Tag Archives: Mensa

3 Ingredients: All Natural Every Day Cleaner

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We made our own all purpose house cleaner with 3 ingredients we have at home. It will save us some $$$ and it is super environmentally conscious, AND its as easy and cheesy as 1, 2, 3!

One:

Dont throw away your old cleaner’s spray bottle!

Keep it, and fill it half way with white vinegar.

vinegar

TWO:

Fill the rest of the bottle with all-natural tap water! ; )

water bubbles

THREE:

Add about 5-10 drops of essential oil. We used peppermint because it smells oh-so-fresh, but you can do anything from lavender to patchouli!

Peppermint essential oil

THAT’S IT!

You can use this anywhere and everywhere, and according to The New Homemaker there is dozens of combinations that you can use vinegar with to clean everything from your laundry to removing stains and odors!

So why bother buying “green” cleaners when we can make them at home!?

So do it now!

love,

-Mensa

Oh-Organic Marshmallow Fondant, Where art thou?

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Feliz cumpleaños Micaca y Isabela!!!

This birthday cake is dedicated to my crazy cool sister who turned the double douces a week ago…An easy to make fondant added a little color to this delicious chocolate cake, and who doesn’t love fondant? You can really make anything you want with it because its almost like play-dough!

The fondant was ridiculously easy to make, and because of the hype with the marshmallow-fondant recipe, I got caught up in the moment and used ingredients that were not so wholesome for our health. So sorry hermana!

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So the ingredients I used?

Marshmallows= High Fructose Corn Syrup and who knows what  bits and pieces of chicken parts…

Powdered Sugar= I didn’t use any organic or unbleached product…my bad.

Food Coloring= Need I say more?

So here’s the deal. I did a little research and Organic Marshmallow Fondant IS possible.

I found a couple of recipes, yet each of them always had something “off”. So i combined all my research and I think it will be as easy to make an organic fondant recipe without the extra hassle.

So here’s the recipe…

8 oz of mini VEGAN marshmallows (about 4 full cups). They do exist!

1 tbsp of water

1 pound bag of Wholesome Organic Icing Sugar..plus a little bit more for when things get sticky!

1 tbsp of Organic Light corn syrup

1 tbsp of lemon juice

Natural Food Coloring

Organic Butter

* For the Food Coloring there are MANY options. You can buy organic and natural good coloring like Maggie’s Naturals which are made of all natural plant based sources. Your local natural food store should carry some. If you want to experiment and make your own colors you can virtually achieve any of them with any product at the store. Red? Use some beets! Orange? Carrots! Yellow? Tumeric or saffron flowers. Green? You can use spinach or even buy a natural food supplement called liquid chlorophyll. Blues and Purples? Cabbage anyone? Its doable! You might just have to experiment with the recipe.

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The HOW TO:

Add the water to the marshmallows. It usually calls for a minute in the microwave. Skip this step and the extra radiation and heat it the old school way. I will update this recipe when I try it in the oven, but I would start by testing it at 300 degrees for about 10 minutes in a bowl.

Use a WOODEN SPOON covered with butter. This will make the marshmallows stick less to everything and will make it easier to mix. Make sure all the clumps are gone until you have a pretty smooth marshmallow mixture, and add the corn syrup and the lemon. The corn syrup helps make it a bit more flexible so it does not crack and dry so fast, while the lemon reduces the intense sweetness it has.

Start adding the icing sugar bit by bit, and continue mixing it well into the marshmallow mix. Slowly it will start to clump up and it will become hard to keep going further with the spoon. Once you have gone through 3/4 of the sugar, you can transfer the mix to a clean surface and use your hands.

Knead and keep adding the powdered sugar until you have a smooth and malleable dough. If it’s too sticky add a bit of sugar, if it’s too dry then splash water into your hands and knead again.

To prevent it from sticking to the table and the rolling pin, I greased the surfaces with a bit of butter which made things much easier.

