Cute 4th of July Earrings Giveaway

Okay so I make jewelry which I sell on my Etsy Page. I have decided I am going to do a giveaway for some cute 4th of July earrings. These are hand made by myself so they are unique to my store. With being handmade they may differ slightly from in the picture but will of course be just as cute.

In order to be entered into the contest to win you need to be a follower of my blog and also send someone to my blog. The referred person will need to make a comment on this post for example "Shari referred me" for every person sent your name will go into the drawing once. The contest will run from today Wed. June 5th to June 25th so I can get them to the winner for the holiday. Who loves free stuff? I know I do! Free cute earrings! Refer refer, refer for free cute patriotic earrings yay!! :)

Homemade Body and Facial Wax

I haven't posted in a while, shame shame on me! I will be better at this I promise BUT I recently came across something I had to share! It was a few days ago I was mid errand running and I thought I felt something  on my cheek so I brush at it with my hand and.. ICK I felt a stiff hair that SHOULD NOT be there! How are we women supposed to feel pretty and sexy with facial hair. Well it so happens that day I was also flat broke so I went home and started the dreaded plucking of the hair. WAIT! Sorry it is not plucking! As the daughter of a licensed cosmetologist I should know by now "You pluck a chicken, you TWEEZE your eyebrows" or other hair etc haha. Anyway so I decided I was done with the tweezing as I hate pulling out one hair OUCH! at OUCH! a OUCH! time OUCH!!! I figured there had to be a way to make a wax like stuff from normal household items right? Of course there is! Now I found this by googling homemade body and facial wax and while I found many different websites I didn't use one specifically but kind of combined different ideas to come up with what I wanted. So here it is.

Ingredients

1/2 c. Lemon Juice ( if freshly squeezed you'll need about 3 or 4 lemons)
1/2 c. Water
   1 c. White Sugar

Place ingredients in pot and boil. Constantly stirring because it will boil over.

Now here is part of the reason I looked into so many different ones. Many didn't say how long to boil just until it became darker and "sticky" one said to boil on low for 45 minutes but... Ain't nobody got time for that! So I pulled out my candy thermometer and boiled at medium high for about 10 to 15 minutes until it got right around soft ball range on my thermometer.

After it has reached the soft ball stage remove from heat and stir then pour into a microwave safe container. Allow to cool to a comfortable temperature BEFORE putting on your face or body. Applying hot wax WOULD cause burns so please please please be cautious. To apply you could use a plastic knife, a wooden popsicle stick or pretty much whatever works as this wax is extremely easy to wash off. 

Now for the waxing strips. 

I had an old cotton curtain that I've had in a box for ages that I decided to cut up. Old cotton sheets, left over fabric scraps, anything like that would work wonders. Also with this wax being made from sugar water and lemon juice it washes right out. Use your strips, wash out the wax, let them dry and use them again. Yay no more buying store wax or spending $40 at a salon. 

TA-DA!  Happy Waxing :)  Be safe. Oh and yes this does store well so put it in a microwave safe plastic container with a lid and make it in bulk and store for future use. 

Happy Wednesday all God Bless

Tater Tot Casserole

Do you ever have a night when you just don't have the time to spend more than 20 minutes making dinner? Or have had a super long day and want to just throw something together but have it still be yummy?

Of course you have!

In such a situation I often find myself going to one of my fall back recipes such as Tater Tot Casserole. Now this is something I learned from my mom, she didn't really have a recipe and neither do I usually but tonight I actually kept track of what I put in it so I could share it with you wonderful people.  So here goes.

Ingredients

1/2 med. onion chopped

1 tbsp. butter

1 lb. ground beef

3 c. cooked rice (3 cups measured before its cooked)

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 Bag frozen Tater Tots

Cheddar Cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

First chop the onion into small pieces and put in pan with butter and saute until they are see through. In same pan add ground beef and cook until all the meat is browned. While cooking I like to season the meat with Natures Seasoning as it is my personal favorite seasoning but salt and pepper would suffice. While the hamburger is cooking start cooking the rice per directions on rice. (1 c. water to 1/2 c. rice is the norm) After rice and meat are cooked combine in casserole dish with cans of cream of mushroom soup. Mix well. Cover rice mixture with tater tots and put in oven. Bake for approximately 35 minutes or until tater tots are browning and a little crispy on top. Take out of oven grate cheese over tater tots and place back in oven for 5-10 minutes to melt. 

