Website to try! Crowdtap!

Hello Friends! I have had a busy couple of weeks so sorry I wasn't able to post in a while. We had my mother and brother in law to visit. We decided to do family portraits while they were out and they turned out awesome! We have a surgery date for our little Eli. Its January 13th, so we still have a little while to wait for it. Any prayers are greatly appreciated and we have truly felt all the prayers that people have been praying for our little man. He is doing awesome! I have also decided to become a Lemon Dropper with Young Living Oils! This is a huge step for me but I love the oils so much that I decided to at least try to make a business out of it. Now, on to my blog post.

I have been doing a website called Crowdtap for quite a while now. When I first started I was quite confused on how it worked. I did a month of activities on it and then just stopped doing them. I left my account in good standing but I didn't do any activities for a while. I did that until a couple months before I was due with Eli. I decided to give it another try and I am so glad that I did! First of all let me tell you how it works:

Crowdtap is a website in which it brings companies and consumers together and uses a lot of social networks to not only promote brands but get people talking about how they can be improved and why or why they don't buy the brand. A lot of top brands are on this site like; Ikea, McCormick, Post, Cottonelle, Kellogg's, Capri Sun, and much more!

There are many ways that the brands connect with little ol' consumers like us! Here is what a brands page looks like:

On this brand page you can see QUICKHITS. They are multiple choice questions that the companies page asks consumers. They are straight forward like the beer question in the above pic or they have another one where you have to view content then be asked a question like the one above. Here is what that one looks like:

Another way to interact with a company is the Challenges and Missions, these also include Sample Shares and Moderated Discussions! In the first pic I showed you they have a text challenge. It's a lot like writing out an essay. They have guidelines that you have to follow then other Crowdtappers get to judge if your response matches the guidelines and you can earn stars (which I will explain later.) Picture works a lot the same way but you have to take a picture of what they ask you too and then post it with a short response to the picture. You still get judged by other Crowdtappers and you can still earn stars for excellent responses. 

Next is Missions. I have just started to do these. On missions they have multiple things that you have to do like; text challenges, taking polls,  photo challenges, maybe posting stuff to your fb wall, etc. When you do that you have a chance to win tickets to things, gift cards, and much more. Here is what that looks like:

I just also got invited to do some Sample Shares in which then send you free product; which sometimes they send just samples to share with your friends or they send you a full sized product. What you do is try out the product then write a report about what you think about it. I love that they ask you to be 100% honest with your reports or anything that you do on this site and you don't get marked down for saying what you don't like. They want you to be honest with everything that you do on this site so the companies can improve. They send you an invite for the Sample Shares and after you accept the invitation and answer the questions they pick out lucky people to send the free products to. I just got approved for Listerine Naturals (which I got in the mail yesterday) and Skintimate. 

Another awesome thing (and I personally think its fun to do) is participate in Moderated Discussions. That's where a product asks a few questions and you do a response to the questions. Sometimes they have you answer questions to be approved for the discussions. After you are approved and do a response you can comment on others responses and in the end if you do a great job they give top awards out and stars. Its pretty awesome and straight forward.

I think that doing this stuff is awesome. I will show you my main screen. I have been really invested into my business and being a SAHM is not easy so I haven't been able to be on here as much as I like to so I have a lot to do! Here it is:

I love that you can support a Charity just by doing activities! How they explain it is you choose your Charity and complete your activities like usual. There are different charities to choose from and at the end of the month the charity that has the members earn the most points in earns a $1,000 donation from Crowdtap! 

Now your wondering what those points are for huh? When you complete activities you earn a points. Those points earn you prize entries. For every 100 points you get one prize entry and if you earn stars and top awards it gets you even more points. If you do awesome and get a lot of points they put you into the top 100 finishes. They give you even more points when you are a top 100 finish. 

Now I know what your thinking, "I just get prize entries and there is a chance I wont get a prize. I more than likely wont get a prize ever so why do this?" I am telling you for one I find it fun! Companies really take what you say to heart! We told Capri Sun that they should put in clear bottoms to their pouches and now they have clear bottoms! It's awesome to be able to influence your favorite brands and make them even better! Also you do win a lot! The first month I did it I didn't win anything so I think that's why I went on a hiatus. When I got back into it I the first month I still didn't get anything but I stuck it out and the next month I got a $5 gift card to Amazon! The next month I got $10 to Amazon and I keep on getting at least one gift card a month, which I use to buy my coconut oil and books! I just bought some coconut oil and now I am saving up to get some books to help me out with my oils. You can buy almost anything from Amazon I love to be able to get these gift cards! 

