Blog

These are the best homemade food & craft spring blog posts for baking, canning, cooking, and crafting. Read on for the best spring blog posts to inspire your spring!

This post contains affiliate links.

Best Old Fashioned Banana Muffin Recipe

This recipe is based on one from the 1942 version of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book. It is originally titled, “Banana Tea Bread” but when I read the recipe, given to me by my Gram, I swapped out a few ingredients and decided muffins would serve my lunchbox-toting kindergartener better than bread that I would have to slice, wrap, etc. in the busy mornings before school.

Rhubarb Pineapple Balsamic Shrub

This post will share one of my favorite shrub recipes. It uses bold tasting balsamic vinegar with pineapple and rhubarb. It’s great on its own with sparkling water but with tequila, it is over the moon delicious. Read on for the recipe!

The Best Canning Jars

If you’re a new canner, you probably have no idea which jars would be the best and if you’re experienced, you know there’s so many to choose from and that it’s hard to know what really is the best canning jar. I’m here to share what works best for me, and what I’d do if I were you, and why.

How To Make Lilac Syrup

Lilacs are arguably the most lovely, fragrant, and iconic springtime flowers. This post will share how to make a simple syrup to add fragrance and flavor to the tea, cocktails, and more in short order. I will also explain why the syrup is NOT a pretty purple color. Here’s how to make Lilac Syrup!

Free Canning Basics Course

When I started canning, this was the part that caused me the most grief. A good cookbook is a helpful start, but there’s no way for it to SHOW you what happens when. There’s no shame in admitting that, hey, you don’t really cook all that often and having 3 pots going on the stove at once is kind of overwhelming. I am here to tell you (and explain, in detail in the course) that canning is WAY LESS COMPLICATED than cooking a big family dinner.

Strawberry Jam Canning Recipe

This post will share a great recipe for strawberry jam that can be halved or doubled and can be pureed smooth or not. It is versatile and easy, fragrant, and fast. Enjoy and be sure to download the printable version of the recipe to have on hand! You’ll be making homemade strawberry jam for your family and friends in no time with this easy canning recipe.

Giant Yarn Crochet Baby Blanket Pattern

You all may have noticed, I’m a huge fan of giant yarn, pun absolutely intended. I love it because it is unusual, warm, fast to work with, and easy to see errors you might have made. Love Fest Fibers has become my favorite domestic source of giant yarn and for good reason. They have a variety of large-scale yarns to choose from, in neutrals and dreamy colors, in both all natural and recycled plastic + natural material blends.

Canning for Party Favors

This post will share how to can favors for a bridal shower, wedding, baby shower, or other parties where you want to put love into jars and give the gift of something delicious.

How To Make Shrubs Course

Shrubs aren’t just for gardens, they are no cook cocktail and mocktail mixers. Here’s the new & improved, free, shrubs email course.

How to Grow Microgreens in a Victorio Sprouter

This post will explain how to sprout microgreens easily on your countertop especially if you would like a steady supply of sprouts for eating on salad, sandwiches, eggs, and more. The sprouter that I use is forgetfulness-proof and helps you sprout more of your seeds, saving you money, and allows for you to have sprouts ready all the time, as opposed to one jar full ready, and then having to wait for another week to go by without any fresh spouts.

Curious about how Bite Toothpaste Bits work from a non-sponsored post? I tried them and this post will share what I love (and don’t love) about them and my final recommendation.

This post is NOT sponsored but if you make a purchase with Bite, I get a very small commission from their website. I wanted to try Bite for myself and this post is purely an honest review of their product. 

Bite Toothpaste Bits are a tablet style toothpaste that comes in a glass bottle with a metal lid (both are recyclable). They are the answer to the highly wasteful practice of using toothpaste in a non-recyclable plastic tube that unavoidably clogs landfills and oceans. 

I was interested in trying them for myself because I try, one item at a time, to reduce the plastic I use in my life and also, the plastic my food comes in. It seems really strange that a product we put inside our mouth twice a day comes in a plastic tube and we (the average consumer) know very little about where that plastic comes from, how it’s made and what the long term consequences might be from that exposure. I’m no scientist and I’m not about to tell you that’s a reason for YOU to stop using toothpaste in a plastic tube, but I thought that if Bite was a good option for my family, I’d switch away from plastic tube toothpaste. 

