Make Your Home Smell Like a Bakery

I tried 2 methods of this today, as I had 2 pinned. Both involved vanilla extract and promised to make your home smell like a bakery. I was a little disappointed with both, although it was fun to use my homemade vanilla extract! I have a few jars left over from last Christmas.

The first method requires a coffee cup and vanilla extract. Yes, that’s a happy bunny mug! You place 2 capfuls of vanilla extract in the mug and place in your 300° oven for 1 hour. It wasn’t working very well, so I added more vanilla, still no noticeable smell. I found this trick to try here.

Second method involves a small pan of water, vanilla extract and cinnamon. You simmer them together and the smell is supposed to spread throughout the house. The kitchen smelled pretty good with this one, but it didn’t really spread. For the life of me, I can’t remember where I found this idea, but if I find the link again, I’ll update the reference.
If you guys have any other tips, please let me know, because for right now, I’m back to my trusty candles. They make the whole house smell good, and all I have to do is light the wick!

Lip Sugar Scrub

Once upon a time, I had this fantastic lip scrub that got rid of all of the flaky skin that grows on your lips when you don’t use chapstick enough. It was amazing! Rub some on and rinse away the dead skin! Simple, quick and effective. Well its been years, the scrub is long gone and I’m sad. Then I stumbled cross this pin that showed me how to make my own. Tony was at a party when I got home, the kids are with my parents, so it seemed like a perfect time to make some.
You’re three ingredients, that’s right, three, are sugar, olive oil and vanilla extract. You may want some food coloring for effect, but it’s not necessary. I used it because I had it.
•3 heaping tsp of sugar
•1 1/2 tsp olive oil
•a few drops of vanilla extract
I used some of the vanilla extract we made for the holidays so I had a feel good from that one!
Mix it all together. You may have to add a little sugar for a good consistency. I added a few pinches. I also added a few drops of red food coloring for fun. This is what it looked like

It does need need to go in an airtight container for storage. I used the jars I had left over from Chiara’s birthday favors and last year’s teacher’s gifts. I could’ve done a double batch in it, but it worked for now.

See, cute! It also works great. My lips felt so smooth afterward! I may look for smaller jars and use these as a small Christmas gift…….

Make Your Own Vanilla Extract

I have been looking forward to completing this pin for a while. I thought to myself, how freaking cool would this be for a Christmas present? Something quick and really easy that the whole family can contribute to.

We started with the above supplies. Vanilla beans and 4oz Boston jars from Amazon.com, Svedka Vanilla Vodka. The original pinner recommended Svedka, mentioning later on that she’s used different alcohols for this. When we were at the state store, they had Vanilla Vodka, and we figured that would be perfect.

The kids had a lot of fun helping me cut the beans up. You need 2 beans per jar and you cut them in half length wise and across, giving you 8 pieces per jar.

We started out measuring the recommended 1/2 cup of vodka per jar. Tony was concerned it wouldn’t fit, but after seeing exactly where it hit on the jar, he just started eyeballing it.

After putting the kids to bed, he had to run out for a second bottle of vodka to finish up the jars we had. He actually did the majority himself because “it’s simple and kind of fun.”
We had a lot of vanilla beans leftover and I was instructed to order more jars! He vacuum sealed the remaining ones to keep them fresh.

Once your jars are complete, you should place them in a window so that they can ‘steep’ for about a month. So if you’re thinking about doing this for a Christmas gift, hop to!
The original pinner didn’t get her’s done in time, so she used a ‘don’t use till’ tag. We lined ours up in front of our aloe plants so they will get plenty of light!
I loved this one! It’s quick and easy, as previously stated, and best of all, Tony liked it enough to take over. Lol!
*Update* 12-21-13 Now that the vanilla has been sitting for months now, we decided to put the labels on the bottles and start giving them away. Once again, Tony took over the process, but it was a quick one, no matter who was doing this!

Get your holiday spirit on a little early and try this one out. Check out https://superstevied.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/personalized-labels/ to see the amazing labels I ordered to go on my vanilla extract, and maybe order some of your own.
Also, be sure to check out the original pin at http://bethanyactually.com/make-your-own-vanilla-extract/