Easy Homemade Lip Balm Recipe

This lip balm is the best. I've tried all sorts of expensive natural chapstick and been disappointed every time. When I started using my homemade stuff, I was able to go from constant, all day application to once in the morning and once at bedtime!

 

Ingredients:

2 tsp coconut oil

1 tsp beeswax

1 vitamin E capsule

5-10 drops of sweet almond oil 

*optional 5-10 drops essential oil such as sweet orange, peppermint, vanilla or cinnamon

Melt it all in a pan (be clever and use one that pours well) on low heat. If using essential oils, add after removing from the heat. Pour into containers.

Tips:
 *I bought a big brick of beeswax from a honey supplier. I use a sharp, heavy knife to shave off the wax and then pack it into the teaspoon. You can also buy beeswax in pellet form (much easier to deal with) or if you don't want to buy a lot of wax, a chopped beeswax tea light will do.
*Lip balm containers can be found at some health food stores or on Etsy
*I quadruple the recipe to fill approx 12-0.15oz containers (standard twist up size)

Vintage Chair Make Over

 

 I bought this great/ugly vintage chair for $10 and couldn't wait to spruce it up. Just a couple coats of yellow spray paint and some new faux bois fabric on the seat. Voila! An updated chair for $20 and an easy half-days work. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't quite get a yellow that matched with the art in my bedroom (more on that next time...) so I sold it. For $40. Woo Hoo! I love DIY. But I am still looking for another chair...

Tutoria Upgrade- Making Your Own Labels the Smarter, Faster Way!

I had a very small amount of time to make a very large batch of labels and needed to make the process more efficient. I cannot believe I didn't think of doing it this way before.

Instead of cutting my ribbon or twill tape, I just ironed 5-6 onto the ribbon at a time. SO much faster! It keeps them way more organized for storage and cuts down on the amount of ribbon wasted. I've included the (extremely popular) original tutorial beneath for convenience, but with fewer steps, since I'm getting smarter.

Materials:
Iron on Transfer Paper (I just used the t shirt kind)
Printer
Scissors
Iron
Ribbon, twill tape or whatever you like best. Just make sure it's iron safe!

1.) In Keynote or Powerpoint, arrange your logo in rows. I printed out a few test sheets to get my labels just the right size. FLIP YOUR IMAGE! I may or may not have forgotten this step and wasted a sheet of transfer paper. If you're using a Mac, use keynote. Powerpoint for Mac has no 'flip' feature to make your logo a mirror image. Print onto transfer paper according to package directions.




2.) Cut out your transfer paper labels and position as many labels as your iron will cover (I managed 4-6 at a time) on the uncut ribbon or twill tape.

3.) Iron those suckers on. Like crazy. When you think you might be scorching the ribbon, wait another few seconds! Make sure to read the transfer paper directions so you know what heat setting to use and if you should use steam or not. I peeled off the paper backing at random intervals as a sort of quality control, to make sure they were stuck. The rest I left on when I rolled it back onto the spool to protect the tags.

Isn't that sooo much easier?

Rainy Day Entertainment

The easiest and cheapest way to keep a child entertained while you do the dishes (or drink some coffee while procrastinating):
Use a plastic grocery bag as a parachute.

He lasted almost an hour by himself. Adding a cape and superhero gloves may have gotten me past an hour. Especially if I had given him a stuffed animal to rescue from a burning building.

DIY Mother's Day Flower Pots

Here's a pretty, handmade gift for the mom in your life this Mother's Day. It cost us under $15 and can be finished in a lazy afternoon.

Supplies:
Clay Pot; big enough to hold your herbs or flowers
Dirt
Permanent Marker
Chalkboard Paint 
Masking Tape
Optional: acrylic paint for a border

We taped off a rectangle with the masking tape and painted it with blackboard paint according to the directions on the bottle. When it was dry, we peeled off the tape and wrote on the opposite side with Sharpies. Once we had planted our basil, we added the white border and left it to dry.