Homemade Hand Lotion

 

I have really dry skin, especially in the winter. Add living in a super dry climate, and well my hands can become quite the hot mess. It is not pretty...all cracked and craggy.

So I am always looking out for good lotions. I have had lots of recommendations over the years. I have tried lots too. Lots of them are really good, but they still don't completely soften or heal all the crackiness. At least not long term.

The Hubs feels my plight, quite literally, every time he holds my hand. Being all great and everything, he researched it out to see what he could come up with.

The result.

Dreamy, rich Homemade Hand Lotion that makes my hands feel softer than soft.

A softer than soft that lasts, and it lasts all the live long day. Day after day in fact.

Oh my hands are so very happy.

This lotion is SO easy to make and it only takes three really easy to find ingredients.

To make the lotion you need--

Johnson's Shea & Cocoa Butter Baby Lotion
Vitamin E Creme
Vasaline

Whip together the entire bottle of the baby lotion (15 oz), 8 oz of the Vitamin E Creme, and 8 oz of Vasaline. Make sure to whip it long enough that all three ingredients are completely incorporated.

Transfer the lotion to a lotion pump or another storage container. The recipe makes quite a lot. I put half of the mixture in a mason jar (you know how I love mason jars) and the rest I put into this adorable green glass vintage looking pump from Target.

Eek! Now not only do I have lusciously soft hands, but I also have a super cute lotion pump too.

This lotion will not disappoint your winter dry hands! Give it a try.

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How to Make Photo Recipe Card with PicMonkey

I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful.

I am now officially in Christmas mode. Okay, so I was kind of in part Christmas mode working on Christmas gifts, but now I am in 100% Christmas music, tree trimming, present wrapping, cocoa sipping Christmas mode.

I am so happy about it. 

One of the gifts I am putting together is a Cookie Photo Recipe Card Book. I used photos I had taken of all my favorite cookie/bar recipes to make recipe cards. Once they are all created and printed off, they will go on a ring for easy access.

Making Photo Recipe cards is really easy to make using PicMonkey.

1. Open up your photo.

2. Change the size to 2100x1500

3. Add a geometric overlay. A rectangle.

4. Change the hex code, to make the rectangle white. True white is ffffff.

5. Click and drag the rectangle and make it larger.  Large enough to create a text box for your recipe, but not so large that it will cover you lovely photo.

6. Fade the text box to be about 25%. This way more of your photo will show more.

7. Start with the title. I used the font Geo Sans Light. Stretch it to fit across the top.

8. To make the line underneath, use a geometric overlay. Stretch the rectangle until it is a line.

9. Using the same font, start the first column of ingredients. The font size will be smaller than in the title. 

10. Split the ingredients up, by making a second column. Once all the ingredients are listed, line up the columns.

11. Start a column beneath the ingredient list. Stretch the text box to go almost the entire width of the text box. Write the instructions in this text box. Move or stretch the box to fit in the white box.

12. Save.

Now that you made one recipe card, you can make a few more.

These are just a few more recipe cards for me to make up. I can't wait to show you the finished Cookie Photo Recipe Card Book.

I also think it would be fun to give one of these Photo Recipe Cards along with a plate of the goodies from the recipe.

Go to PicMonkey, play around and make your own photo recipe cards.

Toy Story Play Dough Present

We had a birthday party to go to this weekend for a sweet little two-year-old boy. We will forgo mentioning that we ended up not being able to go because of a sick kiddo. Back to the party...you know what that means...birthday present fun.

I really enjoying coming up with present ideas. We have given superhero capes, dolls (yes we occasionally get invited to little girl parties), and movie themed presents just to name a few.

Before Christmas I had thought up this present idea for homemade play dough with a coordinating fun place mat. I thought it would be perfect to give to some of Little's friends.

Well, then, I ran out of time...Christmas came and went. Luckily for me the idea stayed in my head. That my friends is rare occurrence. Thoughts typically do not stay in my head. They rattle around for a day or two and then roll on out.


A few weeks ago whilst grocery shopping I walked past some cute plastic placemats and was reminded of my idea. I picked out a few for future present giving and stored them for later.

Fast forward to now. For this little boy's present I decided to go with the Toy Story place mat. Toy Story pretty much rocks any Little Man's world. My Little Men have even been Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

How awesome is Buzz Lightyear? 

For the Toy Story themed play dough I chose to use purple and green for Buzz and yellow and blue for Woody.

I followed my favorite Homemade Play Dough recipe. Buzz approved.

I had been saving up Bean's baby food containers since before Christmas when I originally wanted to make play dough.

I sectioned off just enough play dough to fit into the small container.

The extra play dough was immediately put to good use.

I filled all the little containers.

Then I went to my good old stand by PicMonkey and I created some labels for the tops.

I cut them out and stuck them to the top.

Yellow made me the happiest. Well hello and howdy to you!

 Play dough done. Roll up the place mat, tie some fabric around it and BAM...present.

Fun present for a fun little friend! This was a fun and super easy to make. I better keep saving those baby food containers!