Tag: diy

More Kitchen Experimentation

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Last week I wrote about making a body butter lotion. I really like “sciencey” DIY projects like that. It’s always so cool to be able to make things like that myself. So when I came across a string of Lush substitute DIY posts on Pinterest, I knew I had to try them.

The first project I tried was the bath bomb recipe found here. Super simple, just four ingredients (I left out the colors). I don’t really get to take baths often, but I do like using those shower melt things to help with congestion. I tried one once that was just baking soda and peppermint oil, but it didn’t really have enough smell to it and washed away too quickly. But these new ones work great. Lasted a lot longer than the plain baking soda cake in the shower stream, too.

Another simple one I found was the sugar lip scrub. I didn’t bother pricing it out, but it uses so little of each of the ingredients there’s no way it’s not a better deal than the $10 it costs at Lush. Plus, it really is just things you probably have around the house. One tip for using that recipe, though: I had to add almost twice as much sugar to get the right consistency.

I Made Up My Mind…

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to make the Make Up Your Mind tank by Julie of Knitted Bliss. I fell in love with the Mr. McGregor’s Garden comfy sampler from Knit Picks (unfortunately not available anymore) and decided I would find a pattern for it once I got it. I tried to make my own first, but that didn’t work out quickly enough because I wanted this to be my project on vacation.

After a little searching and swatching, I decided Make Up Your Mind was what I wanted. I cast on provisionally for the 40 in size since my gauge was a bit smaller and I wanted it to be a little more flowy since it would be going over another shirt. I did mostly stick with length measurements from the 34 in size, except when it came to how many times to repeat decreases. Actually, I fudged a lot of the numbers because I kept getting off with the stitch patterns and would just decrease until I had an ok amount for the pattern. I was on vacation; I didn’t want to have to actually count my stitches.

This pattern was fairly easy to work, and very easy to follow. I’d say it’s a good bridge between beginner and intermediate skill sets.If you can knit, purl, yarnover, increase and decrease, you can make this pattern, too. Best of all, no sewing seams! You just graft the shoulders together and weave in the ends and you have a ready-to-wear shirt.

These Cookies Are Popping

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Pops are the “treat of the moment” lately. Cake, brownies, krispie treats, basically anything you can shove a stick into and cover in chocolate is being turned into cute treats. Including Oreos:

When this Nerdy Nummies episode came across my instagram feed, I immediately forwarded it to one of the birthday boys’ mamas. If you can remember, he’s obsessed with Baymax. So I thought those would be perfect for treats for his party.

He’s also obsessed with Pokémon, so I thought I’d try to make a few of those. I figured out how to turn Baymax into Pikachu and made a Pokémon ball to make four different characters.

One thing I changed from the tutorial was using popsicle sticks (well, all I could find was tongue depressors, but same concept) instead of the lollipop sticks. That’s because I was using regular not-Oreos that don’t come in the triple-stuffed variety. I think they might even work better in the triple-stuffed version.

I also forgot to get styrofoam for drying, so I taped two cake boards together with plastic dixie cups between them for height. I cut slots for the sticks with a steak knife, then made it the right size by shoving a popsicle stick into each.

These were super easy to make, and they taste really good. They were a hit at the party (and with my mom, who ate all of the test ones I made at her house).