Homemade Peppermint Lip Balm

I tried another homemade product today...chapstick!  I was hesitant to try it, but when I found beeswax at Martindale's last week when we visited Peter's parents, I was convinced to give it a go!
 

I used Soule Mama's recipe, but had to tweek it a bit.   It was way too glossy the first time around.  The good news is that I did some research and was able to melt it all down, add some more wax, and re-pour.  I didn't have to waste the ingredients!  Second try was a success!  This is my version:

Peppermint Lip Balm

8 Tablespoons Coconut Oil

6 Tablespoons Beeswax

1.5 Tablespoons Raw Honey

30 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil

1.  Put coconut oil, beeswax, and honey in a double boiler.  (I don't have a double boiler so I used a small saucepan of water and put a larger stainless steel mixing bowl on top.)

2.  Heat these 3 ingredients until everything is melted.

3.  Whisk gently.  

4.  Remove from heat and add peppermint oil.  

5.  Whisk gently until everything is well blended.

6.  Pour into containers and let cool at room temperature.  (Don't put the lids on until they've cooled!)

I wish I would've saved some chapstick tubes, but since I didn't, I used some tiny tupperware containers from Dollar Tree.  They come 8/pack for $1 and I already had some on hand.  This recipe filled 3 of them.  I don't know the exact size of these, but guess them to be around 3-4 oz. containers.  I didn't want to invest anything into the containers until I knew I liked the lip balm.  Now that I do, I'll be on the search for cuter containers.  :)

New Wreath

I come from a family that always has something on their front door. Naked doors are just something we don't do. I have a few seasonal wreaths and plaques. Problem is leaving a Christmas wreath with a snowman on your door until spring doesn't fly. Especially when we have had an unseasonably warm winter with barely any snow. So what's a girl to do when the next thing to put on her door is too "springy"?

Thanks to pinterest, I've become a huge fan of rag wreaths. I bought a wire wreath frame, a few bucks worth of white/beige fabrics, and cut up old linen pants and used burlap ribbon I had to make this wreath.

About $10, a bit of a mess, and a few hours later it was done! I love the way it looks with the different color tones and textures.

My new "winter" wreath:

My New Craft Desk

I finally found a great desk to add to my "craft room". It's really a spare room that has my closet/dresser in it as well as all of my crafty stuff and exercise stuff. It's now just referred to as "Mal's room" haha. It used to be our "guest room", but we finally did some cleaning out of our beloved "West Wing". (Beauty and the Beast, anyone?) So now we have "Mal's room" and the "guest room/office".

For $30 on Craiglist, this desk was a great find. It actually has a drop in area for a sewing machine and a drop leaf on the back that you can wheel out (yes it has hidden wheels!) for double the work space. Perfect in so many ways! :) But it needed a little sprucing up...

After a tedious weekend of cleaning, sanding, and painting, I had the main part of the desk with drawers/door done. Because I have the attention span and patience of a 5 year old, I wanted to get the desk in the room ASAP. I'll do the drop leaf later.

I also added new drawer pulls for $1 each. So for a total of less than $45 (I had to also buy a new hinge for the drop leaf part), I have a great new desk!

I also won a $25 gift card at Michaels from Allison's awesome giveway so I bought myself a new self-healing cutting mat to use with my rotary cutter. :)

Sewing Something New

So tonight I decided to attempt sewing something new: a skirt...with pockets. For some reason things like zippers and pockets sound scary. They're actually quite simple. The pockets were even easier than my first attempt at zippers.

The whole thing took me about 2 hours. I'm pleased with the end result, but feel like it might be a bit too wide. I could always take it in, but that would mean redoing the whole thing basically since it has pockets. I'll wear it this weekend and see if it bothers me or not.

The pattern is great and I love the black in it so it's easy to pair with things I already have.

This one is a bit blurry, but I wanted to show the pockets. I love pockets. Especially with skirts and dresses.

Joann is having their 25% off (entire purchase, including sale items!) Friends and Family Event this weekend. I was already planning on going for a few miscellaneous craft supplies, and now I think I'll need to get some fabrics for more skirts! :)

A weekend that's good for my soul

This weekend was just what I needed. After work on Friday, we drove up to New Castle for Pizza Joe's and games with great friends. Immediately upon arrival, I threw on my lounge clothes, chatted with the girls, and knew it'd be a fabulous night. The addition of BBQ chicken pizza from Pizza Joe's (my favorite!) and hilarious games were just a bonus! We, of course, stayed until very late, and went straight to bed when we got home.

