I’ve seen a lot of women wearing those cute charm bracelets. You know the ones that you can buy the bracelet and add beads that are significant to you.  Maybe a birth stone, a charm that signifies your job, whatever.  I looked into those one time.  Super cute, lots of choices, but way out of my budget.  I couldn’t bring my self to pay $40 or more for 1 small metal charm.

Soufeel offers charm bracelets similar to those name brands but at a price that’s much easier to actually create a bracelet.  They still have lots of options: birth stones, careers, children, pets, love, whatever you want your bracelet to represent.  They even have a good selection of charms for the holidays!

I  had the opportunity to choose a few holiday charms for review.  They had so many pretty and cute choices that I had a hard time deciding.

I love picking things like snowflakes and the cute hot cocoa charm above because it doesn’t have to be necessarily Christmas but I could wear it all winter. It’s nice to have the Christmas ones too like the poinsettia charm.  You can easily add to your Soufeel charm collection and change out your bracelets depending on the season or occasion.

The charms are compatible with Pandora and other name brand charm bracelets. Every charm on my bracelet was $20 or less. The snowflake charm is actually on sale for $9.99 right now! These charms have a little weight to them. They are not made cheaply.  You can get the starter bracelet for as low as $20 too.

Charm bracelets don’t have to break the bank.  Visit Soufeel.com and tell me which charms are your favorite.

 

I received the above mentioned products in order to complete an honest review. Any opinions expressed are my own. 

 

 

This is a cool little subscription box that I have a few people interested in even before I posted this review, because I loved the concept and had to talk about it. RawSpiceBar is an affordable gift idea for the foodie or cook.  The idea is simple but for someone like me who is always looking for new dinner ideas, this subscription box is the key to the “what’s for dinner” question, at least for a day or two.  My family and I aren’t afraid to try something different when it comes to food.

Each box is themed with a different region or country.  The one I received featured Ethiopian spices and recipes.  As far as I know, I’ve never tried Ethiopian dishes or spices before. I received 3 recipes to use my spices with:   A main dish recipe, a side dish recipe, and a dessert recipe.  And three spices: Ethiopian Mitmita, Berbere, and Pumpkin Pie Spice.

Here is a little about RawSpiceBar spices:

• Freshly ground: ­ Our spices are whole toasted, ground and blended just a few days before we ship directly to your door so you can have your spices the way you have your coffee (fresh!).
• Perfectly sized: ­Each of our spice blends are perfectly portioned to create a dish serving 8-12. Our recipes are kitchen tested and loved- and almost always will include an option for vegans, carnivores and vegetarians.
• Spice discovery:­ Our blends are from old family recipes or our curated chefs- so you can explore new spice blends from experts all year long.

I love that each of the spice packets have a description of the spice itself and what actually is used in the packet.  There’s no crazy scientific or chemical sounding words.  Just simple stuff like “sweet paprika” and “star anise” to highlight just a couple.

The dessert recipe called Pumpkin Spice Dabo Kolo (Ethiopian Pumpkin Spice Ricotta Donuts) sounded really interesting to me.  I already had all the ingredients at home. The Main dish recipe Key Wat (Spicy Ethiopian Stewed Beef) sounded absolutely delish and I couldn’t wait to try that as well. Especially because someone actually helped me out with a dinner idea.  If I ask the kids or my husband it’s “whatever you feel like making”.  Gah!

I made the Key Wat for supper.  The spices were fragrant.  I could tell though that this was gonna be a spicy dish. The spices tingled my nose while I was cooking.

It smelled so good.  The recipe recommends serving it with something like injera, couscous, or butternut squash.  I had couscous in my cupboard so that’s what we went with.

I took a few bites and it was very flavorful. Then the spice crept up on me. My kids like spicy things (except my 2 year old). They all ate it (with a big glass of cold milk handy).  It sort of reminded be of a General Tso’s beef with 3 stars.  I know my husband is going to love it, this is right up his alley.

So after all the spice I decided to try out the Pumpkin Spice Dabo Kolo.  As I was mixing things up I realized there was a bit of a discrepancy in the recipe for this one.  The first step tells you to mix up several of the ingredients including butter. Unfortunately, butter is never mentioned in the ingredients.  So I went online to the site and found the recipe where the butter was listed as an ingredient.  Then MY ingredient list had 2 tsp of baking powder but never said what to do with it.  So I checked the site and baking powder isn’t listed at all.  So I added it anyway. They seemed to turn out alright lol.

