Goodbye Cruel Cruel Blogosphere

As AP Lang comes to an end so do my blogging days...staying up until 11:30 to complete a last-minute blog before the deadline of 12:00a.m.
We've been through a lot, tears, loneliness, and desperation. 
I went through a period of indecisiveness, and existential crises. I made tens of useless products that I will never use, (probably giving them away to unfortunate friends or guests at a white elephant event). Nevertheless my bloggin' made me a hearty soul and enriched my knowledge of Pinterest.
They were the best of times, they were the worst of times, they was bloggin' times.

Decorating Mason Jars

My friend bought a Mason jar for the tips she earns at work, she asked me if I could decorate it for her. I decided to decorate the Mason jar with paints, it was just a question of what kind of paint was best for glass.  I decided to go with Enamel Acrylic Paint, the brand I used is called, "folkArt", and at Micheal's two fluid ounces was two dollars.  I got pink, yellow, orange, blue, and white so that I could mix the white in with other colors to create different shades.
I also found a sticker stencil, (the alphabet in stencils that you can stick to the glass, making it easy to paint letters on the glass in an even way), you can use each of the stickers twenty times before the adhesive wears off and the stickers will no longer be able to dry off and stay sticky. The stencil was four dollars and in addition to the alphabet stencils there is also stencils of stars, swirls, hearts, and punctuation.
The brushes I used were simple and cheap, I've had them for a long time, so I don't know where they came from but any kind of thin brush from Micheal's or Walmart will do.
I started by aligning the stencils on the front of the Mason jar, since the same two letters are in her name I had to do the first letter, wait for it to dry, then move the stencil over to do the second letter.  Instead of pouring the paint out onto a plate or into a small container I just took off the cap of all the paints I am using.  To fill in the stencils I blotted in the letters and made sure there weren't any "bald spots" in the stencil.
I let the paint dry for about a minute, then carefully pealed the stencil off.  You can wash the stencils by running them under warm water, using soap if necessary, and then laying them out to dry.  Once the stencils are dry they should once again be sticky, and you can place them back on the plastic they came on.

Washing the brushes is simple, just have a bowl of warm water and an old towel nearby.  Wash the brush in the warm water then rub it on the towel, you can NOT let the paint brush dry with the paint on it, it WILL stain the brush. 

Homemade Jolly Rancher Suckers

I know that my blogs are usually about beauty and DIY crafts, but when I saw this post on Pinterest I had to try it myself.

What Pinterest Said:

 Looks extremely simple, just line up the Jolly ranchers on a wax paper sheet and put them in the oven for five minutes.
I highly disagree with this method, this is an example of how Pinterest doesn't always turn out like you thought. Luckily, I did this myself and adjusted the recipe so that it does work!


What I say:
All you need are Jolly Ranchers, Popsicle sticks, wax paper, and Pam.
1. Preheat your oven to two hundred degrees
2. Cover a cookie sheet with wax paper and lightly spray Pam on it to keep the Jolly Ranchers from sticking to it when you are all done. (I didn't use Pam because the Pinterest instructions did not include this and my Jolly Rancher suckers had wax paper all along the backs)
3. Align the Jolly Ranchers on the wax paper the way you want them, in groups of three
4. Place your Popsicle sticks on top of the jolly ranchers, with the ends of the Popsicle stick sticking out both ways
5. Put the tray into the oven, and leave it there for about ten minutes
6. After ten minutes the Jolly Ranchers should be melted a bit, and easily manipulated, so using a fork, press down on the stick in between the jolly ranchers so that the Jolly Ranchers will continue melting around the sick
7. Wait another ten minutes before you take out the tray, you will know when they are ready when the Jolly Ranchers have flattened out and melted over the top of the Popsicle stick.
8. Take your Jolly Rancher suckers out and wait another twenty minutes for them to cool, (if you don't let them cool the Popsicle stick could become detached from the Jolly Ranchers)
9. Carefully pull the suckers off the wax paper sheet, hopefully the Pam helps because as I said earlier, I didn't use Pam and the wax paper stuck to the back of the suckers, If the Pam doesn't help you either use a butter knife and scrap off the paper, or you can run the back under cold water which will loosen the wax paper making it easier to peel off

 I liked this recipe because it required little prep time, was very easy, and is delicious! Pinterest didn't give very accurate directions for this recipe, so just keep that in mind when you are pinning, not everything you see on Pinterest is so simple and straightforward!

