diy: body butter

Making my own body products using essential oils has been something I've wanted to do for a while now. But I've never done anything like it before and it felt like such a daunting project, so I just let the idea simmer for quite some time. 

Well, I'm glad I finally decided to give it a whirl. It was so very easy and the benefits to my kids and family are countless.

There are only four ingredients - unrefined shea butter, coconut oil, grapeseed oil and essential oils. Adding essential oils is completely optional, so you may only need three ingredients! But my family uses essential oils on a daily basis and it just made sense to add them to our body products.

First, you melt 1 3/4 cups of unrefined shea butter and 1/2 cup of coconut oil in a double boiler. If you're like me and don't have a double boiler, you can set up the ghetto contraption pictured above that consists of a sauce pan with steamer basket and a metal mixing bowl on top. Don't hate. It works. 

Heat on low until the shea butter and coconut oil completely melt together. 

Remove from heat and let cool for 30 minutes. Then add 1/2 cup of grapeseed oil. If you're adding essential oils, you can do this now, also. 20 drops total of your favorite singles or blends is all you need for this batch size.

Put the mixture in the freezer for about 40 minutes to set, but check on it every 5 minutes or so. You don't want it to completely freeze. It should be the consistency of softened butter. 

When the mixture has set, put it in a stand mixer and whip at medium to high speed until it whips up to your desired consistency. 

This batch size made just enough to fill four pint-size mason jars. Just remember that this stuff is mousturizer in its purest form. A little goes a long, long way. 

monday shtuff

hello, monday!

it's always great to wake up on a monday morning. 

i usually wake up startled because i look at the clock and it reads 7:34 {as was the scenario this morning}. we are usually out the door by 7:45, so it's pretty safe to say that 7:34 is late. i jump out of bed thinking it's going to be world war three to get these kids out of bed, fed and dressed. to my surprise, i find isaiah and mikey sitting on the sofa watching a pokemon show, completely dresssed {jackets, shoes, backpacks, lunch bags and all} and ready for school.

{theme to twilight zone playing in the background}

me: umm...you guys are dressed.

isaiah: yep.

me: did you brush?

isaiah: yep.

mikey: wanna see my teeth? {shoots me a big grin.}

me: did you eat breakfast?

isaiah: yeah. i had a blueberry waffle and mikey had cocoa puffs. 

me: umm...uh...umm..ok. {thinking up my speech that i'll recite when i'm awarded my mother of the year trophy} thanks, isaiah.

isaiah: don't worry, mom. you still have time. it's only 7:35.

my seven-year-old son is a better mother than i. 

this said seven-year-old also came home from school on friday and made a batch of his favorite peanut butter cup cookies to share with his brothers. again - a better mother than i.

while my son is taking care of my children, i busy myself with lots of fun crafting. this weekend, i made a bunch of reusable cloth baby wipes. i use cloth diapers for liam and wyatt, but never went all the way with cloth wipes, as well, though i always wanted to make some. i was motivated by my sister-in-law {and BIL}, who is expecting in march. her shower is this weeekend and i was super pleased to find on her gift registry that she is also planning to cloth diaper, and all the way down to the wipes. awesome in my book.

any-shways, when i saw that one of the things on her registry was washable flannel wipes...it was so on. i made a ton of them using the boys' receiving blankets and it costs me $free.99. my favorite price. also so comforting to know that the receiving blankets i've grown so attached to, since i've used them for all four of my boys, will now be wiping to bum of my sister-in-law's babe. anything for our island princess - or maybe anything for the sake of not having to spend any money. i'll stick with the first reason - it sounds better.

i cut the receiving blankets into 8x8 squares. i was able to get nine squares from one blanket.

see that sparkly new rotary cutter? i can't believe i went so long without one. i'm in love...and can only hope that my rotary cutter feels the same way about me. 

then i sewed the edges using the zigzag stich on my machine. 

this took some time. there were a lot of wipes. but since crafting, including sewing, is my therapy, it was no biggie. and i also realized my sewing machine could double as a head massager - i would rest my forehead on the front of the machine when my neck would start to cramp up, and the vibration would give my noggin a nice massage. awesome.

and, voila! stacks and stacks of washable flannel wipes. 

you'd be shocked how much those things cost if you buy them. search on amazon. but make sure you sit down for it, because it's a shocker. 

i also started making some t-shirt flowers to use for headbands and hair clips for my nieces. i really love the method i found on pinterest. i was intimidated with it as first because it uses a sewing machine, but it's really so simple and the flowers come out just how i like them - full and fluffy, but non-uniform. 

i made those flowers using one of isaiah's favorite t-shirts that had a hole in it. i hung onto the t-shirt because i loved its light blue color and knew that i'd be able to make use of it somehow. these flowers were perfect.

