Worldwide Culture Mini-Swap for the holidays

A week ago we signed up to take part in the Worldwide Culture Mini-Swap for the holdays. This will be our first mini-swap since we did our big swap last month with Canada, England, Australia & Texas. For this swap we were paired with a family from South Africa which is really awesome because we have studied South Africa in homeschool recently. So my son was thrilled when I told him what country we were paired up with. :-) If you are a little lost as to what a mini-swap or a regular swap is, then head over to worldwidecultureswap.com to sign up. In a brief description it is a swap where 5 families are paired up to swap packages amongst themselves. Two of the five families will be from the US and the other three from different countires. You choose how ever many items describing what it is like to live in your state/country. It can be whatever items you want to choose that would represent your state/country well. I don't remember much of what we included in our swap and I forgot to take pictures before packing them up. So hopefully when one of the families receive a package they will post the pic so I can upload it here.
So for our mini-swap for the holidays here is a picture of what we sent. It was supposed to be between 3-5 items showing how your family celebrates Christmas, but with Christmas being our favorite family holiday, we added a little more than what was asked. ;-)

This is what we included in our swap!!
1. Letter from the family

2. The Christmas Story

3. Family favorite Christmas songs

4. Holiday kitchen towel

5. Mini snow globe

6. Mini candle

7. Jumbo holiday ink pen

8. Christmas pencils

9. A light-up snowflake

10. Christmas candy - holiday peppermint wreath, pop rocks, legend of the candy cane poem & Christmas tree-shaped krabby patties

11. 2 homemade Christmas ornaments by little one. It's a reindeer & snowman :) & 1 mini nativity ornament

12. Santa & snowman bendable figurines

13. 2 hot cocoa packs - family favorite is the peppermint hot cocoa

14. bell-shaped cookie cutter

These swaps are really fun to be a part of and I hope you sign up too. Until next time, Be Blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wordless Wednesday

Image from www.christart.com

How to re-fill spice bottle on the cheap

So being Jamaican we cook with lots of thyme and I am always running out. Well the last time I purchased thyme in the glass jar at my local Sweetbay, it was well over $4.00. I even tried the fresh thyme, but it would go bad before I got to use the whole bunch. So last month while I was in Sweetbay picking up a few items, I happened to walk by a small "spice island" and saw that they had thyme and alot of other spices/seasonings for really cheap. So I got 2 bags of thyme just to try them out, and you could never taste the difference in brands. Here are the pictures of how I re-fill my spice/seasoning containers on the cheap.

This is the empty jar of McCormick Thyme priced well over $4.00!!

This is the bag of Thyme cost $0.69

This is my jar filled half-way with the Badia Thyme. I think a bag and a half will fill it completely up.

This is the jar and the extra bag of Thyme. So for $1.38 I got a jar and a half of Thyme :-) Until next time, Be Blessed!!

November 2012 CurlBox and why I canceled

Hello readers!! How is fall in you neck of the woods? Well I can say living in Florida has it perks this time of the year. We get the cooler nights in the high 60's to the low 50's and the days in the high 70's to low 80's, which is perfect weather for us!! But on another note, today I received my CurlBox in the mail and was a little dissapointed with this month. I know you guys are probably saying, "wow she was so excited about last month!" Yea but I have had a change of heart after reading some of the negative/nasty comments that the owner of CurlBox has been leaving in response to others comments about the CurlBox. I feel that if you are an owner of a company, any feedback that is coming in to you weather it be positive or negative should be responded to in a profesional way, because you never know who may be watching or reading how you respond. I won't post what was said, but I will not be spending my hard earned money on a company who is not considerate of it's clientele. I have since took my business to CurlKit and hoping for a much better outcome. So here is the picture of what was in my box this month

As you can see from both pictures, I received 5 samples and 2 full-sized products. Out of everything in this month's box, I will only use the Palmer's protein pack, the Hawaiian Silky Argan Oil - which I plan on mixing in with a deep conditioner and using, and maybe the nuNaat Treatment - I may give this away to my niece since she has naturally curly hair. The rest of the stuff I gave to my mom, who felt that for $20 this box was not worth it. I so agree with her, so till next month.....stay natural and Be Blessed!!!