I am always on the lookout for ways to get good quality materials for Candlelight Boutique’s products without paying a mint for them. Unfortunately, materials for our products are not cheap. They may not seem like they’d be that expensive, but let me tell you – sea salt is more expensive than you think!

I mean, granted it isn’t like we have to find a place to get Wholesale Leather or anything like that, but the cheaper we can get good quality materials for our bath salts, lotions, scrubs, and body washes, the better.

The place we get our fragrance oils from has good quality fragrances for a good price, so we order from her a lot. We also find good prices for things like the dendritic salt and sea salts we use in our bath salts. But other things, like the needs for our lotions and body washes are bit more expensive and harder to find good quality but inexpensive sources for.

And yet people wonder why our prices are going up.

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If you live in the Sioux City, IA area, you might find that the grocery section of our Target store has a few price cut deals that aren’t advertised in the weekly ad.

• Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, and Chicken Helper – selected varities are ranging from 91 cents to $1.25 with a regular price of $1.52.
• Market Pantry 2% Milk – 1 Gallon Jug – $2.99 (I didn’t see what the regular price on this was).
• Fresh Express Salad Kits are 2/$4 – normally $2.39 each (I didn’t see this in the Target ad when I looked but it *might* have been there.)
• Select Mission Flour Tortillas are $2 instead of $2.39 – this is even cheaper than the Market Pantry brand!

Those are a few of the deals I found. Coke products were also 3/$11 for 12-packs of cans. We also picked up a bag of Friskies Indoor Delights cat food (one of our cats can’t eat canned food and the other gets sick when she eats the “good brands”) for $9.99 for 16 lbs and 34 lbs of Fresh Step scoopable cat litter for $14.29.

I also had coupons printed off from Target’s website for $1.00 off 3 boxes of Market Pantry brand pasta, $1.00 off the purchase of a box of Market Pantry Pasta & a jar of Market Pantry pasta sauce, and $1.00 off a jar of Market Pantry Mayonnaise. We also had a loyalty coupon for $3 off a grocery purchase of $25 or more. Between the $6 I saved in coupons and the sales prices, we saved $11.45 by doing most of our shopping at Target. Not bad at all!

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Time for a short rambling post here. I’m beginning to wish I’d picked a different major. I mean, I know the people at University of Phoenix said that web design was a field that would continue to grow, but frankly, there are so many web designers out there already and a lot of them aren’t getting as much work as they’d like or need. Plus, I have a feeling that even with the degree, most people would consider my work mediocre at best.

Now LaShawn picked a great major – accounting. She can do just about anything if she wants to. She can be a bookkeeper for a small business, a cpa raleigh, she can go into business for herself, she has so many options with that degree. With all the options she has, she’s sure to find a job that she loves. Myself, I’ll be lucky to find work with my degree. Maybe I should switch majors for my Bachelor degree?

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Image courtesy of Target.com

Up & Up Nail Polish Remover Dip It Acetone is a small plastic jar of acetone with a brush inside. The brush is permanently attached to the inside of the jar and goes all the way around the jar. You insert your finger into the hole in the center, wait a second or two, then rub your nail across the brush to remove your polish. (Because it is acetone, this one will also remove artificial nails, although that takes a bit longer to accomplish.) So how well does it work?

It works like a dream! I know a lot of people say not to use acetone nail polish removers, but I usually use them because they work better. This one is simply awesome. Glitter polishes? You might have to take a few extra seconds scrubbing on the brush, but they come off much better than when I’ve used cotton balls, paper towels, tissues, or even washcloths to remove the glitter polishes. I just have to let the nail polish soak for a few seconds and it comes right off.

If you are like me and highly dislike having to go through the normal process of removing nail polish, I highly suggest you pick up one of these Dip It removers. You can also get them in non-acetone if you prefer.

*This is a review of an item I purchased. No compensation was received for this review.*

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Image courtesy of Target.com

Normally you find base and top coats are two different things so you have to buy two different products. Enter Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat. This product combines the base and top coats into one easy-to-use product. Simply brush the product onto clean nails and let dry for a base coat. Paint your nails with your favorite polish or polish combination, let dry, and then brush the product on for a top coat.

