Product Review: Make Your Own Gummies Kit + Giveaway!

One time I went to a Twitter party where Glee Gum was one of the sponsored prizes. During that chat, I discovered that they had these "homemade candy kits." I was instantly curious because I love trying new stuff and candy is sort of a whole other food group for me. I was so fortunate that I was able to receive this product free from GleeGum to test out and share my opinions on. 

Now, I have seen Glee Gum before, but had NO idea that they made other things besides GUM! Here's a little information on this homemade candy kits:

Available in Make Your Own Chocolate, Make Your Own Chewing Gum, and Make Your Own Gummies, these activity kits are all-natural, educational, and eco-friendly. With pre-packaged ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions, everyone aged 8 and up gets a real kick out of making candy from scratch. Focusing on the history behind and the origin of these candies, each kit is designed to captivate your interest, connect you to the global community, and create something yummy to eat in the process! 

Here's how my experience with this kit went:

The kit comes with 5 packets: sour mix, colored & flavored sugar, powdered seaweed, seaweed, molding starch and of course the instructions to put this kit together! Going into this experiement, I was kind of skeptical, I really had NO clue how a.) seaweed was going to be the secret ingredient b.) it was going to taste c.) and how easy it would be to actually to make this. Could an 8 year old really do this? Nonetheless a 27-year-old like myself?

Step One!

Steps:

Step One says  to Soak the  seaweed (not the powder) in water. No mention of what temperature of water, so I just did cold water.

Step Two is to Choose Your Shapes. I wasn't prepared for this one really went and kind of was stumped on what to select. They DO give a few suggestions, like those refrigerator ABC letters, which surprisingly I had a few left! I had the letter L and A, and I also grabbed this triangle magnet. They also suggest using the back of a tablespoon. 

Step Three!

Step Three!

Step Three is to Make Imprints. Smooth out the molding starch on a plate and place your shapes into the surface. For my huge fingers it was an issue to grab the letters out without messing up the outline. So, eventually I chose more of the magnet triangle shapes because they were the easiest! 

Step Four said to mix the powdered sugar with 1/2 cup water and stir well. Then, add the soaking seaweed into the bowl mixture. 

Step Five is to Heat the mixture for about 2 minutes! I suggest using a larger bowl. I was dumb and did a small bowl and some of it over boiled and I ended up loosing some mixture. Sad face. 

Step Six was to remove the seaweed from the mixture and throw away, because the carrageenan had done it's job! 

Step Six!

Step Seven!

Step Seven was to add the colored sugar packet into the hot mixture and put back into the microwave for another minute!

Step Eight was a difficult one for me. It was to pour the hot mixture into the molds. I tried to pour it but it turned out to be way too blobby, so I ended up not even using the molds and made actual BLOBS of gummies. Was this my error? Or, was it not hot enough? I am not sure! Then pop it into the fridge for 10 minutes! 

Step Eight!

Step Nine was to coat the blobs with the sour mix! And then ALL DONE. You have your very own, homemade gummies to eat and share with friends! Yay!

So, how did they taste? They tasted decent! Of course, I wasn't expecting them to taste like the gummi bears I get in the store that contain god knows what, so if you go into the taste test thinking like that, it will help the situation! I will say that, I, did NOT add the sour mix because for some reason, I forgot it was there, so I am assuming that if I HAD added the sour mix, it would have been even better than what they were, so that was definitely my fault there. I thought this product was SO SO SO fun, and I think a young child would LOVE it. I mean, I am 27 and loved it! I am really curious about the other two kits - Chocolate and Chewing Gum! I think it'd be a fun activity to do with a school aged child because you can learn and go further with the idea of carrageenans! Which I have no clue what are. 

Anyone try any of the other kits? I'm really curious about how those went! Or even if you have tried this Gummie Kit. How was your experience? ;)

 

Thank you to Glee Gum! Follow them on Facebook & Twitter for up to date information, discounts, gift ideas and other goodies! :)

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Beauty Box 5: May 2014

I used to subscribe to Beauty Box 5 back in the day, meaning 2 years ago when I was obsessed with the fad of "boxed subscriptions." Don't get me wrong, I'm still obsessed, but now I have a family to support so subscribing to these services don't usually happen because I usually can not afford it. However, back in April they shared a coupon code for a FREE box, and of course, I jumped on it. Here's what was inside:

Pretty decent box! Wouldn't say it's AMAZING, but definitely not disappointing. 

