Old Factory Candle Gift Set and Giveaway

There are few things I love more than lighting a candle up after cleaning the house to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I love those clean scented candles so when Old Factory (get it, olfactory?! I love a good pun) reached out to me to let me try their candle sets, I immediately jumped at the Fresh and Clean line. It's lemongrass, olive blossom and fresh linen.

Let's talk soy candles for a second. If you're going to buy any candles and care about being eco friendly, soy candles are the way to go. They are a highly renewable energy source that burns at a cooler temperature resulting in a long burn than traditional paraffin candles. That means it costs our planet less in resources to make and costs the user less per use. And it burns clean, which means little to no black soot.

Old Factor candles are made in the USA, eco friendly, and come in the perfect package for Holiday gifts. The scents are as strong and pleasant as a Bath and Body Works or Yankee Candle (two of my other favorite candle retailers). Each candle has a single scent, allowing me to only smell one scent at a time or light them up to smell them in harmony. Can you tell how excited I am about these candles?!

But, you don't have to take my word for it, you can pick up 3 candles for yourself, currently on sale for $25 on Amazon.com or maybe win one by entering my giveaway below:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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The Great UGLee Pen Review + Giveaway

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

 

 

Trust me when I say, I'm no newbie to the pen game.  I'm a pen user from way back. Click pens, cap pens, colored pens, gel pens, tri colored pens, you name it.  I'm a writing fiend.  But old age and computer use has really slowed my game. I can't even do marathon thank you card writing sessions anymore because the inklings of carpal tunnel start setting in. (See what I did there?)

 

Enter the world of ergonomic pens. Attempts at this genre have been around forever, from the Pilot G-2 to the Dr. Grip and Evo. They all attempt and fail at what the Uglee ergonomic pen succeeds in providing: the perfect grip.  In all the other pens, either the grip is too thin to make a big difference in the padding, or the padding comes loose and unwieldy, others change the shape of the pen so the act of writing isn't familiar but a practice in learning how to write with a un-pen-like instrument.  In the Uglee Pen, the grip covers a long length of the pen allowing for the user to choose how high up or down low the user wants to hold it.  Further, the grip is comfortably squishy while the pen is very light.

 

Now, the Uglee Pen is an inky ball point and I prefer gel.  And it comes in black, blue or red ink and as a crafter, I'd love it to come in a million other colors.  But if I were going to pick up any pen, to say finish up writing the slew of tags on five dozen party favors, I would pick this one because regardless of the fact that it's not gel and not in the perfect shade of gold, my hand isn't going to cramp up and force me to take a break from writing.

 

Which is efficient. And I love efficiency like a fat kid loves cake.

 

Lucky for you, my small but wonderful group of readers, they're going to send the winner of the giveaway below a pen to try so you can see for yourself.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway ends on March 23rd.  And you know what they say: you can't win if you don't enter.  Good luck!

Congrats to Cynthia D.!  She's our winner!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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Red Leaf Eggnog Matcha Green Tea Review + Giveaway

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Green tea is a lot like wine. You take in the aroma, you look at the color, you enjoy the tannins and complexity of flavor.  There's a ritual that engages the senses.

When Red Leaf Tea sent me a sample of their eggnog matcha to try, I was intrigued. Because along with my love of wine, I also love some boozy eggnog.

Now that I think about it, this review might have been better recieved before the holidays.  No worry, turns out this eggnog flavored green tea has more uses than just spreading some Eastern style holiday cheer.

Upon first opening the package, I was overwhelmed with the smell of vanilla cupcakes.  This makes sense as that's what eggnog often smells like to me.  But, that smell isn't characteristic to green tea.  I was worried that it might be too sweet.

The color, however, was a gorgeous shade of green.  Matcha is ground up green tea leaves so when the tea is consumed, the antioxidant power of the tea is superior to regular brewed and strained tea leaves.  The vibrant green color is a good indication that this wouldn't be some artificially manufactured powder with  green tea flavoring.

I went about my green tea ritual of scooping the powder into a bowl and whisking it with below boiling water to create bubbles and introduce the air into the tea.

Though the whisked tea maintained the vanilla based aroma, there was no sweetener or overwhelming vanilla flavor.  There was a smoothness on the tongue that contrasted with the tannins in the tea well but this was definitely no artificial powder.

Truth be told, I didn't like this as a tea.  I like the green tea aroma and covering it up with the vanilla scent simply detracted from my experience.  Though the smooth aspect on the tongue was interesting, it isn't worth the trade in aroma.

BUT not all is lost.  This particular matcha would be amazing in a green tea macaron shells just in time for the Lunar New Year!

Lemons & Anchovies has a great recipe for Green Tea Macaron Shells on her blog.

She uses a classic matcha powder but I think the vanilla scent of this green tea would kick up the flavor of a macaron to the next level.

Lucky for you, my small but wonderful group of readers, Red Tea is going to give one of you a package of green tea perfectly sized to try out this recipe on your own with enough leftover to sample a cup of tea for yourself.

Just enter the giveaway below. It closes January 22nd.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck friends!
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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