YL Oily Bath Salts

YL Oily Bath Salts

I absolutely love using my Young Living Essential Oils. Very slowly I am reading, learning, using, and enjoying the many benefits one can gain while trying to lead a more healthy and natural lifestyle. As I continue on my journey trying different oils, naturally I am ending up with some empty oil bottles, and that's a good thing!! That means I'm finding great uses for the oils, using them everyday, and finding out which ones are my faves. I've discovered a fun way to s-t-r-e-t-c-h my dollars to make sure I use every single drop out of each bottle. In the beginning I was simply displaying the empty bottles in a glass jar because I thought they looked cute. I knew I could recycle them in some form and didn't want to throw them out. After all, they still smelled really good when the cap was opened up!! Recently I read where you could use them to make scented bath salts so I decided to try it out. I took my empty bottles I had used up so far...

...opened up the bottles and took off the caps and removed the plastic droppers...

...added some bath salts into the bottom of a jar...

...placed all of the small pieces and the bottles into the salts...

...and then layered in more salt, and kept adding the bottles until they were all inside the jar...

...finally I added salt to fill the rest of the jar and put the lid on top...

I will wait for a week or two and let the salt absorb all of those yummy scents, and then I will be left with some amazing bath salts!! I can't wait to try them out.

Good, Clean Fun!

 

 

I didn't know it would be so easy to make soap. I've often thought about learning how and investing in the equipment before, but it always seemed so time consuming and complicated....until I saw this pin on Pinterest. I know, Pinterest gets me into all sorts of stuff, doesn't it? At least it is always good, clean fun! And, when I see a new project that looks interesting or fun to do, I get very impatient to try it out.

So, off to Hobby Lobby I went to pick up a few supplies that I didn't have. A how-to book, a mold, some glycerin soap (it comes in large blocks that you can cut up), goat's milk soap, shea butter soap, and a few essential oils found their way into my basket. This was going to be so much fun!

The book I found was very helpful, explaining all of the steps in detail. Basically, you melt the soap pieces in the microwave and add scented oils, herbs, and/or whatever you want to personalize your soap. Then, just pour it into your selected molds. I chose one soap mold and one mini cake pan. With one batch I got bold and tried layering, mainly because it looked so cool. They both worked out great and were the perfect size.

After the soap mixture sets a bit it is ready to pop out of the molds. I made Lemon Bars with Sea Salt, Lemon Poppy Seed, and Lemon & Almond bars. Sounds like cake recipes, doesn't it?

I wrapped them up in saran wrap and then dressed them up with some craft paper...they're now ready to share with family and friends.

 

If you are interested in making soap for yourself or for some fun gifts to give to your friends, you can find several different posts on Pinterest.

...lately

a few things I have been enjoying this week...

finishing a birthday layout of M's...I made the Happy Birthday title
with my new Cameo Silhouette-it is so much FUN!

making smoothies for the freezer...why do bananas go bad so quickly?

I finished my last chair...I'll post a pic of
everything I did in the dining room soon...

my azalea plant that never ceases to amaze me with so many blooms,
this is the plant that died several years ago and I finally got a small stem to take root, now it will not stop growing-I've started so many new plants off of it, I've lost count...this summer I gave one to mom and one to Jamie-I hope their plants flourish for them like mine has for me...

I started another table top quilt...

and last, but not least-this is a current pic of Marley and her wild hair-
guess who gets to go to the Spa today? I hope everyone has a joyful week...

Projects

I wanted to purchase a new wreath for my front door this summer. I really liked the one I currently have, but I've had it for several years and I'm getting tired of it. Not to mention it was beginning to fade and look kind of drab. When I went to Hobby Lobby to look for fabric for my dining room chairs I thought I would check out the ready made wreaths....have you priced them lately? They were way more expensive than I wanted to pay. I thought about just buying the flowers and putting together my own...still came out pretty pricey! So....creative juices flowing, I decided to just get one length of some bright white flowers and trying to spruce up my old wreath. I'm very pleased with the results. And, instead of spending $50+, I only spent $5. I'm happy now...

And now, I'm thinking of painting the front door turquoise.

I'll let you know what happens next...

...around the house

I look forward to summer vacation every year. I always have several projects I've promised myself I will complete during my time off from school. A few weeks ago I decided it was time to update the curtains in my scrap room since I was planning on spending a lot of time in there over the next few months. The pic above shows the old curtains-along with my inherited chair from Jamie. She decided it didn't fit in with her new décor. I have since moved the chair to the living room because I really enjoy the light coming in through the window, and I thought it looked a little crowded with the chair in front of it.

And, here are the new curtains...and new curtain rod...

...a different view, I love all the natural light.

Another project I started a couple of weeks ago, in anticipation of being home for the summer, was repainting one of my brown tables. I forgot to take a picture before I painted, but trust me-it looks a lot better now. 

It looked too bare without something on the top so I put together a quick quilted runner to add more color. I'm really happy how it turned out. 

I also enjoyed putting it together just to be able to quilt again. I don't have time during the busy school year, and quilting is one of my favorite hobbies.

I think I have enough fabric to quilt non-stop for about 10 summers in a row! Now, off to start a new project...

Christmas at Nienie's...fun times!

We had so much fun over the holidays...no one was sick...no drives to Urgent Care this year because of sore throats or strep...we all relaxed, ate, played, took naps, read, watched movies, and simply enjoyed being together as a family. It just can't get any better than that. Fun was had by all!
The table game was meant to be one of daddy's gifts...

...and if you hold your mouth just right, and concentrate
it makes it a lot more fun!

Sorry daddy, maybe you can play next time...

The boys got some wooden toys to put together, packaged with screws and a kid-friendly screwdriver, G got a tow truck and M got a train
...after assembly they needed a colorful paint job

I love that they are so creative and enjoy building things and putting things together-they are perfect crafting buddies for Nienie!

...and G is a natural at reading directions and following them step by step, it's fun to see him so confident and self assured, the printed pages are not intimidating to him at all... 

...I'm sure M will soon be reading his own directions because he loves to follow along and do anything his big brother does!

I hope everyone had a blessed holiday!

Some finished projects...

As I mentioned in this post, I have several projects in different states of completion....I was happy to get a few things finished today...

I'm trying to use up as many leftover fabric scraps as I can and it's been fun to make some small projects to practice my machine quilting on...I normally like to do all of my quilting by hand, it's just something that is very relaxing for me in the evenings when I'm too tired to do anything else...

I made a couple (with several more waiting to be finished!) of small potholders, mug rugs, or whatever you want to call them...

They coordinate with the table runner I made in this post, and they are just the right size to leave on the counter for my hot tea or sonic drink!...

Now, I'm off to finish my next project, more on that tomorrow.

"Yeah" for snow days...

Happy New Year & a Project

I found this inspiration on Pinterest yesterday and couldn't wait to try it. I already had the perfect frame to use that would look great in my sewing room. I found another frame to move the existing picture to before I started the project.

All you need is a small piece of fabric and some pillow stuffing, I had both of those on hand so the project cost me ZERO $$$! The directions were super simple, you can find them here. The only step I added was using a glue gun in a few places on the back of the fabric to help hold it in place as I put the back of the frame back on.

This was a very quick and fun project--a great way to start off the new year, creating...Happy New Year to all of my family and friends, I sincerely hope that 2012 will be the year all of your wishes and dreams come true:)