Two Very Simple Face Masks

In the past I have done tutorials on semi-elaborate masks and reviewed store bought masks, so for this blog I wanted to stick with two extremely easy, (and effective), face masks I have discovered.
Advil Liqui-Gels:
You have probably heard of these already, they are pills to reduce pain and fever, but used as a face treatment the red spots on your face signaling skin irritation.
For twenty of these liquid filled capsules the price is just thirteen dollars.  What I do to release the liquid inside the gel capsules is take a safety pin and poke a hole in the liquid-gels, make the hold bigger if it takes too long to squeeze out.  When you do have the capsule open, put one fourth of the gel on your forehead, one fourth on your right cheek, one fourth on your left cheek, and the fourth one fourth fill go your nose. With your finger rub in the gel until your hold face is covered in this gel, and wait at least three minutes before washing it off with a damp washcloth.
Lemon and Honey Mask:
 For this mask it really doesn't matter what kind of honey you're using, the only thing you might not already have in your kitchen is a lemon.
To start I cut just one fourth of the lemon off of the rest, and put about five drops of honey on the lemon.  Rub the honey into the lemon, the honey might just try and slide right off, so hold the lemon up upright when you do this.
When applying, pull all of your hair back and start rubbing the lemon and honey in from your chin to your forehead, and this may include adding more honey then you at the beginning because it will wear off.  After you have rubbed the lemon with honey all over your face for about two minutes, let the mixture sit for just three to five minutes, and wash off the mask with a wash cloth.

So there are two masks that are very simple to prepare and only take up about twenty minutes of your time.

DIY Lush Coalface

Since last week's blogs were about Lush products I love, I decided to do a tutorial on how to make your very own Lush product for a fraction of the price!  Since Lush products are very natural, the price of their products tend to be steeper than other brands.  A trademark of Lush is their wide variety of face scrubs/washes, so for this blog I will explain how to create your very own Lush Coalface face scrub.
This only requires three ingredients: Coconut oil, Charcoal caps, and baking soda.  I know that most everyone will have baking soda, a well-known ingredient in home made beauty products, but Coconut oil and Charcoal caps are more difficult to locate. I found both of these ingredients at Walmart, Coconut oil in the baking aisle, and Charcoal caps in the dietary supplements aisle.
To mix my ingredients together I used a mortar and pestle, but a small plastic container and spoon will also do.  First you need one half a cup of Coconut oil and since the coconut oil I have is in solid form I continuously scraped off shavings until I reached one half of a cup.  Another way you could do this is put the Coconut oil in the microwave for about twenty seconds then drain the liquid into a measuring cup. Next you add in three contents of the Charcoal capsules, to get these open I cut them close to one end of a capsule and tapped the contents into the bowl. Lastly, add in one tablespoon of baking soda and mix all of the ingredients up, crushing everything with either your spoon or pestle.
Now you have your own Lush face scrub!  My mask was a bit more liquid than I wanted, so to fix this I would add in more baking soda next time, and probably a bit under one half a cup of Coconut oil.  
 For me I apply this by pulling back all my hair with a ponytail and a headband, and taking two fingers, dabbing it on my face starting from the top of my forehead and moving down to my chin.  When I apply this I keep a towel below just in case the mask drips.  Before rinsing with a washcloth, (the charcoal can be a bit difficult to get off when it is paired with Coconut oil), I leave the mask on for fifteen minutes, and don't worry, if the mask gets in your mouth it is completely harmless!
You will probably end up with leftovers, so store them in the refrigerator, and when you want to do another mask you will have to re-stir the concoction because some solid parts of the mask form at the bottom when left sitting for hours on end.  

Sugar Scrubs

For this blog I will combine a Do it Yourself blog and a beauty related blog.  I will demonstrate how to create three different sugar scrubs, lemon, coffee, and brown sugar scrub. You can use these in the shower or bath, basically they make your legs super smooth, especially if you shave, apply the scrub, then shave again.
Lemon Sugar Scrub:
You'll need one cup of sugar, half a cup of olive oil, one tablespoon of honey, and the juice from one lemon.
Put all these ingredients together a small bowl and with a pestle, (or fork/spoon) crush and mix the ingredients together.  This create a handful of scrub that lasts two or three weeks showering every day.  This scrub also helps to eliminate streaks from self tanners that you may or may not have.
Coffee Sugar Scrub:
You'll need one fourth cup of raw sugar, one fourth cup of ground coffee, one tablespoon of olive oil, two tablespoons of coconut oil, and one tablespoon of sea salt.
Mix the coconut oil and olive oil together again with a pestle/spoon/fork. Mix the solids together the same way then pour the solid ingredients in with the liquids and mix.  This is the same amount of scrub that you will get from the Lemon Sugar Scrub, and if you love the smell of coffee, you'll love the scrub!
Brown Sugar Scrub:
This is probably the easiest scrub because you most likely already have all the ingredients you need right in your kitchen. You'll need one half cup of brown sugar, one fourth cup of white sugar, three tablespoons of vanilla extract, and one and a half tablespoons of olive oil.
Mix all ingredients together at once and crush as you have for the past two scrubs!
Start by using the scrubs just once a week for a couple weeks before using more frequently, you could have an unknown allergy/reaction to the scrubs. Using them too frequently at first can irritate your skin making it red and/or itchy.  As I said at the beginning of the blog, using the sugar scrubs between shaving your legs makes them extremely smooth and smelling great!
I hope you enjoy your sugar scrubs!

