Pretty little smudge sticks

They may not look the best but darn it they do they work very well.
Never have I made smudge sticks before and I have always wanted to but was slightly nervous to (not sure why, but that's just me..I get nervous for no reason at times).
The smudge stick is just simply sage from my garden pot, wanted to keep it simple but maybe next time I will add another herb to it. When wrapping the thread round the bundle, I'll sing and hum to it while thinking of the meaning why I am making these.

Mandarin Jam

A few weeks ago I noticed that I had a few mandarins left and saw they were going a bit more soft then what I like them to be, so once again I went searching to find a recipe that would be good to use them in - Mandarin Jam.

Ingredients
5-6 Mandarin oranges
3 cups of water
4 ½ cups of sugar


Directions
Peel mandarins, keeping pieces of the peel as large as possible, then set aside.
Cut mandarins in half cross ways, pick out the seeds.
Blend fruit to make 2 cups of pulp, pour into a wide saucepan, add water.
Slice the peel very thinly to make about ½ a cup, add the peel and sugar to the pulp in the pan.
Stir over a medium heat until sugar is dissolved, turn heat to high and boil rapidly while stirring frequently until the jell point is reached. This should take about 40 minutes.
Remove marmalade from heat at once and then bottle.

Banana Bread

Sometimes I have a few bananas that have gone a bit brown and I know I wont eat them, so I have thought instead of throwing them away why don't I find a recipe to use them in and I did just that - Banana Bread.

Ingredients
2 - 3 ripe bananas
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon or mixed (apple pie) spice (optional)
1 egg
A little oil or extra butter for greasing

Directions
Grease a 2lb loaf tin, cut a piece of non-stick baking parchment to fit the base of the tin and place it in the bottom.
Preheat the oven to 180°c/350°f/gas mark 4.
Mash the bananas up with the back of a fork or place them into the food processor.
Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix well.
Pour into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer (or a sharp knife) inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Cool slightly, remove from the tin, take off the paper and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Rocky Road

Sometimes after dinner I like to have a little dessert but some times we don't have anything in to satisfy us, and I noticed we had chocolate, marshmallows and some M&Ms in, so I thought I would find out what I could make. Which was Rocky Road. I have never made this before so even though I did make a little mistake by not estimating the amount I needed for the filling (I added way to much and so the chocolate didn't really coat the top of it all), it still turned out alright and for only one mistake I think that is pretty good for first time making ;)

I found the recipe from SortedFood, although I didn't really go with what they said for their filling. I know it is OK to change it to what you like and want (this is just what we had in at the time).

Ingredients
300g plain chocolate
120g butter
30g golden syrup
150g digestive biscuits
handful of mini marshmallows
handful of M&Ms

Directions:
crack the chocolate into pieces and stick in a heat-proof bowl with the butter and syrup.
melt this over a pan of simmering water until smooth and glossy.
crumble the biscuits into small pieces and stir into the marshmallows and M&Ms (or your desired filling).
pour all of these into the melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine and coat.
line a rectangular cake tin with cling film.
transfer the rocky road to the lined tin and leave to set up in the fridge for a couple of hours.
tip out onto a board and cut into chunky squares.

What I've created: herbal heat packs

Finally found the camera that had these photos on to which I can show you what I made a few months ago. My mum helped me a lot with these as I am rubbish at sewing and could not understand how to get the sewing machine to work, there is too many things you need to thread through to get the thread to actually work and when I did mange to get the thread through all the right areas it still didn't work as I didn't put it through the right area or something like that..Very confusing but I will get the hang of it.

I wanted to make these for my two mum -in-laws and tired to find the scent and material that suited them the best. That bit I find the worst right now, choosing the scent for other people, matching it to their personality and such but I think I did a pretty good job this time. My favourite has to be the lavender and mint..I would never have thought that these two scents would work so well and they do, they just seem to balance each other and yet they have that twist to them.

I hope to make more of these in the near future, when I have found out how to actually use the sewing machine! :)

What I've created

I was going to have a separate entry for each product that I created over the year, but I thought that would take too long, then I had a good idea to write it all in one blog showing the photos, then it started to get too long. So this is probably the best way to show what I have been creating since I have been away from the blog.

Most of these didn't turn out perfect, I am still finding errors in each and every one of these items and trying to figure out what happened to them. But that is one of the lovely things when it comes to creating your own products. When I first started doing this I would beat myself up because I found a problem with one of the products, but now I realise that it comes with the job, it helps you to learn from your mistakes and become that little bit wiser. :)

Tincture in the making

Lavender Tincture all bottled up

Honey and Lemon Lip Balm

Chamomile and Lemon soap

Rose scented Rock salt

Lavender Milk Bath

Chamomile and Lemon Body wash