natural body lovin'

this post is going to be about exactly what it says it's about, loving your body naturally! i will be trying out and posting about all kinds of natural remedies for everything from common ailments like cuts and bites, to specifics like a natural decongestant for a chesty cough.
(i've even got, not one, but three natural hangover cures lined up to try out, which of course means that because i am a thorough, fair and honest blogger, i'll tell you that i don't drink all that much anymore! so i will be testing them on my man. he doesn't know this yet, hehe)


but to start us off, let's look at a few general items...

what do you think they have in common?
three of them are common household items that have secret identities! the fourth, rose hip oil, has been gaining in main stream popularity over the past few years, and i thought i'd throw in in for good measure. i'll be looking at all four of these natural health goldmines over the next few days, but for now...

let's start with garlic, just because if it were a man, i would be having a love affair with it. i love garlic. i love the way it smells, i love the way it tastes, i love the way that it flavours other foods it's cooking with. but garlic has a secret, one that makes it all the more loveable: it is a natural medicine chest all by itself!
i know that sounds like a bold claim, but garlic has well known antiseptic, antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. seriously, stop and take a moment to really understand all those 'anti's coming from a single tiny little clove!
if you can stomach raw garlic, eat it if you feel a sore throat coming on, or mix it in with some honey and you've got a sucker punch of natural cold fighting power right there. cook with it often, and recent studies are suggesting that you will be helping to lower your risk of getting cancer while simultaneously aiding your cardiovascular health by keeping your arteries clean and clear (as a side note, i am a scientist when it comes to these kind of claims; i like to see cold hard proof, which is why i have underlined the word 'suggesting'. however, i truly believe that living as natural a lifestyle as possible, eating a diet focusing on unprocessed foods will take you much closer to being disease free than someone who does not. it only makes sense, our bodies are natural machines, they need natural fuel to run).
as a home remedy though, garlic is wonderful for it's cold fighting powers and it's antiseptic nature. rub the exposed face of a cut garlic clove on small cuts and grazes to keep them clean and germ free, naturally. plus, if you're any where near me, i'll probably want to make friends with you.


*as a bit of a disclaimer: i am not a doctor. this post is based around my own personal experience, and research that i have done, so please use it wisely and do not use it in lieu of professional medical advice.
ta :)

x

crafty love (handmade gifts from the heart)

a cute little way to show your love with a thrifting gift!

 

i had the idea for this bottle of "my love" (the letters read: X MY LOVE) when i found the bottle in an op shop.
(my man thought it was the cutest thing ever when i gave him a bottle of my love to keep - yeah, i'm a sooky romantic when i want to be)

how did i make it?

1st: the letters were easy: cut out some letters from a piece of cardboard (from a used cereal box or something similar) and paint them, or you could cut them out of a magazine and stick them to cardboard for a bit of strength, then stick them to pegs.

2nd: the pegs are easily raidable from your parents laundry (my mum had heeaaaps), or if not, you can still buy wooden pegs out there at supermarkets, or get craft sized ones at arts and crafts stores (if the rest of the idea is eco, i'm sure we're forgiven for buying one thing new, as long as they're not plastic!).

3rd: the twine the letters are pegged onto and from around the top of the bottle came from under my kitchen sink.

4th: i measured out the string/twine, so that there was just enough to hang each end in the jar without touching the bottom, and wind around the neck a few times. then i pegged the letters to each end of the string and hung one end in the jar. i wound the middle of the string around the neck of the jar to provide a bit of an anchor to help hold the string the letters are hanging on in place, and then dropped the other end of the string in the jar so both ends were in. then i held the string in place with one hand as i screwed the lid on with the other.

now, a note to make this a little bit easier when screwing the jar lid on: try to have the string coming out of the bottle a little left of centre before you screw the jar lid on, because when you do, it drags the string with it as it turns. if you have the string a little left of centre and hold it tight, the lid should drag it straight as it turns right and tightens.

5th: tie a bit of extra twine in a bow around the lid to make it pretty.

and to finish; give it to someone you love!

x

beautiful planet

choc banana ice dream with walnuts

amaaaaazing chocolate and banana vegan ice cream!! it's perfect if you don't like or can't eat dairy, and you're craving ice cream. i know that bananas are expensive at the moment, but if you find some particularly ripe ones that are on sale at the fruit store, they'll work just fine, as riper bananas tend to flavour better when cooking with them.