BH Cosmetics California Collection Eyeshadow Sample - Value: $6

This is a real cool sample. The colors are fun and ones I would wear in life. However, I didn't want to open this one, to take a picture of the colors because I'm probably going to regift it because I already have this exact same sample from BH Cosmetics that I got in Beauty Army, and there is a high chance that I also may have a 3rd one. I have seen this sample palette before, LOL. Nothing wrong with that, but I feel like it would go great in someone's gift pack for some special occasion. 

Just Being Sexy Body Bronzer - Value I HAVE NO CLUE BECAUSE I AM TERRIBLE AT MATH.

I'm not sure I would ever use this. When it comes to bronzer I'm clueless. And the fact that this is a BODY bronzer makes me a little more fearful. What if I sweat? Will it come off? I can't even compute a calculations to this because I never excelled in mathematics, but my guess is that it's less $1.00 considering 6 oz is valued at $49 and we were sent 24 ML. 

Aveeno Positively Nourishing Calming Body Wash - VALUE: $.90

I LOVE this stuff!! The smell of Lavender, Chamomile + Ylang-Yla

ng (what?) is one of my favorite smells ever and the fact that this is a body wash and not a lotion doubles my excitement! I love itty bitty things you can take on trips with you and this will definitely make my bag for NYC. 

LA Fresh Travel Lite-Facial Cleansing Wipes - Value: $3.50

I am a huge fan of LA Fresh. I've never actually ordered them on my own or seen them in stores, but have received them as samples before and LOVE LOVE LOVE them. Not to mention I love cleansing face wipes alot in general. They are perfect for making you feel a bit more fresh in the facial area on some days! I'm pretty excited to get this product and it will also be traveling with me to NYC in June. 

Montagne Jeunesse Glacial Cooling Face Mask - Value: $2.50

I've only used one mask by Montagne Jeunesse but enjoyed it. So, I'm pretty excited to try this and I actually received 4 masks from the company to provide my thoughts on them in another blog post! I am really looking forward to that! 

So, based on my (i'm sure poor) calculations the value of this FREE box was: $13.90? NOT bad. They could probably have sent me 5 foil packets and I probably would not have complained since it was entirely free, so because this box had stuff I enjoyed it was a good experience for me. HOWEVER, I don't think a good enough one to continue to my journey with them. I currently subscribe to IPSY (amazing!) and Love with Food (it's true, I love Food!) and that's really all I can afford right now. Now, I hope canceling goes smoothly. I have heard some things... 

Purex Insiders: Triple Review!

Wow, have I mentioned how much I LOVE being a Purex Insider? Seriously, in the last month or two I have gotten 3 more products to review. I've been so busy and life has been hectic that I've really slacked on laundry. I get most of my chores like that done on the weekends, but lately my weekends have been consumed with fun activities. So generously, from Purex Insiders, I received the following:

Purex Crystals Fabric Softener Sheets in Lavender Blossom.
Okay, normally...you would never catch me complaining about dryer sheets. I've only used dryer sheets that work really well, have amazing scents and do their job - make fabric softer. When I received the package from these before I even opened I was OVERWHELMED with the smell of these. WOW. Normally Lavender is my kind of smell, but this was way too strong! This did however make for a product that really follows through on their "30 days of long lasting freshness." I'm not really sure if it actually lasted the WHOLE 30 days, but the freshness and scent was there. Thank god for laundry cabinets where I overpowering smell can be smothered a bit.

Purex No Sort for Colors:
In all fairness, I only used this one time since I received it. With that said, I could not really tell a difference! To me, it worked just like any other Purex detergent I've received, so no real complaints there. It's supposed to after Anti-Color Transfer Technology! Sounds real fancy! I guess I may have to come back and update this portion after a few more uses!

Purex Crystals LIMITED EDITION Fabulously Fresh:
My love for these freshness booster beads are never ending. I love all scents and all kinds. So this product worked well. I LOVED the scent. My one complaint is I don't believe the scent lasts for weeks like it says on the bottle, but to me that's not something I necessarily care for. It does what it's supposed to even if it is for a day or two. I also love that they came out with something Limited Edition and would really love it there were more in the future!


Once again, thank you Purex for providing me with these items to product test. I look forward to many more opportunities for other awesome products!

The Purex brand provided me with  these samples in exchange for a product review. However, all opinions expressed here are my own.