Holiday Sugar Scrubs: Testing Various Supplies

Sugar scrubs are super popular holiday DIY gifts right now.  I have seen a lot of great recipes on Pinterest.  Instead of trying to come up with a new recipe, I decided to test out some different supplies.

I made 2 variations of the basic sugar scrub:

• red dyed light brown sugar with olive oil
• green dyed white sugar with vegetable oil

I used the following ingredients in both scrubs

• 3 C sugar
• 1 C + 2tbsp oil 
• 15-25 drops essential oils
• food coloring
• storage jars 

Note: You can spend a lot for storage jars or very little.  I got mine half off at Hobby Lobby.  You need something with a tight lid, preferably sealed.  Each sugar scrub filled 4 of these little jars.

Brown Sugar Scrub

For my brown sugar scrub, I mixed together all of the ingredients listed above, using brown sugar and olive oil.  I used peppermint essential oil and mixed in red food coloring.

I stirred and stirred, but the olive oil and sugar do separate.  They go back together pretty quickly.  I used the entire bottle of red food coloring.  As you can see, the color is a dark red.  I used nearly 25 drops of peppermint oil.  The olive oil has a stronger smell and kind of covers the essential oil a little bit.  The brown sugar scrub with the food coloring did not appear to stain my skin.

White Sugar Scrub

Next, I made a white sugar scrub.  For the white sugar scrub, I mixed together all of the ingredients listed above, using white sugar and vegetable oil.  I used cucumber melon essential oil and mixed in green food coloring.

There were some noticeable differences from the brown sugar scrub when I made this one.  For one thing, the color was very bright, which I would think is a result of starting with a lighter base.  I really like how the color turned out.  Another difference is that the vegetable oil had a much lighter smell and I needed less essential oil.  Additionally, the scrub mix didn't separate.  It stayed pretty consistently together.  I'm not sure if the stability is about the sugar, oil, or both, but it was much better.  Finally, I did notice that my finger tips were very slightly green after using the scrub, but it did wash off pretty quickly.



So, there you have it.  Two types of DIY Sugar scrubs.  Both were inexpensive and easy to make.  The two scrubs are very different, but they both seemed effective, and I like how they turned out.

Running, Pumpkins, & Witches...Oh, My!

Last week was a very busy week.  In addition to a busy work schedule, I also found time for a run, pumpkin carving, crafting, and t-shirt painting.


Pumpkin Carving
Husband and I are Adventure Time fans, so we decided to do a Finn pumpkin this year.  Cartoon Network has free pumpkin stencil pdf's of Finn, Jake, and LSP.  The stencil was fairly easy to use, and I think the pumpkin looks pretty good.  We taped the pattern to the pumpkin, punched holes into it, and then connected the dots.  The arms were difficult, but the other parts were easier to carve. 

Run and T-shirt Painting
My husband and I finally participated in a 5K.  I've been wanting to do one for years, but have just been too nervous to ever actually sign up.  We trained some for it, and we ready on race day.  Both of us ran the entire 5K, and we were pretty have with the results.  Our scores put us in about the top quarter, and I was very happy with how I placed in my division.  The proceeds for the run also mostly go to charity, so we were helping out the community while running.  :)

This run was a little different from most other runs in that it was at night by the beach.  Because it was at night, participants were encouraged to wear glow sticks and other glow materials.  We had a blast, and we're actually already planning our next run.

In preparation for the run, I bought a cheap workout shirt from Wal-Mart and some glow in the dark paint.  The paint I found was called Glow-Away, and it actually comes off with soap and water.  It glowed in our house with the lights off, but it didn't hold the glow very well.  By the time I got to the run, it was not glowing anymore.  Well...at least I got a new workout shirt out of the deal.  I think this paint would work a lot better on walls and other materials.

Witch Amigurumi

I finished this witch tonight.  The free pattern for this cute witch can be found on Ravelry, and it's by Renske de Busschere.  For a more in-depth look at the pattern, check out my Halloween Amigurumi Roundup from last week. 

Adventure Time Perler Bead Coasters

What time is it?  It's Adventure Time!!!  Do you like a human named Finn and a dog named Jake?  Me too.   (If you are not yet acquainted with the awesomeness that is Adventure Time, then you should check it out.)

If you have read my previous posts, then you've probably already noticed that I like to play with perler beads sometimes.  Well, the mood hit me again, and I wanted to make something new, so I decided to make AT characters.  I decided to make coasters this time because I have more than enough magnets now.

I found several examples of perler AT coasters on Etsy, but most of them used larger squares, so I had to do some significant modifications to fit my peg boards. 

Feel free to copy my patterns.  You should be able to click on the pics and zoom in to them. (Command + on a Mac)

Supplies:
--perler beads in colors matching desired characters
--peg boards
--wax paper
--iron and ironing board

Directions:
Step 1:  Pick a pattern.

Step 2: Copy the pattern (or modify one) and place each bead on the correct spot of your peg board until you have completed your desired pattern.

Step 3: Turn on your iron to low or medium low.  Let iron heat up.  Place wax paper over beads.  Iron the beads.  (It's best to hold the iron on the beads without moving it for about 30-60 sec, or until the beads are sufficiently melted that they don't separate and fall off of your peg board.)  Melt beads until they are well stuck together.

Step 4: Let the beads cool a little bit.  Remove the design from the board.  Continue to let design cool.  You may want to place something that is somewhat heavy on your design while it is cooling (after it is removed from the peg board), so that is will not curl.

Step 5: (Optional) Iron the other side for additional strength. 

These unfinished patterns should be pretty easy for you to duplicate.

