Idea Queen Tips & News

Some of us absolutely can not style our hair without some sort of gel. Especially those of us with curly and hard to manage hair. It adds up though, and can get quite expensive buying different hair care products.

The following recipe for homemade hair gel is on our home hair care recipes page at Idea Queen.  It’s also found (with many, many others) in the Bath & Body recipes ebook, which has over 250 different recipes you can try out at home.

Homemade Scented Hair Gel
1 cup water
2 Tablespoons flax seed
2 drops scented oil — your choice of scent

NOTES : Use as you would any hair gel product. 

Gift jars can make a fun and unique Christmas present. While just about any recipe would work as a Christmas gift (it’s all about the preference of the one getting the gift anyway!), here are two we found especially nice. Both recipes come from our ebook, Gift Jar Recipes.

GOURMET COOKIE MIX IN A JAR
1 cup all-purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/4 cups Rolled Oats
1 Milk Chocolate Bar — (5.5 ounce)
1/2 cup White Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup chopped Nuts — your choice
– (optional)
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips
Here’s a great Christmas Gift Idea! The cookie ingredients are placed in a clear or ecorative jar, and the recipe is attached to the jar. Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Pour into jar, pack down level with heavy object. Mix oatmeal in a blender. Grate chocolate bar and mix into the oatmeal. Pack on top of flour in jar. Add white sugar and pack down. Add brown sugar and pack down. Layer chopped nuts on top of brown sugar. Finish layering jar with chocolate chips until even with the top. Use scissors to cut a 9 inch-diameter circle from fabric of your choice.
Center fabric circle over lid and secure with a rubber band. Tie on a raffia or
ribbon bow to cover the rubber band.

Attach a card with the following directions:
*Gourmet Cookies*
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spoon chocolate chips and nuts into small bowl, set aside. Spoon brown and white sugar into mixing bowl, add 1/2 cup margarine or butter, cream well. Add 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, mix well. Pour oatmeal and flour mixture from jar into bowl, mix thoroughly. Roll into walnut size balls, place on slightly greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 8 to 10 min.

BROWNIES
6 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons salt
8 cups sugar
1 can (8 ounces) baking cocoa
2 cups vegetable shortening
In a large bowl, combine first five ingredients. With a pastry blender, cut in shortening until evenly distributed. Store in a large airtight container in cupboard. Keeps 10-12 weeks. Yield: about 17 cups of mix.

Attach to the jar:
Brownies
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup cocoa
2 tablespoons soft margarine 1 1/3 cups Master Mix
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat eggs, water and margarine together until fluffy. Stir in vanilla, sugar and cocoa. Add Master Mix and blend well. Fold in nuts. Spread in a greased 8×8x2 inch pan. Bake in 350oF oven for about 30 minutes. Makes 16.

While the calendar may say it’s still summer, it’s still officially fall to us. The kids are in school, the weather is getting cooler,  and there’s even a few leaves falling already (in our yard anyway!). We need some kids fall crafts and fast!

You can find a few kids fall crafts over at Idea Queen. My favorite of course being the Apple Art.  This was one of my favorites as a kid. If you have an apple tree, this is even better. No worries about “wasting” apples since apple trees can produce a lot of apples.

A new fall craft my kids have done in preschool includes painting with leaves. The idea is to paint with similar colors as the leaves to make a “fall” picture. They use real leaves too, picked up off the ground that have fallen. I always love seeing those paintings come home! (This is the 4th year in a row I’ve had a kid in preschool).

Of course you can’t have fall decorations without putting together a scarecrow. Instructions (in case you need them) can also be found on our fall crafts page.

Be sure to drop by if you have something to add, or leave us a comment here. Have fun!

Kids love to cook, especially fun and unique recipes. On our easy recipes for kids page at Idea Queen, you’ll find several really cool and fun recipes for kids. Things such as “Jig-time Tarts”, “Baboon Butter”, and “Yogi Pear Pops”.

Those fun recipes actually come from the ebook also listed on this page. You’ll find the ones above, plus a whole lot more. 120 recipes in all are included in the ebook, and it’s only $3!

Some other fun recipes for kids you’ll find on this page (and in the ebook) include an edible play dough recipe, cakes, and even “real” food (not just snacks and sugar!).

So if you are looking for fun recipes for kids, drop on by Idea Queen and take a peek!

Searching for inexpensive Christmas crafts? It’s never too early to start, especially if some of those crafts are to be gifts!

The most inexpensive crafts are going to be those you do right at home without buying any “kits”. Idea Queen has several ideas if this is something you plan to be doing. If you are doing crafts with kids, we have a whole page on free Christmas crafts for kids. We’ve also got a page set aside just for ornament crafts (our Christmas tradition - we make these every year!).

Now for those really spectacular crafts, you might be looking for a craft kit instead. If you’ve searched your Dollar stores and other local places, you may be now searching online. Amazon is a great place to look for inexpensive Christmas crafts. Other stores have great craft kits as well, so be sure you look around. Amazon just happens to be one of my top picks because of the selection and how easy it is to order.

Good luck in your search!

Does it seem a little early to be thinking of Halloween treats? It does to me, but I’m seeing discussion about it already! If you are planning a party in mid October, I suppose it’s good to think ahead.

One of my favorite easy Halloween treats are what we like to call just “bugs”. We’ve gone so far as to have them for a complete supper in the fall months (and even other times of year when they just sounded really good!).

All you need is a can of roll out biscuit dough, little smokies, shoe string fries (the crispy kind that come in a can), and ketchup/mustard for decoration.

Take the biscuits and cut them to roll around the little smokies (sorta like “pigs in a blanket”). Bake them according to the directions on the biscuits. Let them cool a little, then stick the fries in to make them look like legs. Then use the ketchup and mustard for eyes and spots. This is my kids favorite part! We usually use a toothpick to dip in ketchup and mustard to make the dots - much easier than trying to squeeze out only a tiny dot.

There’s other easy Halloween recipes available on Idea Queen, as well as information on a fun ebook that includes recipes and craft ideas.

Happy Halloween!