Coconut Sugar Scrub

Happy New Year All! I hope your holiday was fun and relaxing. Ours was great! We were able to spend some time with family and some relaxing time at home. Now I have to get out of vacation mode...hm...

Anyway, I still have a few handmade gifts to show you that I made from Christmas. I recently received some coconut oil from Tropical Traditions, so I've been looking for some ways to use the oil outside of the kitchen. This one is one that I may have made for for myself as well...

Coconut Sugar Scrub

This was really easy, and it turned out great. I found this on Pinterest, here is the site I used. 

Here's what you need:

Coconut Oil

Sugar

Mason Jars

Essentials Oils (Optional)

First, melt the coconut oil down. Then mix in the sugar until it makes a paste. You can add essential oils if you want, I added peppermint. And that's it, seriously. Just pour the paste into your jars and let it harden. Use the scrub on dry areas. This stuff is awesome, it's really good for your skin. It leaves it feeling really moisturized.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Guest Post from THE Handy Andy

I think I've mentioned that we're doing handmade gifts this year, right... Okay fine, I know I've mentioned it more than once... And while that mostly means that I am making the gifts, Handy Andy did pull his weight. He made a really awesome gift for our oldest nephew and our youngest niece, and so I'm going to let him tell you about it...

I decided to make a simple wooden toy for our niece and nephew. So I found a picture on Google of a simple wooden camera toy that looked easy enough. I had a bunch of scrap lumber that I got from a job that I've used in the past for projects (like the birdhouses), so I used that since it was free.

First thing I did was draw the outline of what I wanted the camera to look like on the board. 

After that I used my jigsaw to roughly cut out the pattern. At this point I wasn't worried about making it perfect or rounding any corners, I just wanted to get the rough frame cut out.

For the lens, I cut out a simple circle with my jigsaw.

Next I used my palm sander to sand off the stain that was previously on the wood from before. Also, I sanded the rough edges and rounded the corners on both pieces.

To make the eye hole, I used the 1 3/8" paddle bit with my drill. I made sure to only drill halfway through from each side to avoid splintering the wood off the back.

I used wood glue and clamps to attach the wooden lens to the front of the camera.

I made two wooden cameras. They are different sizes, and I made the lens on one of them bigger by using two circles of wood and gluing them together. Here are the finished toys:

Aren't those so fun?! I love how old-school they are, and I think the kids will love them. They would also make pretty cool photo props or decorations. Did I mention that my husband is super handy, and awesome? Oh, good. :)

 Thanks for stopping by! Have a Merry Christmas!

 

DIY Infinity Scarves

As you may know, if you come visit me regularly, I am doing this handmade Christmas thing. So far, I've shared the wristlets and personalized notebooks for my nieces, as well as the rustic jewelry holders for my mom and sister-in-law. Well apparently, I unconsciously decided that my mom and sister were going to get matching presents this year. First the jewelry holders and now these...

DIY Infinity Scarves

I would love to show you a tutorial, but there are already so many out there, and honestly I just referenced a few different ones and then added a little of my own thing. Here's what I ended up with:

Zebra print for my mom.

Pretty flowers for sister.

Another animal print for mom (she really loves animal print).

Here are a few tutorials I suggest looking at:

The Cottage Home

H is for Handmade

Wildflowers & Whimsy

I got awesome deals on some remnant fabric at Hobby Lobby, so each one is a different length, but they all turned out great!

How is your Christmas list coming?

Thanks for stopping by!

Barn Window Jewelry Holder

Happy One Week until Thanksgiving!! Are you getting excited? Planning your menus? Well I'm doing no planning, since we are going back to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year, and my mom takes care of the food shopping and menu hoopla. We haven't been at my parents' house for Thanksgiving in several years, so I'm pretty excited.

Also, since I don't have any hostess planning going on right now, I've had some time to get some more homemade Christmas gifts made. This week I made jewelry holders for my mom and my sister. They both love jewelry, I am the odd one out there. They also both have a vintage-y, country-chic decorating style, so I decided to combine those two loves and create country-chic looking jewelry holders for each of them.

I started with two barn window frames that I got from my parents' stock of "treasures," as well as some chicken wire that Handy Andy had (obviously he has that lying around, don't you??).

