My Journey Making Candles

 

I love candles, but they can be very expensive. I thought I would slowly buy the things to make some and test the waters. I bought my wax off Amazon because it was cheaper than the other craft stores in town. You can get a ten pound bag of soy wax chips for about $20. (The link takes you to the kind I bought)

 

I read a few things on making colored candles, and people all over said that Crayola colors worked best for adding color. You can use a pencil to make sure the wick stays in place. The wick was too short on one of the big jars I did, so I simply held it until it was set up straight. You want to melt a little bit of wax to help hold the wick in place. This will make sure it stays on the bottom of the candle, and help you while you pour the wax; you don't want it to be moving around.

 

 

First, put some wax into a glass cup, or something glass that can be microwaved. At first I was scared to use a glass cup because I didn't want it to be ruined. The soy wax cleaned up easily once I was done.  If you are making a BIG candle and you want it one solid color, I would recommend doing this with a used pan on the stove or a really big glass bowl.

 

I added the color but you can't see it in the picture above. I would recommend trying to cut the color up into small pieces, because it melted slower than my wax. The one I did were the color was in big hunks didn't melt and mix very well at all, giving me a light creamy color rather than a bright one.

You want to microwave the wax at even intervals, I did 40 seconds when I had a full 8oz cup of wax. After every 40 seconds, be sure to stir the wax. This is especially important if you are adding color; in the cups I didn't stir constant the color would sit at the bottom of the cup. Also when the wax was almost all the way melted and almost done I would microwave it for less time. Don't forget to set your wick, this is important to have done before you start melting a bunch of wax.

This is the melted version of the cup above. As you can see the wax almost halved.

Once the wax was liquid and evenly melted, add your scent. I decided to use essential oils. I read on one blog that you should use about an ounce. I simply added a few drops every time the wax was melted. I think how much oil you add depends on the brand and kind of oil you get. If it's a strong scent, you might not want as much; if it's a weak scent, it might take more.

 

When you add the scent be sure to mix it up very well. If not the smell won't be evenly distributed in the wax. I'd assume you'd get a while of strong smell and a while of not strong, but I don't really know what would happen.

 

Once you add the wax you let it set up for a few days before you burn it. If you want to do a multicolor candle, simple wait for one layer to dry before you add the next. It only took about an hour before I could add the next color.

 

I love this, it's simple and cheaper than buying candles. I also like the essential oils!!!

 

Hope you enjoy.

Two Simple Projects

Things have been busy around here lately, and I'm trying to learn to sew. I haven't been able to do as many simple projects, because sewing IS HARD!!! No not really, if you know what you're doing; my machine and I just have misunderstandings. Hopefully soon I can put a sewing project on here (I did one or two but of course didn't take picture!)

The first project

Today I was painting picture frames. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how colorful picture frames have become popular. We rent our house and the color is just what I need in the over abundance of brown/neutral coloring. This is a simple project you can do when you have multiple five minute breaks or all at once during nap time.

I had a few old picture frames laying around and decided to paint them. It would be nice to repurpose something that is other wise taking up space. For my mother-in-law we are doing a 'purple box' where everything is purple in it. I went to a thrift store, bought some nice frames, and painted them purple. It's super fun!!!

I used Acrylic paint, and I'm not sure how others will turn out. The paint I used dried mat, so I used Mod Podge to gloss it up!! I decided to put a cute little 'I Love My Mommy' paper cut out on the bottom of the frame. I simply held it in place and coated it with Mod Podge. I added glitter to my Mod Podge to give the frame a little sparkly something.

Once everything dries, it doesn't have the white/glue look. Also if you don't want to take the frame completely apart, you could always use painters tape to make sure the glass is covered.

 

My second project!!