Saturday morning started with sleeping in followed by a yummy breakfast. After that, we did some random things around the house. I read for a while, and watch 2 Lifetime movies while doing some crafts. I had a bunch of old file folder that were going to be trashed and thought I could use my 3" scalloped circle punch and make some punches to use later for gift tags, etc.

This:

Turned into this. Notice the stack of punched circles. I don't think I need to buy craft paper for these for quite some time!

I did some grocery shopping during the late afternoon while Peter stayed home and cleaned a bit. We made yummy steak sandwiches for dinner and watched "Cops" followed by "The Secret Lives of Bees". Such a good movie!

This morning we went to church and since Peter wasn't feeling well, came back home afterwards. We didn't really have any plans, but Peter definitely needed to rest up. While he slept some on the couch, I played Hallmark movies and did more crafting!

I made these 9 glass tile pendants for necklaces. 3 are being sold to coworkers tomorrow. I'd love to start an Etsy store or something to sell my crafts...maybe someday!

I also made this flower from scrap fabric in my stash. I made 3 of these last weekend and they are great. They can be used on headbands/clips, pinned to clothes or bags. Versatile and super cute! I just need to buy some more buttons for the centers. I don't like the look of the buttons with holes for the center and of course I have a thousand of those haha.

I picked up this canvas tote bag at Pat Catan's last weekend. I can easily swap out pins or whatever on it and it instantly matches any outfit. Love it!

This kind of weekend may seem lame to others, but it was full of things I love: Peter, friends, food, crafts, and rest. So good for my soul.

Tile Coasters

Remember my snowman coasters?

Well, while I was in Lowes today to pick up some more blank coasters, I found these beauties! They are 4 inch square tiles and were on clearance for 30 cents a pop! I scooped up four, put felt feet on them and now have great everyday coasters.

Christmas Crafts

I love Christmas time and all of the fun decorations. I also like to get ideas from stores, movies, and blogs on how to decorate my own home. I love making my own decorations because I feel like the not-so-perfect-one-of-a-kind decorations made by yours truly are the ones I end up liking the most. Anyone can buy/order a pre-made decoration. Lately I've been seeing tons of great ideas for new crafts and decorations. The only problem is that I would need a 5,000 square foot house to be able to display it all! So I pick and choose what to make for my house.

Here are three new additions to our Christmas decor this year...

1. Christmas Pillow Covers

I posted about making these here, but here they are in all their glory on the couch near the tree!

2. Snowman Coasters

How adorable are these little guys?? Total cost for a set of 4 is about $2. They are so cute and super easy to make! I just used some 4"x4" tiles from Lowes for 36 cents each, stamped the snowman on it, painted over with a layer of craft polyurethane, and added 4 little felt feet to the bottom so they don't scratch any surfaces. The felt feet can be found at the Dollar Tree. I made a bunch of these to sell at a local Arts Center and will also be giving them away for Christmas presents. Cute and easy...love it!

3. Dollar Tree Hurricane

I've seen all over blogland how to make these hurricanes. I made some for fall, so I just took the fall stuff out, and added Christmas stuff, and voila! I bought some of this garland a few weeks ago at Kohls. I snipped one end and emptied the garland into the vase, keeping the twine for future projects. (As a side note, I loved that it was on twine that I could use later.) I added a $1 Joy ornament from Target and tied it around the front with a piece of the twine. I love it! Please don't mind the antenna or speakers - those are Peter's "decorations"!

Here's a close-up:

To see more great Christmas crafts, go here.

Christmas Pillow Covers

My sewing machine was out of commission for a couple of weeks, but I finally have it back. First project that I accomplished? Christmas pillow covers!

I had been searching for fabric to make Christmas pillow covers, but I didn't find anything that really jumped out at me. I didn't want to buy Christmas pillows because then I'd have to store them. When I was in Boscov's 2 weeks ago with my mom, I saw these napkins that I loved and thought would be perfect to make a pillow out of!

So I took my two palm tree pillows, the 4 napkins, 2 zippers, and went to work!

And ta-da! Christmas pillow covers. Exactly what I was looking for!

I had 4 napkins so I made two pillows. I could've made 4 and used solid for the backs, but honestly, I didn't think of that until after I was all done. haha

And a hidden zipper! Not bad for my first zipper project!

