Brown Sugar Body Scrub

My SIL got me this brown sugar body scrub from Bath & Body Works a few years ago and ever since then, I've wanted to find something like it, but cheaper. Luckily for me, pintrest to the rescue! I saw a ton of different "recipes" on there and this is the one that looked easiest to me. Lazy to the rescue, again.

To make this, you need:
-brown sugar
-white sugar (note: in this picture is flour. that is not what you want. don't use it!)
-olive oil (I bought a $4 bottle at Ollie's - not great for cooking, fine for slathering on your body)
-grapefruit seed extract (I bought a bottle for about $8 off of amazon.com)
-plastic containers (I found Ziploc containers with twist on lids, which I think are great for this)

The first thing I did was figure out a ratio of grapefruit seed extract to olive oil. The original recipe said to store this into the fridge...but no way would I 1) remember to take it up to the shower with me or 2) use something cold. I found some other information on the internet that said you could use GSE as a natural preservative, so that's what I went with. I did some math - feel free to check it, since Lord knows I am not a math major - but I think it works out to about a teaspoon of GSE per cup of oil. One cup of oil made about six cups of scrub (three containers) so divide that up as you see fit.

The next thing I did was scoop brown sugar and white sugar into the containers until they were as full as I wanted. Then I dumped the containers into a large mixing bowl and mixed the sugar together. I used about a 1:1 ratio of brown to white sugar, but from looking at stuff on the internet, I think you can use whatever ratio you want.

Once all the sugar is mixed together (get rid of the big lumps that are in that picture and combine until it's a sandy texture) I divided the sugar back up into the containers. Then I added the oil/GSE mixture to the containers.


I don't think there's a right or wrong ratio of oil to sugar, but I wanted to have a little more liquidy/oily mixture. I have super dry skin and I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra oil on it.

As the oil was still trickling through the sugar, I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. I don't think the mixture smelled olive oily, but the vanilla makes it smell SOOOO good!


Once the vanilla and oil had kind of seeped all the way through the containers, I dumped them back into the bowl to mix together. When mixed together, you get a better sense of how wet or dry it is. I think it would be easier to add more sugar, rather than the oil since the oil is mixed with the GSE, but that's just me.


Once everything is mixed together, put back into the individual containers.


I've had mine for about a month now, stored in my shower, and so far, no mold or mildew. Also, it still smells DIVINE! I like to use this scrub as the last thing I do before I get out of the shower and I haven't had to use lotion for a while. It's fabulous. I think it's my new favorite thing that I've made!

Apple pie with cinnamon roll crust

I found a recipe on pintrest for a cinnamon roll crust and was intrigued. I love anything apple cinnamon, so wanted to try this. What better day than Thanksgiving to experiment on the people you love, right? ;)

The best part about this was how EASY it was. I just bought a pie crust and went from there. (I prefer Trader Joe's pre-made crusts - I always get compliments on my pie crust!) I laid it out on the counter and then generously sprinkled with cinnamon.


After you've sprinkled with cinnamon, just roll it up into a log and start slicing at as close to the same thickness as you can get. Don't worry that the crust log kind of flattens out when you cut through it. Also, be sure to cut the slices a little thicker than you want your crust to be - you will roll it with a rolling pin one last time before baking.


When you've finished cutting the log, lay out all the rolls. I just made a square. Also, I went back in and filled in any big holes with some scrap pieces - the ends didn't really cut well enough so those were perfect for this!

Once they were all laid out, I put another piece of wax paper on top and rolled with a rolling pin to get it to all stick together. Take the wax paper off the top and then flip it over into your pie pan. Carefully - CAREFULLY! - pull off the remaining piece of waxed paper and press into your pie pan.


Then fill with your favorite apple pie filling recipe. I forget what recipe I used, but all I know is that I haaaaaaaaaaate having too much crust and not enough filling, so I filled it way, way up. WAY, way up!



Helpful hint: If you overfill your crust like this, bake it on a cookie sheet so that as the goop inside leaks out, you don't flood your oven with goopy syrup that burns black smoke and sets off your smoke detectors. Trust me.