I've seen several projects where people use bleach pens to make shirts personalized. I thought it was pretty genius!! I didn't want to go writing on my favorite shirt, so I used one of my husbands "garage sale" shirts. I chose dark blue, just to see how it would turn out. Don't forget to put something between the two layers of shirt, you don't want it to bleed to the other side. I used a piece of cardboard from a diaper box. I also used clips to make sure the shirt stayed tight.

If you want a design, I would recommend printing one out and create a type of stencil. Of course you are free to wing it like I did. Remember, this is bleach, and if you mess up the shirt is done for.

 

For some reason I thought it would work better if I set it in the sun; it just dried the bleach gel out.

 

 

It turned out really well. I was impressed with myself. You have to make sure that you get the bleach even or some parts turn out lighter then others. As you can see in the first picture, some of it was more pink/red then white. I was using a super dark blue shirt, so that might be why. Next time I do this, I will use a stencil to make sure everything is even.

 

I rinsed mine with water before I washed it. The bleach gel was flaky due to being dried in the sun. I saw a picture with a bunch of them in a load, so it might be okay. I wasn't going to take the change.

 

I hope you enjoyed, and I'd love to have some more craft ideas in the comments. Maybe something you've been wanting to try but didn't know how hard it would be. I was thinking those "string balls" made with string, glue, and a balloon. I've seen some amazing fails with those.....maybe just maybe!

Inspiration Jar

 

 

So I read a book once and the mom knew she was going to die soon due to cancer. She had a young daughter and made this vase/jar that was full of inspiring quotes (from songs, famous people. books ect..). She left a note saying that she (the daughter) should grab a piece of paper any time she needed advice, words of encouragement, or anything else like that.

 

I've loved this idea every since, and have now started to make a big pile for my children that I plan to give them when they move out for the first time.

 

My sisters are in their teen years and going through some rough times. I thought, this would be GREAT to give to them. So I made jars for them.

 

First I cleaned my jars. To get the sticky stuff off, Here is my post where I tested multiple ways to do that. Once my jars where all cleaned I started filling them with little pieces of paper.

 

Note: Be sure the jar is completely dry first, other wise the papers on the bottom get wet. Yes....I was so excited when I started that some of them got wet and ruined and I had to rewrite them.

 

This isn't something you can just sit down and do (I guess you could...but really?). I would suggest taking your time, doing this slowly. Maybe you know someone who is going to graduate next year, maybe start now? Or a birthday for the end of the year? Christmas maybe? This is a great gift idea for anyone at anytime. It's really thoughtful too.

 

I use bible versus. Every morning when I do my study, I simply write down the versus I think might help them. Cut it out and fold it.

 

Of course I will continue to fill the jars up. I plan for my sisters to have them soon, but as you can see they are almost full (after about three weeks). I will continue to write things down for them, and just put them in a baggie to keep on giving them.

 

There are soo many things you could do with them so here are a few I came up with...You could even have who ever you are giving it to read one everyday....

I Love You Because...
You're the Best Mom/Dad Because...
Reasons We Love Grandma/pa...
Bible Versus...
Song Quotes...
When You Feel Blue Read One...
Number One Teacher...(have each student put a reason they enjoyed that teacher)
A Jar of Love....(to someone who lives far away)
Date Night Ideas...
Craft Ideas....
If you want to do some for your kids you could do a jar "for when you get married" "when you graduate" that kind of stuff and have different jars.

I didn't decorate my jars, but if you want to go for it. I'm sure Pinterest has an unlimited amount of ideas.

 

Hope you enjoy, and if you have any other ideas I would love to read them in the comments, I would love to find other ways to do this.

Sock Throwing Toy.

 

So as a kid I remember these toys that had rice or beans in one end and a tail. When you threw it, the tail ends would wave in the wind. I loved these, and so did my husband. I totally forgot about these fun little things until my daughter got a blow up one in a kids meal, unfortunately the dog thought it was cool and popped it.

