I think it’s sweet that Phil enjoys drinking tea with me, but I thought tea time could be even sweeter if we had heart shaped sugar cubes! At first I thought I’d make my own with candy molds, but I liked the more cube-like appearance that this tutorial achieved. Only problem? I wasn’t willing to put nasty red food coloring into my tea, so I decided to try making my own all-natural food coloring using beets! Crazy, right? I love how these little pink heart sugar cubes turned out, and I promise there’s no trace of beet taste to be found.

• 1/2 Cup sugar
• beet juice (fresh or from can)
• small sauce pan
• jelly cutters (I bought mine here)
• wax paper
• 2 Tablespoons of water (this is approximate)
• tiny piece of cardboard
• spoon with narrow handle

First, make your all-natural food pink coloring by simmering about 1/4 cup of beet juice in a small saucepan for a few minutes. Let it reduce to a syrup that slightly clings to the spoon, but still easily drips off. Pour into a small container with a lid, and store in the refrigerator. This beet juice food coloring gives your food a pretty pink color, but it won’t taste like beets- I promise!

Next, pour your sugar into a small mixing bowl and add a couple of drops of your pink beet food coloring along with a couple of drops of water. Mix together with a spoon, spreading the color and turning the sugar into a sandy texture. Don’t use too much water, or it will dissolve and your sugar cubes won’t form properly.

Trace around your tiny heart cutter onto a piece of cardboard, and trim it to just fit inside of the heart cutter. On wax paper, fill the cutter with the sugar mixture and pack it in with your finger. Now lay the cardboard heart on top, place the end of the spoon’s handle onto the cardboard, and push down gently onto the cardboard while simultaneously pulling up on the cutter. Now you have a sugar cube! It might take a couple of tries to get the pushing/lifting pressure just right. But the good news is, if you mess up, you can just put the sugar back into the bowl and reuse it!

I’m so glad my cutter set came with different shapes- I can’t wait to try lemon flavored stars or infuse diamond shaped sugar cubes with bitters for my cocktails. I packaged up these heart sugar cubes into favor tins to give to friends, but first I enjoyed one or two with a cup of tea.

Scent can be the key to unlock the most powerful emotional memories. Pumpkin pie baking in Mom’s oven, fabric softener on Grandma’s beach towels, and the freshly sawn wood smell of Dad’s garage- all bring with them such sentimental feelings. Funny enough, I’ve never had a scent to tie to the memory of Phil. Since we started dating ten years ago, he’s never worn cologne! All I smell when I bury my nose into his shirts is the lingering odor of his deodorant, which I borrow more often than I care to admit. No sentimental value there!. So when we had the chance to try out Banana Republic’s new scent duo for men and women, I had high hopes.

I love the pleasant, woodsy scent of M, Banana Republic’s scent for men. The women’s scent has a bit of musk to it too, but with lighter, citrusy and flowery notes that are more dominant.  M and W are designed to compliment each other, just as men and women were designed! Even down to the bottle- W is concave, and M is convex. I normally go for a sweeter musk when selecting my own perfume, and probably won’t wear W all of the time, but I really like that when I wear W while Phil is wearing M, we combine to create a really pleasantly compatible scent! And I’m really loving how nice my man smells now that he finally has a cologne we both enjoy.

Banana Republic’s iconic scents M and W are available for purchase at Banana Republic stores. Banana Republic is a sponsor of Making Nice in the Midwest, but all opinions are my own. For sponsorship opportunities, click here.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s real life romance lasted a lifetime and is forever immortalized by the chemistry of their on-screen roles.I love their classics, like The Long, Hot Summer and From the Terrace, but I just recently watched one of their movies I had never seen before: A New Kind of Love. I really enjoyed seeing them obviously have fun with their roles and goof around a bit onscreen. They clearly enjoy each other, and I enjoyed watching it!

Samantha, or Sam Blake (Woodward), is a successul career woman who works for a department store that relies on her to steal the concepts of higher end department stores and fashion houses. She’s confident, ambitious, and lonely, but she doesn’t realize she’s ready for a change until she makes a trip to Paris and is frequently mistaken for a man, prompting her to try a makeover and indulge in the real-deal haute couture of Paris. She’s mistaken for a high-class call girl by Steve Sherman (Newman), a womanizing American journalist she had met on the plane. Of course, he doesn’t recognize her after her dramatic makeover, so she takes the opportunity to have a little fun playing the role he expects of her. They’re both just out to have a little fun, but neither of them expect to fall in love and get hurt.

A New Kind of Love has a great cast, of course starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, but also including Thelma Ritter, Eva Gabor, George Tobias, and even Maurice Chevalier. I loved the script that sparkled with the perfect mix of snark, wit, and  even a bit of realistic soul-searching. Paris, of course, is a beautiful setting, and especially fun when fashion is thrown into the mix. In the movies, Paris always seems to reveal the true desires of the heart, and this movie is no exception. The dynamic characters all have a chance at the happiness they never thought they could have, and it’s really fun watching the events unfold that lead up to a satisfying end.

A New Kind of Love is available to rent here or download here.