This crust turned out DELICIOUS! We all loved it and went back for seconds. I will definitely be using this as my go-to apple pie crust from now on!

"Give Thanks" banner

Because I loved my Halloween fabric banner so much, I decided to make a banner for Thanksgiving as well. I didn't want to do the same thing, though, so I browsed through pintrest and found a free printable. I didn't want to use up all of my color ink, though, so I took the general idea of the printable and created my own banner. I started by picking out some fall looking scrapbook paper out of my pile of stuff. Once I had the paper picked out, I cut a small piece off of each one to lay out how I wanted the letters to print out.


Once I had the paper in the order I liked, I wrote out "GIVE THANKS" on the pieces and then grouped them together by paper type.


I knew I wanted to print out two letters per page, so this way I knew exactly which letters to put together. At this point, I just opened a word document and picked a font I liked. I added a simple border from AutoShapes and tweaked the size until I could get two on a page in a size I liked. The letters actually turned out a LOT bigger than I thought they would be, but the size worked for the space I have. The most annoying part of this project was cutting everything out. I used my paper cutter to cut on all the straight lines and scissors for the curves.

Once the letters were all cut out, I laid them out on the floor on a piece of ribbon. I stuck them on using double sided tape so they would be easy to move around and arrange if it wasn't what I wanted.


Well, it turned out that I got it basically how I wanted on the first try. Because I am lazy, I didn't go back and glue gun the letters on or glue gun the ribbon onto itself to make a loop. This was a mistake. The banner has fallen several times. I need to go back with the glue gun and permanently attach everything so that it can be reused without fear of falling apart!


Like I said, the letters are bigger than I thought they would be, but are the perfect size for being on the bookshelf! I think it's really cute and I love how it turned out. If they had matte laminating, I would probably laminate it to make it more durable and lasting. This project cost me a grand total of zero dollars, as I had all the materials on hand already. That's my favorite kind of crafty project: FREE!

Thanksgiving wreaths

Does it really annoy anyone else that they go straight from Halloween decorations to Christmas? There's a whole holiday in between! Unfortunately, I seem to have bought into the idea of Thanksgiving not counting as a holiday, since I have exactly six things to decorate with: a turkey salt shaker, turkey pepper shaker, and four place mats shaped like leaves. SO, I decided that I was going to decorate for Thanksgiving this year by making all my things! I gave myself $20 at the dollar store and bought some stuff. The first thing I made were these wreaths. I saw something on pintrest about taking dollar store stuff and painting it with metallic paint, which makes it look a little nicer.


Here are my supplies: four wreaths, a thing of fake leaves and a thing of fake flowers. I picked the flowers based on what I liked best with the petals. I didn't worry about the colors, since I knew I'd be painting them anyway. Total cost: six dollars.


The first thing I did was pull off some leaves and a flower head. If you are stressed, this is a fun thing to do. Makes you feel better. =)


Next I spray painted them all gold. I wanted to use a few metallic colors to look more fallish, but we only had gold on hand and I didn't want to spend more money. If I had other colors - like a metallic red or something - I would have lightly sprayed the leaves on top of the gold, just for some contrast.


I was lazy and only painted the front of the stuff, as you can see from this picture. (I might end up painting the back, just because you can kind of see the red of the flower from the side. But, it depends on how lazy I am feeling when I get some free time!) I also had some ribbon on hand that I used to hang the wreath. I just threaded the ribbon through one of the gaps in the wreath and glue gunned it on.


I think it turned out pretty cute! I definitely don't think it looks like it's from the dollar store, which was my ultimate goal. These wreaths are small and cute and hang on our inside doors. I'm still waiting for my pintrest inspiration for an outdoor wreath for the front door.

Lamp Makeover

When my husband and I moved into our new house, we needed bedside table lamps. My mom had these sitting in her house and offered them to us. Free is always better than not free, so I took them, but I've never really loved them. Plus, with our new white and gray bedding, they really didn't go. This picture really doesn't do justice to just how ugly they were.

I decided to paint them and figured if I screwed it up, then I could go buy new ones because again, these were free, and I really wanted to replace them anyway.