It saddened my husband, because this all happened BEFORE he got to play with it outside. One night when I couldn't sleep I got the idea to make one out of an old sock (and if your husband is like mine, we have plenty that need to go). Plus I'm practicing my sewing skills and thought it would be good for me.

 

 

 

First I decided how much rice I wanted in to and I sewed across, but leaving a hole to add the rice.

This might be easy if you aren't new at sewing, but I am. And let me tell you, sewing a sock is harder then I thought it would be. The fabric was very thin and the holes in it hindered the thread going in and staying put. I got it though!!!

 

 Remember that hole I said to leave? That is where I added the rice. I held it opened and added as much rice as I wanted, and surprisingly didn't get rice all over the place.

 

Once I had a nice bulge, I went back and sewed it back up. I added a bunch of lines close together to make sure none of the rice tried to escape. This will be used outside but I don't want birds, or my children to be eating the dry rice.

 

 

As you can tell, my sewing skills aren't the best, but it works. I then cut the other end so it would be semi in a straight line. Then cut down to give it tails. At this point you could have your kiddos paint the sock, giving it some color and hiding the old sock look. You could also dye the sock if you wanted to, but I would dye it BEFORE even starting.

 

 

Finished product!!!! Isn't the nicest looking toy, but it'll do for being thrown around the yard. Plus I know that the rice will get ruined if it gets wet. It's cheap and my husband will enjoy it. If you wanted something that would last longer you could always put the rice in a baggie and shove it in there. Or even sew it into the final stitch. I want to also try doing this with fabric and see how it works, but I don't have any handy that could be used.

 

Can't wait to throw this rag around the yard....I can already hear the "I bet I can throw it farther" ...or..."think I can hit that..."

Circle Letters

So I've been wanting to do some type of alphabet for my daughter room and haven't figured out what I wanted to do. My brother-in-law has this HUGE TV box in our storage room that I've been wanting to get rid of. I decided I would do an Alphabet out of it.

I thought I would start with one letter, to see if I liked it and what I could maybe do.

First I cut out the letter. I freehanded it but I'm sure that if we wanted to do something more fancy we could. I was aiming for simple this time around.

I have this circle punch I used for an 'UP' type project and decided to use it again. I also have all this scrap book paper, that I won't be using scrap booking. That whole phase just isn't my cup of tea.

 

 

I punched a bunch of different prints and tried to get different flowers and such. Then I laid them on the J I had cut out. Once I got how I wanted it to look, I slightly lifted each dot and put a touch of Mod Podge on the under side. Once they were all layer on and dried, I coated the whole thing and BOOM. A net little letter.

I plan to do my daughter name this way JOY but the rest of the alphabet I'll do slowly with a single piece of scrap book paper. Her name will stick out from the rest of the letters. I enjoyed this little craft, it was easy, and something I could do during the day when I got my ten minutes without being needed.

 

I debated on if I should cut around the circles so it would be a smooth J. My husband really liked it with just circles, so we decided to keep it this way. My daughter LOVED it, but she's two and loves almost anything I make and give her. I'll try to post a pictures once I have the whole alphabet done.

Deck of 56 Thanks yous- Father's Day Gift

So being the procrastinator I am, I'm just now doing my husbands gift. This is from me, not my kids, to say thank you. I've seen this done once or twice but it's usually with I love you because... We've been married for three years and together for eight, I think he gets all the reasons I love him. I tell him all the time.

But I don't always get around to saying thank you. For big things or little things, sometimes it gets missed. So I'm giving my husband 56 thank yous.

First find a deck of cards. I had a random set and decided to use it, although I like the whole map thing going on.

I wrote out my Thank You For...on a piece of paper then cut them out. I wouldn't use too thin of paper though, because even the thick paper I used became kind of transparent when I put Mod Podge on it.

 

I then put a little bit of Mod Podge on the middle of the card, or where ever you want it, and stuck the paper to it. After it was in it's proper place, I covered the whole card in a layer of Mod Podge. You want to cover the WHOLE card because it leaves lines or a texture of sorts. This also helps the paper stay stuck (I had a few corners try to come up on me).

