Make a Yarn Scrap Bowl

So for Christmas our extended family decided to draw names for the adults presents since quite a few of us are on very limited budgets. My husband and I are super excited as we drew the 2 people in the family that understand our lifestyle the best. We got my husbands mother and grandmother. YAY! We feel like we can let our craftiness fly free! We made each of them some lavender room spray (super simple to make), some sandalwood soap (as you saw in a previous post), crocheted washcloths and for Grandma I got a hand-stamped pendant of all her great grandchildrens names. I have no metal work skills so I had to purchase it off etsy. Then for my MIL we did a 8x10 print with all the grandchildrens names and birthdays. Again we had to do etsy as we don't have a color printer and I wasn't sure how we could get it done otherwise. I plan on stopping at our local chocolate store to get a few truffles to finish off their gifts. I usually do our gifts in baskets cause it looks prettier than in a bag but didn't want to spend the money on something they probably wouldn't keep so I decided to make my own from scrap yarn. So here is how you can do it too.

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. While water is heating whisk together half a cup flour and 2 cups cold water. Whisk into boiling water. Add 2 tbs of sugar, mix well and remove from heat. The mixture will thicken as it cools.

Chose a bowl the size you want your yarn bowl to be. Cover the outside in cling wrap and set it on some foil or cardboard.

Cut or select some yarn scraps.

Dip the yarn into the liquid and squeeze out the excess. Wrap your yarn around the bowl in any design you chose. I went with a whimsy kinda thrown together pattern. Make sure to cover the bottom very well if you intend to place stuff inside once it's done.

Once dried (mine took about 3 days) remove the cling wrap from the bowl then peel it out of the yarn bowl.  Find something cool to fill it with and enjoy!

Making Whipped Shea Butter Lotion

This year has been a big year for my family. We added a new member (Gideon) into our little 2 bedroom,  1000 sq ft townhouse. To say were short on space is an understatement but while we're saving to buy a house it's what we've got and we can make it work.
We have long thought about living a simpler lifestyle and when we found out we would be adding to the family we decided it was time to put that idea into action. We've slowly been clearing the clutter from our lives, learning to make due with what we have and learning how to make for ourselves all the things we feel we can't live without.

So on that note, I saw last night I was close to out of lotion and decided it was time I learn to make it myself instead of making the choice between a cheap lotion that's full of things I really don't want to be putting on my families skin or an organic lotion that would cost more than what we spend on milk for a whole month! So I did some research and couldn't find a recipe that I had all the ingredients for and I really didn't want to make a trip to the store so I decided to just create my own. So here it is.

Whipped Shea Butter Lotion

3oz Shea Butter
3oz Coconut Oil
2oz Avocado Oil
1oz Olive Oil
1oz beeswax
(Note I did the oils and wax buy weight)
Then I added the following but these are all optional
1 tsp Vitamin E
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
20 drops GSE (grapefruit seed extract - used as a preservative)
20 drops tangerine essential oil

I put all ingredients in my George Forman Multi-cooker (boy do I love that thing for making beauty products) and turned it on low till it melted. You could also use a double boiler or a Crockpot. Then I put  the crock into the fridge until well cooled (about 10 minutes) You'll know it's cooled cause it will look like beeswax (but it's very soft) Then I scooped it all out into the bowl of my Kitchen Aid mixer and used the whisk attachment. I whisked for 5 minutes on medium speed and 5 minutes on high speed. It will start out the color of beeswax and will slowly lighten until it's a soft white and will almost double in size.

I then spooned it into 4 (4oz) jelly jars that I sterilized in boiling water. I didn't decorate them or anything since they are all for me. :) If you didn't use GSE I would recommend keeping your extra stored in the fridge. I plan on keeping 1 on my nightstand, 1 in each of our 2 bathrooms and the last one I'm gonna give to my BFF Jacque.

Making Pumpkin Spice Sugar Scrub

Last night me and my BFF Jacque made soap. It was a lot of fun. But while we where waiting for the oils and lye to cool we decided to make use of the time to make some sugar scrub. It was easy to decide on the scent as Jacque's favorite scent/flavor for anything and everything is pumpkin spice. Since fall is the most perfect time for pumpkin spice we got right on it.

We took 2 cups of brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 2 tbs cinnamon, 1 tbs powdered ginger, 1 tbs ground cloves and 1 (heaping) tbs nutmeg.

We mixed it all together and made sure to get rid of all the clumps. Then we added 1 cup veggie oil.