Casual Bun

You may have seen a few buns called "sock buns", I have tried everything I could to try and create these buns but no matter what they always look messed up, and often result in tangled hair.  So instead of attempting this bun I will demonstrate two ways to create a casual bun without using a sock.
The first way to do this is to gather your hair in a high ponytail, and to do this I flip my hair upside down to gather it all together which is much easier when creating a high ponytail. Next you want to take your hair, and twirl it tightly, wrap it around the base of the ponytail continuously, keeping up with twirling it tightly. When you have reached the end of your hair, use bobby pins to secure all loose ends.  I know that it might be a little messy and some hairs might become loose, but just keep bobby pinning (if that's a word). After you are done you can clean up your bun a bit by using Herbal Essence's Tousle Me Softly styling creme.  Just take a quick swipe with your index finger and rub the tips of your fingers with the cream, smoothing down the fly aways.

Braid to bun, this is just a twist on the previous method mentioned above, a small french braid to a bun.  You start with a small two inch section of hair right in the front, use some hair from the other side of your part. Separate the hair that will be braided from the hair that won't by putting all the hair not being used in a ponytail to the side. The hair for the braid should wrap around a little to the side of your head.  Start with a very thin layer of hair at the very start of your section for the braid; work your way done by adding in small sections of hair for your french braid, the smaller the sections you add in, the smaller and tighter the braid.  In this case I created a very tight, small braid. After you have completed your french braid and used all the hair in your section for braiding finish off by braiding a normal braid. Now gather all of your hair and braid to create a high ponytail once again. Now continue to do the same steps as in part one of this blog, you can either keep the braid as is or you can untie the end of the braid once it and all your other hair is in a ponytail.  This just makes your bun more creative and unique.

Reviews: Lush Products

Lush is a company that makes handmade, organic cosmetics. I first discovered it when my family was in Illinois at the Mall of America and the Lush store was right next to the Lego store my littlest brother had been obsessing over. Needless to say I chose to forgo the Lego store and instead check out Lush. So glad I did!
Lush was amazing, the best smelling soaps I've ever encountered and everything was made from fresh, organic ingredients and wasn't tested on animals. All the products even have a sticker that tells you the first name of the person who made the product, when they made it, and when it expires. Yes, it expires, but that's because in lieu of all the chemicals other companies might use, Lush uses fresh products that of course eventually expire.
Most of the products I have last a bit longer than a year, and this isn't a ploy to get their customers to continually buy more once their products expire, Lush does this to inform their customers how to get the most out of their Vegan products.
Now I will talk about two of my favorites from Lush (I've only been there twice so I don't have a ton of experience).  Lush's Bubblegum Lip Scrub is ten dollars for under an ounce of product but trust me, it lasts a loooooong time. What you do is wet your lips, put the scrub on, rub your lips together, and then wipe off the extra scrub. Using this scrub always makes my lips very smooth and it tastes amazing!  You don't have to be worried about poisoning yourself with only SIX ingredients! I love this scrub it lasts thirteen months and I will for sure be renewing my purchase in June!
My other product is Marilyn Hair Treatment this is about twenty three dollars for eight ounces. This hair treatment is meant for people with natural or dyed blonde hair, you use it by covering dry hair in a thick coating of the liquid, and leaving it in for at least twenty minutes, then shampooing and conditioning as normal. I only have two complaints, one, I have extremely thick blond hair so it takes a lot of this treatment to cover all my hair, and two, it smells WEIRD.  I don't know what it is but I don't like keeping it for more than the twenty minutes because the smell gets to me! When I do use it, after showering my hair is super smooth and shiny, and (luckily) doesn't smell like the treatment!
So there it is, the two products I use most frequently from my favorite brands of cosmetics, they are more expensive then other cosmetics, but that's because they take care of what goes into their products and it's all organic. I wish more people would support these kinds of brands so hopefu
lly after reading this, you are influenced to check it out, (and you'll be glad you did!).

