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Gabriel’s Garden Hand Painted Candles

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Gabriel’s Garden Lavender specializes in natural bath and body products. They grow their own lavender and use the essential oil for a multitude of products. Shown here are some hand painted taper candles depicting lavender.

They also have aromatherapy soy candles scented with lavender essential oil. The scent of lavender is very calming so it’s often used for anxiety and insomnia.

Lavender is used for various skin problems and is a natural insect repellent. I tried mixing several drops of lavender with almond oil and it did work because the mosquitoes didn’t touch me. That blend would also work for massage oil.

I love the smell of lavender and often use it in candles just to have that familiar comforting scent in the air. Gabriel’s Garden Lavender also sells their lavender essential oil if you want to try it for your own creations.

With the arrival of the Japanese Encephalitis Mosquito, it has become important to make sure those pesky mosquitos are not snacking on you.  Japanese encephalitis symptoms include Headache, neck pain, and Nausea. .  Japanese encephalitis does have a vaccine and you should contact your local medical professional for information on obtaining this vaccination.

But how else can you protect yourself against mosquitos? Keep mosquitoes away from exposed skin by wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks, you can even wear a mosquito net hat.  Tuck shirts into pants and pants into socks to cover gaps in your clothing where mosquitoes can get to your skin.  For a natural repellent use essential oils for making your own Mosquito bug spray repellent. Add oils to water and spray into the air or add small drops to your clothing.  Use a Necklace or Bracelet oil diffuser to help repel mosquitoes naturally.  Insect bracelets and necklaces are great for children too.

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Spring Outdoor Activities for Kids

spring outdoor activities for kids

I hope if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere that it’s getting warm enough where you live to add in some outdoor activities with the kids. It’s easy to do a lot of learning outside when the weather is nice; my daughter has a fond memory of doing long division in sidewalk chalk at her school. But if you need some more specific ideas, here are some fun and educational spring outdoor activities for kids to do at home or at school.

Gather some glass bottles, rocks and other natural materials to make a garden xylophone with these instructions from The Moments at Home. This looks so fun, and you can use this idea to make musical instruments with other objects you find around the home/classroom/playground too. 

This post from Child’s Play ABC has a lot of great outdoor learning ideas for kids, but the one I wanted to highlight is going on a rainbow scavenger hunt. Kids can collect things of different colors and see if they can make a rainbow (or just sort things by color). Check out more ideas for scavenger hunts.

Another good activity to do with things you collect from outdoors is making natural paint brushes. Get the instructions from Messy Little Monster, and of course you can test them out by painting outside, too.

Speaking of art, have you ever made paint from dandelions? (I dyed yarn with dandelions once, and it was a lot of fun.) Learn how from Little Cooks Reading Books, and then you can use your natural paintbrushes along with natural paint!

You can also paint with mud, like in this post from There’s Just One Mommy. Or make an outdoor, garden themed sensory bin with real dirt like this one from Mess for Less.

Or kids can gather materials to help them build their own nests as they learn about how birds and other animals build nests. The Crazy Outdoor Mama has a printable and post that will help.

What activities do you love to do with kids when it’s nice outside?