Beeswax, Coconut Oil, & Honey

After my crayon incident, I had 64 lip balm tubes left over.  What to do with them.... Well, my sister is a beekeeper who happens to have LOTS of nice beeswax and honey.  What more is needed to make some nice lip balm?  She came over to hang out with Ally on Friday and when I got home from work we whipped up a batch to see how it worked.  At first we did 4 T wax, 2 T coconut oil, 1 tsp honey.  That was WAY too waxy and pretty much ripped her lip off when she tried it out.  Then we did equal parts wax and oil and added another T honey.  That was better but NOT quite what we wanted.  We added 2 T more oil and it was pretty much perfect.  It's in the testing stage at the moment and if it works out, we'll make more.  It would be really cool if she could sell some along with her honey at the Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore!

 Pure beeswax.  

Smashed with a pick axe head that was laying out on the back porch.  

Too lazy to go find a hammer and screwdriver.

 This stuff smells AMAZING!  I thought there would be a coconut flavor, but alas, there isn't.

 Empty tubes waiting for the waxy goodness.

 What to use to melt stuff in?  Why a washed out hacked up soda can, duh!

 Yes, this is the same pan from my crayon incident.  Why ruin another right?  The lip balm is all poured and setting up nicely.  It's hard to let it sit.  I just wanted to try it out!  I hate waiting!

All cleaned up and ready for caps.

I think it turned out pretty nice.  Going to give it a try for a week or so.  

Maybe a bit more coconut oil.  Maybe some essential oil.  Not sure.  

It is good and I don't worry about Ally getting a hold of it and chomping it down.

Pinterest Crayons

Such a brilliant idea.  Such a horrible craft failure.  I saw a great use for old, broken crayon pieces.... make them into new crayons in twist up containers!  So, I jumped online, ordered 100 lip balm containers (can't call them "chapstick" since it's a name brand, whatever) with lids in anticipation of making this great project.  The days dragged by while I waited for them to come.  I collected up all the old crayons I could from school, the diaper bag, my office drawers.  I peeled the crayons.  I broke them into pieces.  THEN the containers came!  Oh joy!  I was sooo excited to get started.  I put the crayon pieces into dixie cups, thinking I'd melt them in the microwave.  Really, why SHOULDN'T they melt there?  They melt in the car, in bags, in the dryer.  After 3 min on high, the wax wasn't even soft!  So, then I put them into a "water bath" inside another container.  Well, that was a MAJOR fail.  The crayon melted all right, but it came out of the (now soggy) dixie cup all over into the container.  Luckily I used a junk container anyway.  Not to be defeated by stupid crayons, I went back to the drawing board.... I decided to use the oven.  So, the dixie cups went into a muffin tin.  I had 12 colors, muffin tins have 12 places to put stuff.  Coincidence?  I think NOT! 
 

 Before melting the crayons in the oven.

 Into a 225 oven they went.  After 20 minutes my crayons weren't melted!  Seems like it happens MUCH faster than that when they're in the car!  Not to be defeated by the now pissing me off wax, I started thinking again.  Maybe water is what was needed again.  I wrapped the bottoms of the dixie cups with foil (no cup failures due to soggy cups this time!) and added water around the base.  So far, so good.  Into the oven they went. 

 

  Into the chapstick lip balm containers it went.  

I rubber banded 3 together to give them some stability.

After the crayons cooled, I turned one to get it to rise.  Um, nope.  Not moving.  It actually broke the turney thingie.  Yep, no bueno.  I thought about it and put them in the freezer for a few hours.  After I froze them, I tried another and another, all with the same results.  So... I have decided that this is a TOTAL fail.  I took the "crayons" out of the containers and put them back into dixie cups to remelt later in a silicone form.  

I really hate crayons.

Wine, the Park, and Family

Today we went to the Thomas Coyne winery for their Spring Open house.  You get to bottle your own wine, for $6.50 if you bring your own bottles and $7 if you need to use theirs, at this event.  Last year the wine was pretty darn good (according to hubby, since I don't like wine).  This year?  Not so much.  My mom says she planning to mix it with port to help the flavor.  Hubby says he's going to use it to cook and let some of it age.  We have TWELVE bottles of the stuff!  I think we may skip the bottling next year and just do something with the family that weekend.

 Nana & Ally checking out the llamas

 Ally and her oak gall

 

Ally washing her cork down with my empty wine glass

 Ally and her favorite person- Uncle "Timma"

After we bottled wine, my sister and her hubby and my hubby and me and Ally headed over to a park that my sister and I spent TONS of hours at as a kid.  Over the years it's been pretty run down.  Play structures were removed.  The park got kinda trashy.  Well, a friend posted a picture on FB of this great new play structure.  When I saw it, I knew we HAD to take Ally.  It reminded me of the park when we were little.  Not quite as awesome as ours but it was pretty sweet looking.  EVERYONE had fun!  Even the adults!  :)

 Running to the park with Uncle Tim

Ally and me at the VERY top of the slide 

 Ally and me at the bottom of the slide

 The spinny thing that the adults LOVED.  It went REALLY fast with both the guys on it.  

Kids SWARMED to it when they were on it since it was spinning so quickly!

Daddy and Ally on one of the BIG slides

Ally came down this one on her own

 Followed by Aunty "Duck"

Toad stools are fun to climb on

 This thing was fun too

 

Swinging like monkeys

 Ally tried too

 A bear inside the tree!

 Crossing a scary high land bridge to get to a slide

 This slide is FAST!