French tip with a twist

In a previous blog post I demonstrated a relatively simple method to create the popular, "french manicure", now that I am more familiar with this style I can create new designs to make it unique. In this particular blog I will use cheap, three dollar glitter to create a twist on the french manicure.
You will need a simple base coat, (I used China Glaze's "Awaken" as my base), silver glitter, (which you can get for three dollars at Walmart for a four ounce bottle), clear polish, and circular stickers, (the same kind I used in my blog "Easy French Manicure").
First I applied two coats of the China Glaze, letting my nails dry in between each coat.  To make sure that the stickers don't take off any of the nail polish I waited almost an hour before continuing.  So next up I took the circular stickers, and cut one in half.  Center the half circle on your thumb nail, and continue doing this for all of your nails.  If the first half circle doesn't completely cover your thumb nail don't worry about it!
With the clear polish paint the top of two nails, the part of the nail above the circular sticker.  Dip the first nail into your bottle of sparkles, don't go too deep submerging any part of your nail that is not the very top. Do the same thing to your second nail you put clear polish on. When you take your nails out, do so over a trash can or outside so you don't get those pesky sparkles everywhere; press down on the sparkles at the top of your nail and let it sit for a while.  After five or so minutes take the white tape off carefully, if doing this causes some of the nail polish to be taken off that means that your sticker was too sticky, and for your other nails you will want to put the sticker on your skin first before your nail to loosen it up a bit. Repeat these steps with your other nails.
When all the white tape has come off, shake your nails a bit and blow on them to get excess sparkles off. Once some extra sparkles have fallen off you can take your clear nail polish and paint one nail at time. Before you actually put nail polish on you will want to scrap off all sparkles not at the top of your nail first. Once you do that, (and it can take a while because sparkles are annoyingly sticky), you make small sweeps with clear polish, and check the brush for sparkles each time before you make any more so that you don't stick any sparkles to the bottom of the nail instead of keeping them all at the top. When you apply the clear polish to the top of your nail, put more emphasis on the top to make sure the sparkles are all "glued" in.
And there you go, you could also do this same thing without an base polish and I think it would look good!

More Creative Easter Eggs!

This blog is a continuation of my previous blog topic, "Creative Eggs" where I showed two unique types of eggs that you could make this Easter, the scuba diver egg, and the ninja turtle egg. Now I have two more for you, a polka dot sparkly egg, and the shaving cream egg.
Sparkly Polka Dot Egg:
You'll need: Elmer's glue, sparkles, and a hard boiled egg.
Steps:
1. Pour some sparkles into a small bowl
2. Put small, circular dabs of glue on the hard boiled egg in a simple pattern.
3. Hold your hard boiled egg by its top and bottom and carefully lower the egg into the sparkles, touching one circular spot of glue into the sparkles at a time, then rotating your egg and dabbing another spot of glue into the sparkles until all of the glue spots are covered.
4. To let your hard boiled, polka dot egg dry, place it back into the egg carton for about half an hour.
Shaving Cream Egg:
You'll need:  Cheap shaving cream, a couple of different colors of food coloring, a plastic container, and a couple of hard boiled eggs.
Steps:
1. Pour a thick layer of shaving cream into the plastic container.
2. With two or three colors of food coloring, put about five or less drops of food coloring into the shaving cream, and mix it up.  Don't put too many colors in or the shaving cream will turn into a brow/gray color.
3. Once you have your colors mixed up in the shaving cream, roll your hard boiled egg around in the mixture until your whole egg is covered with some cool swirls on it.
4. DO NOT rub off the shaving cream! pull your egg out of the shaving cream and place it either back into the egg carton or on some sort of drying rack with the shaving cream on it.
5. When the shaving cream has had time to dry a bit, (wait about an hour or so), you can take a paper towel and carefully, (dabbing), take off the shaving cream from the egg.
So there you have it, four ideas to spice up your egg decorating and make Easter a little bit more creative! :)

