What's in My Autism Therapy Bag?

My son has therapy three times a week, so I had to come up with a system that could travel well and work for home storage.  I wanted something that was big enough to hold everything, sturdy enough to take to appointments, and not too large.  Take a peek what's in our therapy bag right now and a few things that are on rotation that we sometimes bring with us.  I'm planning on posting more about the printables that his therapists and I have made, so keep watching for those posts.

10 Best Charcoal Skin Products

Charcoal is an amazing natural beauty product.  Activated charcoal is just like the charcoal that you get when you burn wood except the activated version is made to use on the body.  To make activated charcoal, they take charcoal and heat it, which causes expansion.  This expansion causes it to be porous to trap more toxins.  The reason charcoal works is because it forms bonds with other substances, namely toxins.  It can absorb 1000s of times its own weight in toxins, and it has a large surface area.  This is why charcoal is sometimes used if someone ingests a poison or toxin.  This also makes it a wonderful natural product to help prevent and heal acne.  Charcoal is gentler than using harsh chemicals on your skin, so it really works well for those with sensitive skin and acne.  I don't suffer from acne other than the occasional blemish, but I like using charcoal because I have large pores, and it helps pull the dirt out to make them appear smaller.  Here are my top 10 best pick

Rose Bath Salts

Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I wanted to give you this recipe to use either for your date or with your roses after the petals have dried.  My husband gets me roses for Valentine's Day, and I hate to just throw them away after I've enjoyed them.  With this easy rose bath salts recipe, I can reuse them and enjoy them for several more months.  I used pink Himalayan salt in this recipe because it's naturally pink.  You could use a clear salt and use pink food coloring to dye it as well.  I also used rose oil instead of rose essential oil.  Rose oil is more expensive, but you can easily make your own rose oil .  Rose oil has many benefits for your skin, so I prefer to use it over the essential oil.

Embedded Melt and Pour Heart Soap Tutorial

This soap was born out of serendipity, to be honest.  I had some deep purple soap that needed to be used soon, so I decided to make some heart shaped soaps with a mold that I got at the grocery store.  I was also making another soap that day in my round soap mold.  When I set the heart mold on top of the circle mold, I noticed that the hearts fit inside the circle very well.   Learning how to make already colored soap in a heart mold isn't blog post worthy, but I thought these embedded soaps turned out cute, so I decided to blog them.  If you're new to making melt and pour soap, this technique can be used to make embedded soaps of all kinds. These soaps are cute sitting on a soap dish in a bathroom or even in the kitchen.  They would also make cute Valentine's Day gifts for friends or even teachers.  

How to Make Soap Petals

Way back when I sold bath and beauty products, these were a hot seller for me.  I used to make them in several different scents in rose petals and other flower petals.  Now I make them for myself because I have eczema on my hands and most hand soaps in stores make me flare up.  I keep a baggie of these disposable soaps in my purse so I can use soap without risking itching. These soap petals are also good for a romantic bath.  Simply toss a few in to the bath water, and they will float.  As the soap dissolves, the fragrance is released into the bath water.  How romantic would this be for Valentine's Day or date night? They also look and smell pretty in a dish on the counter in a guest bathroom.  Keep reading to learn how to make soap petals for disposable soaps or guest soaps.   

DIY Calming Glitter Glue Bottle

Have you ever been so upset that you just need to get your mind off of things before you can calm down?  Like you just need to walk away and focus on something else before you can respond?  We all get like that.  Adults.  Kids.  It happens to the best of us. Now that I'm an adult, I can recognize that I'm upset and use coping strategies.  Children are still learning coping strategies, and some kids need a little extra help.  My middle child, who has autism, is one of those kids who needs a little extra help with calming.  I made him this calming glitter bottle so he could self-regulate.  They are also good for anxiety in kids too. This is one of the easier autism DIY projects that I've done, and it's gotten a lot of use.  Even my neurotypical daughter likes to look at it.