Natalie Jost

"Difficult people are often placed square in our path so that the interaction with them will heal a..."

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:16:46 -0600

“Difficult people are often placed square in our path so that the interaction with them will heal a specific flaw in our character which would otherwise have gone untended.”

Taking the doors off my kitchen cabinets was the best thing next...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:25:02 -0600

Taking the doors off my kitchen cabinets was the best thing next to a complete remodel. (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:56:17 -0600

Taken with instagram

After school cupcake: Andes Mint Chocolate. mmmmmmmmmm (Taken...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:46:42 -0600

After school cupcake: Andes Mint Chocolate. mmmmmmmmmm (Taken with instagram)

Cheap, changeable art! pinned

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:43:00 -0600

Cheap, changeable art! pinned

Photo

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:09:45 -0600

Found a use for an old stamp rack: twill ribbon dispenser!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:05:09 -0600

Found a use for an old stamp rack: twill ribbon dispenser!

Brand new vintage shop (and fellow Shopifier), RED LINE VINTAGE...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:51:05 -0600

Brand new vintage shop (and fellow Shopifier), RED LINE VINTAGE is very well designed: great to look at and easy to use! And some great finds in the product line too. Grand Opening was yesterday, so you’re very near the first to know. ;)

No Shampoo

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:02:39 -0600

My baking soda + malt vinegar bottles

A couple of years ago I read Simple Mom talk about going without Shampoo in her book Organized Simplicity. It sounded so nice, but I was nervous to try it. Then a couple of months ago I picked up her ebook One Bite at a Time on my Kindle Fire. Again she mentioned the no shampoo thing. I decided I really really wanted to try it.

She mentioned in both books that your hair will be oily for a few weeks as it fights against the new regimen, so I was prepared to go a month or so with really yucky hair. It actually wasn’t SO bad, but here’s how it went.

Week One

At first I didn’t have a bottle to mix things in so I just shook some baking soda powder on my head in the shower and rubbed my head like I did with shampoo. Then, I had a squirt bottle I had used for water when ironing, so I added a little apple cider vinegar to water and sprayed it on the ends of my hair.

This worked great and I was super excited. I even told my friend on the way to bible study that I was doing the no-shampoo thing. They say telling others keeps you accountable to seeing things through and I needed some insurance to make sure I didn’t chicken out.

The baking soda was cleaning my hair and the vinegar sorted the tangles and made my hair silky. I washed twice in week one. Then came week two.

Week Two

After ordering some condiment bottles from Amazon, I now had the exact formula: CLEANSE
1tbsp baking soda, (approx. $0.02/mo)*
8oz water
RINSE
1tbsp apple cider vinegar (approx. $0.12/mo)
8oz water

By the third wash, my hair had become thicker than usual. I have long dark brown (almost black) hair and it’s very thick already, but this was insane. It was almost impossible to brush it, not due to tangles as much as the fact that the brush just couldn’t penetrate all of my hair in one pass. It was just too thick. I felt a little nervous, thinking I might have to report the results to my friend now that I had told her. Ugh.

So I used a blow dryer and brushed the hair down with heat. This tamed it so by the looks of things, it wasn’t bad. It felt awful, but it looked fine. I washed three times this week.

Week Three

Greasy as ever, I had to use the hair dryer immediately after washing, every time. If I didn’t, my hair was big and frizzy, and yet oily, so sticky. It was so bad that just running my fingers through my hair would make my hands sticky! I seriously had to wash my hands after touching my hair. Yuck. So glad at this point that I hadn’t blogged about this stupid idea.

By the end of week three, I was having serious doubts. But I was determined to see it through. I washed three times this week and told myself I’d give it another 2 weeks.

Week Four

My hair was still pretty heavy, but slightly more manageable this week. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. I still blow dried and began using a curling iron, hoping a little style would distract people from the thick winter coat on my head. I washed three times this week and felt hopeful now, that it might get better.

Week Five

Suddenly, around the end of the first month, my hair got noticeably lighter (not in color, but in weight). Around this time I read another book called A Guide to Green Housekeeping in which the author suggested using malt vinegar on dark hair for extra shine.

Not only did this switch give me extra shine, it also did for my hair what conditioners in the past had done (or attempted to do and stopped short). It smoothed tangles, added shine, and made my hair feel instantly silky soft. And because I used it undiluted as the author suggested, it seemed to work much better than the apple cider vinegar.

I also applied it differently. With the apple cider vinegar I put just a small amount on the ends of my hair. With the malt vinegar I squirted it straight onto the top of my head while my head was under the water so that none would rest on my scalp but all of my hair would be touched by the vinegar. For my thick hair, this made the difference. For thinner hair or lighter hair, you might want to stick with the apple cider vinegar.

My final formula:
CLEANSE
1tbsp baking soda ($0.02/mo)
8oz water
RINSE
8oz malt vinegar ($0.85/mo)

So now, I can wear my hair naturally without heat drying or curling (though I still do once in awhile just because). And I now wash it just once a week, twice if I’ve had a busy week and it needs it. And now I’m blogging it because it all worked out. :)

If you wash without shampoo and conditioner, I’d love to know what works for you! I’m still just trying this out so I’m fascinated by all the ideas out there.

COST

So the comparison is a no-brainer for me. It cost an average of about $6-8/bottle for me to buy shampoo and conditioner and I used to use them in about two months, so about $6-8/mo combined cost. Now, I don’t imagine I’ll spend more than $1.00/month.