Creative Eggs

It is a tradition in my family to decorate Easter eggs the day before Easter every year.  Usually this consists of dipping eggs into water mixed with different colors of food coloring, but this year I decided to take some ideas from Pinterest and add some new material to the tradition! So here you go, some examples of some unique ideas that are easy to do and adorable around the house!
The Ninja Turtle Egg:
I've never been a big fan of Teenage Ninja Turtles, but when I saw this egg, I had to do it!
You need: Some embroidery string, (don't use black), green food coloring, water, a bowl, a sharpie, a hard boiled egg, and Elmer's glue.
Steps:
1. Pour some water into a bowl, and drops of green food coloring until you have a dark mixture.
2. Place your hard boiled egg into the bowl, and swirl it around with a spoon until the egg is green all over.
3. Take your egg and set it out to dry.
4. Use your glue and put a long line of glue on your embroidery string, with two fingers, spread the glue on the string.
5. Once your green egg is dry, take it and wrap the embroidery string around the egg so that the string is a circle around the egg that stays.
6. Now you can keep wrapping the string around the egg, using the first initial ring as the top.  Keep wrapping until you have a thick "band" around your egg.
7. Now you can create the eyes! With your sharpie, color two circles on the band around the egg, you can also draw a mouth.
8. Now you have your own Ninja Turtle egg!
Scuba Diver Egg:
When I saw this egg on Pinterest I knew I had to do it, the egg is so cute and easy to do, it definitely won the egg decorating contest at my house!
You need: a top of a bottle, two googly eyes, hot glue, tape, blue food coloring, scissors, construction paper, a hard boiled egg, and a bendy straw.
Steps:
1. Soak the bottom half of your hard boiled egg in water with blue food coloring in it for just a minute to create a faint blue coloring
2. Cut two small strips of construction paper out, about as long as your pinkie.
3. Tape the two strips of construction paper to opposite sides of your cap from a plastic bottle.
4. Tape the other ends of the strips of construction paper to the upper half of your hard boiled egg.
5. Hot glue two googly eyes to the plastic cap.
6.Cut the shorter side of your bendy straw by more than three fourths, this will be glued under the bottom side of your cap so make it short.
7. Cut the longer side of the straw also so that when you do glue it, your straw won't stick up to much from the top of the egg.
8. Now you can glue your straw, using hot glue, put a dab of glue right under your plastic bottle's cap, and place the straw under the cap, gluing it.
9. Now you have a scuba diver egg!

Ribbon and Washer Bracelet

This blog was loosely based on a pin I found, the washers were a bit bigger and the ribbon was a yellow/cream color that I thought didn't look interesting at all. Instead of a necklace, I decided to do a bracelet, but the concept can be applied to necklaces easily.
Materials:
-Small washers (whatever size you want)
-Ribbon (make sure that your ribbon will fit through the hole of your washers without folding too much)
Steps:
1. Take the end of your ribbon, (do not cut it from the rest of the ribbon because you don't know how much room you will need based on the size of your washers).
2. With a washer, take your ribbon and thread it from under your washer so that when you pull the ribbon it is on top of the washer. Move this washer down your ribbon to make room for the other washers.
3. With a second washer, take the end of your ribbon and thread it over the top of the second washer, now when you pull the end of the ribbon it will be under your washer.
4. Take the end of the ribbon and go back to your first washer, thread it back into the washer from above, and pull the end of your ribbon out from under the first washer while also pulling on the opposite side of the ribbon.
5. When you pull both of these ends your first two washers will be connected!
6. Repeat these steps, threading the ribbon through the second washer from below, and from the top on your third washer, then going back to your second and threading the ribbon from above it again. This will create the pattern, do not forget to pull tight the two ends of the ribbon each time you complete the threading of a new washer.
7. For my bracelet I threaded ten washers and left some room for the ribbon to be a part of the bracelet, and tie it off!

Comparing Pinterest and Project: Pearl String Bangle

I usually get my blog ideas from posts on Pinterest, but I like to change it up a bit and make my projects more original.  I've decided to do a "Comparing Pinterest and Project" blog post that will assess whether these Pinterest pins are as easy as they appear, and if I can replicate them.  I will do these comparisons posts once in a while to shake things up a bit.
I pinned this simple, four step bead/pearl stringed bangle because the results looked really interesting, and the pictures made the process seem like it was twenty minutes, tops...that is where I went wrong.
I was planning on using the cheap, silver bead necklaces you get on holidays, (Mardi Gras) or at games, but, neither Walmart nor Micheal's had anything like it. So I settled for a string of pearl-looking plastic beads that seem to be about the same size as the beads in the tutorial.  At Wa

lmart I found twenty silver bangles for five dollars, which seemed to be the same type of bangle in the tutorial pictures. 
With a hot glue gun I glued down the first pearl to a thin, flat bangle, and continued to glue down the pearls every three beads or so, which seemed like how it was done on Pinterest. I was a bit weary that the beads in between two glued down beads would slip off the bracelet, or move too easily. I decided that the string would probably do the job of securing the beads for me, so I didn't worry.

