Enchanting massage oils for Valentines

January 31, 2017January 30, 2017Leave a comment

While we had the vampire valentines day theme last week, we’ll opt for a witch theme this week with love potions and enchanting massage oils. Valentines day should be about love and spending the day with your partner.

Its always a good idea to relax, and what better way to do that than massages and massage oils. Some oils are said to be stimulate your libido, these include black pepper, orange blossom, ilang-ilang, sandalwood ( now we know why so many male fragrances contain sandalwood 😉 ) and ginger. Therefore any one of these oils could help set the mood, similarly scented candles can do just as well.

If you’re in a DIY mood you could always make your own mixture for a relaxing sensual massage.

Massage oil for women.

25ml almond oil
10 drops wheat germ oil
3 drops ilang-ilang oil
3 drops geranium oil
2 drops sandalwood oil
2 drops English sage oil
2 drops orange blossom oil

Massage oil for men

20ml almond oil
5ml jojoba
4 drops Ginger
2 drops black pepper
4 drops sandalwood
2 drops lavender

Essence to burn in the bedroom ( in water or on the burner)

2 Drops ginger
2 drops English sage
2 drops ilang-ilang

Source Everybody’s Aromatherapy: A Comprehensive Guide for All Ages by Helen Ranger

A Witchy theme for Valentines Day

January 30, 2017January 25, 20174 Comments

This year I decided to change it up a little for valentines day so each week I’ll be featuring a different theme. Last week we had a Vampire theme but this week we’ll have a witch theme. This idea has a lot of wonderful features, from love potions, herb infused meals and massage oils to enchant your lover this Valentines day.

Today I have made a ‘Love Potion’ and a ‘Lust’ potion. I was watching Shrek 3 the other day and noticed that the fairy god mother added some lust, passion and desire to her little love potion so I decided to do the same and what better way to throw all caution to the wind than to include some alcohol :p

To start off you need some cute bottles that looks like it can hold potions. Then you’ll need some old paper to label your potion. I got my little bottles from our local Daiso store ( its like a $5 store). To make your paper look old, you can soak it in some tea and bake it in the oven for 5-10 minutes. It works better if you tear the paper before baking it rather than after.

First pour some hot water in a container and leave a teabag in there for a few minutes

Then write your message on a piece of paper and place it in the container. Use the teabag to soak and colour the paper. Make sure you wet the whole piece of paper then remove and place in a baking pan or dish in the oven for 5 minutes. If you feel that you need a more burned look you can leave it in for another 5-8 minutes.

I glued the paper to the bottles with syrup. That way I could easily remove it after use and reuse the bottles for something else later on.

I made two different cocktails mainly because the first one had grapefruit in it and my husband doesn’t care much for grapefruit. The second one I made with berry juice instead that’s also evident in the colours of the two ‘potions’. I also used LOTS of Vodka…maybe too much, so if you don’t mind a very strong vodka flavour in your drinks you can rather use 1 shot vodka per cup of juice. To be honest the drink is very potent so if you’re not used to drinking rather go for the softer version, because I only had a small sip here and there to taste the drinks and at one stage I was swinging around the living room… not really ideal when you’re preparing stuff for the blog.

Love potion

Ingredients

8 Tablespoons grapefruit juice
2 tablespoons apple or white grape juice
4 tablespoons strawberry Vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

Lust Potion

6tablespooons Grapefruit juice
2 tablespoons Berry juice
4 tablespoons strawberry vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

As mentioned above you can do a milder version of either one of the drinks by using 1 cup of juice for every shot of Vodka. You could also try my White wine sangria recipe.

Split review

January 27, 2017January 24, 2017Leave a comment

This past weekend we went to see Split. I have been waiting for this movie for a while now. I’m a huge fan of James McAvoy and especially like his movies with a psychological undertone. I’ve seen Filth, which was a bit depressing, and absolutely loved Trance.

Image source www.movienewsguide.com

This review contains spoilers.

The movie is about a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb. As a child he had an abusive mother and this caused the young boy to develop 23 distinct personalities. In the movie we are only introduced to 8 of the 23 personalities. McAvoy does an amazing job in portraying all of these personalities. In the movie there is a scene where, faced with the death of Kevin, all the personalities takes a turn in the “light” within a matter of minutes, each with their own manner of speaking, voice, gestures, reported age and physical features, for example Dennis, a big bulky guy is strong and can carry a girl around like she’s nothing while Hedwig, a 10 year old boy personality can’t even push a door open while the girls push it closed. Here McAvay was just brilliant. Its movies like this that shows just how versatile an actor can be.

