Mid-Month Review December

Hello, I have decided since this month I have tried a few new things and totally fell in love with them I would share them with all of you!

#1 WICKED MIX-SPICY HOT CHIPOTLE.  OMG, I am in love with this snack mix.  Only problem is I have no clue where to buy it.  It was in a gift basket at work and I ended up eating the whole bag!  If you find this mix when you are out, PLEASE for the love of God message me where you seen it!  I have emailed the company in hopes for a list of retailers in Canada!

Anyways this is a snack for anyone who like salty, sweet plus a lot of heat.  If you stop eating your mouth starts on fire and lasts up to a few minutes.  I am not normally someone who enjoys the burning sensation in my mouth but for some reason this is different.  The sweetness of the check mix keeps you reaching for more!  It has morsels of nuts, pretzels, and cereal squares.  DELICIOUS.  I wish I could offer a price point and retail location but that is TBD and I will update as soon as I hear back from the company.  I give this snack mix ***** (5 Stars)

UPDATE ON WICKED MIX- So within 24 hours I was contacted by Alex @Wicked Mix who delivered the following news :-(

"Thanks you so much for your awesome note! We are thrilled when we receive such great feedback. To tell you a little bit about us, we are a fairly new company (just about a year and a half old) and we make our product in Little Rock AR. WE have been growing like crazy since we started and are just ecstatic of how much people share our love for Wicked Mix!

The gift basket you received was our first introduction to Canada and would love to do more sales over there. If you have any suggestions of your favorite gourmet shops please let us know and I’ll be happy to contact them.

We are also working on getting sales through Amazon worked out."
So if you have any ideas or contacts with whom I could pass along to Alex as to where he could sell this product I am sure he would be happy.  In the mean time lets all take a second to hit the LIKE button on their Facebook page and tell them that Shannon Fraser sent you!!! Click this link to be sent to their page! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wicked-Mix/572040806175061


#2 St. Ives Even and Bright Pink Lemon and Mandarin Orange Body Wash

Want to feel refreshed and awake after your shower!  This has been my favorite body wash EVER! I will admit that when it comes to body wash I never really stick with one brand.  Also when you coupon you end up with many different kinds and cant be loyal to one brand, however! I think since I fell in love with this one so much I will be donating my stock pile because this is a keeper!
The website says: "Polish away little imperfections with new St. Ives^® Even & Bright Bodywash. This invigorating body wash blends just the right combination of Pink Lemon & Mandarin Orange with 100% Natural Exfoliants. Use daily with St. Ives^® lotions for even, brighter looking skin!"  THAT IT DID!!
It retails at Walmart for $5.47 which is very comparable to other body washes price wise.  I give this body wash ***** (5 Stars)

Let me know if you try either of these products!
xoShannon

Crock Pot Christmas Mix Recipe

1/4 cup melted margarine
1 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups pretzel sticks
1 1/2 cup salted peanuts
2 cups cheerios
2 cups shreedies
1 1/2 cups cheese bits/crackers

Combine first 6 ingredients and stir well.  Add the remaining ingredients in a large bowl.  Drizzle butter mixture over the dry ingredients. 
Transfer to slow cooker.  Cook on high for 2 hours making sure to stir every 30 minutes.
Let cool.  Store in freezer bags or air tight containers.

xoShannon

Christmas Baking Shannielle Style!

Ha!  Guess what we did this weekend?  If you guessed we made a huge mess then you are right!!  If you also guessed that I had a PINTREST fail, you are also right!! But, we had two kids that ended up in sugar coma's that said they had an awesome night!!!

Christmas baking was a success! Danielle and I planned what we were going to bake a head of time to ensure that we had all required ingredients.  We decided on easy recipes and also stuff we already had in our cupboards. 
So without further ado here is how our night went:
We started out with the most time consuming but funniest recipe to keep the kids involved:  No Chill Sugar Cookies.

Yes, Benny is baking in his underwear!

