Two Little Videos

I am dying to share our love story with everyone, but time simply won't allow for it yet. Perhaps these two videos will suffice for the time being. 

The first one is from the weekend we got engaged. We had gone to stay it his parents' place for the weekend with some of our closest friends, and Buck proposed on a Saturday night during a relaxing bon fire. Little did I know that Buck's friend had been taking little video clips all weekend in order to put this video together. You can watch the rest for yourself. :)

The second video was filmed and edited by my maid of honor and used for a "Save the Date". We had a blast filming this! 

Enjoy!

Mrs. Meyer's Hand Soap on a Budget

It is accurate to say that I am a lover of all things beautiful, and often times this proves to be an issue when it comes to being frugal. I am always the one to justify spending $13 on the pretty floral notebooks instead of $0.50 on the plain-jane spiral notebooks. I simply can't help it. Every fiber of my being loves pretty things, and to be honest I get a lot of joy from simple pretty things. 

Naturally, I also find that lovely scents also bring me great joy. Our apartment is literally filled with candles, Scentsys, and my simmering potpourri concoctions. So it will come of no surprise to you when I say that I l o v e Mrs. Meyer's hand soap. But, being newlyweds, while still in college calls for an awful lot of frugal living. When we are only able to spend $1800 a month including city rent and bills, there isn't much room for splurging on the "pretty" things. But I will happily accept the challenge of finding ways to "splurge" on the things I love while still keeping within our monthly budget. 

The easiest way to get my Mrs. Meyer's hand soap without spending over our budget was to make my own. I've seen several recipes on Pinterest for how to make 1 bar of hand soap into 1 gallon of hand soap, so I decided I would give it a try. First off though, I didn't want to make an entire gallon of soap because we only have two soap dispensers in our apartment, and having a gallon of soap lying around  would only take up valuable storage space, so I improvised in order to make my own recipe for 1 bottle (12 oz.) of hand soap. 

Here is my recipe: 

1/8 bar of hand soap

2 cups of water

2 tsp glycerine (this is a rough estimate, I sort of eyeballed it.)

Directions: 

1. Grate soap. 

2. Boil water

3. Add soap shavings 

4. After the soap has melted in the water, reduce heat to a simmer and add glycerine. 

5. Stir

6. Let rest for 2 hours

7. Add to soap dispenser. *note: you may need to stir the soap once more.

Honestly this is one of the easiest things to do, I feel silly trying to come up with directions because I hardly believe you can mess this up. 

After dividing the costs, my bottle of Mrs. Meyer's hand soap comes to less than $1 to make, so I was quite pleased and this is definitely something I will continue to make. 

Do you have any special ways to "splurge" without breaking your budget? I would love to hear about them! 

Always, 

Alicia

The Mister

On January 11th, 2014 I experienced the great joy of marrying this handsome man. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I may end up marrying someone as downright wonderful as this man is. He is full of the most love, grace, servitude, and most importantly, a passion for God, and I consider myself undeservedly blessed to spend the rest of my life with him. I wake up every single day full of excitement to be sharing my life with him. 

Someday soon I will share more about how we met and of course more wedding photos, but until then; I hope you are having a lovely day. 

Always, 

Alicia 

Side Note*  All photos were taken by Kassie Anastopoulos Photography. 

Hello, Friends

Hello! I am so glad you've stopped by my little space here on the internet! My name is Alicia Knitt, and after getting married early this year (January 11th 2014) I have decided to start a blog in order to document life, because let's be honest, things are changing oh so quickly, and there's no signs of life slowing down any time soon. Being a wife at 21, while both my husband and I are in school certainly brings a bit of challenges in life, but more so, it has brought a whole heap of joy and I want to share the joy with you! Whether it be new recipes I've found, tips on frugal living (because let's face it, when you're married at 21 you have no choice but to live frugally), or things I have learned from a marriage centered around Christ, I hope you too may experience joy and encouragement in what I share. 

I am looking forward to being friends! :)

Always, 

Alicia