RELAX: Deep Relaxing Mandala Coloring Patterns and Calming Designs Review

I always loved to color when I was a kid. Oh who am I kidding? I like to color now.

I got RELAX: Deep Relaxing Mandala Coloring Patterns and Calming Designs (Adult Coloring Book Book 1 to review. It's made by Craft Haven. 

I think that even a non artist would love this coloring book! It's purpose is to help adults take their mind of of everyday tasks. 

Ideas on Where to Use it:

• Take it to the doctor, or dentist office to use in the waiting area.

• Take it to the kid's swimming lessons, or other sporting event. 

• Color while watch a movie at home.

• Take it on vacation to have something to do in the car if you are a passenger.

I colored along side of Isaak when we watched the musical Oliver. Isaak loved that I was coloring along side of him.

 
A Few Other Pages:

Things I Like About RELAX: Deep Relaxing Mandala Coloring Patterns and Calming Designs:

•  Each design is different. You'll never find yourself coloring the same image over and over again.

• Craft Haven has additional pages that you can download for free off their site! 

• The cost is reasonable.

• It's a great gift for artists or non artists. I could see my sister that's into health and wellness liking this!

Things I Wish This Book Had:

• I wish it had perforated edges. Then if you like your design you could take it out easily to hang up. If someone else wanted to try coloring, you could easily rip a page out for them to color.

• Making the paper thicker to again last longer, and make it more permanent to hang up.

• I think it would be great if a small set of colored pencils, or gel pens went with it. They could up their cost just a little bit to accommodate the coloring utensils.

How to Pick Out Colors:

I'm a teacher for Color and Design Theory. I can see where it may be hard for some people to pick out colors. I picked out a triadic color scheme, which are 3 colors equally spaced on the color wheel that form a triangle: Red-Violet, Yellow-Orange, and Blue-Green. I veered a little, but pretty much stayed within those colors.

I tell my students to pick out ads they like in magazines/online to use in their projects. 
 
There's also an online adobe resource called Adobe Color that's free online to use. It gives you colors that work well together.

Cost of RELAX: Deep Relaxing Mandala Coloring Patterns and Calming Designs:

• $9.11 on Amazon

• $10.96 and on sale for $8.87 on Craft Haven's website.  

• Connect with Craft Haven on facebook, twitter, google+, pinterest, or instagram.

Overall I love this coloring book. I haven't had a coloring book of my own for years. This is just a great way to relax. I just kind of shut my brain off, and colored. 
 
Do you like to color? Did you like to color when you were a kid?

 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for a discounted price. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Pepperment Oil - 100% Pure & Natural Essential Oil Review

I love peppermint oil. It smells so good. Just breathing it in makes me feel relaxed. 

 
I got a large 4 ounce bottle of Peppermint Oil - 100% Pure and Natural Essential Oil by Pure Body Naturals to review. It comes with a glass eye dropper. A $45.95 value, but it's on sale for $19.95.

This Peppermint Oil is Steam-distilled from leaves of the Menthapiperita (peppermint) plant. Completely Pure without additives or filler. Therapeutic Grade. Suitable for Vegetarians and Vegans. No animal testing was used in the making of this product.

What I love about essential oils is that they have multiple uses.

Soothing and Energizing:

• Relieves headaches. 

• Helps ease respiratory problems.

• Helps to ease symptoms of asthma and bronchitis. 

• Reduces dandruff and lice problems. 

• Helps reduce joint and arthritis pain.

• Makes you feel a little, or a lot more relaxed.

I have had success with it helping in regards to allergy headaches. Peppermint Oil is known to help relax strained blood vessels therefore preventing or relieving headaches and migraines. Use in strained areas and pressure points by applying and rubbing in those areas.

Open up your airways and relieve mucus from the nose and throat. Put Peppermint Oil into boiling water and breathe in the steam from the water. I've done this, and it really helped open my breathing up.

Reduce anxiety levels with the use of the peppermint oil with aromatherapy. The mint, sweet, menthol aroma will help relaxation in the body and mind.

Natural and Nontoxic: 

• You can use this around the garden, home, or in the office with no worries.

It's non-toxic, highly concentrated, natural, and undiluted. It will not harm pets, or people. It's steam-distilled. No Dilution or Filtering. No Additives or Fillers. The Highest in Quality and Purity. Therapeutic Grade. Suitable for Vegetarians and Vegans.

