That you can plant used up green onions in a small jar of water.
Cchange the water everyday and see this in a few days???

Last week I hinted about something the girls and I were doing - we made soap!

This picture is of homemade lye. It was a long process with buckets and hay and rocks and filtering and ashes...whew! We finally got a strong mixture of lye and tested it by floating an egg in it - hence the mystery picture!

BUT...Once I had the lye and the oils all ready I could not find a recipe for making soap using homemade lye. I guess what we made was potassium hydroxide (fancy eh?!) but commercial lye is sodium hydroxide. The two are not interchangeable and we quite possibly have blown up our kitchen had we tried. :)

So, a quick trip to Ace Hardware to get the commercial stuff was in order and we were off on our soap making adventure!

I had made it years ago and took a class at the time so a quick refresher for me and I was able to teach the girls. They were so excited and delighted to see it all come together.

We mixed our lye and water...
Melted our oils...
And let them both cool to 110 degrees.
We combined the two...
and mixed...
and mixed...
In fact we got so tired of mixing until we reached the "trace" stage that I ended up putting the whole thing in the kitchenaid mixer and let it do the work. Two hours later we reached the consistency we were looking for (I was beginning to lose hope!).

The prepared 'mold'...
At the last minute we mixed in our lavender and lemon essential oil and some pulverized oats for grit and poured it into the mold...
A couple of days later we cut it into bars. We were thrilled with the results and are all hooked.

The hardest part? Waiting the 4 weeks for it to cure before we can use it!

I came across this idea the other day for making yarn out of t-shirts. What a great idea! I had a few in my fabric storage and got to work making a few balls of yarn. There was also this idea for making a layered necklace and I immediately thought of my 16 year old. I whipped this up one evening while watching a movie and I love how it turned out!
***Shameless plug alert***...this one is actually for sale in our etsy store, but I made another all white one for my daughter - equally as nice!

So, I had to check the calendar twice the other day because I had NO IDEA that Thanksgiving was this close! When your temps are in the 70s and 80s most days, it is hard to tell when the seasons changed. I'm currently working on our thanksgiving meal plan and that is also the day we decorate for Christmas - that should be super strange!

Anyhoo - we were at the thrift store the other day and I spotted this covered glass canister and I was in love! I oohed and ahhed over it and kept walking past it. I could picture all the fun things I could do with it each season. For only $3.50 I really couldn't pass it up but I am so hard on myself when it comes to buying for me. My husband is always telling me to buy myself this or that but I have a hard time with it. Finally, he had enough of me 'wondering if I should' and grabbed it and stuck it on the counter with the other things we were buying!

FUN!!!
I've already changed it up a few times and look forward to seeing it change with the seasons.

There have been a few yard sales here lately and I scored some great finds for my little one last weekend. Everything her size was 50 cents each - I went back 3 times!

She is now the best dressed kid in town!4 Pairs of pants

3 Dresses

The cutest little piggie pjs

4 tops

A coat and a puffy vest
And the sweetest little boots!

(Now, if it would just get cold enough to wear these we'd be all set!)

The girls and I have a fun project going this week - I'll share more soon!

So, we were talking about Christmas the other day and my 12 year old says something like "I need to make more money so I can buy my Christmas gifts this year"

Gulp!

Instantly I was hit with "what are we instilling in this child?"

Enter...

"THE HANDMADE CHRISTMAS GIFT EXTRAVAGANZA!"
...I made a poster and everything to introduce it to the family :)

I figured it wouldn't be too much to ask for everyone to handmake at least one item for everyone else in the family. Of course, my brain is going ninety miles an hour thinking of all these great things I could make and when the latest Family Fun magazine came in the mail I knew just what my 20 month old was getting. Sure, she might tear it up by noon on Christmas day but it was fun to make.

Supplies:
The magazine suggested using a pair of child's tights in place of the shirt but I had the shirt in a pile of outgrown clothes and decided to put it to use and just sewed it into a tube - of sorts)

Any 1 liter bottle would work - I used a lemon juice bottle)
Cut and sew the shirt or just cut the tights into a 7" long tube.
Gather the top edge of the tube.
Stick the dowel in the tube up to the top and glue the wooden head onto the gathered bit.
Glue the bottom hem along the top edge of the bottle.
Cut out your shirt and hands from assorted fabrics.
Glue the bottom half onto the top half enclosing the hands in the sleeves.

Embellish with buttons and trim.Wind yarn around your hands and tie up, then cut apart to form the head of hair and glue it on.
Peek-a-boo!