Crafts, Gifts, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Projects

So for the past few weeks, I have been bouncing around from Michael's to Wal-Mart to the Dollar Store, online apothecary web sites, and the new web site I talked about earlier - Pinterest.

With its zillions of user-uploaded ideas for craft making, homemade bath and body products, and do-it-yourself around the home projects, I have become completely enamored. As an environment enthusiast, animal lover, and admittedly, a bit of a purist, the idea of making my own body butters, shampoo, soaps and body wash, pet food, enzyme cleaners, laundry detergent, and other everyday items is extremely appealing. Not to mention the fact that I simply LOVE learning creative new ways to repurpose items around the house - which is, essentially, recycling after all!

I have ordered a whole slew of raw materials from an apothecary web site, which will jumpstart my homemade bath products (and gifts!) - and I have "pinned" a hundred ideas for repurposing and home decoration when I get back to the Netherlands. But to get my feet wet in the crafts, I started with tutorials I found on Pinterest.

My aunt Lynnie's birthday was today. Blending ideas I found with research I've done on the current craft trends (aromatherapy, skin care, etc.), I filled a gift bag with various items I handmade for her over the past few weeks.

1. This is more of a housewarming gift for her and my uncle's new home in North County - they have a pale green/white accent theme in the decor and walls, so I tweaked some gift ideas I read about and made this little decorative object. It's just a plain flower vase with a silk daisy I got at Michael's - I held the flower against the glass as I filled the vase with sand, then topped it off with a tealight. Voila - an easy, but cute, trinket.

2. A Post-It mounted pad! I took a plastic photo frame (I chose one with a magnet on the back) and cut out a piece of scrapbook padding to slide into the insert. I adhered a Post-It pad to the front, then chose embellishments -- the possibilities with this are endless, but I chose a blue ribbon and a little decorative label for my aunt's.

3. Coasters! To match the green theme in my aunt's house, I chose a sheet of scrapbook paper with green polka dots and a distressed cream background. I found ceramic tiles at Home Depot, and cut out squares of the scrapbook paper, leaving a thin border around the edges. I adhered the scrapbook paper to clean tiles with Mod Podge, and then applied two additional coats on top of the paper to seal it in. I found a finishing spray in my dad's garage (this one was matte, but gloss should look better) and sprayed it on top once the Mod Podge had dried, and then applied felt pads to the bottoms of the tiles. Voila, drink coasters!

4. This is one of the endless bath/body product ideas I've found -- all of which are customizable to personal preference, and versatile/flexible enough for personal tweaking. This particular "recipe" is almost entirely my own - guided by my research in skin care and aromatherapy, of course. I mixed one cup of ground oatmeal (thank you, Magic Bullet!) with one cup of coarse sea salt, and four tea bags (about 3 tbsp) of peppermint tea (sans the bags). This concoction yields a moisturizing, exfoliating, and refreshing foot soak - perfect for relieving sore, achy, tired, or even stinky feet. It has dual uses too -- after you pour it into warm water, you can exfoliate your feet with the sea salt before it dissolves, then let the mixture soak into the water and dissolve slowly, which creates a relaxing bath. I'm going to make some for myself, too! Oh, and the jar is a recycled Starbucks Frappuccino jar - decorated with, you guessed it, scrapbook paper and Mod Podge, while the cap is painted white with acrylic paint.

5. My favorite gift in my aunt's goody bag today -- I am even making one for myself. This is a homemade aromatherapeutic hot compress! I bought leg warmers at the store (personally chosen cute designs, of course), and sewed one end closed. Then I filled the tube with rice, alternating a tsp of ground ginger with the rice as I went, and then sewed the other end closed as well. Pop the whole thing into the microwave for 30-45 seconds, heating up the rice and ginger, which creates a powerful ache/pain relieving compress. There are several variations of this, including other ground/powdered roots or spices, or even essential oils. I liked the benefits of ginger (relieving muscle and joint pain to reducing inflammation, aiding in digestion, soothing nausea, and minimizing headaches, to name a few) and chose that for my aunt's compress. The only downside? The leg warmer I selected is a bit more porous than I first realized, which means the ginger powder seeps out a bit. Trial and error, my friends.

And thus begins my journey through crafts and homemade DIY projects -- we'll see how long it lasts! ;)