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I made some flowers and leaves. Pretty easy! For the leaves I just cut two different shapes and with a toothpick added the lines. For the flowers I used a long flat triangle and started to curl it up from the smallest end. The colors look extremely bright, because they are extremely fake.

So now that I have the recipe and sources, I will make a second attempt to live to what I preach, and make a HEALTHIER and more CONSCIOUS birthday cake, with beautiful organic and natural colors!

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 -Mensa

Re-potting and Re-loving your Plants

DIY, Environment, Green, How-To, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I must admit. I need to be better about taking care of our house plants. So today I got serious! I decided to re-pot them, mix the soil around, add new soil and a little home-made plant food.

The How To’s:

1.Making the Plant Food:

Since we recently started composting, I figured that instead of buying any plant food from the store, I had to put our compost to good use.

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In a blender I added some coffee grinds, a couple of eggshells, and some compost (which included apple cores, carrot peels and other goodies). I added a healthy amount of water and blended it.

A word about plant food:

Many home made recipes call for a mixture of  Epson Salts, baking powder, regular salt, and household ammonia. Whatever rocks your boat. Personally, adding ammonia, which is considered to be a toxic substance, to anything seems a little crazy to me. Its a natural and organic compound produced and used for growth of many plants, but having a jug of ammonia in the house does not seem like the best and most eco-friendly solution. (If it gets in our water ways it can be extremely harmful). So sticking with all-natural, non-toxic, home-made plant food seems like a better solution to me.

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2. Mixing the soil

I took old soil from plants that had died due to extreme heat in our kitchen (whoops) and mixed it with new soil in a bucket. I tossed it and added a bit of the juicy plant food (mostly the water part) to moisten the soil. I added more water to the mix in order to have the soil thoroughly moist.

3. Re-potting your plants

***The most important thing I did through out this whole process was talking to my plants! Call me crazy, but I really felt like they needed to know what was going on. Imagine being pulled out of your warm comfy home and abruptly placed in a new pot! So as I did this I explained the process, was really gentle, made them feel more at ease, and made ME feel like I knew what I was doing (even though it was my first real re-potting experience!)…So it helped us all : )

-Start by having everything ready and clean. I made a mess, so cleaning as you go is definitely recommended.

– Prep your flower pot with a little dirt at the bottom. If there is a hole you can cover it using a shard of an old broken pot making sure you don’t cover the hole completely. Add a bit of the plant food that you have prepared.

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-I took my first plant and flipped it gently until it loosened and came out of its pot. I dug a little around the edges and it helped to get it out. I untangled the roots a bit and watered them slightly and placed it on the pot.

-I covered and filled the pot with dirt and half way through I added a bit more of the plant food. Then I covered it completely, making sure I stayed at least half an inch from the rim (if not when you water it, it can overflow).

-Use a spray to clean the leaves of your plants if they have dirt on them, so they can breathe!

Tell your plants that they are awesome and that this is for their own good even if they hate you… ; ) Sun, water and love will make their day!

Now they will grow stronger than ever and produce beautiful blooms and strong green leaves!

-Mensa

A Little Bit of Self Promotion Never Hurt Anyone

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Mushpa y Mensa

We write a bunch of blog entries about this and that, but I want to focus a bit on our baby Mushpa y Mensa today. I am going to send out fantastically positive energy to everyone to want what we have to offer.

Listen, I want to make it, not just for us realize, but for all the other artists, inventors and nerds who desire their freedom from a job they’ve never really loved. For all those who want to believe that it is possible to be happy in what you do. I want us to be that example where people say, “See anyone can make it if they do the work and believe.” Seriously, that is all anyone needs to do and we will prove it!

Here is my shameless self promotion below.

Mushpa y Mensa Etsy Store –  http://www.etsy.com/shop/MushpaYMensa
Mushpa y Mensa Blog – http://mushpamensa.wordpress.com/
Mushpa y Mensa Twitter – https://twitter.com/mushpamensa
Mushpa y Mensa Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/musphamensa/mushpa-y-mensa-we-are-two-crafty-chics/

Go check out our sites and buy one thing, maybe an amazing tablet case, or plush sweet pigs who think they are elephants and aliens who have no name, and there is even a gorgeous handmade, clay necklace!!!