Multi-Purpose:

• Repels rodents such as rats, and mice. 

• Repels insects such as fleas, tics, flies, rats, mosquitoes, mice, midges, spiders, bed bugs, ants, and roaches. 

Now that I know these uses I'll take this with us on camping trips, picnics, and other outdoor events!

I like to use my peppermint oil in the bath. It's relaxing. You can put drops right in the water. I made Homemade Peppermint Brown Sugar Scrub.

Recipe:

1. Fill the container 1/2 full with brown sugar. You can do 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 white sugar.
2. Melt coconut oil, and pour into the sugar. Stir until it's all mixed up.
3. If it's too much of a liquid at this point, add more sugar. Continue to stir.
4. Add drops of peppermint. Add as many as you like smell wise. Stir some more, and you're done.

Coconut oil does turn into more of a solid if it's cool. I make mine in a glass jar. That way I can microwave it for a minute if needed. Most of the time I do not need to microwave it. Since it's in the bathroom, and it's humid in there it keeps it soft. 

I use this on my legs and arms in the shower. Isaak has dry hands in the winter, and he loves using it on his hands.

The peppermint oil makes you relaxed, and opens up my airways. The coconut oil makes my skin feel so soft.

Note: This is for external use only. It's ok to breathe it in, but it's not meant to mix with foods.

Disclaimer: I'm writing this in connection to Tomoson. I got this Peppermint Essential Oil free for review. I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

A Relaxing End to a Crazy Week

I didn't have much time to breathe this week. Next week is finials time for my students. That pretty much means a lot of writing for me. I wrote review sheets, exams and answers and questions for a review game.

The review game is new this year. I call up three students.  Each student has a buzzer of some kind. My assistant answers the question and the student chime in to ask the question. It's Jeopardy style. If none of the three students chime in, the audience gets a chance to steel. For each point that they get, they earn two extra credit points. Some racked up points more than others.

I wrote the answers and questions, so my assistant didn't know what they were going to read before they read it. My favorite was for my assistant Mike today went something like this: Mike said, "PMS." Students: Giggled a lot. Then the student said, "What is Pantone Matching System?" I just loved it. I think it's crazy how they use PMS as an abbreviation for standard print colors, Pantone Matching System! My art students always giggle about it and they are in college.

I had two major projects due this week. Only one has been graded. It's a crazy rule breaking project. They have to paint the background, add packaging tape, paint the middle ground, add packaging tape, paint the foreground, add packaging tape and paint the details. It's kind of cool because they don't have to wait for their paint to dry. None of the student have ever painted this way. I loved seeing the results!

Here's my favorites:

Meet John Lemon:

 Meet Mr. Glutton:

 Tea Time with Bear:

I did have two issues with students this week: 

One guy did a strong message piece about suicide. It was a good concept. Well, it was sitting on his desk and he disappeared for a few days. Two other instructors freaked out thinking he could be true to his piece. To sum a long story up, everything is fine.

Another student got mad at me because I marked him absent. We take attendance and it effects their grade after they hit 3 absences for one class a week. Now his grade is suffering. Of course this is all my fault. He's not to blame at all. The last two sentences are what he thinks. I just follow school policy.

Those two situations were exhausting. 

The relaxing part of tonight:

Tonight we went to the YMCA up the street and went swimming for an hour! It felt nice to get away from it all! At first I didn't think we'd be able to go. I couldn't find Mica's swim trunks anywhere. I finally found them. It was odd going swimming while it's freezing cold outside! For awhile we had the pool to ourselves. I won a two month membership through Mica's school.

Then we came home and it was well past bed time! I got Isaak ready for bed, while Daddy assisted Mica. Mica was really tired. He needed more assisting than usual.

Isaak said, "Mommy you pretend to be Grandpa Spiehs and I'll be Grandma." I said, "Ok Grandma get your pjs on!" He said, "Ok Grandpa!" Then I said, "Get your diaper on over your underwear Grandma." He's still wets every once in awhile at night; I want him to feel his wetness, but protect his bedding! He said, "But Grandpa I don't wear diapers." I said, "Ok well pretend you are Great Grandma Kent then. She wears diapers." She has Alzheimer's disease, so that's why she wears diapers. That lead into a whole discussion about how some adults need diapers.

Off to bed.