DIY Fall Candle Holders using fake (or real) leaves

Hey guys!!  I haven't done a DIY in awhile and I was in a crafting mood this weekend.  Plus I got these supplies last year but with the move, they got lost in all my craft supplies.  So needless to say, with the holiday season soon approaching, more and more DIY's will be coming!

This will be one of the easiest and prettiest crafts you will ever do!!

Get together the following:

• Type of glass (vase, jar, bowl)
• Mod Podge (I used matte finish but you can use shiny too)
• Leaves (fake will be the quickest as real you will need to dry out prior to using)
• Sponge
• Optional: Burlap, Twine, Ribbon

Take your sponge applicator and apply mod podge liberally to the glass.  Wait a few seconds until it gets tacky and then put your leaves on, one by one, and coat liberally with mod podge until the edges stick to the glass.  Keep turning your piece around and around, adding as many or as few leaves as you like.

Let dry at least an hour.

I popped a candle in right away to see how pretty it looked!!

I then added some twine and ribbon for the finishing touches!!

And there ya go! I placed them right on my dining room table as my centerpiece!  You can see the mod podge gives kind of a stained glass effect.  If you don't care for that, then be strategic with your placement of the mod podge so it only covers the leaves.

Easy Peasy!!

Have you done any modpodge crafts lately?  What are your favorite fall DIY's?  Let us know in the comments below!!

Have a great day!! xo

DIY Homemade Lip Gloss

So the other day, I hinted to my next DIY project.  And here it is! Homemade lipglosses and lip balms.  First, let's talk about supplies.  Super easy to obtain and depending on how many you want to make, you can get supplies online or at your local craft store.  To be that is either Hobby Lobby or Michaels and sometimes Big Lots.

First you are going to need supplies:

• beeswax
• shea butter (you can use vitamin e and organic honey, just the same)
• almond oil (you can use coconut oil, just the same)
• flavored oils (such as peppermint, pineapple, tangerine, tropical punch, etc. I got mine from LorAnn Oils)
• containers (tubes or jars)
• a mixing jar, with a lid
• saucepan with boiling water
• stir sticks (wooden as not to melt)
• measuring spoons
• labels

First, take 4 teaspoons of beeswax, 2 teaspoons of shea butter and 3 teaspoons of almond oil and put in your jar that has the lid.  If you want glossier chapstick, add an extra 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond oil.

Fill a shallow pot with an inch of water and bring it to a boil.  Place the jar in the boiling water of course making sure it is below the rim and lower to medium heat.  Stir the mixture until it is melted, using your wooden stir sticks.

Have your flavored oil ready to go, a 1/4 teaspoon should be enough.  If you want to mix your flavors, use 1/8 of each to make 1/4.  Look at me using fractions!! :)

I started out in small batches, I recommend doing this since you may want to change things on the next batch.  For example, for the first batch I mixed peppermint and tangerine but the second batch I only used tropical punch oil but added some lipstick shavings to tint the lipgloss!  If you want to tint the lipgloss, add the shavings into the jar while you are stirring all the ingredients together.

Once you take the jar out of the water and add the oil, put the lid on and shake immediately so it is all mixed.  This is wax we are working with so you must do this with some quickness or it will start to harden :)

Peppermint and Tangerine

Tinted Tropical Punch 

Once you pour the wax into your desired container, you will need to let it set undisturbed for about 20 minutes.  If you notice when you pour your wax in that there is still a little dip in the center, add an additional drop of lip balm from the jar to level it off.

And there ya have it!! Easy Peasy!!

Now, of course I have so much lip gloss that some people will be getting gifts!! YAY!! :)

Have you made any lip balms before??  What are you favorite flavor combos?

Let me know in the comments below!

Oh and less than 35 hours for my giveaway.  Make sure you have entered loves!!  Click HERE!!

