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Subscription Boxes

Kloverbox January 2016

 

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First Kloverbox of the new year!  It was late, arriving the first day of February, so the calendar included in the box was already 1/12th gone by the time it was received which was a little disappointing.  They might as well have started the calendar in February instead of January if it’s not going to arrive in January, or planned this for the December box instead.  Also there were only three items this month, mostly because the one item was worth $64.  I’m not sure I like the idea of throwing the majority of the budget for a single box into one product because if the big money item isn’t something you like, the other products won’t make up for it.  So, mixed feelings on this box, but I’ll go through the contents individually.

  • Saylorwolf’s Watercolors 2016 Calendar – 1 set with easel / $10 – (Full size product)  It’s cute, small and desk sized, but let’s face it, the only calendar I actually use and look at daily is the one that syncs between me and the spousal unit on our cellphones.  I honestly don’t know where to put this (you should see the state of my computer desk), and while the watercolors are really beautiful, I’d probably have preferred a single print instead of a calendar set.
  • Snapz Organic Apple Cheese Crisps – 1 pouch / $1 – (Full size product)  They’re.. okay?  Nothing to write home about and not  something  I’d actually purchase.  I like the crunch, and the ingredient list is phenomenally simple, but they taste SUPER bland.  Almonds cost less and are lots tastier, even the raw  ones, and contain more protein than this little snack bag.  The product made for a nice filler addition to the box, but it just didn’t wow me.
  • Palmetto Derma Rejuvenating Antioxidant Mask – 1.75 oz / $64 – (Full size product)  It does smell nice – warm and sweet but not floral, hard to explain!  It’s a thick, white, cream which is very unlike most clay masks.  Almost immediately upon application, it feels cooling and tingly.  After 15 minutes, I rinsed it off easily with warm water.  It didn’t completely dry on my skin like a typical clay mask which was nice, and the cooling tingle stayed around after the mask was washed off.  Most clay masks make your skin feel hot from the increased blood circulation, but this was quite the opposite.  It also didn’t make my skin feel tight and dry like a typical clay mask.  Not bad!  Still not something I’d spend $64 on  though since while it’s nice, I’m not sure it’s sixty-four-dollars-nice.

Overall the total comes out to $75 which is pretty huge for this box!  It was kind of a meh sort of box for me, I guess.  I wasn’t incredibly interested in any of the products this month – they’re all okay, but nothing really knocked my socks off, and I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed to see only three products which is a little bit silly when the overall value is high.  I guess having more products in a box means I’m more likely to find one that really makes the month worth it which is where this one kind of left me hanging a little.  Don’t get me wrong, the mask is nice, but it’s not something I’d ever buy on my own because of the price.  It’s still nice to have the product since it isn’t something I’d buy on my own, but I do sort of use these boxes as a way to explore samples of products that may be better than ones I’m already using and that’s where this box  left me hanging.  In case you’re interested in subscribing, here’s my referral link for 15% off your subscription.

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 316

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Sepia Saturday, or rather, Sepia Sunday for me, featured a prompt photo of a group of people watching a movie filming.  While we have a LOT of old super 8 reels we had digitized, I felt these two belonged here together, since they’re people taking photos of themselves and there’s a camera in the photo like the prompt photo.  On the left is my grandpa, Leon Kitko, with an old Polaroid camera, taking a selfie in a mirror.  On the right is his second wife, Romayne Greenaway, also set up in the same room with the same camera, but the focus is just a touch off.  Both photos are labelled on the back with a date of 26 May 1969, written in Romayne’s hand.  Leon is sporting quite the smirk with his hat tipped back and to the side while Romayne appears as if she’s trying to concentrate on getting everything just right before hitting the shutter release.  I love that we have both of these photos and that they’re still just a little different from each other.  I also get a kick out of the fact that they’re basically selfies, but from long before the first teenager took a selfie with a mobile phone.

knitting, Socks

Another year of Sock Knitting

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I finally got everything set up and photographed the socks that I’ve knit over the past year.  The tally?  15 pairs!  Some of them are from the end of 2014 since the last time I photographed handknits was September 2014, oops.  Fifteen pairs of socks is no joke, but the majority of them are plain stockinette socks, so it’s really not a lot of substance when you get down to it, especially when you consider that I can knit a single plain sock in about four hours.  I had an off year, what can I say?  The majority of the knits from my past year in knitting were meant to keep my hands busy while I watched TV, fill time while waiting, and bust some of the more colorful sock yarn stash that isn’t suited for intricate cables and lace.  In that way, it was a successful year indeed, and now I’m well stocked to continue working on a scrap yarn blanket for a few more squares.  Here are the first two, and I’ll post a few more every week.