Takeaway: Plastic tube toothpaste tubes aren’t recyclable and I wonder if in 25 years we will discover how foolish it was to consume foods that were packaged in plastic. 

What are Bite Toothpaste Bits?

Bite Toothpaste Bits are a tablet, so they are pre-measured. This proved to be a major plus with kids. What mother in the world LIKES the smears of toothpaste on the counter? In electric blue, no less? 

The tablets crumble in your mouth with a soft bite, and then you chew them just a little so that they start to foam in your mouth and then apply your wet toothbrush (I’m a fan of this wooden one) and brush normally. 

This has also been easy with kids and easy for me to get used to personally. The tablet form is also great for travel.

Do Bite Toothpaste Bits Work?

These little tablets foam up into a very dense, impressive foam in a quantity that honestly is PLENTY. If you needed more foam to brush your teeth I’d be surprised. 

My teeth feel very clean after use and I’ve tried the Mint, Charcoal, as well as the Limited Edition Autumn Spice flavors. 

My daughter struggled with cavities as a 4-5 year old so we are very careful about good brushing habits and I look at her teeth after every brush (she’s almost 8) to check and Bite Toothpaste Bits seem (to my untrained, non-dentist eye) to be working well. We’ve had one dental checkup since starting Bite and we had no cavities; That’s not proof of any kind of course, but certainly was encouraging that our toothbrushing routine as a whole is working. 

I’ve personally never had a cavity (good genetics from my mother and well water, she says) so I am hoping to continue my good fortune. 

How to Buy Bite Toothpaste Bits

You can purchase 2 ways. You can buy a smaller bottle that’s a one month supply, which is what I did to try out different flavors. If you want to refill that little bottle, you can’t currently order a refill pouch (a compostable paper mailer) which frankly is really dumb. So, I’ve had to order subsequent small bottles because at the time, I wasn’t ready to commit to a subscription. That means I ended up with extra little glass bottles. My kids used them to make potions so they weren’t wasted but it was an annoying feature. I want to be able to buy a plain old refill pouch! 

Alternatively, you can subscribe and get a larger bottle of 4 month supply for a single person. 

Some people love subscriptions but I really don’t like hasty commitment and I didn’t want to subscribe right away. It felt like getting married to the toothpaste too soon. 

My wish is that they had a smarter way of subscribing for a family. Now, you just subscribe for a 4 month supply for one person. This isn’t a drawback really, but a way they could improve. The refills come in a compostable mailer and you just refill the cute glass bottle. It’s honestly a great idea and I’m about to subscribe myself. You save almost 40% by subscribing, and both options take about a week to arrive. 

Do Bite Toothpaste Bits Taste Good?

Yes. Mint, Charcoal, and Autumn Spice are all good. I found Charcoal to be refreshing and not weird tasting (some charcoal products can have a weird taste), Mint is as it sounds- minty and good and not aggressively so, and Autumn Spice is a nice, mild cinnamon. 

Do Kids Like Bite Toothpaste Bits? 

My 7 year old daughter loves them and my 5 year old son isn’t sold; mostly, I think he still likes the electric blue sparkle toothpaste from the dentist and I’m ok with that. I’m waiting for him to want to do what big sister does. 

It is worth mentioning that the Bite Toothpaste Bits make incredible bubbles, the spit you create with them is really satisfying and foamy, and there’s a lot of, “Come look at this!” coming from the bathroom now that one kid is using the Bits. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the charcoal in particular leaves a significant foam-spit trail in the sink that rivals the electric sparkle blue when your kid can’t spit directly under the faucet, and it thus isn’t easily rinsed away. I always think, “Begin as you mean to go on” so if you don’t want to have those charcoal rivers stuck to your sink, then maybe opt for the white Mint variety from the start. 

Final Recommendation

I love Bite Toothpaste Bits, my daughter loves them, and I think my son will come around. My husband hasn’t tried them but he’s not one to try new things and I’m not about to browbeat him about it. I bet eventually they have more subscription options, and more plain old buying options for those commitment-phobes like me. I love that I’m not filling my trash can with plastic (we have a 1-2 bag of trash a week maximum and I’m working to shrink that) and I love that we aren’t using toothpaste that was sitting in plastic for who knows how long before it goes in our mouth. I think you’d love Bite Toothpaste Bits too! Try them and let me know what you think. 

Try Bite Toothpaste Bits today!

Want to try making your own waste-free toothpaste? I have a great tooth powder recipe here!