Have a great day!! xo

DIY Christmas-Homemade Peppermint Sugar Body Scrub

The time has come where I am again a crafting fool making things to give as gifts this year.  I absolutely love making unique things for people all year round but Christmas is especially fun.  For the family members that read my blog, be warned, I expect you to be full of surprise in the event you receive any of the gifts that I post over the next week :)

This is probably the easiest gift I have ever made and I hope you all will try it, if not for a gift but for yourself.  This is an all natural exfoliating body or foot scrub, perfect for the dry winter months.  This can be made with any oil or scent you want, too.  I am going to use white sugar, olive oil and peppermint but you can swap the olive oil for coconut oil and the peppermint for vanilla.  You can swap the white sugar for brown sugar.  Add some lavender, add some lime juice.  This is easily customizable and lasts for up to 2 months.

First you want to pick the jars you are going to use.  Hobby Lobby had all glass 50% off so that is where I went.  I wanted cute jars but also ones that would be easy enough to get the product out. Next time I may go with plastic but I really couldn't find any that I liked.

Grab your ingredients.  I am going to be using about two and a half cups of sugar for these 6 jars.  Of course I didn't know that until I made them :) The olive oil I did not measure as you are going to make it to the consistency that you like.  And I had this peppermint oil in the cupboard, had I not I was going to use vanilla.

Pour your sugar into a large bowl and slowly start pouring your olive oil in.

I kept stopping to check the consistency until I got it where I wanted it to be.  Rub it through your fingers so you can feel it instead of only looking at it.

Once it was perfect, I added several drops of peppermint oil and mixed it really well.

It smells divine.

Then I scooped it into the jars.

Oh and I got these really festive labels that fit on them perfectly.

I, of course, did it the hard way and labeled my jars once the labels were on them.  To make it easier, write on them before hand :)

And there ya go! I mean super simple yet a perfect gift for anyone and everyone.  Especially people you just don't know what to get for.  My family loves my homemade gifts as they truly know I am taking the time to do something for them and that is what the holidays are all about.

I'd love to know if you try this recipe or have made your own homemade body scrubs before!

Let me know in the comments below and be sure to share your variations!

Have a great day!! xo

How to re-purpose your old candle jars!!

My Vanity

We all love makeup and candles so why not incorporate them??  I love crafting and want to show you an awesome idea to make use of those leftover candles that we pay SO much for!

First, when you are done with your candles, put them in the freezer.  I usually put them in there and forget about them so I would say at least put them in there for an hour.  That makes it so much easier to take the labels and the wax out.

Here is a video showing you just how easy the label will come off!

My hand in action

After the label is off, you want to get the leftover wax out.  The longer you leave it in the freezer, the more the wax will crack, making it easier to grab a butter knife and go to town on it.

This is a good crack

Nice and easy as to not crack the glass

Lift the wax out

Now, if you can get the little lit parts to come out with the wax, all the better as they will be a little harder to get out.  Having them come out in the wax eliminates you having to stab at them so in hindsight I should have made my own crack the other way.

I have one of those wax melter burner thingies so I keep the nice wax (none that have smoke on them) and reuse them in the burner!  Another way to save money and get the most out of these candles!

Almost done!

Now for that pesky label on the bottom.  Go as slow as you can, we aren't ripping a band aid off here :)

Slow and steady wins the race

But once it is off, we are not going to worry about any adhesive that is left anywhere on the candle. Now for the magic part!

Take equal parts vegetable oil and baking powder to make a paste.  Start out with two teaspoons of each depending on how much adhesive is left on your candle.  If the paste still appears runny, keep adding baking powder until it is a paste again.

Magic paste

Spread this mixture on to the sticky parts of the candle.  I usually let mine sit in the sink for about 10 minutes.

Magic paste

Once ten minutes is up, take a dry paper towel and wipe the mixture away from the candle.

No more stickiness

TA DA!

All the adhesive will be gone!

Now, in the event it is not, just put more paste on and let it sit another ten minutes.  Also, make sure you are always wiping the mixture away with a dry paper towel.  That helps a lot.