Preparation time: 10mins (+ approx. 5 hours freezing time)
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:

• 550g (1lb) frozen banana
•  ½ lemon, juice only
• 295g (10oz) silken tofu
• 1 tbs cocoa powder
• 1 tbs honey or agave nectar
• 125g (4oz) dark dairy-free chocolate, chopped into smallish chunks
• 50g of raw walnuts

1. Blend the frozen banana with the silken tofu, lemon juice, cocoa powder and honey or agave nectar until thick and smooth.
2. Add the chopped chocolate and walnuts and blend for another 30 seconds or until the chocolate and nuts are mixed through and there is still lots of chocolate and walnut chunks mixed through.
3. Serve straight away as a soft cold pudding or freeze in an air-tight container for up to 5-6 hours until just firm. If it freezes to a point where it is too hard, allow it to soften a little before serving.
    
4. Enjoy! 

there are heaps of online resources for vegetarian and vegan recipes but Veggie Num Num would have to be my favourite (i realise the name is a little quirky, but it's literally the noise you make when you're eating this ice cream, so i kind of understand where it came from).

x

beautiful planet

lip service

winter is coming. And so is the need for a sturdy lip balm to protect your luscious pink bits from the wind and the cold! Or if you are like me, you have this need all year round.

As a bit of background, my skin in notoriously sensitive. 

To everything. 

And when I say everything, I mean to the extent that the face cream I use can not have any chemicals in it at all, or my skin dries out, or breaks out, or flakes off. Even if it is an all natural cream, if it’s too oily, the oil will sit on my skin to the point I reflect the moonlight on a cloudy night. If it is too dry, we revert to the flake out situation. Needless to say, my lips are also, shall we say, delicate. I have been through hundreds of dollars worth of lip cosmetics, all to find that each and every one of them turn my lips into swollen, cracked and blistered lumps of misery. It does not matter how expensive, or extensive the list of supposedly brilliant ‘softening’, ‘moisturising’ and ‘conditioning’ ingredients in any of them, the result was the same; me looking like I’d had botox done by Edward scissor hands.

So, I did something that I should have done at the very beginning of my soft-and-smooth seeking journey, and that was to go back to basics. Search out what mother nature has laid out for me, so balanced and perfect for my neurotic skin. And I was rewarded in my search. I have found the most perfect product I could have ever hoped for. It is moisturising, conditioning, protective, and it looks amazing, making my lips look full and lush. It’s not too sticky, yet it doesn’t rub off or absorb too quickly. And the icing on the cake is the fact that it is made from 100% natural ingredients.

Hand on heart, I’m honestly not being paid to say any of this!

I’ve been using it for at least 6 months now, and the larger 80 gram tube (that’s big for lip balm), that it comes in hasn't even come close to running out yet. To be honest, it’s actually labeled ointment but even the tube says it makes a great lip balm, and it also comes in a smaller, 30 gram more lip gloss sized tube. So if you have size restrictions regarding purse space, there’s an option for you. I buy it from my local organic supermarket (I haven’t found it anywhere else). When I bought it, it was under $15 for the large tube, which is a bargain for how much I love it!

So without further ado, here is my new best friend!

natural alternative 'certified organic paw paw ointment'

(Natural Alternative have a beautiful web site with plenty of other fantastic looking products, if you are interested.)

 

After I had realised how amazing this stuff is, I started sharing it with anyone who would listen, trying to turn them onto it, but in return I got some paw paw facts that were really quite interesting. One elderly lady (who turned out to be a lot older than she looked) swore by paw paws. She ate the flesh of a quarter of one every day for breakfast and then rubbed the remaining goo on the inside of the paw paw skin on her hands and face, as a skin treatment. I know that’s sounds a bit home remedy, but if it has worked for someone else (after decades of trial), why not try it? It’s not like you are going to have a reaction to the chemicals in it (haha).  A bit of googling came up with a few websites detailing the medical interests surrounding pawpaw as a medicinal fruit, including documented cases of pawpaw derived cancer treatments! (see here and here and here). I also looked into alternative pawpaw options, and although there is a few out there, watch out as some of the most popular ones are petroleum based. 

