Review: Indie Gift Box

Today I am going to share with you my review of the Indie Gift Box. The Indie Gift Box is a sampling of uniquely designed and handcrafted products by independent artists and small businesses. You can buy the Indie Gift Box for yourself or have sent to someone else for only $25. The theme of my particular box is called "The Nature Box" and you still have time to order one of these boxes. They still have 2 more shipment release dates and they will be available until they are sold out of a particular theme of a box. You can choose a box size that fits your budget: $25-$50 worth of items for only $20 (Standard Box) or $30-$60 of items for $25 (Deluxe Box). The above picture if of all of the contents in my box (my box product total was valued at $41) and below I have individual pictures and links to each of the items and my thoughts or plans for each item. This was a fun box to review. It felt like Christmas opening it up and seeing what was all included. This would make a great gift for someone!

BUY AN INDIE GIFT BOX HERE!!

Chai Tea Lip Balm from Reveille Reveille. I love the smell of this lip balm. It has the perfect level of scent. This is something I am keeping for myself and putting in the car. I like to put on lip balm before I workout.

I have seen these pom pom flowers before and it was on my list of crafty items I wanted to make, but if you don't want to make them you can buy them from Love and Marshmallows. I plan to use this as a gift decoration. I think they are super cute and look even better in person.

I love the colors in this eco-friendly brooch from Hexagon. I plan to add it as an accessory to an accessory by pinning it to one of the cowls I have made for myself.

These hand painted earrings from Abby J Studio are just darling! I plan on gifting these to one of my friends that I know who will appreciate the work that was put in to making these.

I am just in love with this mini felted bowl from Violet Ink Studios. I have already put it to use to hold bobby pins in my bathroom and it sitting pretty on a shelf in my bathroom next to some other natural containers that contain my swabs and balls. It fits in perfectly with it!

I can't wait to use this nature photo card from Knotted Tree Photography and write a letter to a friend. I think letter writing has become a dying art and pastime and I decided that I was going to try to write one letter a month to a different friend. We all like to receive mail that isn't a bill, don't we? And who wouldn't want to also receive a little piece of art in their mail along with a personal note!

Below are some additional pieces of paper included in my box that include information about Peace. Love. Swap. and a coupon code (INDIEBOX) for $5 off your next order at Do The Extraordinary.

Find out more information about Indie Gift Box online:

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I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Try It Tuesday: Handmade Vintage Look Earrings of the 60s and 70s

Ok, I can finally share these with you. I had made them a little while ago. I just went to the Little Black Dress Affair and the theme this year was vintage. (LBD is a yearly fundraiser for women to attend that includes dinner, fashion show, silent auction and more for local charities. The charity benefiting from it changes from year to year. This was my second year attending.)

Anyways, I found my little black dress I wanted to wear for this event and it is 60's in style and started to explore how to accessorize for the 60's. I like dressing up for fancy events like this, especially if there is a theme (I'm also fond of costumed events too.) One of my friends who recently had a birthday had told me that the dress she purchased was 70's in style so I thought this would be a very cool present to make her for her birthday would be earrings to go with her dress.

Review: Eco-Friendly Napkins from Napkins.com

I had the opportunity to try out and review a few samples from the Eco-Friendly line of napkins from Napkins.com. Personally, I like while or white printed napkins like the ones I reviewed because both our every day table settings and our china are white and they look best with it, but they do also have a natural (light brown) napkin as well. The taller napkin is actually a guest towel and has a wonderful high quality feel to it and you will be proud to use then as either a guest towel in the bathroom or as a napkin. The smaller square napkins are beverage napkins.

This Eco-friendly line of napkins is made with 100% recycled content and 65%-80% of post-consumer content, is chlorine free and is Green-Seal Certified. Napkins.com also has an expanded Eco-friendly line that include plates, bowls, cutlery, and takeout containers in addition to napkins.

I used the guest towels as dinner napkins because I really like to put my silverware on top of a tall napkin. You can see how the floral printed napkin looks (above) and the plain white napkin looks (below) with a white table setting. I thought they were very absorbent. The guest towels are sold in a bulk case of 1000 napkins (8 packages of 125 napkins). There 4 choices of sizes of napkins in the Eco-Friendly line and 3 color/print choices.

Of course, you can also buy napkins in every imaginable print and color on Napkins.com.

I was given napkins samples for review. No monetary compensation was received. All thoughts, opinions and photographs are my own.

Make It Monday: Tender Baked Chicken Breast Tenderloins

I decided to let my slow cooker take a night off and use the oven instead and make a clean eating chicken recipe that you are sure to love.

Tender Baked Chicken Breast Tenderloins
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast tenderloins
1/2 C plain Greek yogurt, room temperature
3/4 C Kashi Crackers, made in to crumbs (I used the Roasted Garlic flavor)
1 T shredded parmesean, optional

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Bring Greek yogurt to room temperature
• Mix yogurt and cracker crumbs together
• Place tenderloins in the bottom of a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray
• Spread yogurt-cracker mixture evenly over the top of the chicken
• Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top if desired
• Bake for 45 minutes
• Enjoy!