We mixed it up really well with a rubber spatula and then spooned it into 2 pint size mason jars. Once in the jars we added 1.5tsp of olive oil to each jar and mixed it in well with a fork.
To make opening the jar easier we glued the top and the ring together to make it one piece. It's cheaper than buying those plastic reusable tops and much prettier.
If you notice your mix looks oilier at the bottom just invert the jar after the next use and keep flipping it back and forth after each use.

It took us all of about 5 minutes and cost us nothing to make because we had everything on hand.
We didn't decorate the jars since they are just for us and won't last long but we've decided it smells so good we'll be making them in 4oz jelly jars to put in our Christmas baskets we give out.
I should add that I'm going for an all handmade Christmas (with the exception of 1 toy each for the girls, we got them Boogie Boards.) But that's a post for later.

Making Cold Process Soap

Last night my BFF Jacque came over to do crafty stuff, as we try and do at least twice a month. I'm sure those of you with kids understand how precious girlfriend time is. :) So my girls went to Nana and Pawpaw's house for the night. (They LOVE going there and they usually spend a few nights a month with them.) We had been wanting to try our hands at soap making but only recently got the nerve. I was hesitant due to the use of lye since me and both the girls are asthmatic, (I could only imagine the stress the fumes could put on our lungs) but with them out for the night and with my fearless hubbs offering to help  we decided it was game time. I have been collecting the items needed for about a month now and we finally had everything we needed. Yay!

So here is what we did to make our very first batch of soap...
First I read every blog I could find that talked about making cold process soap. While everyone had different recipes, the one recurring theme was how careful to be with your lye. Also most mentioned getting your lye wholesale or from Lowe's. Well since I march to a different drummer I went to Home Depot and got mine. I'm not sure that was a good idea. It had purple tinted crystals in it and once made it was a dark blue hue. I know this is not right from looking at everyones nice clear lye mix. But it was late and Lowe's is about 15 minutes away so we decided to just go with it. We used the recipe from Soap Deli News as it seemed the easiest for newbies. I used a George Forman Smart Kitchen 30 cup Multicooker that I picked up at Essex for 20$. Think crock pot meets electric skillet. (It worked fabulous by the way)

I'm not going to post the recipe here as the woman from Soap Deli News is awesome and I want you to go there and take the time to read all the wonderful information she has for soap newbies.

In addition the the Multicooker we bought Chemical resistant gloves and Eye protectors, as modeled by my wonderful hubbs below...

We picked up a wooden spoon (to stir the lye) and plastic soup server (to pour the soap from the pot into little soap forms) at Goodwill. We got soap molds at Hobby Lobby (this recipe will make 16 bars). We got a stick blender at Essex but we blew the motor on it half way threw the night, even though we used it as directed, so I'll be returning it and looking around for a better quality one for next time. We got an empty cardboard box to put all of our soap molds in so we could get them out of our very small kitchen easily. We got our Olive Oil and Coconut Oil at Whole Foods and our Palm Oil at Bramble Berry. 

***I wanna talk about Palm Oil for a moment so nobody freaks out on me. When I purchased it I was unaware of the huge conflict of using it. I've looked into it a little and while I'm not going to voice my opinion as to how I feel about it, I will say that I plan on looking into sustainably harvested oil next time I need to purchase some.***

Back to it now. We also got some peppermint oil to use as our scent but we actually had to change plans. Since the lye was a deep blue color when we mixed it with our golden oils it turned into a mossy green color. While I actually really like the color, you don't see it and then expect to smell peppermint. So instead we used Indian Sandlewood (before you jump on me - it's not endangered - I promise) since it's a much more earthy smell. I already had an old food scale that comes with a little dish on top and we used that to measure out the weight of all the oils. We measured out the weight of the lye in a disposable cup. 

Even without the girls home we didn't wanna chance making me or the baby sick with lye fumes so we mixed it outside. And boy was I glad we did! The fumes where horrible and seems to take forever to dissipate. Jacque held an open bottle of vinegar just in case while I snapped a shot of hubbs getting to work.

We got so excited once we got started mixing the lye mix into the oil that we forgot to take pictures. Not that I take the best pictures. Me and my camera are just getting to know each other, LOL. We followed all the directions to a tee and finally after about 45 minutes of hand mixing with a few minutes of stick blending thrown in (before the stupid thing died) we had soap! 

Now I was expecting cleanup to suck and since it was late I decided to leave it until this morning. Boy was I glad I did. It was a breeze. I just rubbed off all the left over soap with paper towels and then gave everything a quick wash. :)

Then after cleaning up, I took a knife and cut across the top of the molds to take all the lumps and overflow off and now they look really nice. I'm not going to jump up and down and yell "I can make soap!" until it's cured and I can give it a test run. But I'm super excited and it was so much easier than I expected.