I’ve always thought that its amazing that a person could split their personalities, I know that its because of trauma that this disassociation happens but its still amazing to think that our minds can help protect us by developing different and sometimes stronger personalities.

In Split, Kevin has more docile personalities and then he has what the other personalities call “The Horde” which consists of the more dangerous/volatile personalities that Kevin possesses. These are the personalities that are more bad-ass, so to speak. For example, Dennis is a perfectionist, that came to the fore when Kevin was just 8 years old. Kevin’s mother was abusive but if everything stayed clean then she would punish Kevin less, therefore the perfectionist Dennis was a real saviour in this situation.

Overall the movie focused on how one personality may have a physical illness etc while the others had not, it also refers to a study found in 2015 of a blind women who lost her sight after a traumatic event in her 20’s that suddenly regained her eyesight in 8 out of her 10 personalities. According to the study the women’s brain scans showed that her sight spontaneously recovered. Source www.medicaldaily.com The movie therefore focused on the assumption that if a personality believes something to be true it could happen. For example Jade, one of Kevin’s personalities, had diabetes while the others did not, even though they all live within one person.

The 24th personality the trailer talks about is called THE BEAST by the others, according to Dennis’s description of THE BEAST, he is much bigger than all the other personalities, he has long fingers that enables him to climb walls like a spider and his skin is impenetrable, he also feeds on young girls…EEEEK. When the Beast finally makes his appearance all these unbelievable characteristics are in fact true.

I really loved the movie although I thought that it dragged on a bit long before reaching the climax.

What did you think of this film?

Vampire inspired food ideas

January 26, 2017January 24, 20174 Comments

This week has been so much fun preparing so far. Today we can put together all the foods for our Vampire Valentines dinner. It will include some lovely tomato soup,some medium to raw steak with a cherry wine sauce and red velvet brownies. Also don’t forget your Vampire Blood cocktail

I’ve tried to use foods with shades of red because vampires when I think of vampires I always think of red and blacks.

Tomato soup

I’ve used my homemade soup recipe for this meal.

Steak and sauce

Red wine and cherry sauce

1tbs honey
2 tbs sugar
1 cup pitted cherries
1 cup red wine

Heat the honey in a pan on a low heat, add the cherries then add the sugar. Let it simmer until the sugar has disolved. Add the wine and bring to a simmer. This sauce is great to add to steak. You can even cook the steak or pieces of beef in this sauce for a lovely bold wine infused taste.

I’ve chosen steak because vampires would probably be more into meaty dishes than vegetables…. you can cook the steak the way you prefer, but I made mine extra raw for visuals.

Red Velvet and Oreo truffle brownies.

Red velvet brownies. To keep things simple for the brownies I used a red velvet mug recipe as it reduces the baking time especially since Valentines day is on a week day this year and you might not have a lot of time to prepare your meal.

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INGREDIENTS

3 tbsp buttermilk
1½ tbsp vegetable oil
red gel food colouring
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
pinch salt
4 tbsp self-raising flour, see notes

Truffle topping

4 Oreo cookies
1 tablespoon cream cheese
100g melting chocolate

Mix all the wet ingredients together. Then and the sugar cocoa and salt. Whisk mixture together. Fold in the self-raising flour. Grease a square (5×3 1/2 inc) microwave proof container. Microwave at high for 1-1/12 minutes.

Crush the Orea cookies and melt the cream cheese in the microwave (1/2 minute). Mix the cookies and cream cheese together and scoop onto the red velvet cake. You will have to help the mixture along with your finger. Top with melted chocolate and cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes. It could also be served warm.

….and there it is, your vampire inspired Valentines dinner.

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Vampy Valentines Lingerie

January 24, 2017January 22, 20172 Comments

In lieu of the vampire theme for Valentines day, you have to FEEL like a vampire and what better way to achieve this than in what we wear.

My father once told me that the devil won’t be ugly, he’ll hide in the most attractive of people. This reminds me of the spell that Dracula use to have over women. Therefore being vampy does not only include looking like a vamp but also having a certain charm over people.

For my vampire lingerie and accessories I have chosen a few things that would be classy and not just vampy. In other words we’ll leave Halloween for Halloween.

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