GIVEAWAY and Review: My Image Bracelet Maker

I knew my daughter was going to be super pumped when I told her we would be reviewing the My Image Bracelet Maker from Choose Friendship Company. You may have seen this product before because it was featured on "The View". Any readers out there that are also "The View" fans? Well, my fans get a discount on any purchase from The Friendship Factory, just use COUPON CODE: FASHBASH and you will get 20% OFF!!!!

This isn't our first experience with products from the Choose Friendship Company. Last year my daughter had the My Friendship Bracelet Maker on her Christmas Wish List and I bought it for her.

Here you can see the entire contents that include the tiles and glue and images to cut out as well as a tightening tool and elastic bands. There are 6 different colors to choose from that you can make a solid color bracelet or mix and match. Each bracelet will need 2 elastic bands, so you have enough elastic bands to make up to 9 bracelets. If my daughter primarily makes bracelets for herself and her friends, then I am sure she will be able to make 9, but if she makes them for adults she will need to use more tiles to make them bigger and not be able to make as many.

The kit is super easy to use. My daughter is 7 1/2 and could easily follow the directions and make the majority of the bracelet. The only part she asked for help with was tying the knots at the end and that was because she didn't want to not tie them tight enough and have her bracelet fall apart.

Product Description From The Choose Friendship Company

Fashion, social media, and technology collide with a fashion forward twist. My Image Bracelet Maker is a unique craft toy that gives children (and often parents and grandparents) the opportunity to create personalized photo bracelets. It comes with 6 preprinted image cards, including 144 pictures, an extra strength glue stick, 18 elastic threads, 54 image tiles in 6 bright colors, a knot key tool (to make seamless bracelets), and even has a refill kit with special glitter tiles available. To take it to the next level myphotosizer.com allows crafters to upload and use their very own photos. Better yet, a free iPhone/ipod touch app is available so that you can pull photos from your library or take a photo, crop, and resize right on the spot. These applications produce a 4x6 image card that can be easily printed from home or your local drugstore. My Image Bracelet Maker includes a built-in punch so that photos are perfectly (and safely) cut each time and can be used to make reversible bracelets. Long gone are the days of pulling out photos or scrolling through your phone, now you can show others what inspires you, who your best friends are, or your family album with the simple flick of the wrist.

To make the bracelet, just put the tiles in the designated area and run the elastic ties through the holes. It does push through pretty easily. The kit comes with several sheets of images and letters to cut out and glue on your tiles. The yellow area at the top has a square opening and that is the square punch to cut out the perfect sized images to fit in your tiles.This is easy enough to do that my 4 year old son was doing it as well. There is also the option to upload your pictures to a designated website and inserted in to a formatted picture and create your own images to have developed (or you could print) so that you have a personalized bracelet.

When my daughter and I were shopping at Claire's a couple weeks ago, I couldn't help but notice that they had these tile bracelets for sale there for $6-$7 each. With this kit, they can make 9 bracelets and hand pick out all the images that will be on the bracelet and it provides them with hours of entertainment!

Find More Information About The Choose Friendship Company Online at:

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This is a picture of my daughter wearing the very first one she made. She has made a few more since this one.

ONE LUCKY READER WILL WIN THEIR OWN MY IMAGE BRACELET MAKER

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I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Infant Winter Loom Knit Hat

I just made this hat to give to a new baby in the neighborhood. I used the Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick in Denim.

The instructions on how to make this infant hat with a brim in all in another post I did called Loom Knit Hat with Brim and Matching Flower Headband and if you are new to Loom Knitting, then learn how to do the basic e-wrap stitch in this video tutorial on Introduction to Loom Knitting.

For more loom knitting ideas, check out my Loom Knitting Page or my Loom Knitting Pinterest Board.

Making a Chunky Loom Knit Cowl

This project started out as a an experiment. The yarn used was Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick and Quick Yarn. This was leftover yarn from teaching a friend how to loom knit a hat (and she made a very cute hat that looked like a football!). Anyways, she gave me the leftover yarn and instead of just tossing it in my bin of yarn like I usually do, I thought I would see how this would turn out as a cowl. I had a couple ideas in my head and to be honest, this was not one of them. I even started working with the yarn a couple different techniques to see what it would do and settled on this one.

Both yarns used were the Thick and Quick kind, and the cowl was knit on the Extra Large Knifty Knitter Loom, while the brown cord was knit on the Clover Wonder Knitter. I will share with you how I made a Skinny Looped Infinity Scarf on the Clover Wonder Knitter later, but you can view my YouTube video about how to use this tool. It is fun and easy to use!

Anyways, I wanted to see what it would look like with bigger gaps, so I e-wrap on every other peg, but the last and the first peg were right together because of the number of pegs on the loom. So, that is how I got the wider lines of yarn. I used up the leftover skein, which was probably about 2/3 of the skein (it was around 25 rows).

You can see that the yarn curls quite a bit when it comes off the loom, from both ends, so rather than fight it I curled both ends it so that it looks like two chunky rolls and wrapped the brown knit cord around it to give it a finished looks and keeps it from unrolling.

Sometimes you can develop something interesting and neat when you are willing to experiment.