Once I had beads covering the entire bangle, (which only took about five minutes), I had some trouble with connecting the last bead to the first, it wasn't too much of a problem, but now the two beads are closer than any of the other beads on the bangle.
In the tutorial from Pinterest the amount of string they use seems to be pretty limitted, only a little ball of string appears to be used. I didn't think that this would be enough for my bracelet so instead I waited to cut the string from the bundle until the very end.
To start the string wrapping I hot glued the start of the string to the bottom of the bangle.  Then I wrapped as far to the left of the bead as I could, and moved like this to the middle, then to the right until I seemed to have a little triangle forming that covered the whole inside of the bangle.  After completing the space between the first to beads I once again moved to the far left of the next bead and repeated the process.  This part got a little annoying, I continually had to put all of my yarn through the bangle at least four times for each bead.  If I waited two or three wraps around the bangle to put the rest of my string through, the results often turned out haphazardly tangled. 
I was a bit misled by the four simple pictures of a tutorial that I found on Pinterest, my own project took about forty minutes, double the time I originally thought, but I do love how the bangle turned out.  It is very similar to the Pinterest model and I think that the white, pearly beads in exchange for the silvery ones make it look better!

Easter Nails

Since Easter is rapidly approaching, and I haven't done a blog about nails in a while, I decided to do an Easter-inspired nail tutorial!
Materials:
-three different kinds of nail polish, I used Essie's Fiji (pink), bikini so teeny (blue), and bond with whomever (purple.
-a pencil, with an eraser in tact
-a flat head pin
-black nail polish
Steps:
1. paint all nails the lightest color you have, for me, that was pink.  Do however many coats until the color is solid.
2. Wait until the base coat is dry, then, very carefully take one out of the two other colors you have and make a slightly curved sweep across the nail. Once you have done this, fill the rest of the top of the nail by making vertical brush strokes until the space is filled.
3. Do this to another nail, or all nails if you want
4. take the flat head pin the poke it through the eraser, now you have a makeshift doter tool!
5. to create the ears for the bunny, touch the head of the pin to the nail polish brush. You don't have to wait for the second color to be dry. Make the first dot at the height the ears will go to, and dot your way down, do the same for all other ears.
6. Clean off the doter and lightly touch the head of the pin to the black nail polish brush to make the eyes of your bunny, you don't want too much because then you will have a "bubble" on your nail and it will take a very long time to dry!
7. Make a dot at the top middle of your nail for the nose, then, using the side of the head of the pin, create the long, thin lines for the whiskers, repeat this to make thicker lines.
So a pretty simple tutorial, and all colors I used are pastels, (again staying in touch with the Easter spirit), and all of them I got at Ulta for about eight dollars. An even easier solution to using the pin for the eyes and whiskers is to buy a nail art pen, I have one by the brand of crayola that I found at Target.
Have a happy Easter!

Toothpaste Cap Art

In my blogs I've done a lot of "artsy" stuff...mostly involving crayons.  Well this blog is a brake from wax and results in the same creative results!
Materials:
-A toothpaste cap
-Any color of paint, (I prefer to use tempera paint)
-White paint
-A sheet or two of paper
-Small plastic container
- Clipboard
- Ruler and pencil
Steps:
1. Clean up your toothpaste cap so toothpaste won't mix with your paint
2. With your plastic container, put some paint in, not so much that it covers the entire bottom of your container, probably half that, (If you are using tempera paint, don't fear, the paint will wash out of your container)
3. Place your paper on your clipboard, and with your ruler and pencil, draw a faint straight line across the top of the paper so you won't start out a row of lopsided circles
4. dip your toothpaste cap lightly in your plastic container, then, with your finger or another circular object, sweep the inside of the cap to get rid of excess paint that will botch your design, sometimes when you pull the cap out of the container, the whole bottom is covered with paint, and, (like blowing bubbles), blow on this paint to "pop" the extra paint.
ALWAYS CHECK THE BOTTOM OF YOUR CAP BEFORE YOU MAKE THE CIRCLES
5. Now you can start creating your design, lightly "stamp" the first circle of your first row on your sheet, when you continue doing this, have a little space between each circle, do not overlap; if you ever form an open circle, just follow the pieces of the circle as best as you can, and stamp again!
6. After you have completed your first row, (which for me includes about eleven circles), drop about two drops of your white paint into the container, and mix, wipe off the toothpaste cap which includes residue from the previous row.
7. Every three rows or so it becomes necessary to pour out a bit of paint, because it becomes increasingly harder to change the color of paint with just the two drops from the white paint when the volume of the mixture increases constantly.
8. For me, I decided to use two sheets of paper to continue my pattern, and in that case i simply taped them together.
This is a fairly simple blog that I hope to expand on in the future, of course it is going to take me a long time to get enough toothpaste caps for six different colors I hope to use!!