If you find yourself with a lot of downtime and want to influence some companies then I highly suggest Crowdtap! It is so much fun and winning some awesome things helps out a lot too! Seriously y'all try it out!

*The statements made in this blog are my personal experience and my own opinions. They do not represent the experiences of everyone and the opinions of the company. 

All Natural Carpet Deodorizer

Hello Friends! This week/weekend we are having my brother and mother-in-law come to visit us! We are super excited that they are able to make it and my brother-in-law drove in last night. He made it safe and sound and my husband was so excited to have his brother here! I told my husband next year we are visiting him in Tennessee! We have been cleaning and preparing our house for them to visit all week!

If you look at my post before this we got a new puppy! She is so cute but not quite potty trained so we are working on that! Our living room smelled like pee. It was pretty bad and I knew I had to get it taken care of before they got here! To be fair it wasn't all from the dog. We are trying to potty train Emelia and instead of going on the potty she liked to stand up and pee on the floor. So, it wasn't all from the puppy.

I am trying to do things as naturally as possible so I decided to take the leap and buy an essential oil kit to use in our home to try to keep our family healthy. I wasn't expecting it to come in before they came in but it did! After trying to clean our carpet with any soap I can find and vinegar I was excited to get the kit in! When I bought my kit I was added to this thing called the Lemon Aid Library on Facebook. On there I could look up the ways other people are using the oils and ask questions. I found the best way to use the oils on there for floor cleaning/deodorizing.

First let me tell you about the oils I used:

Lemon- Is a very useful oil. Can be used for allergies, weight-loss, and cleaning. It has antiseptic-like qualities to it. Can and will eat through plastic, just like any other citrus oil. 

Thieves- Is a blended oil. It has cloves, lemon, cinnamon bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary oils in it. Great for cleaning and works awesome as a antibacterial cleaner. Diffuse it when your sick to rid the air or bacteria and I use it when I brush my teeth. 

Purification- Is another blended oil. It has citronella, lemongrass, rosemary, melaleuca (tea-tree oil), lavadin, and myrtle oils in it. This also is an antiseptic and is wonderful with odors. Diffuse it to rid the air of odors or you can make a air-freshening spray. I will probably post the air-freshening spray sometime or later. It has a ton of things you can use it for! 

There you have it! Those are the big three I am using for cleaning. First thing I wanted to do is clean my floors really well. I have one of those FANTASTIC shark cleaning mops. We got it for a wedding present and I use it all the time. Trust me its a good investment and its all natural because it only uses water to make steam. It has a carpet glider so first I was going to use that to steam clean the carpets. I was racking my brain on how to figure out to use the oils to help me with the steam cleaning too. You cannot put oil into the water compartment so I had to figure out a different way. I decided to put it right on the cleaning pad and use it that way.  I only put one drop of each on the pad. It worked awesome!

It really didn't take too long to sanitize the floors and I went over where I know there was pee a couple times. After that I was able to put my nose to the floor and it smelled good. I still wanted to make a deodorizing powder to add a little extra odor absorbing power. These are the ingredients I used:

First I took a plain ol' spaghetti jar. I didn't want to go out the the store to buy a shaker so I thought I would make my own:

See, told you. Also don't mind the mess in the background. So, after I got the spaghetti jar and made sure it was super cleaned out I got a hammer and nail and poked holes in the top of the jar. I did 7 holes and made sure to space them out well. 

You can make your holes on top any size you want. I choose to make them a little bit bigger so that it was easy to sprinkle it out. I put my nail right on top and hammered it in. It was really easy to do. After I got my jar made I got out my baking soda and my oils. I only used one drop of each again and I put a half cup of baking soda in the jar. If you want more of a scent or need more deodorizing power you can put more in there. I had another spaghetti jar with an lid without holes in it and used that to shake it all together. I would think if you put tape over the holes it would be as good. I would make it as you need it, I am not sure how good the oils will stay in the jar since it has holes and its clear. That was enough to do my whole living room. This was what it looked like in my jar:

After it was all mixed I sprinkled it onto the carpet. I paid special attention to the places where I know that there was urine. I let it sit for a while, I would say a half hour. I went and cleaned my shower then when I was done I vacuumed it up. There was absolutely no urine smells! My hubby is getting annoyed with all my oils talk, he is quite the skeptic about these things. So, when he got home I told him to smell the carpet. Of course he said "No I am not sniffing the carpet." He did say along the lines of "I could tell a difference because it doesn't smell like pee in here." I will take it! 

There you have it. If you have horrible smells in your carpet here is something you can try to get rid of them! I used Young Living oils for this. I like them because they are the highest grade oils and can even be ingested! I got the starter kit for them which came with a bunch of stuff. I got samples, 10 everyday oils, one Stress Away oil, a diffuser for them, and much more! Plus now I can buy my oils at wholesale prices instead of paying full retail value. You also have the option to sell them but you are not forced to if you don't want to.If you want to learn more about essential oils click here. Now, go try it out!