My kids love this and they can be fairly picky AND leftover are always a bonus. 

So start to finish you spend about 15 minutes in actual prep work and 40-45 minutes from starting to actual dinner time. I hope you enjoy. Have a good night all and God bless. 

Cute Hair Day

Sunday's are a day for cute hair! Mainly because I have time to play around with my girls hair and finding out what I think is cute and how I can do stuff. Today we had some dang cute hair!

My older daughter had a really easy yet cute side ponytail with twisty braids. I have to say I LOVE twisty braids they just look so cute. 

My younger daughter had a pretty bow braid. I have to say this is one of my favorite braids to do. Every time we do this hair style the compliments are nonstop. This hairstyle does take a little bit longer than what we do on normal days though. 

Okay so first of the side pony with twists. Easy peasy! I part the hair so that about 1 inch of hair from one ear over the top to the other and is hanging down loose around her face and then securely fasten the other hair. 

 Then all you do is take sections of the loose hair and make twist braids that you will later add to the ponytail. The trick with twisty braids is to roll the hair in the opposite direction that you will be twisting it. 

And of course we add a cute paper flower hairpin and waa-laa! 

And now for the bow braid. 

First you part the hair on which ever side you desire. The majority of the hair will be on the side you want the braid. 

The you french braid the larger portion of the hair.

 The hair left out will be how you add the "bows" in her hair. Now the easiest way I have found to do this is with a big hair pin. I take a small portion of the hair and make a small loop in the hair. 

 You put the hairpin halfway through one of the weaves on the braid and put the loop of hair through the hairpin and pull through about half way until it forms a bow. 

After the bow is formed slide the hairpin out and bobby pin bow in place. 

 Continue making bows evenly down the braid until out of hair. 

 Now you can leave it as a braid and just securely fasten it with a ponytail if you'd like. We went a step further though and tucked the bottom under to create more of a braid to bun look. 

And some cute little hair accessories and you are done. These rose hairpins complete this beautiful style and I have one happy girl that gets complimented all day on how pretty she looks. Happy girls make a happy mama. 

All the handcrafted items I make are also for sale on my Etsy page and when I get more followers I will be having monthly give aways of various items so follow me for a chance to be involved in those. 

Have a good night all and god bless. 

Mouth Watering Blueberry Muffins

So today is an unusual day. I woke up earlier than normal took a shower, got ready for the day AND had time left over before my girls went off to school. So what did I do with this extra time you ask.... ?

I made homemade Blueberry Muffins of course!!

I LOVE MUFFINS! Especially blueberry ones and it just so happened I had everything to make these love breakfast baked goods so to my kid's delight when they came out for breakfast they found warm muffins. 

Okay so I am going to share my awesome Blueberry Muffin Recipe with you so you can enjoy years of delicious muffins. Your posterity will thank me for sharing this one day, trust me. 

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

 Makes 6 Large Muffins or 12 smaller ones.
I usually end up doubling the recipe anyway because they don't tend to stay around in my house.

Ingredients

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter at room temp.
1/2. c sugar
zest of 2 large lemons (when I don't have this I substitute 4 Tbsp Lemon Juice)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 c. sour cream
3/4 c. blueberries frozen or fresh ( I usually use frozen and they work wonderfully)

Topping (not necessary as tastes great without)
3/4 tsp. sugar
grated nutmeg for dusting

Directions

Preheat your oven to 375 F.
In a large bowl cream butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Spoon half of the flour and half of sour cream  in to sugar mixture and fold in with rubber spatula until flour has mostly disappeared. Repeat with remaining flour and sour cream until flour disappears. Gently fold in blueberries. Fill muffin tins almost to top batter will be a little stiff especially with frozen berries. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or toothpick comes out clean. Cool on rack and then serve warm or at room temperature.

Nails, Nails, and More Nails!

