7 DIY Beauty Hacks Some Use Essential Oils

It's no shock to anyone that knows me that I am a huge doTERRA Oils fan. If it weren't for balance and serenity (or liquid Xanax as we call it) earlier today I am fairly certain I would have lost my sh...stuff. I am trying very hard to stop my sailor raised ways. Anyways my love of oils has prompted me to write a blog on all the ways you can DIY beauty products. Not just using doTERRA  but I am partial. Ok so here is the list. There are tons of things other than this out there but these are the ones I have tried.

1. Mint Bath Salts- This is a super easy recipe and great for beginners. You can replace mint with any other oil you particularly like. First you put 2 cups epson salt in a glass jar, add in 6 drops of glycerin( we use vegetable) and 10 drops peppermint oil. Mix it up and done. To use add 2 tbls to a hot bath. 
   
2. Honey Vanilla Sugar Scrub- This one is oil free and you can make it with stuff found in most homes. First you scoop 1 cup of brown sugar into a bowl, and in 1/4 cup of oil (we prefer coconut oil), stir in 1 tbls vanilla extract and 1 tbls honey. Mix well. To use rub onto dry or cracked areas like feet, then rinse and dry. Follow with a good moisturizer. 
   
3. Homemade Hand Sanitizer- If you are a germophobe like me then you probably spend a small fortune in hand sanitizer. Not anymore. Use this recipe to save money and do it naturally without alcohol fumes. Mix 3 tablespoons aloe vera gel with 1/4 teaspoon vitamin E oil into a small glass misting bottle. Add 10 drops On Guard essential oils and fill to the top with water. Shake and you are ready for germs!
   
4. DIY Lip Stain- This one I have only done with a very light pink. It just tints my lips. results may vary with darker colors. All you do is chop up a crayon the color you want. Put some water on med low heat, place a glass bowl inside of the pot. Then you put a tablespoon of coconut oil into the bowl, then a few pieces of crayon. Let it cool before handling but when still liquid but not boiling transfer into small lip gloss container. 
   
5. After Sun Spray aka Burn Buster- You will need a glass misting bottle, peppermint and lavender essential oil and aloe vera gel.  You will mix 10 drops peppermint, 10 drops lavender, 2 tbs of aloe gel and fill with water. Then simply spray where you are sun burnt. This also works on stove and other burns. 
   
6. DIY Bubble Bath- Mix 1 cup unscented soap, 1 cup vegetable glycerin, 2 tbs of water, and 15 drops of an essential oil of your choice into a glass container and pour 2 tbs in at bath. 
   
7. Last one Wrinkle Reducing face cream- This stuff is awesome and also helps with my under eye circles. All you do is mix 1/4 cup shea butter, 1/4 cup coconut oil, 9 drops Frankincense and 6 drops Lavender. Put it in a mason jar and BAM you are done! 
   

The child does not always represent the parent.

So today I am not the craft crazed Momma. I am just a tired, confused, lacking direction Momma. And you know what? That is perfectly OK. We, as parents, wont ever be 100%. We as humans wont. In the words of a friend, "Go up to your nearest 80 year old and ask them if they have their shit together. Chances are they will tell you that they don't." You will never be the perfect parent, no matter how hard you try. Your child will never be the perfect child. AND THAT IS OK. The important thing is you are trying. Your babies love you. You may have burnt the meatloaf, but you found the recipe and TRIED IT. That is what is important. I am so tired of hearing that the child represents the parent. You could have a strong willed child, like me, who will fight you every step of the way regardless of how hard you try. You could have a special needs child who needs a special form of parenting. When your child acts up or doesn't listen, it's not a reflection of you. Its your child being a child. A messy, lovable, needing direction child. Don't let anyone tell you different. Don't get down on yourself because you tried what a friend told you worked for her son, and all your son did was get worse (beeeeeen there). Not every child is the same. They don't come with a manual. Parenting is hard and messy, but the reward is so worth it. The love is worth it. Never stop trying and you are succeeding.

Love,
The Craft Crazed Momma

DIY Fairy Wands for Fairy Party

Hi everyone! 

Tonight you are going to learn how to make DIY fairy wands using things you can find around the house. 

Aren't they precious! So lets get down to making them. Here are a few things you will need.

• Fabric scraps (could be old clothing in a bind)
• Sticks from your yard
• Cardboard(in our case the end piece of a notebook)
• Printer or the ability to draw
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Glitter (optional)

Step one is to find a template for the wand shaped. We used rounded edge stars. If you can draw this then awesome! More power to you! I however am to much of a perfectionist when it comes to crafting and could not settle with an uneven star. Here is our template. 

Please excuse the blurry photo. I had a 6 year old helping. Anyways you will want to print preview before you print to make sure the template is the right size. Once you have printed the right size go ahead and cut it out. You will want to cut out the inside of the star( flower or whatever you chose) So the black part from above. When you get the interior cut out you will trace it on to your cardboard, like below. 