I removed some old nails that were still sticking out of the window frames, and then sanded the frames down. Then, I spray painted them -- man, I love spray paint, so easy.

 

They were a little splotchy, but that's fine because, after they dried I sanded them again and brushed some dark wood stain over them. (No, I did not do them Christmas colors on purpose, thanks to Handy Andy for asking. Those are colors they each use to decorate with often).

Once the stain dried, I finished them with Minwax Finishing Paste (love that stuff). Rubbing that on them lightened up the stain a bit too, I really like how the colors turned out. After that dried, I added the chicken wire to the back with a staple gun -- I suggest wearing gloves, I didn't and my fingers were killing me when I was done.

To finish them off, I added some lace and burlap embellishments, and some scrabble tiles to my mom's and...

Done!

These were pretty simple to make, and I think they will really love them...AND they are useful - score! I also bought some little hooks to add for them to hang their necklaces on, but I haven't gotten around to putting them on yet.

 

Are you making progress on your family Christmas list this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Personalized Notebooks

Hello All! Not sure if you saw my post last week, but I mentioned that I'm going to be trying my hand at homemade Christmas gifts for several of my loved ones this year. I continued crafting for my nieces this week and made them personalized notebooks. These are super simple, but are really cute.

I started with these composition notebooks you can get anywhere, I got them at the dollar store.

I also gathered some scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, and some other embellishments. I used a paper cutter and a knife to cut out the paper for the covers.

I brushed a thin layer of Mod Podge on the notebook before laying the paper down, and then another layer on top of the paper. After that dried I hot glued some matching ribbon to edge of the paper on the binding. Then I used some embellishments to decorate the notebooks for the girls.

Here's how they turned out - I hope the girls like them! I definitely like how simple and cute they are.

Thanks for stopping by!

[Simple] Wristlet DIY

Normally I'm all about not getting all excited about Christmas until Thanksgiving is over. But this year, I decided to do handmade gifts for most of my friends and family members [which I may regret soon].

Anyway...so, like a good crafter, I scoured Pinterest for some good gift ideas to get my creative juices flowing. I gathered a few ideas, came up with some of my own, and am feeling alright about this handmade Christmas business...for now. So, be prepared, I'll be sharing my handmade Christmas-gifts-to-be with you over the next few weeks.

The first thing on the list was to make wristlets for my two older nieces [ages 8 & 6]. I found some really cute heavier duck fabric on clearance at Hobby Lobby, along with a remnant of cream canvas fabric that I used to line the inside.

I think I spent $5 on all of this fabric - and actually I had a gift card, so I really spent $0 on this fabric! Score. I already had some coordinating zippers from my mom/grandma's sewing box.

Yup, these zippers have been around for a while. Thanks, Grandma, for buying these back in the day...and thanks, Mom, for not sewing much so I could use these today.

Alright, I'll get on with it...

First, cut two pieces of the patterned fabric and two pieces of the off white, 5" x 8" [be sure to cut your long side according to your zipper]. Don't forget to iron your fabric. Layer the lining on the plain or inside of the patterned fabric, pin together.

Now, I had never sewn a zipper up to this point, so I used this tutorial to help me out, so head over there if you need help, because I for sure cannot give you a better tutorial on that.

After sewing the zipper, open up the zipper, then sew the other sides together [fabric is still pattern sides together, lining out, zipper to the inside] - leaving a small opening near the top on the side you want the wrist strap. Opening the zipper is key, so you can turn the pouch right-side-out later without a struggle.

For the strap, cut a strip of fabric, about one inch thick and twice the length of your desired strap length, with a little seam allowance [I cut mine about 10.5 inches]. Fold each cut edge into the middle and iron them so they stay down. Then fold the strap in half where the two edges meet, iron again. Then sew down the length of the strap.

Insert the strap through the opening in the side of the pouch, with the loop on the inside. Tuck the loop of the strap inside, so it gets sewn on straight.

Sew the opening shut with the end of the strap pulled through. Then trim the corners of the pouch, so they will look better when you turn them out.

Turn the pouch right-side-out and...done!

These are far from perfect, but that's the beauty of creating handmade gifts...and creating them for kids! :)

Sorry if that was a cumbersome tutorial! Hopefully it was helpful!

Thanks for stopping by!