I hope that this has been informative and helpful!

x

saturday seconds sneak peek

so this saturday was a particularly bountiful one, so much so that it was necessary to have a second post!

   

these beautiful little port goblets came from a garage sale that caught my eye on the way home from satisfying my op shopping cravings (yes, a garage sale, after all my op shopping i still couldn’t help but stop after i saw the sign) when i got home with all my treasures, my man gave me an exasperated and knowing (but of course still loving) look.

but back to the treasure at hand. 

i took my beautiful little goblets down to the beach to get a few happy snaps, and to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the water. consider these as ‘before’ photos. 

i'm so enchanted with them!

can’t wait to show you the ‘after’ photos! i have a really cute idea for these. it requires a little creative talent, so it should be a learning process for all involved. check back later for an update.

x

treasure chest

A few weeks ago I was talking with a jewellery and accessory business owner at a function, and after a few minutes of polite ‘Oh, you look lovely, where did you get your dress’ kind of talk, she stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence and grabbed a long gold necklace off her display and put it around my neck.

“Look,” she said, with an air of satisfaction, “this just completes your outfit! Now, I mean this in the best way possible, but while that’s a beautiful dress, and you have put a beautiful necklace with it, this one suits your outfit so much more! You see, if you are-”, (here she paused, looking for a way to say ‘short’ that wouldn’t come across offensively, so I just put it out there: “short?”), “well, yes, if you are shorter, long dresses tend to exacerbate the situation somewhat, and make you look shorter still. A long necklace counteracts this.” After showing off her accessorising expertise by reflecting the truth back at me (that in fact, the longer gold heart pendant necklace did look nicer and complete my outfit) with a hand held mirror, I agreed with her, but not enough to agree with the price tag. 

So, after that conversation of enlightenment, the next day I raided all of my old and somewhat dilapidated accessory collection to see if I could put anything together that would achieve the desired effect. 

And thus follows my result.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it sure is cute. 

I love the little love birds! They came from an old set of earrings that I think I wore once and that’s about it. I have owned the heart and chain for years, and to be honest I can’t remember where they came from but they look good. All together I think the set have a really sweet charm to them.

And they make me look taller!

x

saturday seconds

as i mentioned yesterday, i am a lover of second hand goodies. couple this with the fact that my best friend and i have a weekend tradition of browsing second hand shops for treasures (in reality we're more like kids waiting at a lolly store door with their allowance, waiting for it to open so we can rush in and clear the shelves as quickly as possible, so really if i wanted to be honest, i should say 'raid' here instead of 'browse'), and we have the second addition to my envisioned list of regular blog updates.

and i have dubbed it 'saturday seconds'! (as you can see)
so if you are interested in second hand shopping (which is also referred to as op shopping for future kim-slang reference), then this is the post for you.

Today's reason for excitement is:

pretty vintage, floral print blouse!!
(excuse the excessive punctuation use but i really am that excited)

i'm starting to collect goodies for my winter wardrobe, and i am also a lover of earthy colours, floral prints and flowy, feminine cuts. and vintage style. so this top is a winner all round.
it can go both ways season-wise. with shorts for an cute autumn throw on.

or with tights, boots and a plain or matched jacket for a full winter out fit.

plus a little bit of dress up fun :)

love x

street scores / the curb side collection

Today’s post is brought to you by my innate tendencies to be a snoopy curb side collection stalker. I can’t decide on the name for this section of the blog, so if anyone wants to comment on which one sounds better (I personally am starting to warm towards “the curb side collection” because i think it has character), or if you prefer to keep it as both, pipe up.

An awesome (and easy) way to reduce your impact on the environment and get a great bargain at the same time is to reuse the items that other people have gotten rid of. Often they are in pretty good condition, needing little or no attention to become a beautiful addition to your house or life. And so, this post is about just that; taking something that has been thrown out by someone else and using it again, that is, recycling it. 
From second hand shops, to garage sales, to curb side collection piles, I am an avid lover of seeking (and finding) treasures amongst the piles of stuff. A lot of people I know have a derogatory attitude towards using second hand things, but for those of you who think along this line, pay attention, vintage (read: used, old stuff) is in, so what easier (or more fashionable) way to be a little greener than to recycle old household items. Especially because they have a bit of character as well!

