Discovering 2014: Eucalyptus Shea Butter Lip Balm

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today’s project was Eucalyptus Shea Butter Lip Balm, following these directions from the Whole Woman Health site. I didn’t use Vitamin E oil or honey, but did use eucalyptus oil instead of peppermint.

Supplies:


I spent more time grating the beeswax than I did making it, so I don’t have many in-progress pictures. My teenage son helped me out, so you can do this easily with older kids. Next time I think I’ll just slice the beeswax instead of grating it because it melted so quickly that all that time grating felt wasted.

  1. Melt the beeswax, coconut oil and shea butter together in a double boiler, stir well
  2. Add your eucalyptus oil and any optional additives, stir well

3. Very carefully pour into your containers, or use a dropper/pipette if you have one. If you’re using tins with hinges, be careful to not fill at or above the hinges as it can overflow (I learned this the hard way)
4. The containers will be hot for the first several minutes; do not cover them and once the top begins to solidify you can move them to a safer place to finish cooling

5. Allow to cool and harden completely before putting the lids on

Optional Additions:

  • 4 drops Vitamin E oil (optional)
  • 3-5 drops of honey (optional)
  • Can substitute for different essential oils

This is a easy project that may take 15-30 minutes total. I got four of my acrylic jars and two tins worth out of the batch I made.. I probably could have gotten one more tin or jar worth had I not overflowed the first tin. These would make very nice gifts or stocking stuffers!

Discovering 2014: Resin Jewelry

Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today’s project was Resin Jewelry. This one I’m not going to dive deep into, since instructions for use may vary depending on what you have. For material additives I tried out green food coloring (might be a mistake, it’s still not dried) and sprinkles (this one I like). I also tried adding a few embellishments to the bottlecap-sized cabachons.

The resin takes a full 72 hours to completely cure, so while I was able to remove everything but the bracelet from molds today (after 26 hours), they are definitely not ready to be incorporated into jewelry yet.

To get them out of the molds I stuck them in the freezer for about 10 minutes, and then they readily popped out. As mentioned, the bracelet is the only holdout, and after about an hour of struggling with it I’m going to wait the full 72 hours before trying again to get it out of the mold.

So stay tuned for a better update on this near the end of the week. It’s definitely not as scary as it seemed in my mind!

Here are the supplies I used:

Tomorrow’s project is Canvas Decor!

Discovering 2014: Cherry Clippies

 Discovering 2014 is a personal goal to complete a daily project throughout the year!

Today’s project was Cherry Clippies, inspired by this pin of a formerly listed Etsy item. To make it you need a hot glue gun, covered hair clip, 3/8″ green grosgrain ribbon and 3/8″ red grosgrain ribbon.

Take about 8″ of the green grosgrain ribbon and bring both ends up and over the center, letting the tails dangle down. Hot glue the ribbon to its center to keep it in place.

Make two 10″ rolls with the red grosgrain. Hot glue the end to the roll.

Hot glue the red rolls to the green ribbon ends, then glue the entire cherry piece onto your covered hair clip.

Tomorrow’s project is one I’ve actually been so intimidated about doing that I’ve let it sit nearly three months untouched… Resin Jewelry!