Here's What's Got Me Thinking...

I've decided to try something new for 2014, a series called,  What's got me thinking...
This will be an eclectic collection of posts about things that "have got me thinking." As the focus of this blog is "All things creative", you can bet the posts will still be about all things creative that have got me thinking, so...

For the past 2 weeks I have been looking at recipes and lists of ingredients. Now, if you know me really well you're scratching your head and wondering what alien has taken over my body. That's because you know I don't like to cook Well, calm down, I still don't like to cook but what's got me looking at recipes and lists is the wonderful world of handmade soap and more!! The idea of making my own soaps, bath bombs and body butter has got me thinking.

Now, my daughter Cassie was the real instigator of this idea. She has very dry skin and has been very unhappy with the lotions and creams that we have tried. She is  also a die hard Lush fan. If you have shopped at Lush you know they have wonderful products, a little pricey but great stuff. So, I got to thinking maybe we can make our own body products. So, off to the Internet we went, and talk about coming to the party late!There are so many recipes and DIYs out there it's almost too much. So, I decided that the recipes most attractive to me would  have the least number of ingredients, and the ingredients could all be found in my local grocery or craft store. 

After our first attempt ( a success by the way) at a moisturizing body butter, I got really excited about the creative possibilities. Here's our first ever body butter. It has Shea butter, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Extra V. Olive Oil, and Tea Tree and Lavender oil. Here it is:

It goes on oily (of course it does, duh!) But your body absorbs the oil so fast it's amazing. No worries about getting oil stains on your clothes if you give it about 5-10 minutes before dressing. Putting it on right out of the shower works great. The only change I would make is using less or no Cocoa butter as it's scent overpowers the Lavender.

Moving on to making soap led me to so many sites  that I'll just share some pictures of a few of my favorites. Just search for handmade soap on Pinterest and , well you can guess the rest.

                                                            A clean and soothing look.

                                                 Love the mold that was used for this one!

 The different colored circles make this soap so fun and cute.

  Can't you just imagine soaking away the stress of the day with this.

                                           These bars look good enough to eat!!

                                                            source for all : Pinterest       


So, that's What's got me thinking this week! Don't be surprised if you see some homemade  DIY bath projects soon. What do you think, would you give it a try?               

DIY Christmas Gift Revealed - Iphone 5 cases

Happy New Year!!  My first post of the new year is about one of the last projects of 2013

At last I can reveal a great gift that I made for my daughter, Cassie. Like so many teen aged girls, she likes to change her iphone cases all the time. It's like an accessory and may change based on the outfit of the day. After showing me some really cute cases online I decided to:
1. save some money
2  give her more than one ( at $30-$35 each online she'd only get 1)
3. save some money
4. have some fun ( which of course also means, save some money)

I searched the internet and found way too many examples of really cute cases. Try googling "handmade iphone cases" and see what comes up! There are some really cool cases out there.. Here are a few that I found as inspiration for my cases.

                                                                     source

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After a trip to Five Below I got iphone 5 cases, and  made a stop at Hancock Fabrics and Hobby Lobby. Here are the cases I bought.

                                     And this is the trim that I bought at Hancock Fabrics.

Add my ever ready tube of E6000 and 8 mm rhinestones from Hobby Lobby and these are the cases I created:

                          Oops, I missed a tiny string of glue, not visible with my old eyes.

                                               Definitely inspired by one I saw online

                                          
                                                    Can't get too much Blingy than this baby!!

One look at that smile tells me I did alright with this gift. If you have a teenager, you know gifts can be a hit or miss thing.

 What do you think? I made all four cases for under $35.00. I know that some of the cases online have bumpers, etc so it's hard to compare just based on final cost, but I'm feeling real good about these. Remember my goal was to save some money, get her more than 1 case for $35, save some money, and have some fun. Mission accomplished!!
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