Arleigh hard at work

Before heading to the oven

In the meantime while the cookies were baking and cooling we started on a few other recipes.  Crock pot bits & bites and peanut butter rice crisp balls (this was my PINTREST FAIL).  After we had started the other two and put aside we had the kids start to decorate their sugar cookies.  For anyone who knows Danielle's son Bentley his middle name is Willy Wonka so he was in heaven with all the Cake Mate Scribblers icing!

After we cleaned the sticky mess we finished off the other treats we had on the go

Okay now for all of you who are interested in the first official Pin Fail here it is:  Mine is on the right and what it is suppose to look like in on the left.

 Anyways it may not have looked great but they tasted awesome!  And for our final recipe we decided on a Canadian favorite: Butter Tarts.

Once all the baking was done, cleaned up and the kids were in bed Danielle and I had a chance to decorate our own sugar cookies.

Danielle's

Shannon's

**If you would like to have the recipies that we used please leave a comment below

Shannon vs Pintrest Round 1

Hello All!
It has been a while since I last posted but to be completely honest I have never been so busy!  Working three jobs has taken up most of my spare time. 
Although I did manage to hit up the Eric Church concert (which I might add was AMAZING)
with some friends (The Rathbone's) for some much needed down time.

Anyways as promised way back when I decided to venture into the world of blogging I said that I enjoy challenging Pintrest.  So here is my first official blog attempting a PIN.
I was super excited when this project showed up on my home page and knew I had to attempt it for my front porch. (original blog where I got the idea: http://smartgirlsdiy.com/2013/12/7th-day-of-christmas-danish-nisse/)

Supplies:
~3 different size pieces of wood cut diagonal at one end
~White and Red acrylic paint
~3 pom poms for the noses
~6 buttons for the eyes
~Thick Christmas themed ribbon
~Glue gun
~Staple gun

I was pretty happy the way that they turned out.

A special thanks to Stephanie and her husband Keith for taking the time to cut the trees for this project!!
Please let me know if you get the chance to ad this project to your Christmas decor ;-)

Breaking Rad: Blood, Sweat & Tears

Welcome to the long awaited blog about how to make your friends cry....oh ya and how to make Horse Radish!
As the saying goes "A picture is worth a thousand words" but in our case it was a THOUSAND TEARS!

Over the last year I have been asked a thousand times how I make my deadly horse radish, well first off you need to recruit a new team every year (because after doing it once no one, other then me, will every be crazy enough to do it again!)

Once you have your new recruits in place you have to DIG up (and by dig I mean bribe your husband to dig it up). 
The root usually grows wild along the road but I have a cousin who has it growing wild in their field so that's where we went.  To identify the plant I usually just Google what the leaves look like. 

Here is a picture of it that I took before starting to dig

Once you have enough root dug up, call on your sucker "friends" to come and start to clean.  This process should be done outside with a garden hose, but in our case we were babies and it was cold out so we opted to clean it in large bowls with a scrub brush and luke warm water.

Cleaned

Once you have it all scrubbed clean of the mud you can begin to peel the radish.  We used potato peelers and a pairing knife to clean off the bark-like skin.  

Up until this point your friend have not shed any tears but in the next step you may want to advise them to put on their required gear!

Preparing to CUT the radish

Since I love my friends I made sure I took the deadly job of using the food processor.  If you hate your friends have them do that job!
Chop up the radish into bite size pieces and put it in the processor, add some vinegar and chop until desired texture.  I like horse radish to be fine and well minced.
**Make sure to step away and DO NOT breath in when you lift the lid of the food processor, it will burn your lungs.

Once you have all your root chopped and minced start to transfer to jars. This job also makes for a ton of tears so the quicker you can get it done the better.

Viola!  Horse Radish made and friends potentially lost!

I am so thankful my friends are hopefully still my friends but I know I am starting to recruit for next year!
Any takers??

Please leave a comment below if you would like to know more about the process.

Artsy Fartsy! Let's Get Crafty!