Now back on topic; for those of you who do not know what a curb side collection is, whether you are from a different country or just have no idea what i am talking about, it refers to when a household has had a general clean out of things they don’t want  any more and puts all the unwanted items on the curb to be picked up by local council workers and taken to the tip. Now this is generally not just rubbish (and by that I mean the stuff you put in the waste bin), but things like tables, mirrors, surfboards, old lounge sets, white goods, beds, toys, kitchenware, linen, clothes, you name it, I’ve seen it on a junk pile. When I was a kid, there was one morning every few months on which a fleet of rubbish trucks and men in overalls would be scheduled to roam the neighbourhood, removing these piles of unwanted goods, and so every few months, households accordingly threw all their junk onto the curb side at night to have it magically disappear the next morning. The potentiality of these refuse piles was like music to my 8 year old heart. My ever patient mother and I would roam the streets, and I would dart from pile to pile while she held a torch for me to see, both of us scattering and giggling when a porch light came on or there was movement in the house on our approach. I would come home smiling from ear to ear, with a backpack full of goodies, some only slightly used, others loved to near death, but all about to be loved some more by an overly excited new owner. 

Nowdays i am (a little bit) older and (supposedly) grown up, I have somehow misplaced most of my shame and raid these piles in broad daylight (it helps having one hand free not having to hold the torch), and on more than one occaision, I have had to return home and come back with my car to retrieve my finds. Admittedly, some of the things that “follow” me home are added to my own curb side collection pile sometimes only months later, but most of them find a new home with me, to be loved some more by someone new. Now obviously i am not going to go sneaking off with someone’s used toilet seat, for those of you reading this thinking “ew, someone else’s used stuff”. These expeditions generally yield treasures such as interesting, unique paintings, furniture (not used mattresses, one sentence: someone else’s skin cells), rugs (which, keep in mind, are washable), and other little tid bits that have 1000 re-uses for the creative type of person. on a good day, I am one of these people.

So this leads me to my subject for this post: the latest addition to my collection. Now, obviously I had to take photos of my latest find, and you would think, being that it is a mirror, I would hang it somewhere nice in my house and take some photos. But this is me, the self confessed beach-a-holic, so where else would i take my new mirror to capture its unique character but to the beach? Isn’t the point of a mirror to reflect life’s beauty?

 

Such a pretty mirror! 

Only the smallest amount of set up and of course, totally free. Love it.

To finish off, a few words on this section of the blog: I will be posting all of my curb side finds with a bit of a description of how I’m using them, how I have altered them for a new use, or ideas for either of these things, to hopefully provide a bit of inspiration for anyone wanting to revamp an old item or find something “new” with a bit of character to add to their home.

love x

beautiful planet - photography of miracles from my everyday.

The first green post.

Hi. Welcome to the first post on a blog that is going to be all about sustainable living, but in a way that won't have you feeling bad about the impact that every single car that drives past you is having on the environment.

While I would love to use this space to detail how it is possible for you to live as one with mother nature and still enjoy the freedom of using your mobile phone or other similarly un-environmentally friendly form of technology or lifestyle, sometimes it is not as practical (or affordable) to have the environmentally friendly version as a lot of us would like.

The plan for this blog is to fill it with handy tidbits of green living inspiration and information that is practical to incorporate into life as we know it without causing massive disruption or discomfort. It really doesn't take much to make a difference.

Although I would love to undo the degradation of this world, and change the consciousness of humanity into acceptance and love (as cheesy as that sounds, I truly believe that to love and to be loved are two of the most beautiful and important parts that can potentially found a full and happy life no matter who or where you are), it's a bit much to consider the task as a whole. So I'm starting with small steps. With a green living blog that has awesome little ideas to help anyone who wants to be just that little bit more eco, to feel just that little bit better about how they live their life with respect to their impact on our beautiful planet.
And all of this comes from my heart (hence the blog name), which I choose to follow because it hasn't led me wrong yet.
Oh, on one last note, I often don't use capitals because I am quaint and sometimes downright odd, so please do not be grammatically offended.
Love :)

*Post edit authors note: Due to my sporadic and wistful nature, the blog will also be playfully littered with (hopefully) interesting, and (I am aspiring to be) inspiring quotes, stories, photos, musings and anything else that catches my "this needs to be shared" eye.
x