Now in my house we love doing fingernails! Well... I love painting them and my girls love having them painted. Over the years I have definitely gotten better at it but I have learned some little tricks. First of all I absolutely LOVE my Migi Nail Art pens. Not only can you use them as nail polish with a brush but they have a pen tip as well.

Coming up soon I will be giving away free Migi Nail Art pens so follow my blog and I'll keep you up to date on when that will happen.

I also love my dotting tools!

These I got off of Ebay and a ridiculously cheap price! They are cute and are awesome! They are for doing polka dots but I use them for so much more than just that. I love them when I use my art pens because I can move the nail polish around a bit without having more come out and ending up with too much.

 Here are a few cute nail ideas that we have done. I apologize some of the pictures aren't amazingly great I wasn't planning on putting them on a blog when I took them.

Probably my oldest daughter's favorite was when we did the minions from Despicable Me on her fingernails.

Festive for Christmas

Flowers, Flower, and more Flowers

Cute Bumblebee nails for Spring.

Pandas and panda paws (My personal favorite)

                                                  Tried to do a retro 80s-ish look. 

Those are just a few of the ones we've done lately. I'll post more as we come up with some cute ideas. Thanks for reading, Click the follow button on the right to keep up with our awesome posts :) 

God Bless and Have a Wonderful Day. 

Cute Twisty Braid Bun

Okay so I have a love of doing hair, my daughters also love that I do. This is the latest hair style I've come up with.

This is an extremely simple hairdo and took less than 15 minutes. So here is the run down. First you start with a simple ponytail.

 

With the ponytail you want to make 6 twisty braids, I try to make one in the center of the hair and the remaining 5 around the middle one. 

Then you take each of the 5 outer twists and wrap them around itself to make 5 miniature buns around the remaining center twist. 

You'll then take the remaining twist and wrap it around the 5 mini twist buns to help bring them together and keep them intact. 

 And then simply make any finishing touches such as bows, flowers smoothing fly aways etc. We prefer flowers in our house and my girls love the paper flowers I make especially the ones with sparkles so we add a blue sparkle flower hair pin and TA-DA! Beautiful!

The flowers I make are available for purchase on my etsy page :) 

SharisWorld

A Little About Me

Well Hello! This is my first entry of my blog..... Exciting!! I have been wanting to do a blog for a while now but have been wrestling with what to focus on. Should I do cooking? Maybe a hairstyle blog? Or crafts? I love crafts! I wasn't able to pin something specific down though so.... Shari's Crazy World is going to be a little of everything. Little tips I pick up that I want to share, yummy recipes, my latest project with a simple how to guide and I am hoping that people enjoy it. So a little about me... in this crazy world of mine I am first and for most a Mom a title which I hold close to my heart. This job is the hardest of any I've ever had! It doesn't come with a manual or a specific job description and it certainly doesn't have paid training, or any previous training. It's a learn as you go, trial by fire kind of job. Perhaps a little bit of my experiences can help in some little way.

For example... here is my latest project.

*Read in awesome infomercial voice*  "Do you ever get tired of picking up your bathroom towels? When you go to dry your hands do you end up shaking them off? Or worse wiping them on your clothes? Do you have little munchkins in your house that like playing hide and seek with your hand towels? Well never fear the hand towel fastener 2000 is here!!" Okay so maybe it isn't all as exciting as that BUT if you have kids like mine and get frustrated that the dang towel NEVER stays on the towel bar this is a must! So I will admit I got the idea from my wonderful sister, I was staying at her house a month or so ago and saw she had tied a shoelace around her towel. Genius idea! However I saw room for improvement because something can be functional and cute at the same time so this is what I came up with.

A fairly easy way to keep that towel on the bar, and its cute!! The longest thing was cutting out the little star and hearts with my scroll saw and sanding them but you could always find some cute little dangly things from the craft store. 

So all you have to do to get this is simply weave some hemp in a cute little braid (long enough to go around your towel) and then take your glue gun and add some cute little decorations. TA-DA! No more floor towel.

Yay!! One less thing to pick up. Comment and let me know what you think.

Have a great day all and God bless :)