Let your cards dry for a good little bit. You don't want them to end up sticking to each other, I let mine dry over night but an hour works too. Once dry, get a hole punching device and punch a whole in the corner of each one. Make sure that the words are all going the same way. I wasn't paying attention and a few of mine are upside down.

 

Then put a binder ring or ribbon through the holes and BOOM you're done. I'm sure every husband would like this, and if you know he's feeling under appreciated just hand him his deck of cards. You could also use these for playing cards if you wanted to. I put my Thank Yous you the number side but you could also put them on the design side.

Simple, and only takes a few hours!!!

Jar Cleaning Trials...using Newman's Own Jars

 

 

I started to keep the jars that contain our spaghetti sauce, due to all the great ideas I've seen on what to do with them. Yet here they sit in the closet, collecting dust, all because I haven't wanted to deal with the label and glue. I thought today would be the day!!!

 

Of course I went to my handy dandy Pinterest app to see what I could do about this problem. I found multiple solutions and thought it would be great to do a post on which one worked best.

 

First you want to get as much of the sticker off as you can, but DUH, I think that's a given.

 

 

The first one I decided to try was nail polish remover. The directions I found were to add hot water to the jar and let it sit a minute. You don't want the water to be so hot that you can't pick it up and hold it. After stirring dinner (again) I emptied the water and add the remover to a paper towel. IT WORKED!!! IT CAME RIGHT OFF. I barely even had to use elbow grease. I was amazing and giddy with excitement. Now moving on to the next one...peanut butter.

 

 

 

The directions I read were to simply let the peanut butter sit on the jar for about ten minutes then wash it off. DIDN'T WORK. Ok it did after I did it again and scrubbed with a green scrub pad. It pretty much loosens it, but you still have to scrub pretty good to get it off. It could be the glue on the jars I guess, but either way, more effort then I wanted to but in it. Plus who wastes peanut butter?

 

 

Lastly I tried the 'home made goo be gone' solution. You mix equal parts of oil and baking soda together into a paste. Let it sit on the jar for ten minutes or so (mine sat on there for a good 20) and then wash it off in warm water. This worked like a charm!! It came off easy enough with minimal effort. You still have to rub though, and it took two try's on the really thick glue parts.  

 

If you are looking for something quick with very little effort I would go with the nail polish remover. Just keep in mind that I was doing this on glass jars, and I'm sure the polish remover would eat away at any type of plastic, taking away the shine.

 

 

DON'T WASTE YOUR PEANUT BUTTER!!!

 

 

Home made goo-be-gone worked and I am eager to try it on plastics and any place my daughter decides to stick a sticker. Might be good for taking price tags off things during Christmas. I also ways that half of it comes off and the other half leaves that white kind of sticker kind of not crap.

 

Anyways....hope you enjoyed and it helps in your jar cleaning adventures!!! Hopefully soon I can show you a cool nifty craft with one of these now clean jars.

 

 

Q-Tip Letters...and more if you wanted

 

So I saw this great idea with q-tips to make foam flowers. I don't care much for fake flowers of any type, but thought it was a cool idea. I got my brainstorming group together (husband and brother-in-law) and we thought it would be cool to do a letter A for my mother-in-laws upcoming birthday. GENIUS right?

 

We first cut the q-tips in half. Due to human error, some are longer then other, which ended up being cool. It gives depth to the project. If I were going to do a flower with a foam ball, I would do the long ones one color and short ones another color. I didn't take a picture of me cutting the q-tips because I had scissors in my hand, kind of hard to take a picture AND cut. Anyways.

