It’s Like Buttah– DIY Body Butter!

Written by: Grace

Recently, I started making my own lotion.

The reason for this is twofold. First, I thought I could save some money since I like to slather on ridiculous amounts. And second, I’ve read a lot about all the junk that is in lotion, and it makes me nervous.

So, I did what any serious researcher does. I searched Pinterest. Obviously.

Now, I found a TON of recipes. I sifted through all of those recipes, nixed those that seemed too intensive and expensive, and combined the best recipes to come up with my own whipped body butter lotion.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Cup of Raw, Unrefined Shea Butter (I bought mine at Wegman’s) (you could use Cocoa Butter, but the husband was at Wegman’s and I knew they had Shea Butter, so I went with Shea)

1/2 Cup of Unrefined Coconut Oil (I always have a LARGE tub of this— Costco usually has it)

1/2 Cup of a mild Olive Oil (a lot of recipes suggested Jojoba Oil, but again, I went with what I had)

OPTIONAL: An essential oil to make the body butter smell lovely. I did not use any essential oils, but if you do make sure you choose one that is suitable for skin contact…

UPDATE: I just recently purchased some awesome essential oils from Young Living Oils from an sweet friend. If you are interested in learning about essential oils she is super sweet, super knowledgeable, and super patient (if you know me, you know I’m indecisive, which can be a little tiring…), contact Kate. I am going to put a drop or two in my cream. I’ll update about my thoughts about essential oils, but I have heard great things so far.

Here’s What You’ll Do:

1. Put all the Shea Butter and Coconut Oil in a Double Boiler until it melts and is in liquid form (that was redundant wasn’t it?).

Here are the ingredients in the double boiler

Double Boiler: Pot with water in it with a glass bowl on top… make sure the water does not touch the glass bowl

2. Stir in the Olive Oil

3. Place the mixture in the refrigerator or outside if it’s cold.

Solidified.

4. Once the mixture has solidified, place in stand mixer, and WHIP IT. It will look delicious like icing, but it won’t taste like buttercream.

Totally looks like buttercream icing, right?

5. Place it in a jar and slather it on!

Tips and Notes:

The body butter is great. My husband uses it, my kids use it, and I use it. We usually use it at night because it is a little greasy and I don’t want to run the risk of it putting an oil mark on our clothes—PJs? who cares! I’ve haven’t noticed any stains, but our skin is quite soft!

The body butter is stable at room temperature. I keep it sitting on my dresser, and it has kept it’s whipped form. I would assume there is a shelf date on the body butter just like there are shelf dates on oil, but I’ve never had Olive Oil or Coconut Oil sitting around long enough to discover it has gone rancid…

12
Mar
2014

A Lovie for My Lovey

Written by: Rona

Easter is around the corner. It will be L’s first. Since she won’t be eating any chocolate bunnies this year, a bunny lovie was in order. My search brought me to these adorable bunnies on Etsy. I love that each one is uniquely handmade. After I added one to my cart, I started to toy around with the idea of making one myself. There is something to be said about a lovey made by your momma. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to give it a try. I’m not a seamstress. Like any self taught sewer, I learned by watching my grandma and YouTube videos. My skills have improved over the years through many failed and unfinished projects. I felt pretty confident and if it didn’t end well I can always fall back on the bunny in my cart.

I whipped up a sketch of my dream bunny. Notice I kept the shapes simple for easy sewing. Then I enlarged each body part on separate sheets of paper and cut out my patterns. I didn’t calculate the exact scale though this would make a good proportions or similar figures lesson. I just went with proportions that looked good to me. I created a PDF of the template I used in case you want to give this project a try.

I found some soft flannel, minky, fleece and felt scraps in my stash. I also dug out some leftover piping, embroidery floss, ribbon and yarn to use as accessories. As for the stuffing, I upcycled an old pillow. I like to air out old stuffing in the sun for a few hours. This will fluff, refresh and sterilize (not my first time upcycling old pillows, can’t you tell?).

After deciding which fabric would be used for each body part, I used blue taylor’s chalk to trace the pattern onto the wrong side of the fabrics. To make the cutting process quicker, I folded my fabrics so I can cut two pieces at once. The ears were a bit tricky. Since the shapes of the left and right ear are mirror images, after I traced one ear I flipped over the pattern to trace the other. I almost forgot to do this and would have ended up with two right ears. Keeping the fabric pinned, I cut out each body part. I usually like to cut ¼ inch outside of the chalk line for seam allowance and use the blue line as sewing guidance.