FOLLOW UP - check twitter where I’ll post my formula for homemade detergent, which costs me about 1/6th of what I used to pay for detergents.

*My prices are estimated based on what it cost me at the time I bought it at my local store and based on how much of it I personally use in a month. Your cost will vary.

Free winter wallpaper (right click the link below and save) - to...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:15:06 -0600

Free winter wallpaper (right click the link below and save) - to dress up your desktop, phone or other device. Merry Christmas!

Full size

Getting in the Christmas spirit, AJ and I made this last night....

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:14:12 -0600

Getting in the Christmas spirit, AJ and I made this last night. I love that she is a late night impulse crafter too.

We made a cone out of brown shipping paper and stuffed it with crumpled paper, then added a base of cardboard just taped on. You could buy a fancy schmancy styrofoam cone—we were on impulse and the stores were closed. Then just some hot glue and candies, and some ribbon at the bottom.

Coming up, Olive Manna is doing a special “Tastemaker Tag...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:00:05 -0500

Coming up, Olive Manna is doing a special “Tastemaker Tag Sale” with One Kings Lane. Most of the items in this sale are totally unique products I haven’t listed in my shop previously. Mostly vintage finds, they are the cooler things I haven’t wanted to let go of. But when One Kings Lane approached me to do a sale, I figured it was a sign it was time to stop being so selfish and share them! I hope you love them as much as I have.

Tastemaker Tag Sale starts Thursday evening Nov. 3rd at 6:00pm PDT (west coast USA time) and will end 8:00am Monday Morning.

Olive Manna is having a sale with 100 Layer Cake this week until...

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:40:00 -0500

Olive Manna is having a sale with 100 Layer Cake this week until Nov. 4th. In preparation for the sale, Jillian came up with a few really neat ideas using some of the samples I sent. I’m so tickled to show you these cute projects! Click on over to 100 Layer Cake for more details.

Photos by Scott Clark

Found this old photo on my iPhone. Taken using a macro lens from...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:27:00 -0500

Found this old photo on my iPhone. Taken using a macro lens from photojojo here.

Remember these? They’re coming back soon! I’m...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:29:00 -0500

Remember these? They’re coming back soon!

I’m trying to get these listed as soon as possible. Every time I sit down to put them online, I get a wholesale order and another shop swipes another 30-70 sets out from under you. I’m going to go ahead and put the listing up soon and they’ll be ready to ship in a few days.

Olive Manna is in the November issue of Food Network Magazine!...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:18:29 -0500

Olive Manna is in the November issue of Food Network Magazine! Page 66 shows a “get the look” page with items similar to those found in Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s kitchen. Thanks so much FNM for including this basket!

a customer shared some beautiful photos of a bon voyage party I...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:14:28 -0500

a customer shared some beautiful photos of a bon voyage party I thought would inspire you. She used my natural cotton twill tape to string the circle banner.

Dust Collecting

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:37:20 -0500

Sorting through some old papers over the weekend I found a scratchpad I had used in my web design days. I had been studying design of all types, from architecture to packaging design. One theme that kept popping up in my studies was “form vs. function”. There was always an argument for one or the other, but generally accepted was the idea that the best designs had a healthy dose of both.

In the middle of other scribblings, I had written, “FORM WITHOUT FUNCTION IS A DUST COLLECTOR” I wrote it on the chalkboard pictured above because it sums up so well my design philosophy. I imagine I must have been thinking of my days as a pre-teen, when dusting was my weekly chore. After years of dusting off my mom’s books, plants, and various trinkets, I can remember thinking repeatedly, “when I get my own house, I won’t own anything that needs dusting.”

Of course I can’t get away from basic stuff like furniture and a few picture frames (though I limit those too), and there is an argument for things which are sentimental or make you smile for a personal reason, but I’ve always made a conscious effort not to buy something if it doesn’t serve a real purpose in my life. If it’s just going to sit on a shelf, I don’t want it. But if I’ll use it—pick it up, touch it, hold it, put it back—then it will pick up less dust and make my inner teen happy at last.

This weekend I was out shopping antique stores with my niece and I found an old red flour sifter in near perfect condition. It’s exactly like the one I’ve been using for years but about 20-30 years older, and RED. It’s a nice shabby red too. I remember my niece commenting, “Nice, what will you do with it?”

To which I replied, “Sift flour!”

“Oh! You can actually USE it? Cool!”

Honestly, it’s sitting on a shelf in my kitchen at the moment, but that’s because I’m blogging, not baking. But as soon as a recipe calls for sifted flour, that beautiful vintage sifter will be used once more.

I just wanted to share this thought with you today to give you some insight into my world and how I choose products for Olive Manna as well. The things I make or buy have to be useful as well as good-looking (much like a husband)! ;)

There are lots of really pretty things out there, lots of trendy things I see that make me pause for a moment. I consider them briefly, but pass—not because I think they won’t sell (I’m sure they would)—but because for one reason or another, the item just isn’t practical. Cute, for sure, but likely to gather a lot of dust until one day you can’t remember why you bought the thing and you gift it away.

YUM! agreyeyedgirl: Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:29:35 -0500

YUM!

agreyeyedgirl:

Mint Chocolate Chip Cake

Cute distraction… um… OK, I’m not allowed to...

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:25:00 -0500

Cute distraction… um… OK, I’m not allowed to reblog this one. Click the links below to find the original. It’s kinda cute, but MIGHT not be worth the time looking for it past one link. :(

zooeydeschanel:

My sister Emily is in this!

hellogiggles:

Order, She Wrote: With Special Guest Emily Deschanel