Honey Cuticle Cream

Awhile back I made some lip balm based on this Honey-kissed Lip Balm recipe I found. It made a ton and I still have the Altoids container full of it so I decided to use it as a cuticle cream. It works great!

Here's my recipe (I modified the Honey.com recipe a bit since I didn't have as much beeswax and I had apricot kernel oil instead of sweet almond oil).

1.5 ounces beeswax
3 ounces apricot kernel oil
1 tablespoon honey

Melt the wax and oil in the microwave, stir in the honey, and pour into tins or other containers. When I made it there were some tiny honey globules that didn't mix in, but I made the recipe in a glass measuring cup with a spout, so I just didn't pour that part into the tins.

Playroom Makeover

Update: Thanks for your interest in purchasing our plans. Here are the links!

Chicken Coop Storage Bin Woodworking Plans
Kids Activity & Storage Table Woodworking Plans

We used to have a playroom in our basement but I took over the room for Lost Button Studio. So we moved the playroom into a bedroom upstairs. I didn't think to take a before photo, but for the last little while it has basically just been a room with some Rubbermaid containers full of toys. Here's what's new:

My husband made this table for Legos (we have a lot of Legos). There's a rail around the top so pieces don't fall on the floor and each side of the table has six drawers for storage. The drawers are on nice metal sliders so they are sturdy and pull all the way out.

My husband also made this big frame for a map we had and and a huge chalkboard. Oh, and I painted the walls.

Here's something I actually made...these stackable chicken coop cubbies for toy storage. I did the cutting, sanding, and finish on these. But my husband did help set up the equipment and figured out all the dimensions so I guess he still deserves credit too. I wish I could have made five (always better to have an odd number), but we only had the materials for four.

And here are the F-U-N collages on the wall. They are hanging above a half-size door that goes into a little cubby under the dormers. It has been a club house, recording studio, and reading nook. Someday I might paint in there and add a few throw pillows.

Not only does B spend a lot of time in here with his friends, but we have 22 nieces and nephews so this will be a fun place for them to play when they come over.

F-U-N Collages

2014 Note: I had quite a few pictures of the process I used to create this collage, and lost them all. I'm keeping all the notes here, even though there's no step-by-step. :)

Here's a project I did for the playroom. It's based on the technique by Kelly Rae Roberts in "Patch it Together" from the November/December 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors.

I started with three inexpensive 8x8 Blick canvases with the gallery profile.

For the collage I used found papers like bits of junk mail, a drawing by B, graph paper, a page out of an old atlas, and a page out of a Japanese dictionary.

For the paint colors I used Golden Fluid Acrylics in Cobalt Teal and Green Gold, both mixed with a little Titan Buff. I added a few Cadmium Red Medium circles made with the rim of a cup.

Instead of drawing a figure like Kelly does in her article, I printed out the word "fun", sizing to fit the canvases. I then traced over the letters onto the canvases using carbon paper.

I traced over the outlined letters a couple of times with Prismacolors.

Then I filled the letters in with Cobalt Teal, painted the sides of the canvases Cadmium Red Medium and added a couple more cup circles in Cadmium Yellow Medium. I sanded the edges a bit and sealed everything with another coat of medium.

It was definitely a F-U-N project for me...