Now onto the sewing. The inner ear felt pieces had to be sewn on top of each outer ear piece first. After that, I sewed the ears and limbs, leaving an opening at the bottom of each piece. I carefully turned each piece inside out and inserted stuffing. I left the ears relatively flat so they won’t be too heavy to “stand up”. Originally I used minky for the limbs since it’s super soft and has interesting texture. After stuffing them, I realized a bunny with tiny bumps on its arms and legs would look weird/slightly creepy so I made the switch to flannel to match the ears.

Next, I sewed the upper and lower body together creating front and back pieces. I added piping in between to fancy her up. For the face, I chalked an outline then used embroidery thread and a tiny piece of felt to go over the features. I also hand stitched on a little heart and border on the lower body to give her a little style.

I eye balled the placement of the ears, limbs and whiskers, flipped them towards the inside then pinned into place. Then I laid the other body piece right side down and pinned the edges together leaving an opening on the side. Everything was going so smoothly up till this point. I even thought to myself “Wow, this bunny takes less than hour. Maybe I’ll make another!” Then I started to sew the body together…There were some thick patches that caused thread feeding/tension issues. Things started to bunch up, thread was breaking, and I was re-threading the bobbin every five seconds. I started to get flash backs of other sewing projects that went horribly wrong and exchanged a few choice words with my sewing machine. After quite a few tension adjustments and test runs I was finally able to sew around the body. Phew…I think next time (maybe?) a walking foot or thinner cotton fabric will help avoid the headache in this step.

The only thing left to do was to add stuffing. I wanted the body of the bunny to look plush so I packed in the filling. Then I sewed opening closed with a running stitch. Notice the lighting difference in the photos below. After the sewing ordeal, I decided to walk away from it and finish the next morning.

Of course, a bunny lovie wouldn’t be complete without accessories. I added a yarn pom pom tail and a bow to finish the look.

So a bunny lovie for my lovey that cost zero dollars yet priceless in a way. I hope L likes it.

What have you made for your lovies? Do you have any sewing tips for me?

09
Mar
2014

Easy Twine Wrapped Carrots

Written by: Grace

I made an easy update to my Burlap wreath with some easy twine wrapped carrots. Remember that Easy Burlap Bubble Wreath, I made for Valentine’s day? Go ahead. Check it out. I’ll wait here.

Okay, so I took out the hearts and the lovebirds, and decided to update this wreath with something more Spring appropriate.

This time, instead of going with glitter, I wanted my wreath’s accessory (Yup, my wreaths have accessories because they are fancy like that) to be rustic like the burlap.

I decided to make some easy twine wrapped carrots. Kind of like these yarn wrapped carrots.

I whipped up three carrots in no time. Another easy craft from Grace. Who’s keeping the tally for my easy crafts? Maybe I should start more challenging crafts…

What you’ll need:

-Jute like this

-Orange Craft Paint

-A foam brush

-Hot glue

-Greenery for the top of the carrot (I used Onion grass like this one)

-An old magazine

What you’ll do:

- Take a couple of pages from the magazine and roll it into a cone.

- Keep rolling pages until you have a carrot size that you like.

- Cut your greenery and shove it in the top and down the center of the magazine carrot

- Glue the beginning of the jute/twine to the magazine carrot and start wrapping it around the carrot form (tip: do not try to be perfect. Just wrap the twine haphazardly. I like to wrap all over the place. For two reasons. 1. I think it looks organic and 2. It’s easy, and you all know how I feel about ease).

Just wrapping the twine. Excuse the mess, I whipped up these three carrots, two moss bunnies during our last Craft Night, so there was a lot going on. When is there not a lot going on?

In case you needed another picture of me wrapping my carrots.

- Tuck the end of the jute/twine under what you have already wrapped. If you want, glue the tail end down.

- Paint your carrot with craft paint (tip: I added a little water to my paint, and just blotted the paint onto the carrot).

- Attach the carrots onto your burlap bubble wreath (I used green floral wire to attach my carrots) for a cute Spring update or wherever your heart desires.

You can barely see the floral wire.

An easy update to an easy wreath!

This extreme closeup reveals the blue poster gum I use on the back of my wreaths, so they don’t slide when opening and closing the door.

What updates do you have in store for your Burlap Bubble wreath? The possibilities are endless. Anyone securing a bird’s nest with Robbin’s eggs on theirs?

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