Okay, it's time for the hand-crafted spa items giveaway! Plus how I made bubble bath for gifting

I've gone through everything that I've made, and I have a small parcel of spa items to give away. Use these items for yourself, or save them as stocking stuffers or a small gift for someone at the holidays. And please, don't be critical of my novice knitting! Ha ha! (Unless that's constructive criticism, of course.)

What's in this giveaway?

• a bar each of Goats Milk Lavender soap and Honey Almond Oatmeal soap
• a packet of Lavender Oatmeal bath tea and a packet of Peach Rose bath tea
• one lavender spa cloth and one ecru spa cloth

This giveaway is open to USA residents (even Hawaii and Alaska) only. To enter, simply leave a comment at the end of this post. This giveaway ends at midnight, PST, on Saturday, November 26, 2016. Check back Monday morning, November 28, for the winner, and I'll get this in the mail as quickly as I can!

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Now, on to making bubble bath.

This bubble bath went into the spa basket that I gave to my son's girlfriend for her birthday this past weekend. (Photo of the completed basket was on facebook a couple of weeks ago, and will be in tomorrow's post, FYI.)

At the end of summer, I found this pretty bottle on clearance at Michael's, for $2.37.

Hobby Lobby carries bubble bath/shower gel base in 32 oz buckets. I used a 40% off coupon, and paid $4.80 for 32 ounces of bubble bath base. To the base, I added a tiny amount of lavender soap colorant, lavender oil and vitamin E oil. It's very, very bubbly stuff, so it can take thinning. My pretty bottle holds 8 ounces, so I used just under 8 ounces of bubble bath base, at a cost of about $1.20. I had the soap colorant, lavender oil and vitamin E oil at home. My estimated cost on those items is 25 cents.

My total cost on the homemade bubble bath in a pretty bottle, was about $3.82. While that's not super-duper inexpensive, it's about half to one-third of what I might spend on a pretty bottle of bubble bath, retail, at a place like Marshall's. (I now have 24 ounces of bubble bath base leftover, in my craft cupboard, to make bottles of bubble bath for gifts in the future.)

The whole process took less than 10 minutes. The base is thick, so I melted what I needed in a glass measuring cup in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Then I stirred in the color and oils. When completely mixed, I poured the bubble bath into the glass bottle. Easy peasy.

The bubble bath base was difficult to locate, retail, in small quantities. I found it at Hobby Lobby, in the soap-making supplies. I also read that you can use unscented, baby shampoo for the base. Although, this bubble bath base was quite thick and bubbly. A retail product like baby shampoo is thinner. So, I'm not sure how much of a savings you'd achieve by using an unscented baby shampoo.

For a quick and easy hand-crafted gift, particularly for making several gifts at once, bubble bath could knock 4 to 5 gifts off your list, with no special skills or equipment required. Honestly, this is much simpler than making soap.

You may already have a couple of bottles that could be used, such as specialty vinegar, steak sauce or condiment bottles, or you could check thrift shops for bottles, if this idea interests you.

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Anyway, don't forget to enter the giveaway before Saturday, midnight, November 26, 2016. And come back on Monday, November 28, 2016 for the announcement of the winner.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers -- or How to have a lazy cooking week

cheese dog taquitos

Friday
Although today was a holiday, I had a lot on my plate for the day. For a couple of weeks, I've been thinking about possible meals I could throw together in about 10 minutes. And what I had come up with was The Canned Food Buffet. It wasn't all canned food, but surprisingly enough, I was able to have everything on the counter and ready for self-serve in 10 minutes. It was quite enough food, and in an odd way, balanced.

• microwaved, baked potatoes, with
• shredded cheese and butter to top them
• canned green beans
• canned peas
• canned olives
• boiled eggs (I made these early in the day)
• leftover chocolate chip cookies

Saturday

• turkey from the freezer, simmered with onions, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and chutney, for a sweet and spicy dish
• pasta-vegetable salad, using last of the garden tomatoes, green peppers and parsley, plus some olives, garbanzo beans, garden herbs, oil and vinegar (I made enough for several lunches during the week, and still had some to add to a pot of soup, on Wednesday.)
• carrot sticks

Sunday

I need to prepare another large main dish. I had thought it would be a turkey-vegetable soup, only to discover that we'd eaten all of the frozen turkey in stock.

So, it's back to the drawing board. I micro-thawed 2 pounds of ground beef and opened a #10 can of tomato paste. I also used some of the canned, whole tomatoes and fresh beet greens from the garden, to make enough Bolognese for 4 nights. Here's night #1:

• spaghetti with Bolognese sauce
• canned green beans
• rhubarb-blackberry sauce from the freezer

Monday

Night #2 on the Bolognese. I cooked a large pot of rice in the afternoon. In a medium casserole dish, I tossed together some of this rice with bolognese sauce, some very wilted, garden greens and a bunch of sliced olives. With a handful of shredded mozzarella on top, the casserole was ready for the oven. Throwing together this dish took about 7 or 8 minutes, once the rice was cooked.

With the bottom of the saucepan of rice, I made some more rice pudding, this time, for me, using vanilla almond milk. While the rice pudding was cooking on the stove, I baked 2 large acorn squash and 5 potatoes. I toasted a couple of cups of almonds for snacking, and some chopped almonds for mixing into my rice pudding. Once the squash and potatoes came out of the oven, the rice-bolognese dish went in for 30 minutes. I was able to take care of a surprising amount of cooking, in about 30 minutes of hands-on work.

• rice, greens and Bolognese casserole
• baked squash (an odd dish to go along with this casserole, but it is what I had, and made a substantial side dish)

Tuesday

I'm low on bread today, so I'll be serving today's Bolognese with a fresh bread product. I think I'll make a triple batch of French bread dough and use a third of it for a deep dish pizza, and the remaining two-thirds of dough for sandwich and toasting bread. Since I baked 2 large squash yesterday, our side dish tonight will be more squash, just heat and eat. Change of plans -- I opened a can of peas and heated them in the microwave.

• deep dish pizza, using Bolognese sauce, French bread dough, mozzarella and sliced olives
• canned peas

Wednesday

Last day of the Bolognese sauce. Today, it becomes soup, when thinned with various leftover liquids in the fridge plus some canned tomatoes.

• tomato beef and vegetable soup (the Bolognese, with canned veggie liquid, black olive liquid, a can of peas plus its liquid, and the last of Saturday's pasta salad), all topped with cheese
• acorn squash muffins

Thursday

I have a busy day, topped off with a meeting tonight. Easy dinner in the plans.

• cheese-dog taquitos
• leftover baked squash
• cole slaw made from some of the last of the garden cabbage

The most of this week's dinners, were made with one very large pot of spaghetti meat sauce, Bolognese. I was occupied with a lot of details and work for the week, and what I needed was something along the lines of easy. This worked. 

What were your meals like this past week? We're using a lot of canned vegetables, these days, primarily for cost, but also, ease. Do you usually use fresh, frozen or canned vegetables in winter?

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!