Decodyne Jeans Mug

How adorable is this mug?  Tired of your co-workers taking your mug?  This mug looks like a bright red pair of jeans and is full of detail.  You can see the zipper, pockets, stitching, belt loop sand so much more detail in this little mug.  The detail alone is enough to make this mug desirable.  But if you need more than just THAT reasoning, it is sure to stand out and you'll definitely notice if someone else is using your mug!

The cup can hold up to 14 oz of your favorite hot (or cold) beverage.   The handle is a bit thin, but it's easy to grip and there's plenty of room for hands of any size to hold this mug. The mug is microwavable, so if you need to heat up your beverage, you can do so.

Here's the link for this adorable mug: Decodyne Jean Mug.

I did get this product at a discounted rate.

#IwasInvited #ad #Review

Ceramic Coffee Mug-By Lazer Designs

Although it might be too late to order for Valentine's Day, this mug is gorgeous and would make a perfect gift for the coffee/hot tea drinker in your life.

Lazer Designs has three different styles of this mug:

A heart with the infinity symbol

Love Never Fails/Love is Patient, Love is Kind

Love is patient.

I chose to order the heart with infinity symbol on it.  I'm not super sappy and in to love quotes, but I thought this design was simple and cute, yet fairly elegant.  It gets the point across without being in your face mushy and gross.  

This mug is more of a fuchsia color.  It's a mix somewhere between pink and purple.  The inside of the mug is white.   It's fairly thick and feels really sturdy and heavy.  It lies perfectly flat.  The handle doesn't get super hot.  From the side, the handle actually looks like half of a heart, with the way it's angled.  

The mug is designed to hold a 10 ounce beverage.  It keeps drinks hot and doesn't cool down very fast.  

It is both dishwasher & microwave safe.  -However, I have not used mine in a dishwasher.  I have placed it in the microwave several times though.  The design is laser etched, so it will not fade or rub off.  It's a seriously beautiful mug.

To check out the mug and other designs, please visit Amazon, here: Ceramic Coffee Mug-By Lazer Designs

This mug was received as a discounted sample.  

Ham Made Lip Balms

I guess I didn't realize it was so long ago, but my amazing best friend taught me how to make lip balms back in March. Our first lip balm batch "together" was our LIP CRAP. At that time, we decided on a mint chocolate lip balm, which both of us have listed in our Etsy shops.

Since then, I've sort of ventured out on my own and started making my own lip balms. Honestly, they're extremely easy to make and you really don't need a LOT of "STUFF" to make your own lip balms. A small batch of about 1.5 ounces can make about 12-14 lip balms, depending on the types of tubes you're using and the ingredients at hand.


I've currently got the following lip balms for sale in my shop:

Sweet Orange Vanilla Bean
Cool Mint Vanilla Bean
French Vanilla Coffee Bean 
Lip Crap

A basic lip balm consists of the following:

Bees Wax (other waxes, like Soy wax, are also acceptable).
Shea Butter (semi solid)
Cocoa Butter (soft solid)
and Olive Oil
Essential Oil or Flavoring Agent- to "taste"

Other items needed:
Sauce Pan
Glass Bowl
Pipette
Lip Balm Tubes
Spoon

As a general rule of thumb, it's two parts wax, to one part shea butter, one part cocoa butter, one part oil.  -Seriously, you can mix and match these ingredients to get the best mixture of your liking.  I typically go with 1 ounce wax, .5 oz of each of the other ingredients.  This will get you about 24 tubes of lip balm.  Awesome, right?

Instead of Cocoa butter, you can use Coconut Oil.  Instead of Olive oil you can use Apricot Kernel Oil, Jojoba Oil, Argan, Grapeseed, Sunflower, the possibilities are seriously ENDLESS.

But we will just go ahead and walk you through the process with the ingredients above.

To start, place your Beeswax into a glass bowl, and put the bowl inside of a pan.  Place a few inches of water into the pan, but just enough to go about halfway up the side of the glass bowl.  Place the pan on the stove and heat it to about a low/medium setting.  DO NOT LET THE WATER BOIL. Let your beeswax melt all the way; stir occasionally to ensure it's melting evenly and all the way through.

Once the beeswax melts, add the Shea butter and allow it to melt.  Then add the cocoa butter and let it melt.  Once these have melted, add the oil.  Mix thoroughly.  Mix in about 1 ml of essential oil, or 10 drops, to achieve a flavor/scent of your liking.  Give it a final stir. Use Pipettes or a dropped to fill the lip balm tubes.  VIOLA!  You're done.  Let the lip balms cool.  If you have extra lip balm in the bowl, you can always store it in a glass mason jar with a lid and melt it down later to pour into tubes, once you get more tubes.  I generally fill about 20 tubes of lip balm to start and let them fully cool off before I fill the remaining few tubes.  The lip balms sort of melt down and tend to cave in a bit, leaving holes that need filled.  It isn't always pretty, so I keep a bit of the mixture in the glass bowl to melt down later and top off the tubes.

If you want to get super crafty, you can make infused oil blends for your lip balms.  Calendulla flowers or lavender or rosemary work great for infused oils.  You'd use these instead of the essential oil and the Olive oil. You can actually use the olive oil as the oil that you're infusing.  The finished lip balm will give a subtle hint of the items you infused.  -Infusing generally takes a few weeks, but you can cheat and use a crockpot to speed up the time.

I'm currently running a promotional give-away on my Facebook page.  Scroll through the Etsy page and comment on Facebook about which item is your favorite.  A winner will randomly be selected soon.