Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! I hope you start your holiday off right and celebrate happily and safely.
Time to show off your creative recipes, projects, and ideas!
I absolutely love handmade soaps and bath items. Unfortunately handcrafted lotion bars didn’t work out for me. My annoying pollen allergies make my skin picky about the beeswax in them since you don’t know exactly what the bees ate before they created the wax – because you know, bee life.
I experimented making body butters and learned that the greasy feeling I didn’t care for was due to the coconut oil I added to the mix. I also learned that you can turn any homemade body butter recipe into a lotion if you add water (which needs a preservative.) OK good to know.
A few more experiments later I came up with a homemade non greasy, moisturizing lotion entirely made from plant based ingredients – including the preservatives. Yeah, yeah, I know. In green living circles many folks claim they don’t want to use chemicals. That is impossible because everything – even if it is organic – is made of chemicals, including yourself.
What I believe they mean is that they do not want to use toxic chemicals, which I totally agree with. The same goes for preservatives. This lotion recipe contains water which is the perfect breeding ground for growing mold and bacteria, which then can be dangerous to use (that’s why bath and beauty items including handmade at the farmer’s market are required to have expiration dates.) But not all preservatives are created awful! There are several natural and non toxic preservatives we can use such as Phenonip and that’s what we will be using today.
Many homemade health and beauty remedies include Vitamin E. Vitamin E is an anti-oxidant that will keep the oils in the product from going rancid (and do fantastic things for your skin) but Vitamin E will not stop mold or bacteria from growing in the mixture from, for example, being introduced to the moisturizer from dipping your hand in the jar. I like to include Vitamin E in my handmade moisturizer recipes more for its beauty properties but if it helps keep the oils from going rancid while the Phenonip keeps the entire thing mold and bacteria free I think they are two co workers that work well together. Besides Vitamin E oil is cheap and available at most grocery stores.
Time to show off your creative recipes, projects, and ideas!
I buy sewing machine thread in the colors I use most often in bulk by the serger cone. I use stand alone bobbin winder like this one to wind the cone thread onto an empty regular size thread spool to use on my sewing machine. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.) This is supposed to keep me from running out of thread but when my historical costuming projects usually take up to 10 yards of fabric I still go through a ton of sewing thread.
Which means I have a nice little stack of empty thread cones on my To Upcycle shelf waiting for a craft project that never comes.
Until today!
I recycled empty thread cones into cute little gnomes. If you don’t have empty thread or serger cones cluttering up your house waiting to be upcycled you can use paper craft cones like these.
You will need for each gnome you want to make:
