DIY This Christmas

'Tis the season. Christmas is less than a month away and I decided to do as many homemade gifts this year as I possibly could. Therefore I've been busy and crafty.

First on my list was my mother. Normally I have a hard time finding anything for her. This year however I figured out what I wanted to make her clear back at the begining of Novemeber. I decided to knit my mother a hoodie scarf.

It's a good thing I started early as her gift took me about 3 weeks to complete. Keep in mind though, those 3 weeks were only working on her gift Monday thru Friday while I sat at the shop. For obvious reasons I couldn't work on it at home. I first saw what I wanted to make my mom while browsing Pintrest. (If you're not addicted to Pintrest yet, give it time, I'm sure you will be). However there wasn't a pattern for that specifc picture. Therefore I did a Googl

e search. I really love Google. It took a few clicks on different web pages before I finally found the pattern I was looking for. So pattern downloaded, yarn purchased and as of 2 weeks ago, her gift was completed.

Next up on my list were my sister, her husband and my 2 month old neice. Seeing as I

was working on a budget and had no clue what to get the three of them, I finally decided to go with a family gift. Once again my idea came from Pintrest. However this time it wasn't a knitting

project and I didn't have to go searching for a pattern. I just saw a picture of a wall hanging and knew I could make something like it. So therefore I went to Hobby Lobby. (One of my favorite stores). I bought a nice board sign (that needed a little sanding), ribbon and three small canvas's. The board has since been painted black with the word Family painted in yellow. I now have to put hooks on the bottom, from which I'll hang the three canvas's with ribbon. The canvas's will have pictures of their family. (Yet another idea and DIY I found on Pintrest and which can be found here). I also have a couple of small wooden frames that I will paint in fun colors to match the neice's room. So yet another gift almost done.

My dad and my brother are not getting anything homemade from me. They're just too hard to make things for. My brother's getting a lovely plaid shirt (which he asked for) and a LEGO police car. Yes, my brother is 20 years old and yes he still loves LEGO's. I could have bought him a Nerf gun for Christmas and he would have been thrilled. He is still very much a 10 year old little boy!

Now you're probably thinking that this doesn't sound like that much work, or that many things to make. However I haven't gotten to what many of my friends will be recieving from me. I got on this "DIY homemade" thing just in the last couple of weeks. Mainly thanks to Pintrest. (Yes I'm addicted).

So what at first started out as a just for fun/just for me project, has grown to include most of my friends of the female sex. The first two just for fun projects were sewing ones. I decided to go through all my old fabric and use up a bunch of it. So I started making clutches.

The first little clutch was one that I'd found on Pintrest and from there went to a blog hoping for the pattern. While that blog didn't have the pattern, it did link to it. Once I paid for and downloaded the pattern I got busy. My first one wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The second one turned out much better.

The second little clutch that I made was a basic gathered clutch. I'd seen these before and even know people who have made them. But I'd never tried one myself. Once again I found a link on Pintrest and found an excellent tutorial. So far I've made 3 of these little guys and have another 3 ready to be assembled and another 4-5 waiting for me to start. These are the clutches that many of my friends will be receiving.

Now on to the new and exciting things. (As in the things that I've never attempted before).

After seeing pin after pin on Pintrest of homemade lip gloss or homemade lip balm or lotion or bath stuff or homemade whatever, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making some or all of them. I started with the bath salts. They seemed the easiest and required supplies that were a

bit easier to come by then some of the other homemade products. So bath salts; combine Epsom Salts with a little bit of essential oil in a frangrence of your choice and put in just a little bit of Glycerin and coloring if desired, mix it all up and pour into fun jars. That's it, all there is to it.

Just add a fun label to your jars and give them to people. I did read a couple of posts on homemade bath salts, the best of which I found is here.