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Fluormaina Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Fluormania  in, “Neon Ocean”
Ravelry Project Link

Nothing really fancy going on here.  I used the same basic sock recipe I use for all my plain vanilla socks, and I happened to publish it on Ravelry and the blog here a few years ago when I ran a sock knitting workshop at a local cafe.  It’s easy peasy and lets the crazy wild color of this yarn really shine.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything but a plain stockinette sock for this colorway since it may be my favorite one of the whole Fluormania line.

 

 

 

 

DSC_1417More Plain Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn:  Wisdom Yarn Marathon Sock in, “Twin Cities”
Ravelry Project Link

This was a silly impulse purchase because the price was right at Tuesday Morning on a trip through one day.  Green and blue self striping yarn at over 50% off?  SOLD!  It’s your basic sock yarn, nothing too fancy, not particularly soft, but it feels durable, so that works!  I like how the colorway knit up and again, used the same simple basic sock pattern as before.

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 315

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Our prompt image this week featured a kitchen and oven  showing off fresh baked goods.  I really have nothing precisely like it, but I do have some more recent photos that show the aftermath of cooking, the cleaning!  Going to a rather not-sepia zone this week, we have two photos of dishwashers.  In about 1984, Bouwe Jaarsma and his wife Baukje Zijlstra came to the USA to visit Bouwe’s siblings, one of whom was my husband’s grandfather, Doede Jaarsma.  At some point during their visit, after a meal, they jumped right in and started washing dishes.  This is a scan from a pile of negatives, so the quality isn’t terrific, but it’s a wonderful, candid snapshot of their visit.  Even though they were the guests, they ended up (whether voluntary or assigned) the task of washing dishes that evening.  Even though not Sepia, it still fits in nicely with the theme and lets me connect a few genealogical dots in these recently scanned photos!

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 314

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For this week’s Sepia Saturday, the prompt image was a fairly old family photo.  While mine is probably from about 1924, the family history here is a pretty neat story that I’ve been researching heavily over the past couple of months for my husband’s side of the family.  Before I get too far, let’s introduce the people in the photo.

L to R, Back Row:  Cornelius Herman Tanis, Gertrude Meyer, Jessie Meyer, Harry Meyer, Jeanette Tanis, Jenetta Meyer
L to R, Front Row: Josephine Tanis, Alida Meyer, Johannes Meyer, Jacob Meyer, John Meyer Jr., Richad Meyer, Alida Grootveld,  Helen Tanis, Gertrude Tanis.

Johannes Meyer was born 3 August 1878 in Stiens, Leeuwarderadeel, Friesland, Netherlands.  He came to the USA, arriving on 4 May 1893, with his sister Grietje, her husband Frans de Haan, a sister Willemke, and Grietje and Frans’ two children Pieter and Jan de Haan.  The rest of the family followed later and they ended up living in Passaic County, New Jersey.  On 26 November 1902, Johannes married Gertrude Lena Catherine Grootveld and had 7 children seen in the photo above with the last name Meyer.  Sadly, Gertrude died on 18 May 1916.  Just a few short months after Gertrude’s death, Alida Grootveld, sister of Gertrude, lost her husband, Herman Tanis on 15 August 1916.  Alida and Herman had been living in Wisconsin for a number of years, and in 1920, the census shows she was living as a widow in Illinois.  Shortly after the census, Johannes Meyer married his deceased wife’s sister, Alida on 10 September 1920 and brought her and her children back to New Jersey to make one big blended family.  Together they had one son, Richard Meyer, born 1 September 1922 (the baby in the photo).

I suppose circumstances lined up just right, with Alida’s husband and Johannes’ wife passing away around the same time, that  it made sense for two large families to join together and combine resources to support each other and since they already knew each other, so hey, why not?  Getting into the details of the photo, the girls are all wearing basically the same dress or variations on the same dress.  The older three boys are in suits, and John Meyer Jr. is in a lovely sailor outfit, tying us neatly into the prompt photo this week.

Subscription Boxes

Goodbeing (formerly Goodebox) January 2016

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First Goodbeing box of the new year!  This arrived a few weeks ago, and I’m just getting around to blogging about it now (see?  Still behind, oops).  Goodbeing was formerly Goodebox and is going through a little rebranding, so for now I’ll include both names in my review posts for continuity’s sake.  Overall a pretty decent box!  There’s one product I had no interest in (the cold and sinus oil), but the rest are definitely things I’ll use.

  • Green Apple Age Defying Hand Cream – 2 oz / $12 – (Product is full size)  I never really buy into all those anti-aging claims products like this make.  Age is going to happen whether we like it or not, so throwing that out of the equation, this is still a great hand cream.  It’s thick and rich and sinks in immediately so it doesn’t feel greasy or sticky.  The scent is nothing to write home about since there’s not much of a scent at all, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing!  What’s best is that a teeny little bit goes a long way and works for a while, so the value is really rather incredible.
  • Curandera Remedies Kapalabati Cold and Sinus Oil – 1 oz / $25 – (Product is .5 oz, value of $12.50)  I didn’t like Vicks VapoRub growing up as a kid and this is basically the same idea, albeit all natural.  The scent, IMHO, is absolutely horrendous (FWIW, I didn’t like Vicks either).  I use neem oil to control aphids on my outdoor plants and the idea of rubbing it under my nose is just a HUGE turn off.  I’m all for natural remedies, but when I’m sick and need to breathe, I’m going to head for traditional medicine that works instead of a bunch of oils that smell bad and do nothing to actually unclog my sinuses and reduce the swelling and pressure.  It’s one of the few places I have to turn in my all-natural-hippie card, but I’m a HUGE baby when I’m sick and traditional medicine works.
  • Balanced Guru Face It Smoothly – 4 oz / $38 – (Travel size 1 oz is $10)  It’s an aloe based cleanser, so no foam.  It dispenses from the pump as a creamy liquid and smells a bit like mint and herbs though not in any sort of overpowering way.  A quick scrub over my face didn’t dry it out, but it almost didn’t feel like it was cleaning either since it doesn’t foam (that’s all in my head though, I’m sure).  It’s really pricey for 4 oz though and while it’s fun to try, especially as the trio of products in the box, it’s not something I love enough to buy again.
  • Balanced Guru Tone It Smoothly – 4 oz / $34 – (Travel size 1 oz is $9)  I’m not a huge fan of toners to begin with since they’re mostly alcohol based and dry out my already dry skin.  This one is Aloe and Alcohol based which, eh.  Not my thing.  It smells much the same as the Face It cleanser, but this product does feel drying though not AS drying as other alcohol based toners.  Again, just not my thing – I don’t get oily, so I really have no use for this kind of product, but again, it was nice to try as a matched set.
  • Balanced Guru Nourish Me Serum – 1 oz / $22.99 – (Product is full size)  This is right up my alley!  Younger me would’ve completely cringed at putting oil on my face, but older me with dry skin is LOVING this serum.  Again, it doesn’t have a really overpowering scent and just smells herbal and natural.  Two wee little drops covered my whole face without leaving it greasy.  The Argan and Jojoba oil base seems to be just what my dry face needs and even if it doesn’t slowdown and reduce the appearance of age, it’s still just about the perfect moisturizing serum for me.

The total value of the box comes to $66.49 which is on the upper end of average for this box.  Even if I’m not thrilled with the two Balanced Guru products, it’s really awesome to try them, and the serum covers the cost of the box anyway.  I’m a little bummed at the lack of variety in this one – it’s all body/face products and a health product I didn’t want  or  need since my preferences are set to “None” for the “Natural Medicines” category.  Even with that obvious mistake, I’m still rather pleased with the box and it’s mostly because of the serum.  As always, looking forward to next month!