They aren’t sweet at all.  But they suggest using honey as a dip which really made the difference.  The idea kind of reminded me of sopapillas.  The kids seemed to like them.

We broadened our palates today.  I probably would have never tried these dishes without rawspicebar.  For only $6 a month, this is the perfect way to to add some adventure to your dinner routine and try some new spices.  You can start your subscription at rawspicebar.com.

You can find RawSpiceBar here too:

Twitter: @rawspicebar

Facebook RawSpiceBar

Pinterest: pinterest.com/rawspicebarLA

I received the mentioned product in order to complete an honest review.  Any opinions expressed are my own. 

I received the below mentioned product as part of the US Family Guide blogger program. Any opinions expressed are my own.

Looking for a gift that is unique, handcrafted, and better the life of someone else too?  NOVICA finds artisans from all over the world. They use fair trade, giving the artisans a fair price for the work. The artisans have control of their prices, if they want to withdraw an item for sale, or put one of their items on sale. This partnership makes quality handcrafted goods available to anyone shopping through the NOVICA site and gives artisans from all over the world a chance to support their family and grow their business.

I have many items from NOVICA. Yes some I’ve received to review but it’s also one of the places I like to shop when I look for home decor or beautiful, unique jewelry.  I love it because I know I’ll be receiving a high quality piece that I can’t just walk into a store near me and buy.  It’s the perfect place to shop for those picky or hard to buy for people.  The unique hand crafted gifts are sure to please.

We moved to a new house the beginning of October. When moved I started realizing what needed to go and what we needed to get for the new house.  One thing that was apparent was a new set of glasses.  We had 2 of this glass, 4 of this glass, a bunch of holiday glasses, and that was it. I had a budget in mind for a nice set of glasses.  Even looking at other sites I couldn’t find something as beautiful and of the same quality for my budget like I could on NOVICA.  I ended up choosing the Rainbow Gemstone hand blown glass tumblers They came in a set of 6 and were larger tumblers, which is what I was looking for.  We had plenty of juice glasses I needed bigger glasses.

I tried to capture the color of these glasses. They are gorgeous. My father in law was visiting when the box came in.  I told my husband that we finally got some new glasses.  He grabbed one of the amethyst colored ones out of my and stared at it. He said “Wow these are really nice glasses.  Well made, the colors are awesome” He showed it to my father in law and said “Look at these glasses Angie got, aren’t they nice?” These are the only glasses I’ve seen in my husband’s hand since we got them. They’re perfect size for a nice cold glass of water or iced tea.  They were just the right size for smoothies and milkshakes too.

NOVICA has a list of holiday gift ideas if you need some inspiration. I also have a Savings Code: Save7Novica code for $7 off first purchase!

I received the below mentioned product as part of the US Family Guide blogger program. Any opinions expressed are my own.

I heard about Libre Tea glasses a couple years ago.  I thought they were very pretty glasses but I wasn’t really a tea drinker.  I actually thought they weren’t really for me but then I checked out the website again.  Libre Tea glasses aren’t just for tea.  You can use them for water infusion bottles or any drink you want really.  So when they asked me to review I thought, yea why not, I’ve always wanted to have a water infusion bottle.

When I received my Libre Tea glass, I saw how well thought out the bottle set up is.  The strainer, glass interior with durable poly exterior, works for both hot and cold drinks.  The did work great as a water bottle or water infusion bottle.  Seeing how well the set up was though I decided to give loose leaf tea a try.  I have never in my life tried loose leaf tea. I’ve only ever used tea bags.  I went to my tea drinking friends to get their recommendations on a loose leaf tea.  I found some and tried it.  Oh my gosh, I might just be turning into a tea drinker!

I tried some loose leaf chai tea first. The strainer worked perfectly. No tea leaves, spices, or herbs made their way past the strainer.  The cup is durable. The lid seals tight.

I took my Libre Tea glass to work with some green tea in it today.  I had several coworkers comment on it and ask questions about it.  When I showed them the set up and answered questions about how it works they were pretty impressed with it.  Aside from the functionality of it, it’s a pretty nice looking glass. I just love the design on the lid!

Libre Tea glasses come in different colors and 2 different sizes. Do you have a tea drinker on your list that would love a Libre Tea glass? Make a basket with a Libre Tea Glass, some loose leaf tea, and some tea biscuits. That would make a nice gift!