Our first "girls craft, food and drinks" night was a total hit!  According to all the likes from our friends on Facebook everyone also liked our easy to do Halloween craft!  When I first planned the craft I figured that we would have our completed projects within an hour and we would spend the remainder of the night eating, drinking and laughing.  All of those did happen, however the craft took us about 6 hours! YES SIX HOURS and that's not because of all the drinking and eating we were doing, it was because of waiting on the paint to dry.  I must warn you if you want to attempt this craft you should prime your surfaces first.
All of our supplies were purchased at the Dollarama and cost a total of $11.
~Paint (your choice of colours)
~Brushes
~Wine Glasses

 This was a great starter craft and we had tons of fun dong it.  

As I stated above we waited and waited and waited in between coats, but the end product was totally worth it!

When planning our night we decided that we would each also bring an appetizer to snack on throughout the evening.  I must say the food, company, drinks and activity was so much fun.  I definitely would recommend to get a group together and try it out!

(Pizza Dip, Chicken Buffalo and Epicure's Extraordinary Cheese Dip) 

For more information on the craft or the appetizers leave me a comment and I will reply as soon as possible!~Shannon

A Morning Full of Teddy Bears~Build-A-Bear

Today Danielle and I ventured into the BIG CITY with two little friends to hit up Build-A-Bear Workshop.

As we packed up the car with snacks and car seats the kids were excited.  This was Bentley's first visit and Josie's second to Build-A-Bear.

The kids quickly chose their new friends and waited patiently inline for their turn to "fluff" their pets.

If you have not yet visited, it really is a fun place to take kids.  The sales associates are fantastic and kept them both engaged the whole time.  After the kids placed the hearts in their bears they were off to bath and dress them.

 

(This is when the experience can go from affordable to selling your first born to pay the bill!)  All the clothing is sold separate and can range in price from $2 to $22.  They have everything you can think of to dress your bear from roller skates to wheel chairs!

 Overall the kids had a great time and were so excited to get their new friends Mikey and Diamond home to play and meet their other stuffies.
And of course in true "Shannielle" fashion we did have COUPONS!

**If you are wanting to visit and use the Build-A-Bear coupon that Danielle & I did please visit:
http://couponscanada.smartcanucks.ca/get/build-a-bear-coupon-canadaThe coupon is on page 5 of 7

Small Haul Ya'll!~Coupons Only

Yesterday I shared a post about what I hoped to accomplish and write about in this blog and was very overwhelmed with all of the support that everyone has showed. THANK YOU <3
A few people mentioned that they would love to hear how we (Danielle & I) get so many great deals couponing.  So today I did a small haul using only coupons and spent a total of $11.35 for the items in the picture below:

The above items should have cost me approximately $29.00 so I saved close to $18.00 and will not need to purchase bathroom cleaner for a while! 
It was the start of Walmart's Anniversary sale and they have some really great deals.  The coupons that I used today were from a few different places.  I had internet coupons, tear off's found at No Frills, and inserts that come in your local paper.

The break down for the items were:
Scrubbing Bubbles $2.00-1.50 (coupon) = .50 each (news paper inserts)
Dove Deodorant (74g) $2.84-$2.00 (coupon) = .84 each (internet coupons)
Tylenol Sinus (20 tab) $4.94-$3.00 (coupon) = 1.94 each (tear off from No Frills)

My Very First Blog~Whats in Store!

I am so excited to finally be writing my very first blog!  This has been in the back of my mind for a while now and something I have wanted to do.  I really need a push to get going and today seemed perfect!
I am excited to write about all things that I get up to over the next little while.  I enjoy cooking and baking and will be sure to show you some of my many favorite fall recipes.  I also love to read and will provide some book reviews but most of all I love to challenge PINTREST!  I promise to document my trials and tribulations of Pintrest as they happen. 

Like I said in the "About Me" section I have a BEST friend named Danielle and hopefully she will be writing on this blog as well since she has some really fun ideas and things she does with her kids.  She is always making them super cute lunches and keeping them busy with many crafts and games. 

Very recently we were both introduced into couponing and price matching so you can bet there will be MANY blogs about that since it has literally taken over every spare minute of our free time.  We are currently both learning and are excited to share our buys with everyone.

Welcome to my Journey!