Subscription Boxes

Kloverbox December 2015

 

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So, I’m pretty late in getting this post up since the December Kloverbox arrived on December 24th!  Overall, I’m pretty pleased, though I’m not a big fan of traditional perfume and I’m still not sure I like the scent either.  However, two of the producs are HUGE and the value of the box overall is really rather amazing.

  • Balanced Guru Soothe Me – 4 oz / $19.99 – (Product is full size)  An amazing blend of oils perfect for winter dry skin!  The scent isn’t too strong, just natural and maybe even a little bit  citrusy.  It sinks in to my skin so quickly and is perfect to rub into dry legs just before bedtime.  It’s really just all oils, so you can’t go wrong.  The bottle also came with a pump top to screw on.
  • Dermadeli Calm Chamomile Exfoliating Scrub – 160 g / $20.99 – (Product is full size)  My first thought was WOW, huge container, that’s amazing.  My second thought upon opening the container was WOW, smells amazing!  So, two wows in a row.  It’s got just enough coarseness to it that it scrubs well yet doesn’t feel like it’s stripping my face dry.  I used it for the first time today, so we’ll see if there are any longer-term effects!
  • Harvey Prince Hello Eau de Parfum Spray – 8.8 mL / $28 – (Product is full size)  I’m not super huge on fancypants perfumes like this – my go-to’s are usually essential oil type fragrances and not alcohol based perfumes.  Just personal preference!  That out of the way, the scent is .. I’m really not sure.  I get the warm vanilla on top and really light hints of citrus and a wee bit of a floral character which isn’t bad, but it still smells fake in comparison to essential oil based fragrances.  I also don’t like floral fragrances, and this has enough floral to be disappointing.  The florals seem to come out more as time goes on too with the vanilla fading out.  Although this is the product with the highest value in the box, it’s also not my favorite by a long shot.
  • Kiss Me Honey Lip Balm – 1 tube / $4.99 – (Product is full size)  ARGH MINT.  I love lip balm, but hate mint scented/flavored products.  I tried it anyway, and the mint is really only in the scent, so once it’s on, you can’t taste the mint.  There’s just a little tingle from the mint, that’s all, so it’s tolerable.  I saw on the company’s website that they also have a  coconut and strawberry flavored one, so I may have to give those a try since I do like the formula and go through lip balm like water in the winter!

Adding up a total value, we come to $73.97 which is a phenomenal value for this box!  Four full sized products made it a really incredible box for this month and even if I’m not entirely sold on the perfume, the rest of it is really great!  In case you’re interested in subscribing, here’s my referral link for 15% off your subscription.

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 313

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On time this week for Sepia Saturday!  The prompt post featured two French boys, and here I have two Dutch girls.  On the left is Ellechien Dijkema (1912-1974) and on the right is Hilje Dijkema (1914-1997), my husband’s grandmother.  It’s the oldest photo we have of her where her face is clearly visible and it’s quite a treasure!  The girls are the youngest of 8  children, only 6 of whom made it past their 18th birthday.  While the image doesn’t show it, the girls spent the majority of their early lives on the canals around Groningen, Netherlands with their father who ran a barge loaded with deliveries of peat logs for fuel, so the girls were no strangers to life on a boat.  Hilje later married and even took a transatlantic voyage  to the USA where she lived till her death.  The back of the photo has a mark for the photo studio, Foto Steenmeijer (Heerestr. 421, Groningen) and is stamped in purple ink with the date  18 July 1927, so Hilje would’ve been 13 here.  I absolutely love the details in the photo from the necklaces on the girls to their shoes, the bracelet on Ellechien, both of them with rings on, and the almost unseeable print on Hilje’s dress.  As for the photo studio location, we probably walked past it while we were in Groningen this past Fall!  There’s a bunch of great information about the photographer here (unfortunately in Dutch, but Google Translate handles it pretty well!)