.
Offering:
 Recipe and informational eBooks on
Cooking with Coconut Oil, Coconut Oil For Your Skin,
and Salve Making.

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 Today’s giveaway is brought to you by Wooly Moss Roots Sponsor: Hybrid Rasta Mama. 

You may remember Jennifer from before (here and here.) Since her last two giveaways on this blog, she has created a third eBook called Salve Made Simple. Jennifer is so creative! I love seeing what she comes up with next and I appreciate that she creates eBooks and puts out information to help empower others to make things themselves. She now has 3 eBooks available: Coconut Oil For Your Skin – Nourishing Your Body From The Outside In: A Collection of 66 Simple, Gentle, Nourishing Recipes Your Entire Body Will Love (87 Pages, $10.95), Cooking With Coconut Oil: 68 Simple, Delicious, and Nourishing Recipes To Help You Get More Coconut Oil Into Your Diet (120 pages, $14.95) and Salve Made Simple: Heal Skin Ailments Naturally With 30 Simple Salves (41 Pages, $7.95.) 

Jennifer has one busy kitchen, coming up with all these recipes for us to enjoy!

You can stay connected with Jennifer through her Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

Also, you can sign up for her newsletter (and get a free eBook with 12 simple, delicious, and healthy muffin recipes for signing up.)

I’ll let Jennifer tell you more. 

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Jennifer: I get asked about my blog name, Hybrid Rasta Mama a ton. Next to emails about coconut oil, my blog name is definitely a topic of interest. No one really knows what to make of it! Well, this is basically how it came to be!

I am a hybrid parent. I take a little of this, throw in a little of that and blend it all together to create a parenting style that is centered on what my daughter needs from me in order to flourish as a human being. I am committed to mindful, conscious parenting. I take a gentle approach which allows my daughter to the freedom to grow, develop and unfold at her pace. I do not impose my will or my ideas on her unless it is a matter of health and safety. Tiny has her own mind, her own will, her own heart and her own soul. I support her and warmly guide her but I do not force or command her. I am a playful parent, creatively guiding Tiny through colorful, imaginative language and movement. I am a firm believer that children should grow up outside and in nature as much as possible and am committed to getting Tiny outside every day, rain or shine.

I also sort of live a hybrid crunchy lifestyle. I cloth diapered, still bed-share, practice extended breastfeeding, use cloth instead of paper products, and am mindful of overconsumption. I believe in holistic healing and veer away from Western medicine when there is a more natural way to cure or prevent illness, injury or disease. I live as much of a green lifestyle as I can afford. I make most all of our toiletries and personal care products and many household cleaners as well. However, there are exceptions to the rules. Sometimes I have to make comprises between my ideals and my budget. There is also that issue of time. This of course spills over into food consumption and my nutritional lifestyle as well.

I am a Real Foodie through and through. Food is medicine and what you put into your body nourishes your mind, body and soul. I make 80% of our food from scratch using organic and local ingredients whenever possible. The other 20% of our food is called “life.” There are only so many hours in the day to devote to a real foods lifestyle and sometimes package products creep into our pantry and onto our table. I choose wisely, not settling on the standard American crap that is sold is every grocery store these days.

As for the Rasta part of my moniker. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reggae music and the Rastafarian culture and way of life. (No – it has nothing to do with marijuana either!) Reggae music touches my soul more than any other music out there. The Rastafarian lifestyle is based on clean living and a devotion to expanding oneself in all areas of life. It’s something that I can embrace with ease and that makes sense to me. 

  

Jennifer: My creative process goes a little something like this:

“Mama. I’m bored.”

“Ok then. Let’s go to the kitchen!”

Seriously. Whenever my daughter declares that she is bored, I use that as an opportunity to tinker around with a recipe that has been running around in my head. Plus it is really fun to be able to work alongside such a willing assistant. (And what four year old doesn’t want to “play” with mama’s special ingredients?)

When it comes to food recipes, I have an innate sense of what works well together and how much you need of what. I’m not someone who has to make a recipe a thousand times to perfect it. I usually only make it once for our family then make it a second time to record exact measurements and any special directions. And then, because everyone else does it, I make it a third time. Just for fun! So for food recipes, I don’t have any major creative process. I get a craving for something and I make it. If I don’t have an itch for a particular flavor or texture then the recipe won’t come together. I have to really be having a strong desire for a particular dish, baked good, or beverage in order to create a real winner. (Not that the rest of my cooking is bad. I’m simply referring to creating new recipes!)

My personal care recipes are a whole other story!

I can spend hours and hours mixing and blending oils and butters and herbs and waxes. I love how all the different textures come together and how new scents are created when you blend difference essential oils or herbs. As messy as the process can be, I find that creating new lotions, salves, shampoos, etc… really soothes my soul.

I usually get inspired to create a new skin, hair, or tooth care recipe when either a family member or friend mentions that he or she could use X,Y, or Z. That is just an open invitation for me to get into the kitchen with my trunk of supplies! In fact, that was how Coconut Oil For Your Skin came to be. I was making a bunch of products for a friend who was a recent convert to the semi-crunchy lifestyle and I thought, why not write a book with all my recipes? After I thought about it some more, I realized that what people really needed was a book that walked them through the process of making personal care recipes with coconut oil (since it can be a bit tricky to work with).

 What are your dreams for your business?

Jennifer: I probably should consider myself as more of a business than “just a blogger.” But as soon as I do that, I will start feeling pressured and then the whole thing will become a lot less fun for me. Right now, I really enjoy creating what I want, when I want to and when I have time to.

I am working on a series of books that are completely different than what I have already released. I can’t release the details yet but they are going to be pretty amazing. I hope to get at least two out this year with two more in 2014.

I am also planning on launching a very special eCourse in Spring of 2014. It is very time consuming to create and I am taking my time, making sure that it is chalk full of content.

In a sense, I see my blog as a legacy I am leaving behind for my daughter. I want her to one day read my words and see the journey that I made both in terms of parenting, health, and living more mindfully. I think that is one of the greatest things about having a blog. It forces me to record the history that I am creating in my own life.

Really, the only dream I have for my business is to reach more and more people who are interested in and in need of learning more about conscious parenting, natural health/wellness, real foods, mindful living, and the like. I get oodles of emails each week and my favorite are always those where someone writing to tell me how much they appreciate a particular article because it led them down a path of further research and ultimately helped them. It warms my heart to know that I touched, inspired, or impacted even one person.

  

Jennifer: Well – that is easy! Pretty much all of them. I actually have a huge stockpile of my test products and am making my way through them. I adore creating and using everything I make. I am especially loving my salves right now!

For today’s giveaway, Hybrid Rasta Mama is giving one copy of all three eBooks (either the PDF version or the Kindle/eReader version) to three winners!

The giveaway will be open through Thursday, August 1st and the winners will be announced
on Friday, August 2nd (in the widget below.) Winners will receive an e-mail with the happy news.