You can use this trick and magic paste on any type of adhesive to re use the bottle :)

I have them all over the house but here are some ideas!

In the bathroom

On the vanity

Use them everywhere

I even got more creative and put glitter letters on my jars to label them.  I hope you enjoyed this DIY and I would love to see what you make!!  The possibilities are endless!

Do you already have a way that you re-purpose your old candles?

Let us know in the comments below!

Have a great day!! xo

DIY-Gold Dipped Feather Chandlier

Happy Hump Day!!!  I NEED this week to be over, so badly.  It's been "one of those"!!  But today, I am excited to share with you my latest and greatest DIY project!!  This project is inspired by The Junk Gypsies!!  They are country lovin' women after my own heart, they are incredibly smart, creative junkers who have a wonderful online and brick and mortar store!  I love every piece of clothing and merch I have gotten from them.  Check them out today!!  They recently had an episode on their show where they made this and since I couldn't haul my butt to Round Top, Texas, I made it myself!

Okay, let's get busy on making this Gold Dipped Feather Chandelier!!

First, some back story.....you are going to want to already have picked out a base.  I used an old lamp shade that I found junking in Kentucky in July.  The size is up to you and also the shape.  But you want to make sure that you get a base that is even all the way around as to prevent tipping when you hang it.  Plus, I also suggest getting a base that has the part where you will attach the lighting kit in the middle.  As you can see in the picture above, my light bulb is hidden by the feathers.

Once you have the base, you need feathers, fishing line, glitter and some spray sealant.

I got the feathers from Michael's Craft Store as they were the only ones that carried just what I was looking for but also had enough to fill my needs! I probably have 50 feathers on my chandelier :) Each package comes with three feathers in it, too.  Plus they always have coupons for 40% off so that helped with the price!  Overall, this is a cheap project but it takes a lot of time and patience but it is SO worth it!!

I did the prep work for the feathers in the garage because of the fumes of the sealant.  The sealant I used is also the "glue" I used.  I actually had two leftover from old projects.  Since one of them was clear and I knew I didn't want any type of finish on the glitter, that is the one I used to spray on top of the glitter after the feathers were dry.  You can get both of these at Menards.

I wanted a gold dipped look so I went up just enough on the bottom of the feathers to achieve that look. Spray both sides of the feather liberally and then pour glitter on both sides.  You can also just use gold spray paint for the adhesive if you have it!

I let the feathers dry over night just because it was easier that way.  You could probably start working on them again after 6 hours though.  Just be sure that the glitter adhered to the feather as well as you wanted. When you are ready to work on them again, tap the feather lightly to let any excess glitter come off and spray the clear sealant on both sides to seal the glitter.

While my feathers were drying, I hooked up the light kit to my frame.  For those who aren't electrically savvy, this comes in a kit, so it's pretty easy to figure out.  You will follow the instructions just as if you were installing it onto a lamp base.  Also, depending on which frame you got, you will need to decide if you want your light bulb facing up or facing down behind the feathers.  I chose down.

Once that is in and the feathers are dry, we start hanging!  I took the end of each feather and put a nick in it with a razor blade (BE CAREFUL!!) just to make sure that the fishing line did not come loose or slip off. Double tie the fishing line around the feather and then double tie it onto the frame.  Cut the excess fishing line off after each feather.  I did not and waited until the end and it was a pain in the butt!

I also staggered my feathers at varying heights so it didn't look so uniform plus it gives it some depth.

And that was it!!  The only thing I have left to do is have my husband hang it from the ceiling in the corner! I can only do so much, plus me and drywall really have a love hate relationship :)  I will put a pic up once it is hung.  I got a simple white chain so that it blends in with the ceiling.

This is probably my second favorite project that I have done, next to my Union Jack antique coffee table!!

Anyone up for the challenge??  I would love to see pics if you make this!

What is your favorite DIY project that you have done?

Let me know in the comments below!

Have a great day!!