DIY Felt Rosette Wreath

I have this moral dilemma purchasing wreaths. They are all like $50 and never exactly what I want. So what ends up happening is I don't buy one and I don't make one and I have to rely on my mother/mother-in-law to coincidentally gift me one.

Not this year, my friends. This year I found a DIY wreath to make and oh how I'm going to make it. Only cost me about $18 for the felt and pool noodle. You also need crazy glue/a hot glue gun and duct tape. So overall it was about half the price of a store bought one...plus about 6 hours of labour.

Start by cutting the pool noodle to your desired size and then tape it aggressively into a circle. You can also get an actual wreath base but I was trying to do this as cheaply as possible.

I had to cut all my felt into these squares but you can probably purchase felt already in an appropriate size. Approximately 4in by 4in.

Then all of the squares need to be cut into circles.

And then into a spiral leaving a hole at the centre.

Once that is done (4 hours and a sore hand later) all you have to do is roll from the outside in and it creates these adorable rosettes.

Two hours later you are surrounded by rosettes. I love the colours. I initially wanted to do white, lavender and purple but alas Walmart only had these colous. I actually really like how bright and cheerful it is all multicoloured.

I may have needed a mimosa or two to get through this project but it was so much fun.

Once all your millions of rosettes are done (I needed somewhere between 130 and 150) you can hot glue them to the noodle in any design or pattern you want. 

Learn from my error moment: I hot glued straight onto the pool noodle.....which obviously melted the plastic immediately. Next time I will wrap the whole thing in duct tape to avoid that. I managed to make it work by applying the hot glue to the rosettes and then waiting a few seconds to let the glue cool a bit before putting it on.

The finished product! I love it! 

I filled in any small areas that you could see the pool noodle with a little piece of felt that matched a nearby rosette. 

Overall it was really easy, took a really long time but it was not complicated AT ALL. I managed to commision Will to do a bunch of the rosette rolling so that sped things up a little.

 It would be cool to do a black and orange one at Halloween. Maybe with some spiders or eyeballs on it. Red, green and white for Christmas with sparkles and bells. I've seen a couple other techniques to make different looking felt flowers and if I try that out I'll let you guys know!

Homemade Yogurt

 I decided to try making my own yogurt cause... well cause I'm cheap...that's the truth. A tub of yogurt costs $3-$4. I use 8 cups of skim milk (yes the weird Canadian kind in a bag) and it makes 8 cups of yogurt...for about $2.70. And it is pretty easy.

I have a temperature control on my slow cooker which makes the process easier as well. First you heat up the milk to 180 degrees. This kills all the other bacteria in the milk so the yogurt bacteria can grow. Unplug the slow cooker and check the temperature after 1.5 hours and then every 10-30 minute until its between 110 and 120. This is the ideal temperature for the yogurt bacteria to grow. Anything over 120 will kill that bacteria as well.

Mix in 1/2 cup of yogurt for every 8 cups of milk you used and then wrap the bad boy up. 

It needs to be completely dark, warm and unmoved for at least 12 hours. I usually leave it 14-16. The longer it sits the tangier it gets....and I likes it tangy.

The first time I made yogurt I just bought a small pod of yogurt to use as a starter but since then I just use the last of the yogurt I made the week before. 

And there you have it! Yogurt. Cheap cheap delicious yogurt. Initially the yogurt will have a lot of liquid on it...you can either stir it back in to make a more drinkable consistency or (what I do) spoon it off so the yogurt is thicker.

If you strain it with cheese cloth for a couple of hours you can get it to the thickness of Greek yogurt, if you prefer.

Favorite money saving trick ever.

DIY Bath Paint

I found a recipe online for bathpaints so OF COURSE I had to try it.

1/2 cup corn starch

1/2 cup clear or white shampoo/hand soap/dishsoap

2-5 drops of water depending on the thickness you want it

food colouring

And they turned out SO PRETTY! I'm pretty much obsessed. Not really the texture of paint (at all) but Daphne had a good time. And hardly any clean up ether...just rinses off with water.

DIY Sugar Lip Scrub

I have dry lips. Real dry.

Last time I was in Sephora I saw this scrub that is supposed to help remove dead skin and moisturize your lips. I really love the idea cause I love to wear a darker lip this time of year but a dark lip and crusty skin do not mix well.

Unfortunately the price tag for this bad boy was $26.00. I suppose that's not super ridiculous but it a 0.6oz container and I decided there were a million things I would rather spend $26.00 on.

The other night I randomly remembered this product so I thought I would try to find a similar product for cheaper.

Turns out you can make a sugar scrub with stuff you probably have in your cupboard.

You take 1 tablespoon of sugar (brown, white or a mixture of both) and add just enough honey, coconut oil or olive oil until it quite sticky. 

The instructions I found said you can add vanilla for the scent but it's not necessary. I chose to try it with just brown sugar and honey.

You can store it in a jar and use it once or twice a week. Thankfully I have 2-3 million baby food jars in my basement just waiting for a use. 

The instructions said to rub vigorously...either our views of vigorous vary wildly or my lips were really dry...cause they did bleed a very small amount the first time I did it. BUT it did remove all the dead skin and after a generous coat of Burts Bees my lips felt terrific.

I highly recommend trying this out if you suffer from dry lips.

DIY Natural Air Freshner

I've never tried a simmering pot air freshner...which seems ridiculous seeing how easy it was...but I didn't have any seasonally appropriate candles so I figured this would be a good time to try one.

My sister, Holly, said she liked to do apples and cinnamon so I had to try that.

 

Of course it made the house smell like pie. No complaints. 

I also searched the web for inspiration and found the combination of lemon, rosemary and vanilla was popular...so I tried that as well.

The lemon rosemary smelt amazing. Although next time I will use a little less vanilla. I believe the recipe said a teaspoon and me being me I just glugged a bunch in the pot. Measuring, Siobhan, learn about it. The house was quite vanilla-y but once I poured out some liquid and topped it up with water the rosemary and lemon came through and I was very happy with the scent.

Lastly I tried pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and vanilla.

I enjoyed all the smells. It's nice that your able to keep the pot on the stove for days as long as you top the water up as you go.

I saw someone else did a pot with pine needles and bay leaves...sounds Christmas-y....must try once Halloween is over!

--Siobhan xoxo

Kitchen Chalkboard DIY

Remember a few months ago (read it here) when I got a dressing table for my bedroom and it came with a cracked mirror. Well IKEA gave me a whole new mirror with frame so I had a very large broken mirror in a very nice frame laying around my bedroom. I do recall saying I was going to do something crafty with it but I have big dreams and they don't always go as planned.

But this time I actually did something crafty!

And here it is.

Will and my dad verrrryyyy carefully took the mirror part out of the frame without getting shards all over my house.

My dad was nice enough to cut me a back piece and my mom painted it with chalkboard paint.

I bought a dark purple spray paint/primer combo at Walmart and spray painted it one weekend.

Now I have a lovely chalk board to hang in my kitchen so I'll stop forgetting what day it is!

-- Siobhan xoxo