Coconut Oil Pulling?

Hello friends! This week was crazy! My hubby went on a business trip so I was at home with 3 crazy kids and 1 crazy puppy. I really don't know how I survived! I do have a funny story though. So I just got done bathing Emelia and I stuck her next to Eli. Eli had his had into a little fist and Emelia bumped his fist with hers and said "fist bump." Seriously, that was the coolest thing ever lol. I feel like my husband and I are winning at parenting thing after that lol.

So anyways, onto my post. Have you heard of this thing called oil pulling? Its when you take a kind of oil and swish it around in your mouth for a while then spit it out. I have seen people using olive oil, vegetable oil, sesame oil, and coconut oil. I'm sure there are more oils out there to use also. I decided to try it and use coconut oil.

Now there are a lot of people out there that says it pretty much performs miracles. People in blogs say that it whitens teeth, gets rid of cavities, helps with sensitivity, helps out your whole body as a detox, and is great for your oral health. I saw all those things and had some gift cards to Amazon so I thought why not try it! The internet says that sesame oil is the best to use but I have heard great things about coconut oil and you can use it for multiple things.

My research told me that there are two type of coconut oil. There is refined which is made from coconut meat that has been dried. It doesn't have the coconut flavor that an unrefined type of coconut oil would have. That is because it has been bleached, treated to reduce bacteria, and cooked at a high heat to extract the smell and flavor of the coconut. Unrefined (virgin coconut oil is what it can be referred to) means that it has the smell and flavor of the coconut. It hasn't been treated or bleached in any way and most people say this is the type of oil to choose. So I followed what I read and bought Nutiva coconut oil from Amazon.

After reading a whole bunch of blog post about coconut oil pulling I was quite scared. A lot of them said it was a horrible experience and that they puked because of it! I have puked enough from having morning sickness from being pregnant, it is really not fun. I think I have puked enough to last a lifetime! I tried it anyways because that's what I do and all I could think is these people are wimps! I didn't puke and my husband loved how I didn't talk for 20 minutes each morning!

If you want to try this crazy trend and be a follower like me I will be glad to share with you how to do it! First thing in the morning you take a tablespoon of the coconut oil and plop it right into your mouth! I read not to eat before you do it. I ate a couple times and was just fine but I tried not to let my hunger control me!

That is what you would call my "stank face." After I plopped that big glob into my mouth I set the timer for 20 minutes on my stove. Yes you put it in your mouth for 20 minutes! I got the kids around for breakfast and made hubby's lunch while merrily swishing away. You don't want to swish vigorously, you mostly want to pull it though your teeth and swish gently. Trust me, if you do swish vigorously your jaw hurts a lot afterward! This is me swishing:

Nothing makes you feel more vain than having to take pictures of yourself! I am not a selfie type of girl so this was awkward for me! At about 15 minutes into swishing the amount of liquid inside your mouth doubles. Its hard to keep it all in. I do the ladylike thing, and spit a little bit of it out. At 20 minutes you spit it into your trash. You don't want to spit it in the sink because it can clog drains. It has a white milky look to it. That's a good thing! Then I swish my mouth out with salt water and brush my teeth. I will tell you that my teeth feel so smooth afterwards! I love the feeling it gives my teeth. It also makes my lips really smooth and soft. Bonus! Plus, if you have a kernel of popcorn stuck into you teeth, do a little oil pulling. It will pop that sucker right out!

 Now my cavities (yes, sadly I have a couple cavities) are still there. It didn't even lessen them. Oh well, I guess a trip to the dentist is in order. Also it might have decreased my sensitivity to things a little bit but I am still pretty sensitive to hot and cold. My teeth did look a shade or two whiter after a couple weeks of doing it. It wasn't a whole lot of difference though. It might still work for you guys though. I would still give it a try! Plus coconut oil is good for a lot of awesome things. Hair masks, lotions, good to eat, sunscreen, you name it. I will be blogging about some of the recipes I use it in when I perfect them a little! So all in all I would do this again and again. Plus coconut oil is now high on my shopping list! We are going to end it with my son looking for a fist bump! Right on!

*After I posed this and shared it to my facebook one of my friends let me know that they found out they were allergic to coconut oil. What I would suggest if your not much of a coconut eater then only take a little bit at first and swish it around for a couple minutes. Then after you spit that out wait about a half hour. Usually allergic reactions happen quickly but take the 30 to be safe. If no reaction your good! She said her mouth got really itchy and it was awful.