i had already chopped off the bottom of the shirt and part of the sleeves when isaiah saw me working with it. he swiped it from the table and, next thing i knew, he was wearing his favorite shirt again. who cares if it was a half top and one sleeve was chopped up? it was his favorite - poor guy. i consoled him by telling him that his baby girl cousins would be wearing his favorite t-shirt on their heads as flowers. and he bought it. 

lastly, i leave you with this colorful sight that sits on upon our kitchen counter.

we had just gone grocery shopping and the colors of the citrus was too pretty to not capture. 

ahh, simple joys. 

they are everywhere every day.

it's been a while, but linking up today with carissa at lowercase letters!

that wreath

my poor yarn-wrapped wreath has been sitting around unfinished for so long that it was starting to be un-lovingly referred to as "that wreath".

it took some time to wrap the wreath with yarn, so i did it a little bit at a time whenever i had a few minutes to spare. once it finally got wrapped, it took forever to find a chunk of time to pull out all the felt, cut and roll the flowers and work some magic with the hot glue gun.

today, i was able to find time for all of the above, and even managed to get a hot glue burn on one of my toes {don't ask}, and finally finished that wreath.

all finished...only to find that i didn't have any ribbon to hang it with. well, i have lots of ribbon, but i didn't have any that looked nice with that wreath. so the b&w stripes are temporary. oh, and that mess of hot glue on the left is also temporary. {i didn't realize how not photo-ready that wreath was until i already photographed it. and i'm not doing it again, so you can just deal with it. haha

pretty rolled felt flowers


i couldn't decide between the deep red and the blue flowers. but i went with blue for contrast, since my front door is already a deep red color. and now i'm thinking it should have used deep red. sigh. indecision will be the death of me.

hello, spring!

i love spring. really. i've probably said before that i hate spring because isaiah and i suffer badly from allergies. but i didn't really mean it. i've figured out how to keep us medicated and as long as i wear my glasses all season, we're fine. so...i go back to loving spring, especially the month of april. why, you ask?  because there's my birthday, our wedding anniversary and easter, all jam-packed into one super fun (and super expensive, for the mister) month. yay.

with spring here (or kind of here, since we are expecting rain at the end of the week again) i felt the need for a springy wreath for my front door. this was easy peasy, because i had a wreath and fabric flowers that i made months ago, just sitting around and waiting to be put together. that i did, and here is my adorable new wreath that is now hanging on my front door. whoohoo.

i had all the materials for this cute little thing on hand. the wreath is from the dollar store. the yellow polka dot fabric is just scrap from scrap. like, literally. i bought a fat quarter of it from the scrap section at wal-mart. i used it for whatever it was i had planned for it, then the scraps from that project are what turned into these fabric flowers. and the tan, linen fabric is from an old square pillow case. isaiah and mikey were wrestling and mikey ended up with a bloody nose and bled on my pillow. darn kids! we can't have anything nice in this house, can we?! (i find myself saying that quite frequently.) i couldn't get the stain off, so i just cut it out and saved the fabric for projects. waste not, want not, people! 

diy: no-sew recycled t-shirt bag

i have a number of blogs i follow for ideas and tutorials for crafts that repurpose. i love being able to dig around my house and make things using whatever i can find laying around. the creativity out there in blogland is amazing and inspiring. i have a hard time just looking at something and thinking of how to make something completely different with it. but seeing other people create...it inspires me to do the same.

here are a few of my favorite blogs for repurposing ideas:

choose the thrive (home decor/organization)

dollar store crafts (various, but i mostly use their tips for home decor)

the sisters 4 say more is more (fashion)

yours, mine & ours (fashion)

the fashion blogs are my favorite and are really inspiring. meredith from yours, mine & ours made put a self-imposed thrifting ban on herself. i'm actually considering making this my resolution for 2011! i've always loved thrifting and finding unique {and cheap!} things at second-hand and resale stores. now, if i can manage to throw in some creativity...i could possibly make it work and go all of 2011 only wearing clothes that i already own, thrifted or are gifted to me! it's kind of getting me excited! there would be some rules, though. obviously, i can buy undergarments new. and i'm also thinking i should be able to buy shoes new, but we'll see. i have until the end of january to pick a resolution and stick with it right? that's gotta be a rule somewhere...i'll google it.

anyway...on to the diy t-shirt bags.

i spotted this idea on dollar store crafts today, which led me to the tutorial on leethal.

it took a total of five whole minutes. 

easy + fast + free = my kinda crafting!

 

my kids have this obsession with bringing a gazillion toys with them each time we get into the car. a gazillion toys multiplied by three big boys...you can imagine that those gazillion toys just end up a huge cluttered mess on the backseat floor. i figured they can use these t-shirt bags {made with their own t-shirts! how cool is that!} for keeping their toys together.
i used the boys' shirts to make smaller sized bags for them to tote around, but i think i will also make larger bags for groceries and such. they are actually much more sturdy than i expected them to be.