Next step is to cut out each star. This is a ton easier with an x-acto knife. If you brave the scissors, don't say I didn't warn you. After you get them all cut you will trace the cardboard stars on to the fabric scraps, you will want double fabric squares to your cardboard pieces. So if you have 8 cardboard stars, you want 16 fabric stars. Here is ours. 

Now guess what?? We cut some more!! YAY! I promise you are done cutting after this. Ok so now you want to plug in your hot glue gun and warm that baby up. Now go search for some sticks. We spray painted ours but that's not necessary as fairies are from nature. Here are ours. 

Now that you have all your pieces cut and gathered. We assemble the wands. First you will put a dollop of glue on the lower end of your first star and connect the stem of the wand, like below. And repeat with all the others.

Next you are going to cover the cardboard with the fabric scraps. Just go around the edges of the cardboard star with glue then press the fabric on lightly. You may want to use a pop-sickle stick as the glue can burn you. Repeat on the other side. 

 Now you can decorate with jewels or glitter like we did in the first picture. Your wand is don. Now for the other 5 million......

OMG you make your child do CHORES?!?!

So a ton of people say that we are too hard on our son. We make him do chores, he earns everything he gets, and he uses manners or is reprimanded. If you don’t like the sound of those things stop reading now. Here’s the thing YES we are hard on our son, but the world will be harder. Yes he does chores at 6, but at 26 he won’t have to rely on his girlfriend to show him how to run a washing machine. Yes he gets reprimanded for not using manners, but we refuse to raise an entitled spoiled brat, there are way too many of those as it is. I am raising a son who will respect the women in his life. A man who will know the feeling of earning your keep after a hard day work. Most importantly a man who won’t need to rely on anyone other than himself to get things done. Those types of men are a dying breed and I refuse to let them die with my son’s generation. If you are here because you agree and are raising a boy who will turn into that type of man but you need help, look no further. Momma we all need help or direction every now and then. Below you will find directions on how we do things. He earns tokens and cashes them in to play with his toys, or watch TV. If he has torn up a pair of shoes or ruined one of my fabric shears he uses his tokens like money. If he doesn’t have enough to “buy” new shoes and play with his toys then he doesn’t play. You know just like the real world where if you have to replace your tires because you did a burn out (No of course I’ve never!) and now you can’t go to the movies with that friend. Same idea. He doesn’t just earn tokens for chores either. Good behavior, good grades, or educational activities also earn him tokens. I will include a list of things he does and how many tokens he earns for each. As well as the cost of some common things. Good luck and remember not every child is the same and what works for me may need to be tweaked for your home. You are trying and that is the best thing you can do.

Chores and other things and what it gets our 6 year old:

• Clean his room- 0 tokens- this is expected and he gets nothing but can lose tokens for not doing it.
• Make his bed- 0 tokens- Again expected
•  Set dinner table- ¼ token
•  Pick up after dinner- ¼ token
• Straighten Bathroom counter- ¼ token
• Wipe down dinning table- ¼ token
•  Dust living room- ½ token
• Sweep driveway- ½ token
• Take out the trash- ¼ token
•  Load washing machine- ¼ token
• Dump bathroom and bedroom trash- ¼ token
• Check mail- ¼ token
• Fold his clothes- ½ token
• Wipe out bathroom sink- ¼ token
• Great day at school- 1 token
• 8 educational workbook pages- 1 token
• Reading 2 books on his own- 1 token

How he uses his tokens:

• TV time costs 1 token for 45 minutes
•  A movie costs 2 tokens
• I equal 2 tokens to $1 so if he needs new shoes I make him spend 10 tokens on his shoes. He cannot use his tokens on anything else until his shoes are “paid for”
• His closet is where all his toys are kept and he get to play in his closet for 1 token for an hour and a half.
• His Lego’s are in a toy box and he gets to play in it for 1 token for an hour and a half.

You may be wondering what he does when he doesn't have tokens? He plays outside. Outside time is always free. It burns off his energy and leaves me a bit of “me time.”

Here is an example of a day in our home. Carl comes home after a great day at school (1 token) and cleans the bathroom sink (¼ token), straightens up the bathroom (¼ token), takes out the trash (¼ token) and wipes down the table (¼ token). He then has attitude with mom and loses one token. He uses his one token remaining to watch TV for 45 minutes then goes outside to play for free. When he comes in he does his homework (NO TOKEN) and asks to do workbook pages to make up his lost token. He earns another token but it’s too late to use it as we are going into dinner and bath time routine so he banks it for tomorrow.  

Hopefully you have a better understanding of how this system works now. I will say that while it works 90% of the time there are days that I just don’t want to do it. But consistency and determination are key. It has been the only thing to work for my strong willed ADHD child, along with some balance and serenity. You got this Momma! 

Revamping of a French Provincial Dresser

Hi Guys,
One of my favorite hobbies as a crafter is redoing old furniture. I love to thrift store shop and make a $50 dresser (including delivery) like the one below on the top, turn into something magical like the one on the bottom. Believe it or not I redid that with less than $40 YES REALLY! Its completely doable and below I will walk you through how I did it.

You may not be able to see it int the picture above but the top of the finished dresser actually has a decorative top. That looks like this.

