Homemade Organic Face/Body/Hand/Feet Butter

I started making homemade natural body butter for my kids when I read about all those scary things they put into commercially available kids' skin creams in the news. My kids and I all have very dry skin so it's essential that we get a rich body butter every day all year round.

I made my first batch last summer using equal parts of Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil and Extra Virgin Olive oil. Coconut oil is solid in room temperature but melts when in contact with the skin. I melt them in a double boiler, stir the mixture and then let it cool in a clean jar. I used it on my kids and myself and it was very effective with a faint hint of coconut. However the texture wasn't as consistent as I would like and I had been thinking about what to change in the 2nd batch of body butter.

I just made my 2nd batch this week. I decided to add some beeswax to the mixture to make it thicker. Again I used the double boiler to melt everything together, stired the mixture and then let it cool in a clean jar. Then I mashed up the cooled block and produced a thick body butter. It's much easier to apply this batch of mixture. I apply it on myself and my baby when we wake up in the morning and before we go to bed at night. The cream stays on all night long and I could feel that my skin is softer in the morning.

Recipe:
1. 1/3 Cup Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
2. 2/3 Cup Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3. 1 Tablespoon Natural Beeswax

That's it! I like simple recipes like this. No unpronounceable chemicals, no unnatural preservatives. The only caution is that the cream is intensely rich. It works for me because I have very dry skin. If I were to give this to my friends as a gift I would probably label it 'Intensively Rich Hands and Feet Butter'.

For my next batch I think I will add some of my favourite essential oils (my batch only; not for my kids).

Too-short tees into a wearable tee refashion

I have a number of these long sleeves tees in various colours that I find too short to wear now. They have been sitting in my closet for a few years. I thought I could just combine them and make them into wearable tees.

This is the original tee in black (sorry I'm wearing PJ pants that I made). The purple one is identical and has already been cut up to make leggings for my baby girl.

Steps:
1. I wanted to have a cowl neck so I drew with chalk where I wanted the eventual neckline to be. I measured the whole circumference of the neckline.2. Cut the purple tee 3 inches from the hem to be attached to the black tee to lengthen it (bottom). Then cut out the cowl neck material (middle). 3. Measure the sleeve opening and cut out some material to length the sleeves.

4. Sew the purple hem material to the hem of the black tee.

5. Sew the purple cowl material into a round and then fold it in half. Sew it onto the marked neckline on the black tee using a zig-zag stitch.

6. Sew the purple sleeve band into a round and then fold it in half. Attached it to the bottom of the sleeves of the black tee.And here is the new tee! Another easy peasy refashion.

Long time no blog.....ECing a 9 month old baby

It's been a while since I have blogged. One of our dear elderly family members has fallen seriously ill since before X'mas and to make a long story short.....our lives had been turned upside down for a while. The patient's situation has not yet stabilized and thus I had very little time to go online lately, not to mention blogging.

I did some refashioning before the illness but I just have to get the photos sorted before I can post them. I am planning to do that in the next week or so.

ECing my 9 month old baby has been a challenge. All along she had been pretty compliant in terms of sitting on the potty at regular times to pee/poo. However in the last month she started to want to stand assisted all the time and even tried to pull herself up (and fell). So she had been crying/screaming every time I tried to put her on the potty and refused to sit down. Needless to say, she had pooed in her diaper a few times already and she cried afterwards because she didn't like sitting in her poo. I haven't had to clean up her poopy diaper for so long that I'm a bit annoyed by it as well. I have read in other moms' blog that this was likely to happen, as the baby becomes more mobile. I just have to keep trying and hope that she will eventually find something else to 'rebel' about! LOL.