Filling a Picture Frame With Magazine Pages

This might be a temporary fix. I just really needed something to put in the frame!

I recently put a bookshelf in Willow's room, because after two years of living in this house she still didn't have one. On the same day I did that project I ran across a frame that I got at a yard sale. I figured it was perfect because now I can make the bookshelf project feel more complete by adding something fancy and fun at the same time.

I didn't have any family pictures to put in the frame, so I thought for a second...then i realized I had a bunch of magazines that have tons of pictures in them. So I grabbed a stack and started going through them.

I found some really fun pages, with funky stuff on them, but I decided to go with a theme. I ended up choosing flowers.

I tried a couple different combinations...

Ultimately, I chose three kinds of flowers.

I trimmed the pages down, and used scotch tape to set them in place in the frame. I replaced the back of the frame, and ended up with this:

I am trying to decide whether I want to hang the frame vertically or horizontally.

I can easily replace the pictures whenever I want to. I know I will find better pictures to put in this frame, but it's better than it being empty!

Willow was very pleased with her new bookshelf and pretty pictures. I'm glad I could do something to make her books more accessible and to make her feel like Mama truly cares about her books and her bedroom.

Homemade, Natural Orange Dreamsicle Deodorant

My latest creation is so, so sweet. I am just so thrilled at how this product turned out. This is the formula that I plan on using for the next few weeks, and longer if it turns out to be as perfect as it seems. I found the recipe online and decided to give it a whirl. Here's where I found the recipe.

Creamy Homemade Deodorant Antiperspirant

My first attempt was good, and the tea tree lime scent that I used was heavenly. It just didn't seem to do the trick. I could still smell sweat, and it wasn't good. I also didn't have cocoa butter, but I have to add that I LOVE cocoa butter. The smell of it reminds me of being pregnant with my sweet babies. Very fond memories. I plan on picking some up when I have some cash to do so. What I had to do is add baking soda, and now the product works.


Ingredients:
4 1/2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 1/2 Tbsp. beeswax pastilles (or grated beeswax)
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. baking soda
8 drops tea tree essential oil
20 drops orange essential oil
7 drops vanilla extract (if you don't have a dropper for this, use a spoon and let it drip off)


Materials:
small pan
pyrex glass bowl
metal spoon- for stirring and scooping
whisk- handy for mixing the powders in
clean, dry containers with lids- to hold product
~or~ wash out an empty deodorant tube.
measuring cup
measuring spoons

The Process:
~I made sure I had gathered everything I need.
~Put the pan on the stove on about medium heat.
~Fill pan with water part way, and put the pyrex bowl on top, so that the water heats the bowl.
~Heat the water hot enough to melt the wax, but not boiling. Always check to make sure the water doesn't evaporate.
~Add coconut oil and beeswax pastilles to the pyrex bowl, stir with a spoon occasionally, let them melt.
~Turn heat off or down.
~Add tea tree, and orange essential oils, mix well.
~Add the vanilla extract, mix well.
~Slowly add the cornstarch and baking soda, mixing well with a whisk.
~Scoop the mixture, carefully, into a little jar or container of choice (we didn't have a deodorant tube).

Notes:
I've found it's easiest to mix the powders into the melted coconut oil and beeswax with a whisk in the pyrex bowl. It's much easier than having to scrape the sides of a pan to get all of the ingredients mixed in.

The baking soda in this recipe makes it a little "grainy", but without the baking soda the recipe didn't seem to work well enough. If you want to make it less grainy, you could use less baking soda. It really helps to keep you dry, and that's why I used as much as I did.

The scent in this formula is quite gentle, and can be kicked up a bit by adding more orange essential oil and more vanilla extract. Do this gradually, so you don't add too much scent!



Warnings:

1. This is a natural deodorant with some antiperspirant properties. It probably won't work all the time. I tend to apply it a few times per day, just to keep it working. I have found that it works better than the Tom's brand natural deodorant that I was using, but it's not as fragrant.

2. This is made with coconut oil. It can stain your clothing. Please take that into consideration.

3. The essential oils in this recipe could be irritating to some people's skin. If you are sensitive to them, you can omit them from the recipe.

4. Please be careful using orange essential oil, or other oils that can cause phototoxicity, on skin that will be exposed to sunlight. It can cause damage to your skin. You can learn more about that here.

