I have a card to share today using one of the Lilyboo Designs new releases at Cuddly Buddly!
This cutie is called Let's Just Relax and she's colored with Copic markers:
Skin - E000, E00, E01, E11, R20
Hair - E55, E49, E57, E59
Jeans - B91, B93, B95, B97
Shoes - W1, W3
Top - R11, R12, R14, B93, B95
Cat - E30, E31, Y32, RV10
Pillow - Y06, Y08, Y19
Background - N1, N3, B60, B63
For my layout I used a sketch from Operation Write Home #123
The cardstock colors are: Stampin' Up! Cameo Coral, Treasures Dusk Blue, Astro Brights Solar Yellow and Copic X Press It. For the button I used a Papertrey Ink button die, rounded corners with a We R Memory Keepers 1/8th inch corner rounder and to make the banner tail, I used a square punch
I have two cards to share today that are the same yet different.
I used a sketch I found on Pinterest that I'll add below:
This was a fun sketch to use patterned papers and a verse with!
My first card uses Cosmos Cricket Pixie-Licious papers, Spellbinders dies, a sentiment from Dee's Bugaboo Boutique and Papertrey Ink's envelope liner die.
My second card uses Basic Grey Lime Rickey papers, the envelope liner die as well as Spellbinders dies, grossgrain ribbon and a sentiment form Word Art Wednesday.
One of these went into my Operation Write Home box and the other I'll keep to send to one of my friends.
I'm so happy with the way this card turned out! I've had the image from Beccy's Place
colored for quite some time but haven't had a suitable sketch/layout.
Until I saw Splitcoast Stampers sketch challenge
#355.
The cardstock colors I used are
Neenah Red Pepper Linen, Stampin' Up! Garden Green, Thepapermill.com Nut
Brown, Mohawk Bright White & Copic Xpress It.
I colored the Chocolate Strawberies with Copic markers:
The sentiment is from the
Papertrey Ink set Signature Greetings, cut out with Spellbinders Ovals
and I added three enhanced Dew Drops (E57) for balance. I forgot to
mention when I listed the papers that the striped strip of paper is
digital paper that was in my scrap pile so I'm not sure who it's made
by.
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.
There's a new challenge starting today at Love To Create and I get to be their guest designer!
My card is created using a cute digital image from The Digi Garden called Pumpkin Gal, the challenge theme is Fancy Edges so I used Spellbinders regular & long scalloped rectangles. I've never purchased a small scallop border die so I use my long scalloped rectangle die when I need a border.
My papers are Basic Grey Marrakech, Stampin' Up! Only Orange & Ballet Blue along with X Press It.
I also added orange grossgrain ribbon and big orange brads. There was one sheet of the Basic Grey designer paper left in the pad so I cut an envelope liner with the Papertrey Ink Envelope Liner die.
Happy Saturday I have an update on Buster our rescue dog, he's been home with us 4 weeks today and he's doing well. He looks pretty relaxed here on Maxine's bed.
He's put on a little weight and looking better every day. It's been kind of odd having him with us, when offered a dog treat he just looks at you like, "what do you want me to do with that?"
He's not your typical Boxer who loves everyone, he has people issues and needs to be leashed and introduced to each new person that comes over slowly and carefully. He's making good progress, only one friend was nearly bitten by him. She was sweet enough to give him a second chance and now he really likes her. He's beginning to enjoy the attention and affection people give him instead of being fearful. I'm not sure what the second meeting with his new people friends will bring so we will be cautious until he's trust worthy.
I think it's safe to say he's a sweet boy but has some scarey behaviors. With patience, love and care I hope he can become the Boxer he's meant to be.
I have a fun project to share with you today using Cuddly Buddly's Lilyboo Designs Buzzy Buzzy Bee digital image. I made a bunch of Beeswax candles recently and wanted to use them for gifts and gift baskets and thought they were a little plain in just the mason jars.
I printed Lilyboo Designs Buzzy Buzzy Bee on Copic X Press It and colored with Copic markers:
Cut out my colored image with a Spellbinders Ovals and attached them to a Spellbinders Labels 18, cut a belly band from black card stock and attached everything to my mason jar. I also added an organdy ribbon that's hard to see in the photo.
This candle went into the gift basket pictured below.
I have another anniversary card using the Basic Grey Bittersweet paper pad,
Spellbinders Hearts & Scalloped Hearts, Papertrey
Ink's Double Ended Banner dies and a stamp from the Verve set Wishful
Elegance. The layout is inspired by a card I saw on Pintrest.
My Any Hero card is made using the Paper Smooches Circle of Honor stamp set. I cut out the stars using my Papertrey Ink Take Three die and colored the outside of the stars with Copic markers: B23, B24. I attached them to my card with foam tape to pop them up, stamped Hero under and then added two Chevron's from the My Favorite Things Die-namics chevron die in Neenah Red Pepper Linen. The white panel is layered onto Astrobrights Blast Off Blue. A quick easy Any Hero card for today!
I hope you'll play along in our Any Hero card challenge at Operation Write Home Stars & Stamps this week!
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!
Thanks for visiting my blog -
My card today was inspired by the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely paper I used to cut out in the Chevron die made by Die-namics. I'm still trying to use up the rest of my paper pad and as I was cutting this I kept thinking "The fruit of the Spirit" so I went and grabbed my bible, looked it up in Galatians 5 and went to work on my computer.
I think it came out pretty much like it was in my minds eye. I also added an envelope liner to make the presentation a little fancier when I send my card. The envelope liner is a die made by Papertrey Ink.
I remembered I had another designer paper pad that had fruit in it so I went looking and found Melissa Frances Kitschy Kitchen paper and made a second card for my stash.
