My Blog Has Moved

So, I haven't blogged in forever and I will be changing that - but I'll be doing it at a new location.

My husband and I are joining together in blog land!
You can now visit us at skaynopoyos.com (or click on the logo below)

There, we will be sharing about what God is doing in our lives, our online business, and I will still be sharing my crazy tidbits and deals.

Hope to see you there!

Did you know...

That you can plant used up green onions in a small jar of water.
Cchange the water everyday and see this in a few days???

What Did We Do???

Last week I hinted about something the girls and I were doing - we made soap!

This picture is of homemade lye. It was a long process with buckets and hay and rocks and filtering and ashes...whew! We finally got a strong mixture of lye and tested it by floating an egg in it - hence the mystery picture!

BUT...Once I had the lye and the oils all ready I could not find a recipe for making soap using homemade lye. I guess what we made was potassium hydroxide (fancy eh?!) but commercial lye is sodium hydroxide. The two are not interchangeable and we quite possibly have blown up our kitchen had we tried. :)

So, a quick trip to Ace Hardware to get the commercial stuff was in order and we were off on our soap making adventure!

I had made it years ago and took a class at the time so a quick refresher for me and I was able to teach the girls. They were so excited and delighted to see it all come together.

We mixed our lye and water...
Melted our oils...
And let them both cool to 110 degrees.
We combined the two...
and mixed...
and mixed...
In fact we got so tired of mixing until we reached the "trace" stage that I ended up putting the whole thing in the kitchenaid mixer and let it do the work. Two hours later we reached the consistency we were looking for (I was beginning to lose hope!).

The prepared 'mold'...
At the last minute we mixed in our lavender and lemon essential oil and some pulverized oats for grit and poured it into the mold...
A couple of days later we cut it into bars. We were thrilled with the results and are all hooked.

The hardest part? Waiting the 4 weeks for it to cure before we can use it!

Handmade Christmas

I came across this idea the other day for making yarn out of t-shirts. What a great idea! I had a few in my fabric storage and got to work making a few balls of yarn. There was also this idea for making a layered necklace and I immediately thought of my 16 year old. I whipped this up one evening while watching a movie and I love how it turned out!
***Shameless plug alert***...this one is actually for sale in our etsy store, but I made another all white one for my daughter - equally as nice!

Fall Decor

So, I had to check the calendar twice the other day because I had NO IDEA that Thanksgiving was this close! When your temps are in the 70s and 80s most days, it is hard to tell when the seasons changed. I'm currently working on our thanksgiving meal plan and that is also the day we decorate for Christmas - that should be super strange!

Anyhoo - we were at the thrift store the other day and I spotted this covered glass canister and I was in love! I oohed and ahhed over it and kept walking past it. I could picture all the fun things I could do with it each season. For only $3.50 I really couldn't pass it up but I am so hard on myself when it comes to buying for me. My husband is always telling me to buy myself this or that but I have a hard time with it. Finally, he had enough of me 'wondering if I should' and grabbed it and stuck it on the counter with the other things we were buying!

FUN!!!
I've already changed it up a few times and look forward to seeing it change with the seasons.

Deals

There have been a few yard sales here lately and I scored some great finds for my little one last weekend. Everything her size was 50 cents each - I went back 3 times!

She is now the best dressed kid in town!4 Pairs of pants

3 Dresses

The cutest little piggie pjs

4 tops

A coat and a puffy vest
And the sweetest little boots!

(Now, if it would just get cold enough to wear these we'd be all set!)

What Is Going On Here???

The girls and I have a fun project going this week - I'll share more soon!