Melt & Pour Honey Almond Oatmeal Soap

In my roundup of quick handmade gift ideas for the holidays, one of the projects I listed was the honey almond oatmeal soap over at Just Deanna. I was looking for a quick gift idea for my co-workers, so I decided to try it out! The process was so easy, but it was the name that got me.

Honey? Good. Almond? Good. Oatmeal? Good. All together in a soap? Awesome.

I gathered all my supplies at Hobby Lobby (I just needed some soap and fragrance, I already had the oatmeal at home) and got to work. Let me tell you, this is SO easy to do. Deanna said this project is perfect for a kid to do, and she's so right. All that was involved is melting, mixing, and pouring.

I may have found a new obsession.

I always love getting blocks of yummy smelling soaps that look like they come from fancy boutiques.

I'll let you check out Deanna's post for the actual soap making tutorial, but I did change the quantities around some because I found the amount of oatmeal to be too much, and I substituted shea butter soap for the goat's milk soap. Instead of mixing 6 cubes of soap with 1/2 cup of oatmeal, I actually cut the oatmeal in half and mixed it with 12 cubes of melted soap at a time. This left me with about 2 1/2 batches instead of 5. The oatmeal that you add in makes it great for exfoliation, but if you'd rather have a nice solid bar of soap, you can leave that out.

I wrapped them in freezer paper and used my Silhouette to cut out some cute tags that I attached with embroidery thread.

My co-workers loved them! I only wish I had made more, the soap itself is really creamy and the smell is delicious. The honey almond fragrance is light and not overwhelming at all. Best of all, the whole process to produce a batch of 6 bars took under half an hour. I'll definitely be making more in the future.

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I'm back!

Happy 2012! I hope everyone had a great holiday break, I know we did! We took a 10-day long vacation to visit family and friends in Pittsburgh for the holidays. It was really great to unwind, recharge and just enjoy spending time with everyone.

These two had an especially good time over the break. They were spoiled rotten for Christmas with tons of gifts from both sides of the family. I feel like I could easily open my own Toys R Us in my house right now.

(Sorry in advance for the photo bombing!)

We made up for lost time and spent lots of time with family. It was nice to just sit around and laugh with each other. We also ate a lot of really good food, which I will be making up for over the next few weeks :)

I'm glad we ended up not getting a Christmas tree. Yaya and Papa (my husband's parents) had at least 4 decorated trees that I can remember. There may have been more.

While we were in town, we also got to celebrate our little niece Avalene's second birthday.

The party was "snow" themed, so we pretty much added lots of snowflakes to the existing Christmas decorations and made our own little winter wonderland. My sister-in-law, Shannon, was the mastermind behind pretty much all of the decor.

I just loved her winter scene on the table, complete with little snowy cupcakes!

Above the table, we strung lights and little tissue paper poufs.

I used my Silhouette to cut out lots of snowflakes to make garlands and hang from the ceiling.

And for the party favors, Shannon used mason jars, hobby trees, and plastic animals to make snow globes. There were so adorable!

For the food, there was a pasta bar with all of the fixin's. (PS you know you're a blogger when you stand off to the side taking artsy pictures of mushrooms and olives.)

We had such a great time but like always, the time spent with family was too short. I'm looking forward to a new year with lots more great memories!

Oh Christmas pole, oh Christmas pole

Since we're out of town for the holidays this year, we didn't get a Christmas tree. I absolutely love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree in the house, it's just more fun when you're there on Christmas morning to enjoy it. So this year, in place of a Christmas tree we have a Christmas pole.

One night while the kids were sleeping, Patrick and I strung lights around the pillar in our entryway. Haley was so excited to see the lights when she woke up the next day. She ran out and yelled, "Mommy and Daddy, it's CHRISTMAS!"

My daughter is obsessed with everything Christmas related this year, probably because she's finally old enough to understand that this time of the year is special. She doesn't quite understand what "Christmas" is yet, she just thinks that anything having to do with lights or snowflakes or Santa is called "Christmas." We're working educating her about what Christmas is actually about, but for now it's just cute to see her get so excited about lights and decorations.

