eShakti Review and {GIVEAWAY- 2 Winners}!

Have you ever heard about eShakti?   If not, you are definitely missing out!  I was completely thrilled when eShakti offered to send me an item to review!   What is SO good about eShakti? eShakti believes that all women have the right to wear affordable fashion that is made for them and makes them look their absolute best.  They offer Ready-to-be made clothing as well as Customization.

Customization is like music to my ears because as many of you know, I just had a cute little girl 3 months ago.     I have two problems when it comes to clothing. First, I measure a medium everywhere on my body except for... well, my waist!  (I hope that I am not the only one with this problem.) Second, I am 5 feet tall and dresses pretty much drown me when it comes to length.  They are never where I want them to be.   I put eShakti to the test and took measurement of myself and had them send me a dress....  

  I am not lying to you when I tell you it is the most comfortable dress that I have because it actually FITS!  

  It also has pockets... A must when you have kiddos!  Another plus is that I can actually nurse my little girl with this dress too!   I will definitely order another dress from them!

   They offer sizes from 0-36W.  They are affordable and customizable.  How can you get better than that? Would you like to try a dress from eShakti? Well, eShatki is offering readers from Babblings and More two $25 gift certificates!!! Just enter below!   a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hip 2 Thrift: DIY Peppermint Wreath

Today we have a wonderful guest on our blog!  

It is Iuliana from Hip 2 Thrift!!  

She is super talented and has an amazing blog!  You definitely need to check it out!  Today she is going to show everyone how to make a DIY Peppermint Wreath. 

 Lets get to know a little bit about herself first...

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Hello awesome readers of Babblings and More. I am super excited to be guest posting here today. My name is Iuliana (read You-Lee-Ana ) and I have a tiny little corner of blog land called Hip2Thrift. As you may have gathered from the blog name...I like to thrift, or as my husband vocalizes on occasion - bring junk home. To him it's junk, but to me....a whole lot of opportunities.

When you look at old thrifted things, you can hate them for what you think they are...or love them for what they can become. I know...a little too deep when talking about thrift stores and garage sales:)

Here are just some of my popular projects that I've shared on the blog.

Today I'd like to share a very inexpensive and relatively quick project (I watched  Home Alone with the fam and finished the project before the movie was over). 

When I was posting about my fall decor and sort of apologetically explaining how I was putting up some decor from last year, a reader commented and said that decorating for holidays with things from previous years means we're creating traditions. That sounded really good to me, both because I love the idea of creating traditions with my own little family, and also because I now have a perfectly good explanation why I pull off the "so...two thousand late" card.

So, with this intro, behold my peppermint wreath. Oh how I love that it makes everything around be instantly  festive. Nothing beats a Dollar Store craft in my book.

1. I started out by piling up everything I thought would work for this wreath. The only thing I bought was the bag of star light mints from the Dollar Store.

2. I wrapped my wreath with some wide ribbon, to make it a little more even. But if you have a foam form, that would probably work even better. I was going for a cheap project and so I used what I had. Important tip: make sure you have enough ribbon BEFORE you glue your ribbon. As you can see I didn't. I decided to go ahead and make the wreath with only half of it covered with ribbon.

3. Then, I remembered I had the cutest washi tape ever, and just wrapped the rest of the wreath with that. It would've been nice to have it all covered with the tape. Oh well. Cheap, impatient and really interested in the movie I was watching with my hubs while doing this project.

I just glued the candies in no particular pattern. Put enough glue to cover the whole back of the candy, but not too much, because it will ooze out and not look pretty. I would press it down with my finger for a few seconds, to ensure proper adhesion.

4. When I finished gluing the peppermints, I went back and added a few red cake decorating beans in the spots where it looked kind of lonely empty.

5. Add some ribbon to attach it, make a cute bow and you're done! Super cute holiday wreath for $1.

Just a little tip/warning: If you're watching a movie while doing this, be careful not to burn your finger with your hot lava glue gun, like I did here.

Thank you so much for letting me be a guest here and I hope you will visit my blog and/or subscribe!

Homemade Peppermint Oreos

Who doesn't love a good cookie? Yesterday my daughter and I decided to make some cookies.  She is three years old and loves to make cookies for her 5 older brothers.  Everyday I ask her what she wants to do and she always says, "Make cookies for the boys!"  Funny girl!

So we decided to use the bag of peppermint baking chips that I had in my freezer.  This is what we came up with...

They are so yummy and not too "pepperminty".  My husband isn't a fan of peppermint, but I am!  So this was just the right balance.  I didn't use any peppermint extract, just the baking chips.

If you remember, I posted a recipe for Homemade Oreos earlier this year.  This is a fun and easy twist on that recipe.

To tell you the truth, I didn't have a cake mix that I used for my original homemade oreos, so I used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and added 6 TBS of Cocoa Powder and eliminated the chocolate chips.

This is the recipe that I used for the filling.

Filling:

1 - 8 ounce package of softened Cream Cheese

1/2 cup Shortening

Powdered Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla 

1 cup of peppermint baking chips

Mix together Cream Cheese and Shortening until smooth.  Add powdered sugar  and vanilla until you reach a spreading consistency.  Mix in about 3/4 cup of peppermint chips.  You may add food coloring if desired.  Put in between 2 cooled cookies.  Use the rest of the baking chips to roll around the cookies. Enjoy!

New Winner to the Undercover Mama!

We never heard from the first winner to our Undercover Mama Giveaway.    So we are going to choose another!   The new winner to the Undercover Mama is...

#31- Katy Schilz

Congrats Katy!!! 

I will email you, if I don't hear a response within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen. Thanks to all who entered! And for those of you who didn't win and would love to buy something...take a minute to stop by and visit Undercover Mama! 

We are looking for Guest Bloggers!

Hey Everyone! If you would like to guest post on Babblings and More, now is your chance!  A few months ago, we had some amazing guest bloggers and it was SO fun for us, so we decided to do it again!   We are looking for some guest posts (it can be old or new, holiday or not).  If any of you are interested just email us at babblingsandmore at gmail.com and we will schedule you ASAP.    We look forward to hearing from you!  Thanks!