I started by bagging and taping the important parts of the lamp - the bulb and switch and the cord. I put a sandwich baggie over the bulb and then folded a page of a magazine in half and taped it around the base. My lampshades were big enough to cover anything that didn't totally get painted, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Try not to be too jealous of my hot pink duct tape. It's pretty awesome. ;)

I used Valspar spray paint for this, but only because I had it on hand in silver. We had thought about doing a non-metallic color, but again, free always wins in our house.

When I read the directions on the spray paint, it said to sand a glossy surface first. Well, I am lazy and, AGAIN, if I screwed this up I didn't really care because free lamps are free. So even though the lamps are some kind of metal and the finish on them was shiny, I didn't sand it down.


Now, see how the paint is not covering the surface evenly? I think it would have covered better if I had sanded it down.


This is what it looked like after one coat. I was originally going to do two or three coats and make it a smooth, even finish but I actually kind of liked this look. It was antiquey and, as mentioned before, I am lazy so that was good enough. If it annoys me in a few weeks, I can always repaint it again.

One helpful hint - try to make sure you get every part of the lamp as you are painting if you only want to do one coat. I didn't get this part and figured I'd get it with the second coat, but then decided not to do the second coat, so I had to make sure this part of the lamp faces the wall.

I like these SO MUCH BETTER. It just goes so much better with our room and our bedding and it lightens everything up. My next project is to figure out what to do with the lampshades - I was originally going to replace them, but now I am thinking of maybe just embellishing them a bit to tie into the bedspread. We'll see what happens!


You can see a better view of the "antique" finish here. I don't mind it, but you may want to do the second coat for a smoother finish.

Halloween Banner Scraps

When I finished making the Halloween Banner, I had a bunch of scraps leftover that had already been cut. I put one of each design on a short piece of ribbon and tied it to the chandelier over our stairway.

Then I got this fun idea to make little rings of fabric to put on each newel post on our stairs. This was pretty simple - I tore off a magazine cover (Rachael Ray, if you're wondering) and used duct tape to tape it into a ring. Then I put the fabric on in the same way I made the banner, only I made sure they were right next to each other so you couldn't see any of the magazine page.


After I made one to see how it would turn out, I counted the actual number of newel posts in our house and decided that one was enough. I just did not have the patience to make thirteen, plus the downstairs railings are covered with spider garlands anyway! =) Maybe I'll make one a year and in a few years, have enough.


You could also make these to hang on door handles to make all of your doors a little more festive!


Our house is almost done being decked out for Halloween! I can't wait to see all the little boos and ghouls who come in two weeks!

Halloween Fabric Banner

I found this super cute banner on Pintrest the other day and I had some time on Monday so I wanted to try it out. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and it turned out so freaking cute!!!






Supplies:
-Halloween fabric scraps (I didn't have scraps, so I went to JoAnn fabric and got 1/2 yard of five different fabrics. I had originally planned to just make one banner but I had enough to make two. Actually, probably three!)
-Ribbon (the original plan used clothesline, but the ribbon was on sale and I think it turned out cuter to have the fabric scraps a little farther apart.)










Once I had my fabric, I started cutting it into about one inch strips. I found that just folding the fabric and making a crease gave me an easy line to follow and they ended up much straighter if I did it that way. If you are a perfectionist, I am guessing you could iron creases or mark the fabric somehow.

The strips were about one inch wide and a third of a yard long. Again, perfectionists probably could have measured, but I just folded them into about thirds and cut. Once the strips were cut, I laid them out to figure what order I wanted them in.


To get the fabric on the ribbon, you make some sort of knot. I forget what kind of knot it is, but here are step by step directions.


I started by cutting two yards worth of fabric and didn't like how empty the banner was, so I cut one more yard in thirds. I only used two pieces of each fabric, so I had to find something to do with the scraps. I'll show you what I did with the scraps later!


The banner turned out really cute!! I don't have a mantel to hang this on, but we have this awesome bookshelf from Ikea that I hung it on. For easy hanging, I put command hooks on the unit. I can leave them on if I end up making a Thanksgiving banner...and a Christmas banner....and a Valentine's banner....and a St. Patrick's Day banner...I'm officially addicted!