 And injury happens.  :(

 There are big tears and a mark on the side of her face

 A ride in a handicapped swing makes it all better

 Smiles before we left.  Can't leave in tears.

After the park, we went to my parents for late lunch/early dinner.  My dad has an old barber's chair that the kids like to play on.

They also have a chinchilla (which I am allergic to or we would have him here) that the kids like to give dried apples to.

Ally was one TIRED girl by the end of the day.  She took a MAYBE 20 minute nap between the winery and the park and that's it.  All in all an awesome day.

Dining room turned playroom

We used to have a dining room.  When we built our house, the room was going to be a den so we put bookshelves in.  Hubby realized that he wouldn't be able to keep it clean so it became a dining room.  In the space that was the designated dining room, we put a pool table.  The dining room table was in the dining room for a few years.  We ate at it a few times when company came over but it was mostly used for crafts and sewing.  My inlaws moved and needed a temporary home for their baby grand piano so the table came down and the piano moved in.  My crafting moved to the pool table with a dining top on it.  They moved again a few years later and the piano left and the table came back.  It was there for a few years and got used a few times but not regularly.  The table was my sewing and crafting table more than it was an eating table.  Where do we eat you ask?  Well, in front of the TV as all good American families do.  We also have an eat in bar at the kitchen so we can eat there as well.  So, since the den dining room wasn't used and I was tired of tripping over Ally's growing mountain of toys we decided to make it into a play room.  The table again came down.  My books got doubled up on the top 3 book shelves.  We added fabric bins from Target to the bottom shelves for all her random crap.  We added in a foam floor from foamtiles.com.  Artwork went up.  My old table and chairs from my parents went under the low window.  A play kitchen was bought.  I have a few more things I need to add to the room but I think it's a pretty cool play room.  It's open to the rest of the house, we can see in from the kitchen and living room.  I can watch her from the pool craft table.  It works for us.  :)

 This is the view from the entry to the den playroom.  You can see the foam tiles we got.  

I LOVE them.  They're soft underfoot and comfy to sit on.  I think we should get a few more.

 My table and chairs that my dad built for ME fits perfectly under the window!

 Bins to store all the toys and stuff that has accumulated.  I'd like to get a few more.  I really like

 the sand buckets and will probably pick up more at Michaels when they have them again.

 Ally's kitchen and a canvas we picked up at Ross.

 The "playroom rules" board I made.  To the right of the window will hang 

Ally's growth chart that my dad made for me and her hand tracings framed.

More artwork from Ross.  And yes, that IS a chandelier.  LOL

Ally's Canvases

I made some wall canvases a while back for Ally's room.  I traced the butterflies and lady bugs and swirls from the rug in her room and made them into a PDF file.  I then used Sure Cuts A Lot and my Cricut to cut it all out.  I used sparkle Mod Podge to give the canvases some detail.  THEN the fun began.  I got to put all the butterflies and lady bugs on the canvases.  I think they turned out pretty darn cute.  They look great on her wall.  :)

I might have a slight Pinterest addiction

I've been making crafty projects like crazy.  Pinterest is a BAD thing!  Seriously, there are so many fun crafty ideas and projects on there that I could do a project a day and still have tons left to do after a year.  I have over 200 pins on my crafty stuff board ALONE!  My sewing board has at least as many!

Here are some of my things I've been making.   I've tried to include the sites they're from if I can find them.

The lunch box from here inspired me to make these.  I filled each one with 3 sets of magnetic letters and a set of numbers.  One was for Ally and the other for my niece.  MANY layers of Mod Podge.  I added Martha Stewart ultra fine silver glitter to glossy Mod Podge to get the glitter effect.  LOVE how they turned out!

This is my Playroom Rules board that I first saw here.  I was originally planning on using a fun bright animal print fabric that my sister gave me when she was cleaning out her fabric stash.  HOWEVER, fabric Mod Podge and I are NOT friends.  It didn't stick to the canvas all the way and was all bubbly and just didn't look good.  THEN when I put the letters on it to see how they looked, it was REALLY hard to see the letters.  Apparently busy fabric doesn't work for putting letters over.  Oops.  I pulled the fabric off the canvas because I wasn't about to go spend money for ANOTHER canvas.  It tore off some of the gesso and I had to add some to try and make it a bit smoother.  It ended up looking like a textured wall.  Oh well.  Back to the drawing board.  I decided to paint stripes with acrylic paint and then since it was so "boring" I made MORE of the glittery Mod Podge with more of my Martha ultra fine silver glitter LOADED into it.  I stamped the swirls with a foam stamp and the dots (after going thru everything round I could find trying to find the "perfect dot") are my finger tip dipped in the Mod Podge mix.  The letters were put on and then 3 layers of Mod Podge were added.  It was finally done after a damn WEEK!

 

These are some of the MANY MANY hats I've been making from Fleece Fun.  They're so much fun to make.  I made Ally, hubby and I monkey hats.  I made Brobee hats of my own design using the basic hat pattern for Ally and my nephew.  I made bunny hats for Ally and 2 of her cousins.  I made polar bear hats for Ally, my nephew, and his soon to be born sibling.  The puppy hats were for my nephew and his soon to be born sibling.  I made a dragon hat for myself from lots of scraps for the horns.  The raiders hats were my own design too from the basic hat and the horns.

 

I'm sure there's more stuff but for some reason I can't find pictures of it all.  I'll add another post after I go back and take pictures of the rest of the stuff.

Remember, Pinterest is BAD!  :)