The Purl Stitch

Now that you have mastered the knit stitch, it is safe to say that you are ready for the purl stitch.
1. Cast on a small number of stitches, (ten to twenty), to practice
2. take the needle with the casted on stitches and place it in your left hand needle.
3. Instead of inserting your right hand needle into the first loop and making sure the right is behind the left, you will be going through the first loop with your right needle to make the right needle be in front of the left hand needle.
4. move the string connected to the ball of yarn to the front of your needles, and wrap it around the right hand needle which is in front of the left hand needle.
5. Now slowly pull back the right hand needle and poke it through the loop that connects the two needles, just as you did for knitting, you will now do this for purling just, poking the needle through the loop from the bottom instead of the top. Now you can pull the stitch off the string!
6. Continue doing so until you have reached the end of your row, and trade needles between hands!
Knit and purl stitches are the most common and combinations of the two can make beautiful patterns! It can be difficult to transition between knit and purl stitiches in the middle of a work, and the most common mistake is the placement of the string that is connected to the ball of yarn. once you have done a knit stitch, take the string and go around the right hand needle, to the front to do a purl stitch.  The same goes for a purl stitch to a knit stitch, after you complete the purl stitch, take the string and bring it back around the right needle and do the knit stitch.

The Knit Stitch and common knitting problems

The most basic of all stitches, and the first one everyone usually learns...the knit stitch.
1. First cast on a small number of stitches, (between ten to twenty stitches), to get started.
2. hold the needle with the casted on stitches in your left hand.
3. Using your right needle, go through the first loop on your needle, the right needle will be behind the left needle, and both will be holding the loop
4. Now taking the string connected to the ball of yarn with your right hand, wrap it around the right hand needle which is behind the left needle.
5. Here's the fun part: with your right needle, pull away from the left needle a bit , and you will see the loop that you first stuck your needle through. You will once again go through the loop by sticking your right needle into it. Now you will see the right hand needle is in front of the left hand needle.
6. You can now pull off the stitch from the left hand needle, congratulations



you have just completed the knit stitch!
7. Continue the stitch until the end of the row, and when the row is done, all stitches will be on the right hand needle, simply trade needles between your hands and start knitting again!
In case of severe confusion/tangles in the stitch: anytime something looks strange or seems tangled all you will have to do is pull the stitch off whatever needle it's on, and pull the string connected to the ball of yarn slowly, you will observe the stitch undoing itself and returning back to a simple loop.  Take this loop and place it on the left hand needle to redo the stitch, hopefully with better results!
 What to do if you run out of yarn: Do not panic, you might be out of yarn, but you're not out of luck! In case you are in the mood to knit and you find that you are now out of your yarn, the solution is very simple and practically unnoticeable.  What you first need to do is buy the exact same yarn you have been using, (if you want to, you can use different colors), I've always found it very useful to take a piece of yarn from my old ball of yarn to the store with me, so I am very sure that I have the same color and texture yarn to continue knitting with. Once you have the yarn take out the end, the do a simple knot, (cross and under knot, like what you do when tying your shoe in the beginning), do this twice. With scissors cut off all but about two centimeters of string on both ends of your knot, this cannot be too small of length of string because if it is, it will pull apart when you are trying to knit and ruin your work.  Now continue knitting as usual, working in this awkward knot that will be unnoticeable in your work, unless you are using very tiny string, then it will probably show up a bit more.

Braided Bead and Chain Necklace

On Pinterest I found a braided bead chain necklace...for forty dollars.  I decided to make the same type of bracelet for under ten!
Materials:
Small beads, (any color)
Wire (not too bendable, but just a little)
Crimping beads
Lobster clasp, or any other clasp that you want
Silver chain
Bead pliers
All of these materials can be found at Michael's 
You can decide how long you want the braided bead part of the necklace to be, once you have decided this, measure all your wire this same length plus about two inches for the wire you will lose braiding the wires and crimping them
Steps:
1. You first need to take two lengths of wire and bind them together with a crimping bead
2. I recommend getting a string of beads, not just a box so you won't have to one by one place your small beads onto the wire
3. Take the string of beads, pull it straight at a down ward angle
4. With your wire, try to follow the string, lacing the wire through all the beads, this is difficult, so just do it as best as you can, it gets a lot easier with practice!
5.  Once you have an entire string of beads on your wire, leave some room to secure the wires together, and since you have to do another strand without dropping the first you have just completed, I recommend taping the end of the wire, making the bottom too thick for the beads to fall out, (speaking from experience I dropped two strands of beads before I had the sense to tape the ends
6. Once you have strung the beads on the second wire, make sure the two wires have the same length of beads on them, with place a crimping bead onto both of the strings, and using your pliers, press down securing your first strand of the braid
7. Repeat steps 3-6 two more times so that you now have three strands of beads, each with two wires
8. Use another crimping bead and take all of the strands, (there's six!) and secure them all together
8. Now tightly braid all of the strands together, keep it neat!
9. When you have completed the braid, crimp the rest of the ends together, and now you're ready for the chain
10. Measure out how much chain you will need, and place a crimping bead on the six wires
11. loop the wires around the first link of the chain, and then go through the crimping bead, use your jewelry pliers to secure the bead
12. Do the same to the other side of your necklace
Watch out for wires sticking out of the crimping beads, they poke!  If you do accidentally end up with poking wires, you can dull them by taking a nail file and running it against the sticking out wire.

