Monday, December 30, 2013

Senior Year Ornament

Every child loves to think, wow as soon as I make it to senior year I am on top of the world, I am the big dogs at school, I am almost done.  I won't lie I have thought some of the same things.  So as I put my order in I got my decorative tassel.  Well I don't have a car so what am I to do with it, well how about a holiday ornament.  It keeps it from being around the rear-view mirror fading and out of harms way in bedrooms or a box.  This was definitely an easy project, that is once I found something with a large enough opening to fit the numbers through, and with the bottle it still was not very easy.  A bit of elbow grease was still needed!

Well I hope everyone had a great Holiday season and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!!
Love, Bekkah <3

Homemade Laundry Soap

 In my house money is tight, just like many other homes.  So we do anything we can to save money here or there.  As I was scrolling through Pinterest I saw a recipe for homemade laundry soap.  I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a try so when we went grocery shopping we got the ingredients and came home to try it.

Items needed:

  • Borax: 3 tablespoons
  • Washing Soda: 3 tablespoons
  • Dish soap: 2 tablespoons
  • hot water: 6 cups
  • old laundry detergent bottles (mine were 150 oz)
Step one:
     Start by getting all your items together.
Step two:
     By using a funnel it makes the whole process a lot quicker.  Start by putting your borax, washing soda, and dish soap in the laundry detergent bottle.  Then once you have your hot water (we just boiled it, but it doesn't have to be that hot) put the six cups into the bottle.  Give it a gentle shake, enough to dissolve the powder.  

Step three:
     Just keep going!  I started mixing batch after batch in a second bottle and added it to the first one.  Within 25 minutes I had almost two entire 150 oz bottles full. 

The Breakdown:
Box of Borax: $3.48
Box of Washing Soda: $3.69
Dish Soap: $1.97
*For the two bottles I filled I only used about a fourth of the ingredients*

Store bought laundry detergent 150 oz: $10-$13
Mischa even likes getting in on the action of crafting on warm sunny days!

Let me know what you think of the recipe!  It smells really good too!
Love, Bekkah <3

Bow Day Wednesday

It seems as though throughout the school year people come up with more and more excuses to not dress up and most of the school is full of students wearing sweats.  Well for me, I don't like wearing "frumpy" outfits.  A way for me to avoid that is by making up random dress-up days.  Everyone has heard of Tye-Dye Tuesday or Formal Friday; well I came up with my own. It started out with Scarf Day Tuesday, where a bunch of my friends and I all wore scarves on a random Tuesday and the idea stuck.  So then I began pushing for Bow Day Wednesday.  To help with the problem of wearing the same bow every week for Bow Day, I got crafty and started making my own and this is how I did it!

Items needed:

  • 9x6 inch fabric
  • 2 inch wide fabric
  • hot glue
  • needle and thread (optional)
  • iron (optional)

Step one:
      Start by ironing your fabric to remove any wrinkles that might make the edges uneven (even though I'm not big on making sure my edges are straight since they will be folded).
Step two:
      You want to fold one side of the material towards the middle-do this horizontally (hotdog).  Then do the same thing to the other side but overlapping the first side.

Step three:
      The next thing you want to do is fold the sides in starting with one and overlapping the second one.  This is the (hamburger) direction.

Step four:
      Now on the first flap you want to fold the corners in just like wrapping the sides of a present.  You do this to both flaps.

Step five:
      Up until this point you were just making the lines, now you can actually glue the edges down and together.  

 ^^^The back after gluing^^^
^^^The front after gluing^^^
Step six:
     Now you get too choose the dimples/lines on your bow.  You can do two or three, it just depends on how you pull the edges together.  Once you have them decided, glue them together... this gets somewhat difficult if your material is thick.  This is where you could use the needle and thread, to make the dimples more secure you could put a couple of stitches in.
Step seven:
     Take the smaller piece of fabric and fold it just like in step two.  Put the flat part on the front of the bow and glue the edges on the back.  If you made the strip long enough you can flip the end of the strip over itself to make a slot for a hair clip or bobby pin.


Finished Products:






I would love to see your new bows, so let me know what you think!  
Love, Bekkah <3