Except its cut out and pretty! But we will get to that more later. A list of things you will need is below. 

• Wood Glue
• A variety of sizes of paint brushes & rollers
• Latex Primer
• Colored paint in your choice (we used Behr Ultra Pure White)
• Spray paint for hardware or new hardware
• Polycrylic Sealer
• Wrapping paper that matches
• Modge Podge
• X-acto knife
• lots and lots of time and patience!

First things first you will want to scrub your furniture really really well. Ours was actually quite grimy and needed two days worth of scrubbing. I used doTERRA lemon oil mixed with water to clean the dresser. A few spots I had to use a q-tip, like the filigree for example. If you want more info on oils for safe and natural cleaning you can contact me here in the comments section. Here is our dresser after being cleaned.

If your thrift find is anything like mine it will be quite beat up and maybe even missing a few pieces, example above with the missing round handle on the bottom right drawer. If it is you will want to fix that before starting the revamp. This is where the wood glue comes in. We used Elmer's Wood Glue and a 1/2" paint brush for this step. Ill post a picture below so you can easily identify it in stores. Our drawer front were actually coming off the drawers. So we used wood glue to fill in the cracks and make the dresser more secure. The picture to the right is what you need, the middle is before wood glue and the right is after. You will want to do two or three coats of wood glue depending on the severity of your cracks. WAIT 12 HOURS in between each application. You want to be sure you are filling things that need filled and not over doing it. 

As you can see it really helps to fix a ton of damage just due from old age. You will want to repeat that step on all cracks and drawers. If you plan on reusing the paint brush you used with glue WASH IT NOW. Or bye bye brush because it will be hard and crusty and useless. Well you may be able to stir the paint later with it but that is it. Next is the super fun task of priming!! YAY (can you hear the sarcasm?) This is without a doubt the most important(and boring)part. By priming correctly with a good quality primer you can avoid sanding, an equally boring but much more time consuming process. We use Kilz Latex Primer on everything. That stuff is magic! You will want to prime all the drawers, inside and out, the body of the dresser and the interior of any filigree. We did three coats. When this is done correctly you should only need one or two coats of your final color. Primer makes the paint stick and not be absorbed by the wood. Plus it holds up so much better in the long run. 

There is the magic stuff and our drawers ready for paint! The paint you use is also important. You do not want to get the cheapest stuff you can find, but buying $45 for a gallon of paint is pointless. We went with Behr paint in Ultra Pure White from Home Depot. We only used about half of the one quart because its good quality. We did 2 coats. You will want to be sure to get into the rivets and curves of the dresser. Otherwise your finish will look, well unfinished. Who wants that after all this work? Not me. 

See how the one on the left just sorta looks messy? That's what you don't want. The one on the right is much better. 

So now you have a completely painted dresser in your chosen color. The filigree is nice and clean looking and all the interiors of the drawers are also painted. Now for the fun part. The topper! I literally went to target and chose a wrapping paper for $4.99. If you are OCD or have issues with bumps or air bubbles you will want to get a highly patterned paper or wall paper. If you are ok with some shab in your chic then regular paper is fine. The possibilities are endless! You can use wood photography paper backdrop, or damask wallpaper, or even polka dot wrapping paper! Drawer liners would work on some size tops too! So choose what you like and get it. If you use drawer liners you will prob have an adhesive back and wont need modge podge so you can skip the next step. 

  

One the right is your supplies. In the middle you are measuring the paper and cutting it down so its easier to handle. I did not do that and I wish I would have. I left it on the roll. BAD IDEA. On the right I a working in sections doing about 6 inches of modge podge then smoothing down the paper. Continue until you reach the dressers ledge. Slowly rub as many air bubbles as you can out. Start at the center and work towards the ends. You will have some left but after you place things on the dresser, desk, ect you wont see it. Now for the tricky part, cutting the paper to fit the edges on a french provincial. 

You are going to want a VERY sharp x-acto knife like on the left. I use a crafters x-acto as it is easier to handle. The picture on the right shows the angle you should hold your knife at for the shaping. By the way it is SUPER hard to take pictures on your cell phone while using both hands on a project. Really hard, Try it! Anyways excuse the bad quality and fuzziness. Back to business, you hold the knife at around a 45 degree angle fro the dresser. You will want to move very slow and hold the paper out pulled tight. Be sure your modge podge is dry or you can have soggy spots that do not cut well. Go around the entire dresser moving slow using one hand to cut and one to hold. If its not perfect that's ok, our next step will help to smooth it out. 

The last step is using the polycrylic sealer and sealing the dresser. I only sealed the top. If you didn't prime(shame on you not listening) or used bad quality paint you will want to seal the whole dresser. It is important to move the brush in the same direction each pass. You don't want to go left to right once and up and down the next or you will have ugly lines in crazy directions all over your gorgeous new top! Be sure to put sealer over the edge of the paper where the paper and paint meet. This will smooth out those rough spots that didn't cut like it should have. We did three coats sealer. It only took about 2 hours to do the whole top. Spray paint your hardware or add new and guess what guys?!? Your new dresser is done!