DIY:Lavender Sugar Cubes

My oldest daughter was my inspiration for making these sugar cubes. She is a tea reader and I was trying to come up with things to make with all this dried lavender I have. So, this was the perfect solution, and what a fun way to make her tea readings a bit more relaxing.

Supplies Needed:

1/2 cup of lavender infused sugar
1/2 to 1 tablespoon water
food coloring
molds or ice cube trays (that is what I used)
mine made 13 cubes

Directions:

pour sugar into a glass bowl
measure out your tablespoon of water add a drop of food coloring
add to sugar half a tablespoon at a time and mix until it looks like sand. I used the whole tablespoon. I almost forgot to take a picture of this step, but this is how it should look. Don't get it too wet or they won't harden.

Now press them into your molds, I filled these ice cube trays about half -full, and my daughter said it was the perfect amount of sugar for a cup of tea. Clean off all the excess sugar on the the mold ,then let set for 24 hours. Pop them out of the trays/molds and store in an air tight container.

Happy crafting!

Craft Corner: Windchimes

These wind chimes where easy to make and made some very lovely noise in the wind. 

The metal circles where purchased from a local metal business. They have some fun stuff in there too, but my boyfriend thought I might enjoy these circles.

I painted them all first with a bunch of different fun colors and then hung them from fishing line off of a smaller metal circle for the base. The project took just a couple of hours and over all wasn't very expensive to make. 

Happy Crafting!!

Craft Corner: Rescued Chairs

I thought I would share this craft project that my boyfriend and I did together.My boyfriend found these chair frames in a friends' yard, tossed in the trash piled. He also found the fabrics in a throw away pile. Making it true that one mans trash is another's treasure!! So here is what we did with them!

We began by sanding down the chairs and then we each painted a chair. It was his choice to paint his the opposite of mine and I love it! I did all the funky dots on both chairs. Since the chairs were just frames without  seats or backs they had to be made. I am really glad that not only can Russ do upholstery but he can make all kinds of other stuff, so he was able to make the backs and seats and of course did the upholstery work on them!

Happy Crafting!

Gardening

Things are looking good in the garden this year!  Today's harvest is this beautiful bunch of garlic. I know it is not the biggest bunch and the heads aren't as big as I hoped, but it's my first try. I am going to plant more this fall and see if I can get them bigger!
Garlic really is easy to grow. I planted them last November, in a raisedbed, covered therm with leaves and left them. I didn't have to water them through the winter at all. It would probably been a good idea to feed them in the spring. I have been trying to not use any fertilizers,  but they do help. I found a couple diy recipes on the Internet that I have been trying out on just a few plants. I am always worried I will kill the plants, so I am cautious with the stuff I make. Better to be safe than sad!

Happy gardening!

DIY: BODY BUTTER

Chocolate and Peppermint Body Butter

Since I have been trying to stop exposing my body to so many toxic chemicals I decided lotions were next to go. I don't want to be putting chemicals all over my skin. If you look at the list of ingredients it's mind boggling to think it takes all that just to make our skin soft and smelling good? So I started looking for something else that would get rid of my dry skin without adding unnecessary chemicals and stuff. 

I found out that if you whip up coconut oil straight out of the jar, it makes wonderful lotion. It is light and creamy,and soaks into the skin fast. It does go greasy ,but doesn't that way for long. It only takes a few ingredients to make and is fairly cheap once you have all the oils.

Body Butter

1 jar of coconut oil

2 vitamin e capsules 

10 drops of peppermint essential oil

7 drops of cocoa essential oil

Mixer (I used my Kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment)

To make this just scoop the coconut oil out of the container (do not melt it or warm it up first) and into the mixer. Mix it for about 5 min or until is is light and fluffy! Then squeeze the contents out of the vitamin e capsules, put in essential oils mix it up for another minute until everything is well incorporated. Store in a sealed glass container.

DIY: Planters

These fun little planters where made by my boyfriend. He is just as passionate about re-purposing old things into new, as I am. He made the bottoms out of wood and attached them with some glue and screws. The bottom one comes up threw the center of the top one and makes it a double planter.

I planted some four o"clocks in each of the heads! I will post more pictures when the plants take off and start climbing up the hangers.

DIY: Meal in a Jar

Beans in a Jar

Beans...you either love them or you don't! In this house most of us like beans,my granddaughter calls them jelly beans! The store that we shop at has lots of bags of beans to choose from but, they are all just one type of bean. I love the flavor of 7 bean (or more) soup and all the different bean textures.I want a flavorful pot of beans cooking! The first two jars pictured I used a total of 3 cups of beans. I just layered them in there because it looks nice. The last jar I used 2 cups of beans and added in some dried noodles. Now I won't have to climb up into the top of the cupboard and haul down all the bags of beans I can just grab a jar of pre-mixed beans for chili,soup or just a pot of beans.