It works wonders! I get very few chips with this polish and am able to wear my nail polish for several days even through dish washing, cooking (as long as I don’t scrape my nails with my chef’s knife), walking the dog, and working on my computer. I have to say I am highly impressed with this product as frankly, even when I get professional manicures done, I usually end up chipping the polish within the first 24-48 hours. With Sally Hansen Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat, I could even put on and zip up my breeches without worrying about chipping the polish on the zipper!

This product is a definite keeper.

*This is a review of an item I purchased. No compensation was received for this review.*

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L.A. Colors Color Craze Nail Polish in Jewel Tone

Back in the late 90s I had several glitter polishes that I had purchased that gave gorgeous coverage of my nails in just one or two coats – and these were traditional glitter polishes that were clear with glitter in them. This is what I have come to expect a glitter polish to perform like. Unfortunately, L.A. Colors Color Craze in Jewel Tone did not live up to my admitted fantasy performance standards.

While this polish does not give good coverage without at least three coats, and for me it was more like five or six coats, I do have to say that it lasted well – I put the polish on and went out to eat and didn’t have any chips or dings in the polish (I am notorious for nail polish only lasting a couple of hours before chipping off, regardless of brand, base coat, or top coat) and it dried fairly quickly as well.

I recommend this polish as an “over layer” polish – putting a solid color on and then putting one or two coats of Jewel Tone over it to give added glitter and shine. All in all not a bad polish, but not quite right on its own.

*This is a review of an item I purchased. No compensation was received for this review.*

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Any ideas on where to get a decent air freshener? LaShawn and I make them for Candlelight Boutique (when they’re finished with the testing phase we will see about adding them to the shop), but they aren’t quite what a friend of mine needs for her new apartment.

You see, a friend moved into a new apartment recently and the guy before her must have smoked Swisher Sweets (my dad’s brand of cigars, lol) or something because it smells like stale cigar smoke. Now my mom would tell you that there is nothing she liked more than the scent of a good cigar, but frankly, once the smoke is stale, it’s just gross.

We tried the Febreze air fresheners, but it seems those just don’t cut it for this. Any of you have any ideas?

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Image courtesy of MissionFoods.com

The other day, our Walmart store had a display of Mission products – mostly tortilla chips, but a few dips as well. We already had tortilla chips at home, we were just looking for a good dip to use with them. We had a Tostitos cheddar cheese dip that we were going to try, but saw that the Mission cheddar cheese flavored dip was cheaper so we went with it.

The dip was good – it was creamy and even after refrigeration it held onto some of the runny quality that makes it easy to dip chips into. It tasted like cheddar cheese, which believe me, I’ve had many a cheddar cheese flavored dip that did not taste like cheddar cheese. My only problem with it was that as I am more of a fan of salsa con queso dips, the dip didn’t have quite enough flavor for me.

However, it was a very good dip and would be great for putting over vegetables or a quick and easy mac & cheese.

*This is a review of an item I purchased. No compensation was received for this review.*

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I am, apparently, very rough on speakers. Whether they are stereo speakers or computer speakers, it seems I am constantly in need of new speakers. Right now, I need new computer speakers.

My laptop has built-in speakers, and they’re great if I want to watch a movie by myself. But if I’m watching a movie on my laptop with LaShawn, then I need to plug in speakers. My current set, a pair of Logitech speakers, isn’t working very well as only one speaker actually works. :/

I’m beginning to wonder if mackie makes computer speakers so I could possibly get some decent speakers for listening to music and movies with. They probably don’t – I’m sure their speakers are only for PA systems and stereos, but it’d be nice if they did have computer speakers.

Or maybe we should look into the appropriate cords to hook LaShawn’s stereo to my laptop for when we watch movies. I did that down in Texas and it was awesome.

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I Love Cake Hand Sanitizer by Bath & Body Works

This blue colored sanitizer is supposed to be scented like frosting, but if it is, it’s the strangest frosting I’ve ever smelled! Even my best friend says it doesn’t smell quite right. It almost smells like something that is blue coconut scented, not frosting scented. It works the way it is supposed to, but I have to say the scent is not quite right.

I noticed on Bath & Body Works’ website that this scent is not listed, so I am going to assume that either I’m not the only customer who didn’t like the I Love Cake scent or it was a limited time only scent. Either way, if it were still available, I wouldn’t buy it again.

*This is a review of an item I purchased. No compensation was received for this review.*

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