simple homemade gift + rainy day activity: lemon sugar scrub

School's out for us... and last week was a very rainy week. Normally I would just have my kids bundle up and go play in the rain, but my older son is in South America on an adventure with my parents for 10 days, and, well, call me a scrooge, but I'm not a huge fan of playing in the rain. Two days into summer break, I'd had my fill of Sorry and Totally Gross board games, and was feeling pangs of guilt that the last weeks of school had seemed so busy, and we hadn't done an end of year gift for all of the 'extra' (non-lead) teachers that play such an amazing role in my children's school lives. My 6-year-old overheard me mention this to a friend and excitedly announced that we should "make something!" So, we spent Friday morning making enough Lemon Sugar Scrub to pop in the school mailboxes of his Extended Day teachers, the Head of Early Childhood, her right-hand-gal assistant, his science, art, Spanish, and music teachers, the Head of School and his speech therapist (my child's... not the Head of School's). Because we now have our go-to Lemon Sugar Scrub down to a science, I am jotting the latest and greatest recipe down (with exactly what to buy, using brands and sizes readily available at your local market) here for you all looking for  a simple rainy day activity, or easy teacher/hostess gift, that your children can help make. Order the jars now (while you're thinking of it), and have the other ingredients in your pantry, and you too can the win mom-of-the-day award...

Lemon Sugar Scrub

(makes a dozen 8.5 oz jars)

twelve 8.5 oz jars (I get them at Container Store)

two 2lb boxes Sugar in the Raw

25.3 oz bottle olive oil (we used Filippo Berio Extra Light)

15 oz bottle pure lemon juice

zest of 3-4 lemons

{If you are making this with little ones, I highly recommend putting a towel down.} Combine all ingredients in a large bowl or pot. Divide evenly among jars and seal tightly. Let gift recipients know it's a beauty products, not an ice cream topping...

Here are action photos, since I know some of you like to follow along this way:

measuring sugar

now we know a box is 4 cups, so dumping sugar...

olive oil (yes, this makes me nervous on our brand new kitchen floors...)

lemon juice (yep, even more nervous about those kitchen floors...)

zesting lemons (I let him do one side of each lemon, then I did the other sides since they get slippery)

mixing

scooping (and I'm not going to lie: I was thrilled when he tired of scooping... at that point I had the remains of several jars worth of lemon sugar scrub running down my arm)

this photo's a little out of order, but I'm going to keep it here just to remind you to put a towel down... you can thank me later

voila! i wish i'd thought to take a photo with the ribbons and tags, but I didn't. you get the gist though!