BMO

Peppermint Butler

Finn

Jake

 Lumpy Space Princess (aka LSP)

LSP is the only coaster I made that is a direct copy.  Click here for that Etsy store and the seller's other AT character coasters.


These coasters were super fun and easy to make.  Here are some more pics of the finished coasters:

For more Perler bead fun, check out my other posts:
--8-bit Mario Magnets
--8-bit Wario Magnet
--Angry Bird Magnets

8-Bit Wario Magnet

I originally had some other posts in mind for this weekend, but I got busy with prep for trial week, so I didn't end up finishing any crafts this week (or even posting on Sunday) So, I am a day behind and digging into my stash of crafts I haven't yet shared.  Thus, this week I shall share my 8-Bit Wario.

There's no 8-Bit Wario you say? Well, there is now. Behold, 8-Bit Wario!  Feel free to copy my pattern.

Here he is all melted and mingling.

In case you missed it, here is my 8-Bit Mario Magnets post.


 Update:  This post was featured on House of Hepworths.

Angry Birds Perler Bead Magnets

I had a very busy week, so I never finished the bear and I skipped out on the baby shower, so I haven't posted those projects yet.  Yesterday, I had an urge to work with perler beads again, so I did several projects with them.  Today, I am sharing the Angry Birds Magnets.

I didn't find many perler patterns for Angry Birds.  I used patterns for the pigs and red bird, and I looked at the online images of the game for the other birds that I made.

I am including the pics of the unmelted perler beads for the patterns.  I thought about making some sort of graph for my own patterns when I did the Mario post, but I wasn't able to figure out a good (i.e. quick and easy) way to do it.  If the images are too small for you, you can increase the size.  I hit command and the plus sign to increase the size when using Firefox on my Mac, but yours may be different.

The only pattern I completely followed is the pig, and only for the first one that I made.  I ran out of the dark green, so I substituted a different green for the second one.

I didn't have enough black perler beads to outline the red bird, so I had to improvise and change it a little bit.

The following birds are my own patterns.

Yellow bird:

One of my nephews is a huge Angry Birds fan, and I recently learned that he likes Angry Birds Space a lot, so I wanted to also make him some Angry Birds Space magnets.

Angry Birds Space blue square bird:

Angry Birds Space green spotted bird:

After I put the beads on the boards, I melted the beads together.  To melt them, I put wax paper over the pattern and used an iron on medium heat.  This time I melted both sides.  I didn't melt the visible side as much as the side that would be hidden.  After the beads were melted and cooled, I used my hot glue gun to add magnets to the back.

These magnets were easy and fun to make.





While I had the perler beads out, I also made a Mario and Wario for one of my other nephews.  I had to make my own Wario pattern, and I will share it sometime soon.  I also made some cute floppy discs that I will share in a upcoming kawaii perler post.

8-Bit Mario Magnets

I saw these coasters on Pinterest, and I thought they looked like fun.  I looked at Etsy for coasters and other household items made out of perler beads, and I thought it might be fun to make my own.  Instead of making coasters, I decided to make Mario magnets.  My husband is a big Mario fan, and we like to play Mario games together when we have spare time, so I went with that theme. (There are lots of other perler options, like Zelda, Dr. Who, and Star Trek.)

I obtained some perler beads from Target, and got to work.  The boards that came with the beads were smaller than the examples I found on Etsy, so I changed the patterns to fit the boards.  I plan on adding easy to follow patterns for the ones I created later this week.

My husband really liked the Mario patterns, so we went to Joann's today and bought bigger boards and more colors.  The beads I bought the previous day didn't have all of the colors I needed to create some of the Mario characters.  With the bigger boards, I was able to just look at examples on Etsy and recreate them.  I won't be sharing those patterns because they are not my own, but I will link to some of them.   There are so many options, and it's easy to work from the finished example if you magnify the image.

Supplies:
-perler beads & peg board
-patterns
-magnets
-glue gun & glue stick (if magnet isn't sticky enough on its own)
-iron
-wax paper

Directions:
Step 1: Find patterns you want to recreate and buy corresponding perler beads and boards (or use what you have).

Step 2: Place beads on your board according to your pattern.

Step 3:  Heat iron to medium.  Once the iron has warmed up, place wax paper on your bead project and then put your iron on it.  You want to leave the iron on the beads long enough to fuse the beads, but not so long that you are melting the plastic boards.  The directions recommended 10-30 seconds, but it took significantly longer than that to make sure all of the beads were uniformly fused.

Step 4: Once your project has cooled, place a magnet on the back of it.  I used the stick-on magnets, but they were not sticky enough, so I used a hot glue gun to make them stick.

Here are some examples of what they look like unfinished:

Now, for some closeups of the finished magnets:

(This project was featured on House of Hepworths.)

Easter Napkin Rings

Last weekend my husband told me that my mother in law wanted to come over and have me help her glue something.  I said okay not knowing what she wanted.  Well, it was pretty cool.

My mother in law had trouble finding napkin rings for her Easter table setting that she wanted to put together, so she decided she wanted to make her own.  She found some Easter erasers she liked and key rings for the ring portion.  It was super easy and much cheaper than seasonal/holiday napkin rings normally cost.  And the most important part is that they turned out really cute.

Of course, this idea can be used for many different holidays.

Supplies:
--glue gun (we found that the hotter glue gun worked better, and it didn't melt the erasers)
--glue stick
--erasers
--key rings

Step 1: Collect your supplies and start up your glue gun.

Step 2: Put glue on back of eraser and attach key ring.  Let dry a little bit, and add a little more glue over top of the key ring where it touches the eraser.

Step 3: Let dry.

Step 4:  Fold your napkins and put on your napkin rings.

I think they turned out great.  I am definitely going to copy her idea.