Valentine's Day Card

Instead of doing another do it yourself blog for kids on Valentine's Day crafts, I'm doing a bit more difficult, and dangerous blog for readers a bit older.
Materials:
One piece of white construction paper
One piece of red construction paper
One piece of pink construction paper
Glue, (I used Mod Podge)
Hot glue gun
Three different sizes of pearls, large, medium, small
Scissors, straight, and curvy/wavy kind
Steps:

1. Cut an eight by ten inch white rectangle
2. Fold white rectangle in half
3. Take an inch off the measurements of one side of your white square length and width wise, and cut that measurement out of the red construction paper with your curvy/wavy scissors
4. Center your red construction paper on the side of your white construction card and glue it on with Mod Podge
5. Because the glue will make your construction paper bend, what I recommend is putting the paper in the middle of a textbook, and allowing it to be flattened for about ten or fifteen minutes
6. Fold your pink construction paper, now we will make the hearts
7. Make the size of your first heart about four and a half centimeters, and make it a longer, skinnier heart, cut five of these
8. Now you will cut the medium size hearts, five of them slightly shorter than the large hearts, but wider
9. Cut out seven small hearts only about two centimeters in length
10. Your paper may be too small for these hearts, but it is very easy to simply cut a small portion of the hearts adjusting them to fit
Now for the dangerous part:
11. Take a large pearl and position it in the upper left hand corner, not necessarily right in the corner, but in that region making the center slightly off the middle
12. What I do first is position all of the hearts before I start to glue, you will want to adjust the larger hearts first in a flower like pattern around the large pearl in the center
13. Place the medium size hearts in the middle of the larger hearts
14. To finish off this flower like pattern place the smallest hearts in several places, one in the upper left corner, and two in the lower left corner, the last of your small hearts place them leading to the lower right hand corner
15. Hot glue all of the hearts down
16. Place the medium sized pearls close to the medium sized petals/hearts of the flower, and the smallest ones above the smallest hearts/petals
17. To finish the card off, write an inscription on the upper right hand corner to personalize it for whoever you want!
Get crafting!

Valentine's Day Craft for the Younguns Continued

Heart Caterpillar
Another fun Valentine's Day craft you can make with kids, (or by yourself) is a heart caterpillar.  So easy to make and very cute, you'll love it!
Materials:
Two sheets of different colored paper, (I used red and pink keeping in theme with Valentine's Day)
A sheet of regular white paper, preferably card stock so the Elmer's glue doesn't misshape it too much.
Elmer's glue
Googly eyes
A thin sharpie
Let's get down to business:
1.  Cut a rectangle from your piece of white paper, this will be where the caterpillar will rest, so if you want a larger creature, leave more room.
2. fold the two colored pieces of paper you have selected.
3. Draw half heart along the folded edge of your papers, (thus creating hearts when you cut them out), decide what color you want the head of your caterpillar to be, and when you draw the mark for the head, make it significantly bigger than the body. For the caterpillar I made, you will draw two hearts for the body and a larger heart on one sheet of colored paper, then on the other, draw three hearts for the body, and two very tiny ones that you will use for the antennas.
4. Cut out the half hearts, giving you eight hearts of multiple sizes.
5. Glue the largest heart, (the head), at an angle on your rectangular white piece of paper.
6. Alternate colors for your caterpillar's body, and for the first segment, overlap the point of the large heart.
7. With a different color heart, continue to over lap the hearts just a little until you are out of body parts.
8. Glue the tiny hearts above the head, over both curves of the heart.
9. Wait until the Elmer's glue dries completely before moving on!  Glue the googly eyes onto the head of the caterpillar, don't be afraid to use different sizes, I did and I think it makes the caterpillar look even cuter!
10. Now draw the lines from the head to the tiny hearts above the caterpillar, forming the antenna. Also draw a mouth on your caterpillar, and legs too!
Now you have a cute, creative creature for your friend or family, this is a great craft for kids, I'm sure they will love them! If any of my directions are unclear, just refer to the picture and I'm sure all will be clear!
Go be crafty!