Please, do us a solid and send an email to all your friends, family, enemies we don’t care who, just do it. It will take two seconds and you will be helping two people who in turn will help millions. You help us and the Universe will help you. I promise!!!!

Until next time…

-Mushpa

Easy Hummus Yummus Recipe! (Without Tahini)

DIY, Food, Food and Wine, Gay, Homemade, Latina, Lesbian, Recipe, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday morning I cleaned my kitchen and realized I had a can of garbanzo beans in the pantry…So what can I make? Well what else but HUMMUS!

I looked up a couple of recipes and realized that one of the main ingredients, tahini (sesame paste), was not in my pantry…

So I IMPROVISED! And it turned out better than delicious!

This is an easy recipe for a home-made hummus. I usually eat it with carrots, sugar snap peas and crunchy anything. The combination is the best!

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Here it is:

-1 can of garbanzo beans

-1 lemon for its tangy juice (use less depending on your liking…I ❤ lemons!)

-salty salt (about a teaspoon or more also depending on your tastebuds)

– Olive Oil

– a little cumin

-1 tablespoon or so of pine nuts (These replaced the sesame seeds/tahini)

-1 clove of garlic

Add garbanzo beans (making sure you drain all the extra water from the can), about a teaspoon of salt, a good two tablespoons of olive oil, the garlic, a couple of “shakes” of cumin, and the pine nuts all in a food processor. You can also use a blender of course, as long as you blend it to a smooth consistency. I eye-balled the recipe, so amounts are about what I think I put in. A little more, a little less will only make it YOUR hummus recipe :]

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I tasted it and thought it needed a bit more olive oil, so as it blended I poured a bit more in to give it texture. I transferred it to my own tub and now I have hummus for the week!

And it only took about 10 minutes!

First time hummus making…a delicious SUCCESS!

-Mensa

DIY Body Art

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Things are done better, with more love, and more rewards if you at least try to do them yourself (as opposed to  having something pre-made). So why not design your own tattoo?!

So for Mushpa’s birthday, one of the things she asked was to design something to compliment the tattoo she already has.

some beginnings

Here are a couple of sketches of the soon-to-be-tattoo!IMG_6876

Why not draw something that only you imagine in your head? It is a fun process, and you get to have more of a say in every detail possible, and it is only yours!

(Ps. This sketch has already changed a bit since this post!)
(Ps. This sketch has already changed a bit since this post!)

Want some art in your body? Do it yourself! (Starting at least with the design part of it all! We can move to tattooing later…)

: D

Keep on making,

-Mensa

The Case of the Tablet – Part 2

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Asus Glamorous

Mensa asked me the other day why what is inside our new tablet case is the best choice currently on the market. She also wanted to know if there was any ethical consciousness involved in my selection, which of course there was!!! :]

Here’s the breakdown on why my new Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 is the best out there! Firstly, it has an android system, open source love, the best screen and processor, and it is lighter than an iPad. It’s also fast as lightning and reasonably priced.

Next, the company is Taiwan-based. Free China. Taiwan is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, and human development. I’m just saying. :]

Also the environment is another factor for me,

Asus even developed a special proprietary chip, the EPU (Energy Processing Unit), in order to coordinate and manage power usage in all of a computer’s major components. In fact, all Asus notebook computers are designed to be Energy-Star compliant. Furthermore, when it comes to the materials used to make Asus products, Asus has made a special effort to be green. There is a company directive that restricts the use of certain known hazardous materials in Asus products, and the list is actually more restrictive than that imposed on manufacturing by the European Union. In recent years, Asus has been developing hardware that can be more easily recycled, as well as offering its own take-back and recycling programs. (source: http://www.roc-taiwan-hn.com/asus.php)

The best part though is how cute it looks its new, glittery case!

Thank you Mensa!

<3

– Mushpa