The holidays are soon upon us and I just have three more days of work left before I am off for almost two weeks! I feel like I haven’t had a break from work in a while! The holidays are the perfect time to spend time with family and indulge in some delicious food as I’m sure many of you will have guests coming over. So, today I will share you an amazing and easy puff pastry dessert idea that is just 2 ingredients and so very delicious! It is called a Tarte Au Soleil and I learned about it from one of my favourite YouTubers called Entertaining With Beth! Check out her original recipe and YouTube tutorial here!
Remember the DIY food styling boards we made a couple weeks ago? Well, I finally used them in this blog post. Let me know what you think of the pictures! I have lots to learn!
Hi friends!! So, Gursheel and I have been trying to get rid of body and skin care products as well as cleaning products that are full of chemicals and moving towards products with minimal ingredients, cruelty free and with all natural ingredients. The one product that we have discovered and we love that is a game changer is Castile Soap! We have been using it for a couple of months now and it is useful for so many things which I will be sharing with you all today.
There are a bunch of castile soap companies the most popular being Dr. Woods and Dr. Bronner’s. They both work the same, so I usually purchase whichever one is on sale. I’ve noticed that Amazon.ca has them for more inexpensive than stores in the GTA, although if anyone knows a stores here that carries them for a decent price, please let me know.
Okay, so let’s get to it. 5 Reasons why you need to try Castile Soap:
1. It is made with vegetable oils (Vegan), not tallow (an animal fat) that is in most body care products:
Castile soap is named after where it originated in Castile, Spain and it is a soap that is made entirely with vegetable oils. It can be made of a mixture of oils including coconut, olive, hemp, avocado, almond and walnut oils. It comes in both bar and liquid format in case you have a preference.
A lot of people that visit my blog are vegetarian and may be aware that many skin care/body washes contain tallow, an animal fat. Castile soap is among the few products that doesn’t contain tallow and is completely vegan.
2. Organic, Natural and Free of Toxins:
Castile soap is safe and doesn’t contain any harmful chemicals. The soap is full of natural ingredients and therefore it biodegrades quickly back to nature. It therefore doesn’t have any harmful side effects that can be seen in synthesized products. Because Castile soap is biodegradable and nontoxic, it’s safe to use on kids and around the house as well.
Common traditional body washes and shampoos often contain harsh antibacterial additives that can disrupt hormones. Again Castile Soap contains none of this so you can count it to be safe to use for cleaning your body, face, hair and even house!
3. Lathers easily:
When I was vegan a couple of years ago, I bought many vegan body and skin care products and my biggest issue with them was that they didn’t lather easily. I know the idea of lathering and creating foam originated from advertising companies and doesn’t have anything to do with how well the product cleans, however, I need the foam! I love it when things lather and foam up, it makes me think the product is effectively cleaning. Well, another amazing thing about Castile soap is that it lathers easily!! You have no idea how happy this makes me!
4. Antibacterial/Perfect all purpose cleaner:
I would love to do a post all about how you can use Castile Soap as a regular cleaning product for a bunch of things in your house. Because it has so many uses! It can be mixed with water, vinegar or baking soda to be used as a cleaning product for counters, sinks, tubs, floors, toilets, the list goes on. You can even use it to wash dishes and can even replace laundry detergent with it. I’m slowly learning how I can create recipes using Castile Soap to clean almost everything in our house. If you are looking for a all natural recipe on how you can clean your mirrors and windows, check out this post! It is the only cleaning recipe I have on this blog so far, but you can definitely count on more in the future!
5. Makes a Perfect Shampoo:
I haven’t tried it yet as a shampoo, but liquid Castile soap can make a perfect shampoo alternative. I have gone through a bunch of shampoos and have finally found the one that works for both Gursheel and I. So, I’m waiting until that shampoo finishes before I try using Castile soap as a shampoo alternative. Normal shampoos are full of detergents that can strip your scalp of their oils, however, Castile soap cleans your hair without stripping your scalp. To use it as a shampoo, you will most likely need to dilute it using some water. When I find the perfect recipe I will be sure to share with you all.
I hope this post educates you all about an amazing product out there that can be used as your daily body wash, face wash and even cleaning product for your home. I recently learned about the benefits of Castile Soap and there is so much it can be used for. I’m trying to minimize on the number of products we have in our home and Castile Soap is an alternative that can replace many of these common household products!
Have any of you used Castile Soap before? What is your favourite way to use it?
When I moved to Toronto, I had zero space for my stuff in our closet. The first thing I did was go through all of Gursheels clothes and organize all his stuff. And guys, I kid you not, Gursheel had 2-3 times more clothes than I did! So, today I will be giving you guys a tour of our closet and talking about the Konmari method of organizing clothes!
