Folded Paper Christmas Tree Tutorial

I have a fun tutorial to share with you today.  

I posted this tutorial the first time November 2007 and thought it would be fun to post it again.   This was my very first tutorial so I hope it all makes sense. The best way for me to learn how to do something is by someone showing me and you might be the same -The supplies needed to make this project are very basic.  One sheet of designer paper, the single sided works best because the thinner the paper the easier it is to fold, especially the smallest square. You'll need your paper trimmer, a bone folder helps and an adhesive of your choice.

The next step is to cut the squares. The first square is 3"x3", the second square is 2 1/2"x2 1/2", the third square is 2"x2", and the forth square is 1 1/2"x1 1/2".

Now the folding part -

I've drawn pictures for you because it was hard to see the fold lines on my patterned paper.

The first in the series of pictures is folding your square in half and creasing it.

The next picture is folding your square in half again in the other direction and creasing it.

The next picture shows folding the square from corner to corner each way and creasing it.

The next step is to fold the square in half after you've done all that.

Now, you will fold it to look like the first triangle shape pictured by pushing the top left and right outside corners toward the bottom center. You'll end up with a triangle, a puffy triangle.

Next you'll take the top section of this triangle and fold it in to meet the center scored line and do the same with the opposite front side so it looks like the one in the center of the picture above.

You now have a "tree part". Fold the other 3 squares just like the first one and you can build your tree from the bottom up by stacking them one on top of the next, largest to smallest. Stick your tree together with the adhesive of your choice. I used a scrap of brown paper for the trunk of my tree, you can see my finished tree card pictured below.

My card from November 2007,

 

and a more recent version.

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas Tree folding tutorial and will try one for yourself.   

Thanks for visiting my blog and have a blessed day -

Homemade Miracle Salve

Are you wondering what that thing is in the picture above?

It's a 20 pound brick of pure Beeswax.  

I live across the street from our local Bee Farm and was given this slab of pure Beeswax by the Bee Keeper.  When I make homemade soaps and balms or any homemade product that uses their honey or the by products I usually take over something for them.  

This is the under side of the Beeswax, can you see the Bee in the corner?

How about now?  

I've always bought my Beeswax online all cleaned up and in small packages so this was quite a surprise for me.  The smell is heavenly sweet honey!  

Making balms and salves is a good way to use some of my newly acquired Beeswax so

I'm going to show you how I made Miracle Salve today. My recipe is from Andrea at Frugally Sustainable, it's a fun and easy recipe that went over really well with my family and friends.

I've gathered my supplies, a re-purposed ice cream bucket of Beeswax chunks, my quart jar of herbs that have been soaking about six weeks in Olive Oil making a wonderful infusion, Lavender & Eucalyptus Essential Oils.

While I wait for the infused oil to drain through the strainer I measure out the Beeswax chunks to almost four ounces.  

 Next I use a double boiler to melt the Oil and Beeswax, then let it cool to about 145 degrees before adding the essential oils so they don't lose their wonderful fragrance. 

I poured the slightly cooled salve mixture into 4 oz. tins and 2 oz. twist up tubes and the left over into smaller containers to use for samples or purses.  

I made a double batch of the Natural Miracle Salve and now have five 4 oz. tins, two 2 oz. twist up tubes, two half oz. tubs and two half oz. twist up tubes.  These will be perfect to add to my holiday gift baskets for family and friends.

Natural Miracle Salve: The Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/2 cup good-quality olive oil

 0.6 ounces dried calendula flowers
0.6 ounces dried plantain
0.4 ounces dried St. John’s wort
0.4 ounces dried Oregon grape root

0.4 ounces Comfrey Leaf
3-4 ounces beeswax
-essential oils

I used a ratio of approximately 10% essential oils to the volume of oil/beeswax in the recipe.

I hope you enjoyed my Miracle Salve making tutorial of sorts today and might be inspired to trying making some too!

Do you need supplies for your homemade salve?
My favorite place to shop for the herbs to infuse my oils is The Bulk Store!

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Handmade Lavender Eucalyptus Crockpot Soap

With the holidays approaching I've been making homemade soaps to put in my gift baskets.

Today's soap is a Lavender Eucalyptus Tea Tree Oil scented formula I dreamed up for my daughter, she loves the smell of Tea Tree Oil and I like the combination of all three fragrances together.
This soap recipe is simple but makes a nice hard bar of soap and has great moisturizing qualities plus wonderful lather.

I have a picture tutorial today of how to make this soap in the Crock Pot, also known as hot process soap.  The above picture is mostly gathering my supplies.

A close up picture of the oils that need to melt in the Crock Pot turned on to low temperature.  When everything melts but the Beeswax I turned it on to high for 20 minutes to melt the Beeswax.  

The oils and beeswax have melted.

Beeswax melts at a much higher temperature than most of the oils used in soap making so I turned off the crock pot and let the oil mixture cool to about 110 degrees.

Since I need to wait for my oils to cool I've waited to mix my lye/water solution till now. 

I have a pitcher with white vinegar and soapy water ready to neutralize any lye that I made to clean up.

Supplies for the lye and water solution.

Yes, I do wear the gloves and protective goggles and they look funny but that's okay.

I'd also like to note I use distilled water when I make soap, our water here is hard and full of minerals that don't make nice soap.

Carefully measure the lye.  The bowls and utensils I use for soap making and lye are only used for soap making.  In the next step of mixing the lye and water together it's very important to add the lye to the water and stir carefully not the other way around.  If you do it the other way around you could have an eruption and get burned by the lye.