 

We also cut the A from a foam sheet. We got a four pack for $12.99 at Hobby Lobby, and we've now decided to do a letter for each house member. We free handed our A but you could print one off and trace it or what ever you wanted to do. I found that cutting the foam worked best with some type of razor blade. My husband used a box cutter type knife and I tried a kitchen knife. NO to the kitchen knife, it just shreds the foam up. But the knife my husband picked worked perfectly.

 

I would suggest painted the foam after you cut it. We used a cheap acrylic and it worked perfectly.  We also recommend using those cheap foam brushes, because a regular brush doesn't cover enough surface area at once. The longer a 'blob' of paint sits on the foam the more it soaks in. I put small drops and dabbed them around with a foam brush as quickly as possible. DONT USE SPRAY PAINT...the lady at Hobby Lobby informed me that it will literally just sit and melt the foam.

 

 

So once the q-tips are cut I sat and dipped them. This will dye your fingers, for a few days most likely. I put water into this little bowl and then added food coloring to get the shade of purple I wanted. The color will lighten up once it starts to dry, so make sure that your coloring isn't too light when wet. Same with being too dark, our purple ended up maroon once it was dry.

 

Best picture I could get of a single tip.

 

We dyed the tips then put them in a separate piece of foam but you can just stick them in the letter if you'd like. We couldn't get them to stay once we stuck them in, so I went back and dipped the end in super glue to make sure it stayed. Be careful of what type of glue you use, because some melts the foam. 

 

This project takes A LOT of time. I worked on it when the kids were busy or after they went to bed. I'm still not done because we want to add q-tips to cover the A completely. Just in what you see I went through five small bottles of super glue, and over 500 q-tips. luckily you can get those at the Dollar Tree.

 

If you want to incorporate your children into this, I have a solution for that too. give them an extra piece of foam and have them put colored tips in it. It's great for eye hand coordination. In fact, I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. If you want to let them paint it, go for it. Just remember the paint won't come off everything, so I would suggest being outside with no clothes on. Good Luck!!!

 

 

This might be a better picture. My mother-in-law is a math teacher so we have kept count of home many q-tips we use. It would be a good guessing game and who ever guesses closest gets extra points or whatever. If I were going to do this over again (which I thought about but ahhh so much time) I would of left the middle of the A with no q-tips. My husband said it would look cool but I don't know. Can you even tell it's an A?

 

Once again, this A isn't complete but it will take a while to get it done. Once I'm done I'll add a completed picture.

Cutting glass...or something like that.

 

So I've seen this done a few different ways. Some people have used lighter fluid and others used a type of polish remover. Honestly I think it will work with any flammable liquid. I recruited my brave husband for this project. I don't like fire nor do I like the idea of glass shattering in my hand. Plus I didn't want to get my hands in the chemical due to having to keep the kids busy while we did this.

 

First he tied a twine type string around the bottle to see how much he needed. I've seen posts where people use yarn, once again, I think any type of string that will burn would work. He wanted to use fishing string (all things fishing in his mind) but I knew it would probably melt instead of get hot enough and burn.

 

Once we got the right length of string we put it in lighter fluid. We also let it set in the liquid (picture below) not knowing how long to really let it set. As long as there is enough lighter fluid to burn for a minute it is fine, it shouldn't need to sit longer then about two minutes.

 

After it's soaked be sure to cut the extra string off. At first I didn't think this was important, until I saw it was touching the bottle, which will result in more cracks then you want.

 

Once the string is wet, put it on the bottle where you want the crack to be. I have to admit this part is tricky for a few reasons. One the twine was not as stiff so it moved more and two it's hard to get a straight even line period. My brave husband (I say brave because he lit this thing on fire while his hands were covered in lighter fluid) put a lighter to the string.

 

You don't want the fire to burn so long that the string falls apart and off. Once we stopped seeing flames we put the bottle directly in cold water. As you can see, holding the end of the bottle doesn't affect you, my husband didn't even flinch. It makes a crack sound and boom your bottle is cut in half.

