a stated earlier, This is the first in my series of DIY nursery projects.

First on the list is: A colorful bookshelf.  Since I went with a grey dresser instead of changing table.  But because of this i need more and more storage.  I really like the idea of open storage and use of baskets.  So i saw this pin (i'll also have you know that I would have had this post up 20 min. earlier, but as I searched for this pin from the past, I was caught up in all the new pins from today...it happens). ANYWAY - i saw that pin from Crazy Little Projects.  

There's the finished project.  I decided to go with a dark green to balance out some of the neon-ish colors.  When coming up with my theme of my nursery, I didn't want to lock into two distinct colors, i wanted it to just "feel" warm and cheery.  So while my MAIN colors are ORANGE AND TEAL (officially) I love love neon green, threw in some turquoise.  

And some surprising colors like that deeper green.

The MOST difficult part of this shelf is finding the large wooden crates.  At least in my town.  I first tried joann's (on recommendation from this pin) and  I FOUND ONE!!!  When I asked when they'd get more, the gal told me: "Well, we don't usually carry this, someone probably returned it."

So later on a completely unrelated day, I drove to Michael's.  I FOUND ONE! I asked when they would restock.  "Maybe this Tuesday, Maybe next Tuesday" oh.  I finally found the last two across town at the OTHER Michael's.  

Over the course of my hunt, somehow i picked up the paints. Just those 1.00 acrylic paints. I used two bottles for each. If i remember, there was a massive sale, and each bottle was 40 cents.  The first coat SHOULD take up the WHOLE first bottle as the wood just soaks up the paint.

To save on paint, don't paint the side that faces the wall.  It doesn't see the light of day.  In addition to that - if you have the foreknowledge to know which crate will be on the top, i guess you wouldn't have to paint sides (the parts that will stack on top of eachother). So in my case, I would just pain the top of the orange one since that's my top crate.  But I had no idea what order so i painted it all.

Let it dry.  

Tell Margo not to lick the paint.

And stack.  You'll have to secure the crated to eachother.  I have yet to do this.  But I've been a bit busy.  I'm thinking brackets, or little screws and eventually strapping that baby to the wall.  

 So there you have it:  

D-Day.

Today Is our Due Date.  Everyone knows this except for my little man.  Who is comfortably feeding off my meals.

Weeks ago, when friends who had due dates around me were giving birth early, (Like in July, and early Aug)  was was nervous.  I AM NOT READY! please baby stay in there longer.

Now...  I'm just ready for him to be here.

Lots of choices about him will be made from here and over the next ten days.  All of which I hope will NOT be options if this little man just moved his way down and made an appearance.

You can offer advice, you can offer your stories, you can offer me your wives' tales, but i just don't want to hear them.  It's not that I don't care for them,  I just ask your prayers instead.

Everyone's different.

As of now,  I'm feeling ok.  I'm having no contractions, but I'm aching all over. I can't sleep at night, but I'm sneaking in naps all day.  I have zero energy, and have to run to the bathroom every 10 min.

They come out eventually, right?

A Blank Nursery

Way back in June, we cleared out our spare room for our little man.    A clean slate.   The room was our overflow room.  The room that held those last few boxes from our move two years ago.  No wait... 3 years.

And there it sat. blank.   

I had plenty of fragments of ideas. pinterest nursery posts that took are not linked together at all.

  The one thing i KNEW i didn't want was a nursery in a box.  No pastels, no monkeys, no zoo animals, no baseball bats.  Which are apparently the only things you can buy at babies R us.  

Like if you are a boy, you must be interested in sports. baby blue, and sage green.  

sigh.  I digress.  

I wanted something bright and cheerful.   After Tad shot down my only two ideas: yellow/grey and owls.  I had to go back to the drawing board. 

I went with my nerd side and embraced that no child of mine would be put in a box.  Which then means I needed to find, organize and/or create everything myself.

First Step:

Picking out the fabrics were what sealed it for me.  Teal, orange, and... i later I added lime green.  Really a brightly colored array of jewel tones.   Plus awesome robots.

Enter Next: the crib.

Well, technically, before that was the gliding chair.   There was quite a bit of time between setting up the chair and setting up the crib, so alone sat the chair.  Like mother from psycho.

The last major part of this room:  The dresser/changing table.    Of course, the artwork is lovingly done by two amazingly talented co-workers of mine. They won't stay there, they have a place on the wall.

So there are the bare bones.   More to come for sure.

Wait... did I just post two days in a row???  

The last weeks, and nesting projects.

I have one more week to go before our little man gets here.  And I have been working on a ton of projects to help him feel at home when he gets here though, he hasn't gotten the memo that its go time.

I've been trying to document everything to share with you including awesome iphone shots, so here's the run down of this list some are pinterest inspired some are Alisa brain-spired. Some are finished I i should have links to soon, and some are still a work in progress.


1.) Crate Bookshelf
2.) Cloth Wipes
3.) Cloth Diaper Pail Water proof Liner
4.) Robot Mobile
5.) Paper Lantern installation
6.) Chevron curtains.  (this i MAY not get to).