The lye solution will cool in the sink while I wait for my oils in the Crock Pot to cool to about 110 degrees.

When the oil mixture reaches approximately 110 degrees I carefully pour the lye solution into the crock pot with the oils.  Stir gently using my stick blender then turn it on to stir until I have the consistency of pudding.

This is where we're making soap!  The mixture will reach what's called trace.  Trace is where when you lift your stick blender out of the soap the soap drips back into the crock pot leaves a trace on top.

Next we put the top back on the crock pot, turn it on low and let it cook and go through the gel stage.  Pictured above is after one hour on low.  Can you see the white spot in the middle?  It's not quite there yet so I set the timer for another 15  minutes to cook and I'll check again.

After cooking 15 minutes longer on low in the crock pot all the soap has gelled.  Now it's time to add the fragrances.  Turn the crock pot off and remove the crock from the heating pot if you can.

These are my essential oils I wanted to add for a nice smell.  

Mixing in the essential oils.

Glop your soap into your mold.  This is a 5 pound soap mold that I've modified a little so I can make and mold smaller batches of soap.   

Next I smooth out the top and pack it down a little using a piece of parchment paper.

This picture shows the back of my foil covered cardboard insert being held by an acrylic stamping block to make my soap mold a little smaller.

My last picture is the finished soap.  I took it out of the mold several hours later and cut it into nine one inch bars.  It will take about two weeks for the soap to dry out into nice hard bars, it is ready for use right away though if you just can't wait to try out your new soap like my family! 

I have the soap recipe for you in case you like to try it:

Lavender Eucalyptus Tea Tree Oil Beeswax Soap

Beeswax	0.50oz	01.6%
Castor Oil	3.50oz	10.9%
Lard	28.00oz	87.5%
5% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount	4.152oz
Ounces of liquid recommended	10.56oz
Yields	46.71oz

Current Batch (total oil weight): 32.00oz

Oil Weight gramsounces

My Notes:
Use the recipe above and substitute: 120 drops Lavender Essential Oil
120 drops Eucalyptus Essential Oil
60 drops Tea Tree Essential Oil
For the Orange Essential Oil & honey

This recipe will make a nice disinfecting soap, good for blemish prone skin and it smells good too.

Changing the fragrance of this soap is as easy as changing the essential oils or adding fragrance oils to the mixture right before it goes into the soap mold.   I'd use 5 -  10 % fragrance to the weight of the oils in the soap recipe.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my soap making process!

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Gingerly Made

Homemade Vanilla

Have you ever thought about making Homemade Vanilla?

We make our own homemade French Vanilla Coffee Creamer and the most expensive part was buying the Vanilla.  I'd seen some pictures of Homemade Vanilla on Pinterest that piqued my interest so I did some investigating and found out it's really easy to make.  Pictured above is a half gallon mason jar of vanilla that's been "brewing" for six months now.  It's official date of completion was October 24, 2012 - just in time for holiday gift giving!  Don't worry I have a second batch brewing that will be ready in March or April in case I get carried away gifting it, after all it was for our coffee creamer...

You'll need vanilla beans, I ordered a package from Amazon.com

Then you'll need a 1.75 liter bottle of Vodka, cheap Vodka is fine.  The alcohol extracts the good stuff out of the Vanilla Beans and over a period of six months becomes Vanilla.  Have you ever wondered what Vanilla Extract meant on the bottled Vanilla in the stores?  Mmm hmmm that's right.  At the very beginning of the process the liquid looks like dirty water and smells like Vodka, eew.  A few months later the liquid is turning brown as the alcohol is breaking down the Vanilla Beans and it smells heavenly, like Vanilla.

You can see a knife in the photo, I used it to cut open the Vanilla Beans and scrape out the yummy, sticky insides.  That's what goes into the jars with the Vodka. 

When I started the Vanilla making process I'd read you need room (head space)  to shake your jars once a week so I used three quart mason jars.  I found I needed my quart mason jars for other things and poured the contents of the three jars into a half gallon mason jar and it fit perfect.  As you can see from the first picture the jar isn't completely full anymore,  I've used a little of it for our coffee creamer and a gift basket.  I just couldn't bring myself to buy one more little tiny jar of Vanilla when I had a half gallon under our kitchen sink!  

Speaking of under the kitchen sink...  you're supposed to store your Vanilla in a dark place and shake it every day for the first week and then once a week for six months till it's ready.  I didn't want to forget about it so I put mine in the cabinet under our kitchen sink.  Each time I need something in there I shake my jar of Vanilla.  It works for me (=

A couple of our dear friends were married recently and I wanted to use some of my Homemade Vanilla as part of their gift basket.  I poured some into a quarter pint mason jar and labeled it to go with the other homemade goodies in their basket.

Six months seems like a long time to wait for Vanilla but it's actually passed rather quickly!

Looking back, it was pretty simple to make,  I think the most fun I had with it was buying the Vodka.  

My two youngest kids were with me when I bought the bottle of Vodka and they were shocked and really gave me a hard time until I explained exactly what it was for.  I think they were actually embarrassed but they thought it was pretty interesting watching the process and now have Homemade Vanilla to use when they bake cookies. 

I hope you enjoyed my adventure in making Homemade Vanilla today and might be inspired to make some for your family.  I also thought it would be a good idea to give the link for the ReCap lid that's on the 12 oz. mason jar in the photo above, click the name and the link will take you there!
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