Getting Healthy: Prenatal Smooties and Vitamins

I have been having a green smoothie each day, and recently switched up my routine a little.  I'm *not* pregnant, but I want my body to be healthy when I decide to try, so I've been taking Thorne Basic Prenatal Vitamins.  It has the right form of folate for me (I am not supposed to take folic acid due to a mutation in my genes called MTHFR), and it also has a better form of B12.  It was going well, but then I found this other great prenatal called Seeking Health Optimal Prenatal Powder.  It has every nutrient you need and more!  The problem is that it costs a lot more than Thorne.  Thorne is about $26 for a one month supply, where Seeking Health is $80 for a one month supply.  Wow!  But I still wanted to try out how Seeking Health tasted, so I bought the 15 day supply for $40.

Since I've already been making a green smoothie for breakfast everyday, I thought I would just switch it out for this one.  I decided to save money I would use the Thorne every other day and alternate with Seeking Health.  So far it has worked great!  I bought the chocolate flavor protein powder, and it doesn't taste amazing just mixed with water.  Not terrible, but not something I'm excited about drinking.  The website says to mix it with frutis and vegetables to improve the taste, but I wasn't sure which would make it taste better and which would make it taste worse!

I figured since I already have the know-how about making regular smoothies, I could make a few changes to make it tastier.  To turn it into a smoothie,  I add quinoa milk, ground flax seed, half a banana, and 3-4 tablespoons of peanut butter (or other nut butter).  I think the peanut butter is key- it makes it taste less tart and more delicious.  Then I pop it all into my NutriNinja blender.

 I actually look forward to it now!  Somehow drinking a smoothie is easier than taking the three pills that I have to take for the Thorne Basic Prenatal.  You can also pop in other vitamins you take and blend them into the smoothie- no swallowing pills!  Perfect.

Love is In The Air (and on your plate!)

I love Valentine's Day.  I know people call it a "hallmark holiday" but to me, it represents not only romantic love but the love we have for family and friends.  

Every v-day I try to make one new food to celebrate the occasion, and usually I send out handmade valentine's cards too.  This month my family and I had a lunch to celebrate, and I cooked a love-themed lunch!  

On the menu was: salad, shrimp scampi, rose lemonade, and almond chocolate-dipped strawberries for dessert.

Here's how I made the salad: a valentine's explosion!

First, I used a small cookie cutter to cut hearts out of the cucumber slices.

The cheese was cut into little XO and heart shapes with a mini cutter meant for linzer cookies.  The green pepper slices were easy to make little hearts from with the same cutter-next time I'd use red peppers so they stand out more.  I carved the carrots into little hearts in the method described here. I popped it all in a bowl with some spinach and topped it off with almonds.

Here are both (half eaten!)

 The meal was a huge hit! I hope you had a love-filled v-day like I did!

An Update

I just wanted to share some photos from our last trip to New Orleans.  Although it was cold out there (40s and sunny only part of the time) we had a great time!

The French Quarter

A view of the Mississippi

The Pharmacy Museum was so cool!

Unveiling a Brand New Logo!

A little while ago, I learned that Two Bees Creations had won a giveaway for a free logo design. We'd been wanting to make up some new business cards, so the news came just in time.

The company that we won the logo from is called Dzire to Dzine or D2D).  If you check out their website here (http://dzire2dzine.com/) you can see some of their other designs. Based out of Howrah in West Bengal, India, they have awesome customer service and were really great to work with.

They started by giving me a questionnaire to learn more about our business, our style, and our target market.  I provided some design ideas from blogs and websites I love as well.  They then took all that information and boiled it down into three proofs.  Saket was more than happy to modify the proofs as I further refined what I was looking for.  I've never made a logo before or worked with a graphic designer, and Dzire to Dzine made the process really easy.  I love the final look of the logo- it is fun and creative and captures our spirit!

Dzire to Dzine  also does web design, ad design, video production, and much more.  I especially like the web designs they have featured in their portfolio.  I highly recommend this company- maybe a website is in the future for us!  We'll be printing out out business cards with the new logo this month- so excited!


Our old logo (pretty, but did not have much to do with our business or name- we don't sell flowers!)

Our new logo (more professional and much clearer and easy to read!)

Honeycomb & Bumble Bee Cupcakes

I LOVE baking!  I made these from the "What's New, Cupcake" book by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson.  What a great book- so many idea for cupcakes for any party or season.  

These are vanilla cupcakes with sugar cookies on top that, when put next to eachother, look a lot like a honeycomb.  The book said to put some honey inside each hexagon.  That would have looked nice, but I thought that would make them too sweet (and too messy- I was bringing them to work!).  

The most difficult and time intensive part was cutting out the hexagons from the cookie dough.  Those were made separate and then placed on top of the cupcakes after lightly frosting them.  There was a template to use, but in the end after baking the sugar cookies the lines were not totally straight.  Maybe it gives them character :P




Instead of using black jelly beans to make the bees (as the book instructed), I used yellow and brown peanut M&Ms.  More people like the flavor of chocolate than black licorice, I've found.

I'm not sure if I'd make these again, but they were well received by the people who ate them.  They definitely go with our Etsy Shop name, though!

Homemaker on a Dime: Market Your Biz and Giveaways #53

A big thanks to SJ from the Homemaker on a Dime Blog for featuring our shop this week!

Homemaker on a Dime: Market Your Biz and Giveaways #53: Happy Tuesday, my dear friends! Our featured biz today is Two Bees Creations, specializing in Handmade Fabric Purses, Tea Wallets, Jewelry...

Before and After: Frames into Jewelry Organizers

I upcycled two pieces of art into jewelry organizers.  I got the idea from some sellers on Etsy who use old picture frames and replace the backing of the frames with screen or lace  to hang earrings on (like these: jeanettikonfetti or GardenCricket).  When I found these frames, it was difficult to remove the backing, so I changed my plan a little.

They started out looking like this: art pieces that had a price tag of $200 each!  I felt a little bad ruining someones artwork, but they were a great deal!  I purchased them at the Goodwill for $7 each.




The first one I painted purple with a free sample cup of paint I had.  It has cup hooks and eyes from ACE hardware ($4 total) which I screwed right into the backboard.  I left the middle panel as it was with the original collage artwork.  I'm hanging all my earrings, bracelets, and rings on here.  It holds more than 40 pairs of earrings!

For the second one I stretched magenta/hot pink vintage velvet inside where the glass would be (my other idea was to use cork, but this was cheaper!).  I used colored push pins instead of hooks to hang my necklaces (I have 35 necklaces on there now).

My plan was to hang them on the wall next to each other, but my 100-year-old adobe walls make that pretty tough (these things are heavy!).  One is on top of my dresser, and the other is on a bookshelf in my hallway.

It turns out I have a TON of costume jewelry when you add it all up- and now it is neatly displayed instead of all zipped up in pouches or hidden in jewelry boxes.  It makes picking out something to wear a lot easier when you can see it all at once!