DIY State Baby Onesie

Here's a really quick (and easy!) DIY project for the baby in your life! I've been thinking about making these for a while now, so I finally made one for one of my nieces today. It seriously took me less than 20 minutes to do this onesie.

Supplies: 
Baby onesie
Piece of fabric big enough for your state
State (cut out)
heat n bond
sewing machine w/ thread (or needle & embroidery floss)


Directions:

Print off map of your state. Scale to your desired size. I printed this map poster style (4 sheets of paper for the whole map) out for my scrap map and then enlarged it 120%. Cut out desired state and a piece of heat n bond big enough for that state. Iron onto "wrong" side of fabric. Flip over & pin cut out state to "right" side of fabric. Cut out state. Remove state & backing from heat n bond. Place on onesie in desired location. Iron on. Sew around edges about 1/8th of an inch in from the edge. Pull top threads through to the back and cut off. Put on your favorite baby and enjoy! :)

And um....if you live in a square state (ahem, CO & WY), this will work for pretty much any shape you want to cut out & sew around! Go crazy! ;)

Love at First Sight

Remember how I said I have craft ADD? Weeeeell...I started a new project! :D While I always have projects in mind (even though I've never really followed through on most of them), none of those projects have inspired me and forced me to become a do-it-yourselfer....until I found THIS project a little while ago. Instantly, I knew: I HAD to do this. THIS was THE project that was going to launch me out in the deep of craftydom.

My (newly clean yesterday!) desk and crafting table now look like this:

Oops. It is totally worth it though. ;)

Coconut Ice Cream in a Bag

What do you do when it's 9:00 at night and you realllllly need some ice cream? Well, if you're me, usually you're out of luck because the only ice cream I eat is dairy-free Coconut Bliss and the only one store in town that carries it closes at 8 PM. However, on Pinterest lately (LOVE that site!), I've seen ice cream in a bag pins popping up all over the place. I was skeptical at first, but I decided to give it a try.

Coconut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 can coconut milk (about 3 2/3 cups)
1/3 cup Sugar in the Raw cane sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Blend all the ingredients together with a hand mixer. I think I added a little too much sugar, because I felt it was too sweet. I'm not used to eating sugar. :) Pour ingredients in a pint-size ziploc bag. Seal tightly. Fill a gallon ziploc bag half full with ice; add in 6 tpsp. rock salt. Put smaller bag in gallon bag; seal tightly (suck the air out). Shake until mixture becomes ice cream, anywhere from 5 minutes on up. Enjoy!

The verdict? Delish! I ate mine with a microwaved mixture of almond butter & chocolate sauce. Yummmmm.....

Sew Very Happy

I sewed this! No, it's not perfect and yes, it might be a little silly, but it is mine and I sewed it! :) I can't take credit for the idea however. That would belong to Kate over at See Kate Sew. I'm trying to get into doing crafts again, because I miss it so much! And I know I will need creative outlets to deal with my stress. I started small with this project. It was perfect for beginning my crafting streak again. Sewing is NOT like riding a bike, I learned. It takes a while to remember the basics. And then I'm gonna hafta teach myself more advanced stuff. But until then, I'm gonna wear my little pink riding hoodie and sing "I Feel Pretty" into my hairbrush. :D

(After looking at her tutorial again, I think I shall iron the ruffle down so it doesn't stick up quite so much! lol)

I linked up over at Key Lime Digital Designs blog.

DIY Face Moisturizer

I've been taking a good look at my whole life for two months now, trying to see what I can improve. One of these areas that I have been concerned about for a long time is chemicals. Not only have I been cutting out foods that have super long ingredient lists (the longer the list, the more crazy stuff that can harm you is in there), but I've been trying to make my own if I can. That brings me to today's post. Our skin is our largest organ. Just imagine that whatever you are slathering on your skin you are slathering on your organs. Basically, that is what happens. Whatever is on our skin gets absorbed by the skin into the body. That's why I have finally decided to make my own lotion, starting with my face moisturizer. Now I can be in control of what is going into my body. I picked up the book Do It Gorgeously by Sophie Uliano, and let me tell you, most of it is a great read. She has a lavender and chamomile moisturizer recipe that is supposed to be for oily skin, so that is what I made. It has jojoba oil in it, which is supposed to mimic the face's oil production, prompting it to stop producing more oil. I stopped using moisturizer about a month and a half ago. While the rest of my face looks pretty good, my forehead has been crazy oily ever since! I hope this works...I'll let you know how it goes! It took a bit of an upfront investment to buy all the ingredients, but they're supposed to last for at least 10 bottles. That means I spend about $5 a bottle. Not too shabby, considering the chemical-laden Olay moisturizer that I bought every other month was about $14. So, not only is making your own lotion healthier for you, it is healthier for the environment (no plastic bottles being thrown away) and cheaper too! Win-win-win! :)

P.S. I'm not going to repost the recipe because I'm sure that would be copyright infringement or something like that. Go check it out at the library or Barnes and Noble. If you do make it, don't put it in a bottle like I did. Put it in a jar wide enough that you can use your fingers to scoop it out. It turns into a cream-like substance rather than being like lotion. Lastly, the chamomile essential oil is muy expensive so I got a sample at Eden Botanicals for $3 plus $4 for shipping. :)

UPDATE: This moisturizer IS pretty oily so I think I will use it at night. I don't know what I'll do for daytime moisturizer yet. My skin looks fabulous this morning though! It absorbed all the oil from the cream and didn't give me pimples or anything. :)