My next DIY product was lip gloss. This was another one that's super easy. You take about a cup of Vasaline and either melt it slowly in the microwave, or use a double boiler like I did. Slowly melt the vasaline and when it's completly melted stir in one packet of Kool-Aid, use whatever flavor you'd like. I happened to use Black Cherry, it's one of my favorites. Stir until the Kool-Aid has desolved and then pour into lip gloss containers. I couldn't actually find lip gloss containers at the time, but I did find these aweseom little plastic jars at Hobby Lobby designed to put paint it. They work perfectly for the lip gloss. That one cup of vasaline and packet of Kool-Aid filled 12 of those little jars.

Next up on my DIY list was lip balm. This literally took about 10 minutes. I read two different blogs with recipes. One and two. I mainly followed the first one. This was so easy, and again I used a double boiler.

Once I finished those I started on my last DIY beauty product: lotion. The main recipe, found here, I wanted to try called for grapeseed oil. It took me a while to find this oil. Turned out a local health food place had bottles of it, it cost about $10 for this bottle.

What I didn't know about this particular grapeseed oil is that it's green. Totally messed me up for a minute.

This color in turn caused my lotion to be green. Oh well, saved me from having to add color. Once again I used the trusty double boiler method.

Once everything was melted, I used a mixer and mixed in the water and then dumped the lotion into jars. I also opted to make this batch fragrance free.

The second recipe I used can be found here. Although I subsituted the coconut oil with my grapeseed oil. Some people with nut allergies will have issues with the coconut oil. After I finished this recipe and bottled it, I've decided that the first recipe is much better. This one would make a great foot lotion though.

So now it's off to finish sewing those clutches and maybe find a gift for Dad.

Oh shiny, an update

Here are just a few reasons why I haven't blogged in a while.

1. The birth of my adorable niece, Grace. She is now three weeks old and cuter then ever.

2. I've been busy doing a LOT of bead work. These are just a couple of the pieces I've done recently. There were also a bunch (with more to come) for a couple of weddings.

3. I have now learned a new skill; tatting. It's a bit of a dying art, but I love it. Here are just a couple of things I've done. I'm working on others and learning new bits of tatting as well.

Other reasons for not blogging include working full time and feeling like I have nothing to blog about. So there's your update on my doings.

Enjoy :)

The crazyness we call life!

It's been one heck of a week for me!

The cool things: I've sold several of my flowers and one of my card sets. I had a custom order for a couple flowers and just got another order for 7 flowers!

The not so cool things: Sunday evening we were having our Thanksgiving service/meal when an elderly gentlemen in our church (George) started to not feel so great. Thankfully we have at least one EMT in our church. They ended up calling an ambulance to take George to the hospital. We found out later that he'd probably had a heart attack. They ended up life flighting him to Omaha, but we were told he was already feeling better and was witnessing to everyone. Then my family had a bit of a scare Wednesday night. My dad, who hadn't been feeling well since Monday night, got a lot worse. My mom woke me up about 10:30 to tell me that they'd called the ambulance to come pick dad up. He was in so much pain that he couldn't even stand or straighten out in any way, shape or form. Around 1am my mom finally came home from the hospital to tell me that it was his appendix and they'd given him some morphine and he was going in for surgery around 6am. So mom and I both tried to sleep and she left about 5 for the hospital and I left around 8:30 for the store (since no one else was able to work).

The better things: Dad's surgery went very well, he was able to come home later that day. My sister and her husband came over for the evening, and helped take care of some things around the house for us, plus they brought supper. Dad should be able to go back to work on Monday, but he can't drive fro 2 weeks. Thankfully it was nothing more serious then the appendix and also that it hadn't ruptured. So now he's well on the road to recovery and I'm still in the store, working.

So yeah, like I said, one heck of a week....and there's still a day and a half left!

Check It Out!

So after what seemed like forever, I finally got a website done for my beads. You can check it out at www.justbelievecreations.viviti.com

Like the site says, my stuff is currently available at Daniels Fine Jewelry in Atlantic Iowa, at least until DFJ closes.

On a random side note, if you're looking for a free web hosting site I would strongly recommend Viviti.com, it's amazing. I would NOT use webs.com, I had a terrible time with it not working and I still haven't been able to delete my account with them, or even getting answers on how to delete my account. Viviti on the other hand is great to use, has a lot of cool features and a 2 week ad free trial.