As for Connor, he keeps trying to eat the lights. At this age, everything is food.

Merry Christmas everyone! I will be MIA for the next 10 days or so while I enjoy some much-needed family time. I hope everyone has a blessed holiday and a happy New Year!

Gifts that can be made in an hour or less

It's crunch time! I can't believe Christmas is 4 days away. If you're like me, you've probably procrastinated a little bit.

Here's a roundup of some quick and easy tutorials that are mostly upcycled from things you probably already have on hand, and can be made in an hour or less.

Click on the pictures below to be taken to the full tutorial.

Easy DIY gifts for the holidays

Need some ideas for a few last minute (and inexpensive) handmade gifts that you can whip up this weekend? Here are a few of my favorites from around blogland:

 Flower hairpins at Craftstylish

Cute and easy headband (made from a sleeve!) at Maybe Matilda

Honey almond oatmeal soap bars from Just Deanna

Photo tile coasters from Oopsey Daisy

Ball jar sewing kit at Frugalicious Me

Bubble magnets at My Own Road

Magnetic paper dolls at Make it and Love it

For even more ideas, check out my board full of gift ideas and giftwrap on Pinterest. You can also see all of my boards and follow me HERE.

Happy (handmade) Holidays!

Printable nativity

See the details for my Christmas mantel HERE

In the 3 1/2 years we've been married, my husband and I have yet to gather a large quantity of Christmas decorations. What we do have is a small box full of donated ornaments from our family members and a few small things I managed to find at after Christmas sales.

Lame, I know.

This year since we're going to be out of town for Christmas, I wanted to get a little more festive and that included wanting to put up a nativity. Problem: we have no nativity in our small box of ornaments. Solution: make a printable one!

Want to make the easiest nativity you've ever made?

I simply went to Fontspace.com and did a search for "nativity fonts." I found the SL Christmas Silhouettes font that I absolutely loved, then downloaded and opened Photoshop (you can also use Word if you don't have Photoshop.) Typing in the letter C gave me my nativity scene, then the letter U gave me the star. From there, all I had to do was print it up and frame it.

Easy!

There are other pictures you could use instead. The other great part about using a font like this one is if you have a Silhouette, you could download and cut this font to make cute pictures on canvases, cards, etc!

I included printable nativities below in silver, blue or red. Just right click on the image and save to your computer, then print out the size you want. (All printables are for personal use only!)

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DIY hurricane vase

You can see details for my entire Christmas mantel HERE

Isn't the Dollar Store a wonderful place? It's full of tons of cheap goodies just waiting to be improved on.

Plus, I can walk in there and buy a whole basket of stuff without making a dent in my budget. You just have to get a little creative sometimes.

Take these vases and martini glasses for example. Pretty blah. But with a little glue and spray paint, they make a great addition to my holiday mantel!


Supplies:

• Vase (found at the Dollar Store)
• Martini glass (found at the Dollar Store)
• Krylon metallic spray paint
• E600 adhesive
• Filler

Step 1: Spray paint your martini glasses.

In a well-ventilated area (outdoors preferably) apply several coats of metallic paint to your martini glasses.

Make sure you actually pay attention to directions and don't spray too close or turn your glass over before the paint is drying or you'll end up with some drippage like I did...oops.

Step 2: Apply your adhesive.

After you've been a good girl and followed the drying rules for the spray paint, apply some of your adhesive to the bottom of your vase and glue to the bottom of your martini glass, making the part of the martini glass where you would drink from the base of your hurricane vase. Hopefully I didn't confuse you too much there.

Let your glue dry, and how you have some adorable hurricane vases!

Fill with any filler you like (I chose a pack of assorted small Christmas ornaments) and decorate away! I also decided to tie some ribbon on mine to make them even more festive.

These make great decorations year-round.

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