Scrubs, Wallpaper and Yarn

I made a yummy sea salt scrub for the bath/shower a few days ago. This is super easy and fun to make at home. Now please understand that I do tutorials the way that I cook. I do things by approximation and no two batches/recipes are ever the same. I do things by feel, taste or smell. I have never been accused of being a perfectionist and don't intend to ever be accused of it. As long as what I'm doing is close, that's fine by me. As mentioned in a previous post, this is why I am a crafter, not a chemist.

The ingredients are super flexible as well. There are endless combinations of items that you can use. You need sea salt, oils, glycerin and essential oil for scent. That's it. How much of each? That's where the fun comes in. You get to decide!

For the scrub part, I used sea salt. The one I bought from the health food store is fairly fine. If you want more of a scrub you could use a coarse salt. You really don't even have to use a specific kind of salt here. Sea Salt, Kosher - all will work fine.

Put your salt in a bowl. How much you use is up to you - (see, I told you I approximate and I'm about to do it again too!) Now that we've got the scrub part, let's add the stuff that makes your skin feel so soft.

I used some of each of the following: Avocado oil, olive oil, glycerin and essential oil. You can change out the oils if you would like. Jojoba would be great in this. How many drops of essential oil you use is pretty much up to your nose (as is the scent that you pick.) I added a few drops of spearmint. As anyone in my family knows, I adore mint, especially mint teas.

Basically, you want the salt to be really wet. Like I mentioned above this is approximation at its finest. You should not have a dry mix. You also don't want it to be a soup either. Meet somewhere in the middle where the salt is overly shiny.

Put your mix in a small container and shower away! Your scrub will separate. Don't worry, just swirl it around with your hand as you scoop it out to use it.

I guarantee your skin will feel fantastic when you exit your shower.



Oh, and that little bit of wall paper you see behind the ingredients? It's absolutely hideous and was in the house when we moved in. We've been afraid to tackle changing it. You see, the idiots before us had 3 layers of the stuff on top of each other and that was on top of a wall that was never primed. We know this because the rest of the rooms in the house that we have changed have been this way and we really don't want to change it ourselves for fear of destroying the sheet rock. Plus add in no money and two children that like to "help" and you have a recipe for disaster.

Two funny things about it though?
1. Anyone over 70 that has entered our home has loved it.
2. Any artwork (or anything else for that matter) that you hang disappears into the wall paper. I kid you not. I hung a Christmas wreath up on one of the walls and noone ever noticed it. noone. Here's a pic of it in all its hideous glory:

Lovely Ain't it?

For any knitters interested, I've got yarn up for auction at Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330109158159
It's a cotton/nylon blend. See the pic below.

Because Everyone Should Have a Star Wars Name

One day I had had enough. There's only so many times a Mom can hear her name being called by a small, loud, sharp voice. Personally, hearing Mom to the 32nd power is just a little too much in my book. My eldest son is a Star Wars freak. He's also the one that was driving me insane with the constant, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom" ad nauseum. I finally looked at him and informed him that my name that day was not Mom and I wasn't going to answer to it and proceeded with what I had been doing before being interrupted for the 500th time.

Ah, finally, blessed silence for the 30 seconds or so that it took his brain to process the information. Then the conversation proceeded thusly:

"Your name's not Mom?"
"No, not today. I have a new name."

Silence again.

"Well, what is your new name?"

I replied (in a James Earl Jones type of voice), "Darth Mommy, because I am your Mutha."

I wanted to hear tiny sharp voice saying "Noooooooooooooo" but it didn't happen.

And so, for the rest of the day I absolutely refused to answer to mom any more. My eldest, of course, thought this was awesome.

Well, this led to a series of discussions about what Star Wars names the other family members should have. Dad was crowned DaddywanKenobi. The eldest became Jor-Jor Stinky Binks ( a play on the name Jar-Jar Binks which is a character that he loves and I hate, but we'll leave that discussion for another day.)

When the new little fella came along, there was much thought put into the Star Wars name he would receive. We needed a name that would be descriptive, something that would really show the true colors of a baby boy, a being that eats, sleeps, poops and spits up and does little else. At long last, inspiration hit and the child was formally dubbed:

wait for it:



Puke Skywalker.

I now present 15 month old Puke Skywalker in action with his brother's light saber:

Four Easter Bunnies and a WIP

I forgot to mention my Stole that I'm knitting when I blogged last week. Doesn't look much different does it? Oh, but it is! I frogged the last one. With the thicker yarn that I'm using, it was knitting up a little too dense. So, I went up three needle sizes and I'm much happier with it now. It's much lighter and lacier looking. The other fabric was beautiful, but not what I was aiming for. This is currently about three and a half repeats of the pattern. Only a bazillion more to go!















Not one, not two, not three, but Four Easter Bunnies! I claim the top two, but I have to blame my brother for the bottom ones.

Ain't they cute?