 

The first few times we tried this it didn't work. The extra part of the string touched the bottle and we didn't put it in cold water. Both of those factors are vital in making this work. The olive oil bottle is A LOT thicker then the beer bottle. In this case just twist string together to make it thicker, or use a thicker  type of string. It worked like a charm!! It took a few tries to get this down but once it's figured out, it's easy. You'll want to cut every glass bottle you could of thrown away.

 

Pros: This is a super easy project once you get the hang of it, and you probably DO have the items you need to do this. My favorite part is how neat it is, hardly any mess at all.

 

Cons: HOW THE HECK DO THEY GET IT STRAIGHT?? I don't know. We will soon be making a trip to our local Ace Hardware to get some type of file to shave the sharp edges. And on that note, the edge WILL be sharp and most likely uneven like ours. If you figure out a way to get a clean cut that doesn't need to be filed, please let me know.

 

Hope you liked! It was fun for us!

~Megan~

PAINT!!!! or running around the yard in a diaper.

Has anyone else seen this picture? I have no idea where it came from, but I've seen it on Facebook and Pinterest. I saw a post a while back with a mom who tried a bunch of different home made paints but this one wasn't on her site for review. I thought why not tonight.  I was working on a project that took a lot more time and effort. You know when you get an idea in your head and it seems like you can bust it out in a night but ends up taking all day working on it piece by piece. Come back tomorrow because it should be good. Any ways...Here is todays project. Make a paint for my two year old.

 

I first gathered everything from my kitchen, which wasn't hard. Although it takes a lot more salt then it seems. I now have to go to the store tomorrow and buy some more, I luckily had just enough.

It was very thick. I don't think it would come out of those ketchup bottles easily. It kind of reminded me of pancake mix that needed a little more water added. So that is what I did.



 

I put a good side glop (is that even a word?) in a small dish, and added a little water. I didn't measure this; I think it really depends on how runny you want the paint. Once I found a consistency I liked I added my food coloring. This is suppose to be green but I used neon food coloring. I could of added more but didn't since this was just a test. I also made pink and purple which turned out much better in color. I don't know how that picture got such bright colors. Maybe I needed to use half a bottle of food coloring? Not sure about all that.

 

I put the paint on a paper plate. Next time I would like to put it in bowls because I added too much water making the paint runny. That is what I was going for really, but didn't think about them mixing together on the plate (DUHH!). This is my daughter below getting ready. She has been bugging me all day to paint and once I get it ready I have to show her how (she knows how by the way). Hence the Joy on the page.



 

As you can see it isn't as bright or thick, when put on the paper, as store bought paint. The texture was really weird too. I don't know if I didn't mix it up good enough or what. My little guy was screaming while hanging on to my pants and she was screaming to paint so I was in a bit of a hurry. The texture was gritty, despite the texture, it went on the paper nicely. I had my daughter use one of those cheap foam brushes, so I don't know how it would work with a regular paint brush. It should be fine though.

 

I'd like to say this is my daughters work but it's mine. She mainly ran around the yard dripping paint everywhere. Oh the excitement of running around in nothing but a diaper!!!! After it dried (which didn't take long) it still had the grit texture. I thought it was pretty though. My dad named it "Mothers day out with a little bit of puke and poop". Which kind of makes sense I guess, all that pink with yellowish in it. (ew!!) Think I could frame it and put it on Etsy and sale it? huh huh huh any takers? 

 

Pros: This paint is amazing if you want to whip up something fast. It makes a nice size batch of paint, which would be good if you have multiple kids using it. I like how you can choose the thickness of the paint. I also like that the paint isn't so thick that it turns the corners of paper up (yes I've made paint that even curled card stock).

Cons: I didn't like the texture, it was odd if you are using it to finger paint. Maybe good for sensory play. I was disappointed in the coloring of it. The bottles in the picture make it seem so much more vibrant, you could always add more food coloring though.

 

I hope you liked!! Let me know!

~Megan~