I had read the The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing book and was gifted the second book by Marie Kondo, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, as a going away present from my friend from work. The book was so amazing that I fell in love with the KonMari method and I remember the day I read the book, I went home and started organizing and had so much fun. I even told everyone I knew about these books. If you guys haven’t read any of these books, I highly recommend to read Spark Joy first, as it summarizes the first book and also contains amazing pictures that highlight the different ways to organize.
Unfortunately, I did’t take any before pictures of our closet, so Gursheel doesn’t believe me how messy and chaotic it was. But, regardless, the closet now is so functional and it looks pretty!
If you read the Spark Joy book, and I highly recommend you do, Marie Kondo will break down the steps for the Konmari Method of organizing clothes beautifully. However, I will just share exactly what I did.
PURGE
The first step is to take out every piece of clothing you have and start creating piles. Since I had to minimize and only bring things with me that were essential when I moved from Vancouver to Toronto, my clothing was already purged and ready to go. So, I mostly had to organize Gursheel’s clothing.
I went through all of Gursheel’s clothing, with him around to tell me if there was something that he didn’t wear anymore, was too small or large, and what we could donate or give to his friends. We created a pile for clothes to throw away, another for clothes to donate, another for clothes to give to friends, and finally the last pile were the remaining clothes. The Konmari method recommends holding each piece of clothing and determining if it sparks joy or not. I could never see Gursheel doing that, so we just based the decision on whether he wore the piece of clothing and liked it or needed it.
SORT
We then went through the clothing and created categories: clothes to hang and clothes to fold. We further sorted the clothes to fold into T-shirts to workout in, sweatpants, jeans and pants and T-shirts for work. Each of these categories got their own drawer in the dresser we bought. In the dresser, we also assigned one drawer for Gursheel’s socks and one for undershirts.
For the clothes to hang, they were mostly Gursheel’s buttoned work shirts, a couple of jerseys, some cardigans and sweaters, and dress pants.
Finally, we still had to figure out what to do with Gursheel’s Indian/Punjabi clothes which included Cholay and Kurtay Pajamay. We decided to get some IKEA bins for each of these since they are clothes Gursheel wears once or twice a week when we go to the Gurdwara. I also found these storage bins on Amazon that would work perfectly as well.
FOLD
All the clothes we decided to not hang, we needed to fold. This is where the illustrations in the Spark Joy book were useful since the Konmari method of organizing clothes has a unique way to fold clothes. This method allows you to see each and every piece of clothing since when you look at the clothing in the drawers, it is upright.
Basically, what you want to do is a create a rectangle for each piece of clothing that can stand upright on its on. Some pieces of clothing are flimsier than others, but that’s fine. Since you are placing all the clothes in a dresser, the other clothes will support each other in staying upright.
So, instead of messy piles, you get nice and organized dressers like this. You can go a step further and organize the dressers by colour as well!
With this way of folding, I noticed I get a lot more space in the dressers. And you can actually see everything you own. So, when it comes to wearing clothes, you can see all your options and you end up actually wearing all your clothes!
For more notes and clarification on exactly how to fold the clothes, refer to this post for a great breakdown. Again, the book does a great job, but this is also a great tutorial for those who don’t want to purchase a book.
Even socks, you fold. And follow the same method when placing in the dresser.
Oh, and for those wondering, we bought this dresser on wayfair.ca but we painted the handles to match with the bedside tables that we DIY’d. Check out this post on how we were able to do this on a budget!
ORGANIZE
The next and final step is to actually place the clothing where it belongs. For the closet, there is a rule in the Konmari method to hang the items from heaviest to lightest and darkest to lightest shade of clothing. We did as much as we could but the closet isn’t following this method exactly.
Regardless, there was a system I put into place when actually placing all the clothing into the closet. First, I placed all of Gursheels buttoned work shirts on one side of the closet and then placed his heavier sweatshirts and cardigans. I placed my Indian outfits (salwaars, kameez, and dupattas) on one side, where I used this amazing hanging organizer to hang them in groups. I love mixing and matching my Indian outfits so this makes it easier to see what I have and what I can pair together. The hanging organizer also gave me more room in the closet.
To maximize space in the closet, I also purchased a dresser from IKEA and it fit perfectly in the closet. The dresser unit we got was customizable and very affordable, so I got dressers of different sizes for different clothing I wanted to store. In these I folded my own clothes, socks, sweaters and pyjamas. So now I have my own dresser in the closet and Gursheel has his own!
This whole process using the Konmari method of organizing clothes does take some time and effort, but when everything is organized and done it just looks absolutely amazing. And it is functional! It is so much easier to find everything as well!
I honestly love organizing rooms and spaces in the house. You have to check out my Pantry organization I did because I am actually super proud of how it looks now! I took a before picture for that organizing project so take a look to see how it looks now! I’m already working on my next organization project: the dreaded under washroom sink area! Stay tuned!
Have you tried the Konmari Method of organizing clothes before? What are your favourite organizational tips?
