Easy Citrus Basil Aloe Soap Tutorial

We used up the butter maple shea butter soap I made and colored with kitchen spices. A ton of people asked if the turmeric I used to color the soap turned our skin yellow. I’m happy to say, nope not a bit.

I have a bunch of  soap making supplies left from making my first batch of melt and pour soap. I also have some end of the season basil from our garden that doesn't taste that great in cooking. I put them together and made an orange citrus basil soap using an Aloe Vera vegan glycerin melt and pour soap base.

 Save this easy soap tutorial to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

The result is scrubby dubby good and something I plan to make now for holiday gifts later. Hint: Citrus Basil soap makes great stocking stuffers and teacher gifts!

How Make Aloe Soap

How to Hang a Heavy Picture without it Crashing to the Ground

 My new living room accent wall looks good but adding a few pictures to the wall will make it look better.

Especially if I rehang this amazing gift from Michael. He painted it as part of his senior show at Parsons (yes, that Parsons The New School for Design Project Runway fans.) Michael gave us the painting to remember him by before he moved -sniff!

Schoolhouse Rock Costumes

Around here Halloween is ALL about the costume. I keep a running Halloween costume idea list in my head of unique and slightly out there costume ideas.

Last Halloween Husband and I went a Halloween party. The theme was Childhood. After mulling over the costume possibilities, I realized I had the perfect costume on my Halloween costume idea list. It’s something I’ve been wanted to build for a long time School House Rock's Bill from Capital Hill!    Husband got in on the School Rock costume action too. He was the Engineer from Conjunction Conjunction.

 Pin this costume idea to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

5 Fall Fun and Howling Halloween Projects

Kristina from Claiming Our Space asked me to co-host her Fall and and Howling Halloween Link Party along with the fabulous  The Chic Geek, Second Chance to Dream, Making My Apt a Home, The Cookie a Day Challenge, and Domestic Randomness here on Condo Blues.

I  love that I got to introduce my super crafty DIY friends to my clever green living friends. I feel like the hostess of a successful dinner party. I'm the Yenta of the blogging world introducing all of you over there to all of you over there!  I met a slew of new people myself too.

Wowzers gang. Your projects knocked my socks off! Kristina suggested the co-hosts pick a few favorites and share them on our blogs. It wasn't easy!

Dehydrating Garden Vegtables

Husband and I grew more than six tomatoes this summer. I can check one more goal off my 2012 DIY Project list. Yay!

I thanks to Food in Jars, I learned how to can five quarts and two pints of homegrown tomatoes for my September One Small Green Change. Double Yay!

Not so yay, our tomatoes are ripening in drips and drabs. It takes forever to collect enough ripe tomatoes to can them. I can one or two quarts at a time at most.

I see a lot of this and not much else.

I had some tomatoes that were getting close to the Eat-Me-Now-Or-Compost-Me-Later stage but enough to make a pint of canned tomatoes.

*light bulb goes off over my head* 

A compact florescent light bulb of course.

Three Halloween Door Decors

Door wreaths are festive and fun but decorating the whole door for Halloween is better! I want to share some of the Halloween door decorating ideas I pinned on Pinterest (follow me on Pinterest @condoblues pretty please?)

I know from experience that finding a door wreath that doesn't blend into a green door can make you tear your hair out.  Mel from Mel Designs  solves that by turning her green door into a goofy Frankenstein monster.

Photo courtesy of Mel Designs