I will add pictures when I can...Enjoy~

~Amanda Star~

Homemade Natural Furniture Polish

Do I think this deserves it's very own post? Why yes, yes I do. In fact I don't understand why I hadn't made it sooner. I have always wondered what kind of yucky stuff is in furniture polish. I've used many different kinds throughout the years, mostly because I was using what was around while cleaning for someone else. Now I know better, and I wish the whole world would wake up and realize that what they are using in their own homes is just plain nasty. A couple times I have almost bought furniture polish from natural food stores, but I ended up using our money for something else that we needed. Now I will never buy furniture polish again. Never.

I believe in natural housekeeping. I also believe in frugal housekeeping, and this recipe fits both of those standards. I wish I could educate everyone in the world about how to keep their homes clean and greatly reduce the amount of harmful chemicals that people use everyday. This recipe is so simple that you will probably kick yourself (like I did, or tried to) for not trying it sooner. I wondered if it would really work the way I it wanted to, but it did, and I was amazed.

So here it is. If you are here reading this, I hope you take two minutes out of your day to try it.

This is what you need:

•  container with a tight cover to hold the mixture (I use a small mason jar, but you could reuse a squeeze bottle, or a bottle with a screw cap)
• measuring cup (or any cup that you could use to measure with, it's not an exact science, I used a drinking glass and eyeballed it)
• olive oil
• vinegar
• your favorite essential oil (optional, for scent, I use lemon essential oil)
• A label (I just use whatever I can find. I write the ingredients and what the product is)

Instructions: Mix one part olive oil with one part vinegar, and add some essential oil for scent (as much as you like). Now just put the cover on and shake well. That's it.

I use a textured washcloth and polish with the grain of the wood. It removes all those little fingerprints that my 3 year old leaves on everything.

The Beginning!

Hello blog world! My name is Amanda, and I am a mama residing in Washington state. It's beautiful and green here, and we are surrounded by mountains and the Strait of Juan Defuca. I am currently a stay at home mom for now, and it's working out pretty good minus the fact that we only have one income, but we survive. It's not a bad life at all.

I've been wanting to start this blog for months now, and I am finally doing it. I do a lot of projects with my daughter and I would love to have a place to document all of them. She is three, turning four in May, and we are doing some Pre-K homeschooling and I also give her lessons about sabbats and Pagan traditions. We are also striving to live "green" lives the best we can, so we have a lot of projects that we do and I would love to share them all! I'm very excited to start this project and I hope I can make some new friends along the way.

Today we aren't doing anything too exciting. My daughter, Willow, is playing next to me at the kitchen counter with a sensory bin that I made for her about a week ago. If you don't know what a sensory bin is, and you have young children, you should definitely check them out!

Basically, a sensory bin is exactly what it is described as. It's a bin full of things that stimulate your child's senses. It is visually, texturally, and audibly stimulating, and can even stimulate their sense of smell if you add a scent to the bins contents. We are having so much fun with the one we made, and we plan on doing many more in all different themes. I recently learned about them from a mom in a group that I'm part of on CafeMom.

I have pictures! I take a lot of pictures, so be ready for lots of eye candy! I am a shutterbug at heart. It works out pretty good, because we get to document so many fun things that we do as a family. So here's Willow's "garden flowers and bugs" themed sensory bin...

She plays with this thing for so long, and it sparks so much creativity and imagination! The best part is that I didn't have to spend a single extra penny on it. We had all the supplies for this project right here at home. The bin is just a small sterilite container with a cover that I had kicking around that I bought at Walmart (about $1.50 when I bought it a couple years ago), the beans are some that we don't really eat so we found a way to use them, the flowers I bought at the Dollar Tree over the past couple years for various projects, and all the toys I dug out of her toy boxes.

I have found some great pictures on Pinterest of sensory bins using a wide variety of themes. Since we are a pagan family, we plan on doing some for the different sabbats, instead of mainstream religious holidays. I have also seen some with cute themes such as construction vehicles, ocean life, cooking, outer space, and seasons. Fun stuff!

Of course, you can buy things to put in a sensory bin if you want. In the future if we need to find some inexpensive store bought supplies I plan on checking out our local Dollar Tree store, Target dollar bins, yard sales, thrift stores, and JoAnn Fabrics dollar bins.

As you can see, she digs right in!

Have a great day, and I'll be back to post more silly, fun stuff another time.