I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. They're Christmassy, but not overbearing and will match the rest of my decor just perfectly!

Storage boxes on the cheap

Everytime I see a cute storage box, basket, or whatever, I feel like I want to buy it. I think that I may have a mild case of OCD with organizing things and making it decorative at the same time. The tv stand in our spare room as an open space that I just haven't been able to use efficiently. I had some frames and other decor in there for a while, but I felt like it was wasted space. I don't feel like spending money from my budget to buy some sort of baskets, etc. right now so for now this is what I have...

I have 2 identical boxes from drugstore.come orders as well as a plethora of fabric scraps. I took some chocolate brown fabric and covered one of the boxes. Looks pretty good for what it is and for supplies I already had on hand.

I haven't been able to figure out what to do with the stack of luggage beside my dresser yet. The suitcase already has two other pieces in it so there's no more room for stuffing anything else in there. In any case, the fabric covered cardboard box is doing the trick with holding yarns and other miscellaneous stuff. Maybe I should add a handle or some kind of hardware to them so they don't look so dark. Decisions, decisions...

Weekend Treasures

I was very happy with some purchases I made over the weekend...

$5 for a new tin canister set in the kitchen. My old canisters needed replaced and I wanted something more decorative. Since I keep my sugar, flour, etc in snap n close food containers in the cupboard, I didn't need the canisters to be so big either. Thanks to Joann's clearance section, these were perfect!

25 cents for a nice little pumpkin :)

$2.16 for a great tray from Sears. It looks more teal and brown in person and has a cool crackle finish. It's also microwave and dishwasher safe which are added bonuses :)

Good Seasons salad dressing jar. I've been on the hunt for one, but they only sell plastic ones nowadays. Thanks to GoodWill and 50 cents, I now have a glass one like I was looking for :)

I also bought this tray for 50 cents at Goodwill. I thought the size was nice and loved the details on the edges and handles. I didn't like the colors or picture on the front, but saw its potential.

And thanks to my aunt's awesome painting skills, I now have this! I helped, but not much haha.

Now I love the details on the edges and handles and love the picture! We sealed it so we could use it for food items, etc., but I'll just be using it as a decorative piece.

$8.41 later and I have many new fun things to add to my kitchen collections :)

Kitchen Storage

Our kitchen isn't that big, but it gets the job done.  The only real hassle is counter space.  Especially when I'm cooking and trying to balance cutting boards on the edge of the counter haha.  We've been trying to rearrange things to make more space, but we just had too much on the counters still.  (ie toaster, toaster oven, canisters, knife block, paper towel holder, dish drainer haha)  We finally came up with something that is great for us and has freed up a lot of space by storing it all in the same unit.  

Our kitchen used to look like this in the one area.  The shelf was left in the house so we put it to use and the stand the microwave is on was our TV stand that wasn't needed since the old owners left a great console tv that we use.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, we purchased this dining room buffet piece from Craigslist for $75 with the owner delivering it to our kitchen.  Not too bad.  It looked way too much like a dining room piece though..duh.

I then pulled out leftover paint from when I painted all of the cupboards/cabinets in the kitchen when we first moved in.  I also used leftover shelving paper that I put in all of the cupboards/cabinets and drawers to line the newest addition as well.  This is without any of the hardware done since I ran out of black spray paint and had to pick some up on Friday after work (96 cents at Wal-Mart and it's indoor/outdoor) which is good so I can use it for other projects too.

This is with the doors back on as of tonight.  Looking great!  I am buying two new handles since it had the old school drawer handles on it and I'd like it to match the more simpler looking ones on the rest of the cupboards/cabinets.  I also have to paint the two handles for the doors.  They were nailed on and not able to be removed so I'm going to have to tape around them and try to paint them.  I'm thinking of just ripping them out and getting ones that match what we have, although these two aren't as odd looking compared to the drawer handles.  This unit holds both the microwave and toaster over as well as the coffee pot, crock pot, and deep fryer down below.  I also store all of our food storage containers and travel mugs down there with bottled waters.  And there's room to spare!  Plus I have two empty drawers that I can fill.  I'm going to rearrange some of what we keep in the dining room (like spare kitchen towels etc) and put them in the kitchen drawer for this unit.  It doesn't stand out as a buffet piece anymore and matches the rest of our kitchen.  Took a whole lot of sanding though since it had varnish on it.  Plus 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint.  I'm becoming a pro at this :P