The Last Day of The Year!

Well, it's the last day of 2013.  Where does the time go?  Seems the older I get, the faster the days go, which makes me realize that you have to accomplish more in a day than you ever did.
This past year was a great year for me both personally and with the growth of my business.
My daughter got married in April, they bought their first home in August and celebrated their first Christmas in their new home.  So in honour of that I created this layout for their first Christmas celebrations.

I hope 2014 brings you much love, health and happiness.  Thanks for following along!

Peppermint Sugar Scrub

I love the smell of peppermint, it reminds me of Christmas and everything clean and fresh!  I also love soaking in the tub and using body scrub so, after seeing so many recipes on Pinterest to make my own scrub, I decided that I was going to make some as gifts this Christmas.  It was so simple and easy and this is my recipe:

2 C White Sugar
1/2 C Coconut Oil
4 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil
1 Drop of Red Food Colouring

I was able to purchase the first two items at the local grocery store and the last two items at Michaels craft store.
Mix the coconut oil, sugar and peppermint oil together in a large bowl.  I filled each glass jar half full with the white scrub mixture.
Add 1 drop of red food colouring to the remaining white scrub mixture to make it pink and then add this to the jars so you have one layer of white and one layer of pink sugar scrub.
You could use any colour of food colouring to create a coloured scrub.

Make sure to fill the jars to the top!

I added a metal snowflake embellishment to the top of the scrub as a cute decoration!

I made two batches of this mixture and it made 10 small jars of scrub.  Make sure to use air tight containers.

Loving the cute handmade tags too!

This really was a quick and fun project and it took me less than an hour to make 10 jars!

Childhood Memories

In 2002 my husband, Dale, traveled back to Watrous, Saskatchewan to move my mother and father-in-law to Calgary so my FIL could spend his last days with family close by. The family spent the entire weekend packing up the house, donating many items to charity, taking many loads to the nuisance ground (or the dump as we call it) and packing the rest into a U-haul for the trip to Calgary.
Deep in the back of the shed he stumbled upon one of his old childhood toys, an old Case pedal tractor and wagon. It was in rough shape; peeling paint, rusted, broken rear axles, broken drive shaft, bent front wheels and shredded rubber on the tires. Needless to say, it looked like it should also have been dropped off at the nuisance ground. But..... he packed it all up and put all the pieces into a box, brought it home to Calgary where it sat in our basement for 11 years.
A few years ago Dale took the time to research the toy and purchase original replacement parts for it only to have that box sit in the basement for another 6 years. His dream was always to restore the tractor to its original condition by himself but just this past year he came to the realization that he needed professional help in order to get it done properly, so after about 6 months of searching, he found someone who builds pedal tractors just three hours from us who had restored several pedal tractors to their original condition.  his name is Alan and he owns the Pedal Tractor Farm where he builds and rents pedal tractors for various children's events in Alberta.  If you are interested in renting them for a child's birthday party, check out his website and get in touch with him.

The end result almost made me cry. The before and after photos are like night and day.
Enjoy the ride!

Sadly we did not take any before photos of the wagon!  But here is the refinished product.  Isn't it a beauty?  Dale wanted to have some part in restoring his old toy so he purchased the original Case decals and applied them himself, after spending his younger years in the car business, he had plenty of practice!

We have since learned that my FIL received the tractor on a promo through his own Case tractor dealership in Saskatchewan and gave it to Dale when he was 3 years old and he and his brother played with it almost every day so it was well used.  It will now remain in our home to be played with by future grandchildren.