Anyway go check out my site!!

Captivity

"A Christian is held captive by anything that hinders the

abundant and effective Spirit-filled life God planned

for him or her."

- Beth Moore

I started a new bible study/devotional today. It's the book Breaking Free by Beth Moore. Christians are just as likely to be held in bondage as those who've never been set free from sin by Christ. There are many things in a believers life that lead to slavery. However just as Christ set us free from sin and death for eternity, He also is very willing to set us free from the things we're choosing to be slaves to. Things like pride (Jeremiah 13:9), idols or not tearing down those 'high places' (Jeremiah 13:10), things like legalism, the belief that we're right with God because of what we've done (King Hezekiah, Isaiah 38). In this book Beth Moore is mainly using the book of Isaiah to show how we can be set free.

Isaiah 61: 1-4

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me to brings good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners:

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God;

to comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

giving them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting,

so they will be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the Lord,

that He may be glorified.

Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,

they will raise up the former devastations;

and they will repair the ruined cities,

the desolations of many generations." (NASB)

In the book of Luke, chapter 4, verses 14-21, we see that what Isaiah said was fulfilled in Christ! He came to set us free from all bondage.

2 Corinthians 3:17

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is liberty." (NASB)

Galations 5:1

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free;

therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject

again to a yoke of slavery." (NASB)

Randomosity

My sister got married this last weekend and it was a beautiful wedding. She looked beautiful, but then she usually does. Plus her husband is a great guy and their good for each other.

I'm now job hunting yet again, but before I do that, I'm spending two weeks with my aunt next to a small lake in Nebraska. All I have to say is that it's beautiful here and I love being next to the water, even if I don't go out on it much.

I've been doing a lot of beading lately and may try selling some of it online. I need to get pictures of it all first...that could be an interesting project in and of it self.

Yeah, this was short but sweet, I'm now off to bed.

I'm sorry! Please don't hit me!

Warning: Slightly Twilight related content


I'm not what you would call an 'obsessed' Twilight fan. Yes, I've read teh books more then once, yes, I've seen the movies more then once, and yes I do discus both with other Twilight fans. However I'm not going to go to any midnight movie showings, or buy stuff just because it's from Twilight. Now, having said all that I will admit that I enjoy reading the books and analyzing the movies. Recently I've come to the conclussion that I'm "Team Jacob'. I know, I know, that sounds like I'm one of those 'obsessed' fans I've claimed not to be, but let me explain.

After watching New Moon again, I realized that I'm a bit of a Jacob fan. Let me clarify right now that being a Jacob fan as absolutely NOTHING to do with the actor who portrays Jacob. I think in some ways having watched the movie again, it helped me to really picture Jacob's actions, instead of just having to imagine what he might do. Once I reread the books again, I was even more of a Jacob fan, and I finally figured out why.
I relate to Jacob more then any other character in the series. I find myself in his shoes more often in life, aside from the whole freaky wolf thing :p I always find myself as just the friend and never 'the' girl. Now I know that's not necessarily a bad thing, however it never fails that the guys I like end up married, or with someone other then me. Now I'm not saying I wished I'd married them, just that there's always a tad bit of bitter-sweetness to it. I'm genuienly happy for them when they find that 'special someone', but every time that happens I can't help but feel 'there's another good guy taken'.

I know God has a plan for all of us, and everything happens in His time, but sometimes it's hard to be patient. I can't tell you how many people have said that it will happen when you're not looking, or when you least expect it, I've also had people tell me that I'll find that guy when I've finally reached a point where I'm happy being single. I'm not going to argue with them, I've seen it happen to too many people. But sometimes it gets old. I've had many times where I thought I was happy being single, and I haven't been looking for anyone. So again, we're back to God's timing. My brother once told me that he wouldn't be surprised if I never marry and at the time I agreed with him, but at the same time I'm not sure I want to be single forever. I guess I just have to be patient and wait on God for an answer of some kind.


On a side note since I did mention marriage in there; my sister's getting married!!! I'm excited for her, she and Josh are great for each other!