DIY - Hurricane Bottle w/Candle

Here is a picture of one of the gifts that I have made this past year.  It is quite gallant and relatively easy to make. A bottle that I had found while I was doing some spring cleaning.  I know that I wouldn't have put an empty bottle in the back of the cabinet without some sort of intent, however for the life of me I can't remember what it was.  So, I came up with a new purpose!  A hurricane bottle with a candle.


This I must say took about 2 weeks. 1 day for research and the other 13 days to work up the courage to work with glass.  Having done it before, someone always ends up getting cut or it doesn't cut straight.  At either expense it's just not worth the effort.  But I could just envision a beautiful hurricane cover for a candle that would create a dynamic centerpiece.  So off on my next adventure I went.  Mustering all the courage I could, I plugged in the dremel and started in cutting the bottom off of this beautiful Bailey's bottle.


I started to cut into it, then realized I had already missed a step in the process.  To remove the label(s).  So I soaked the bottle in hot water for an hour.  When I came back it was ready and the labels were easily removed without leaving any of the adhesive for me to deal with, I felt it was ready for me to dremel.


I again plugged in the dremel and realized I needed a line to guide me.  Ok, now I'm really starting to question my over zealous determination to cut into this bottle as I seem to be throwing caution to the wind just to play with the dremel. lol


So I quickly soap stoned a line on the bottom of the bottle then set the dremel to task.  I don't know what I was thinking but approximately an hour later I had made it completely thru the thickest part of the entire bottle - the bottom.


With the bottom portion cut off I sanded the edges of the bottle using my handy dandy new dremel and it made short order of any rough edge that might have been there.  Feeling that I had sufficiently rounded the edges as well.  I set it upon one of the candles that I had premeasured and made 2 weeks prior.


Yes, I have been preparing for this for a while.  But at the last minute, well I kinda chickened out.  Then as it turned out, my new dremel almost got the best of me and my well thought out plan. lol


From start to finish it took approximately 2 hours from soaking off the label to completion of a magnificent hurricane style bottle to cover one pillar candle.


I of course was so feverishly working that I forgot to take a single picture of the process.  That is apparently how excited I was to use my dremel!!


I did manage to contain my excitement in the end, to finally realize that I had forgotten and with great determination managed to take a few pictures of the project upon completion.


Here's what I ended up with.  I gave it to my Gramma that loves the dynamics of presentation.  She loved it and hope you will too.


In the midst of all my excitement, this is what I was able to capture.

This one was taken in my kitchen with my phone and it was a bit darker than at my

Gramma's house.  I tried a tea light candle first, but it didn't put off enough light.  So I opted to use the candles I made 2 weeks prior.  So you could see the flicker of the candle a bit better.

Now as you probably notice, I forgot to take off the label around the neck of the bottle.  That's ok, it's perfectly unique for me and that's what makes it personalized. haha


Finally, I kept the very bottom of the bottle just in case my Gramma decided to use the pillar candle instead of a self contained candle.  And the lid makes a perfect candle snuffer too.


Quick, simple, easy and perfectly unique!  If I do say so myself, that makes for another great gift idea.

DIY - Pine Cone Peanut Butter Bird Treats

Alright, I've slacked a bit.  I was on a roll and some how managed to distract myself with other things.  We've been up to many things, so it's time to get back to the business at hand.  So here goes.


I believe in recycling.  There is no need to throw something away, when it can be used for something else.  Or revamped to use for another purpose.  A re-purposing if you will.


Here is a neat way to recycle pine cones, that would otherwise go to waste.  We turned our PERFECT pine cones into PERFECT bird treats.


Now my Mom, is a lover of the little feathered friends.  Brings her great delight to watch them come in to feed on the treats she strews out for them every morning.  Waylon, my son, decided to turn that delight into a wonderful present for his Nana.  With the help of his Mom (me) and the donation of pine cones from his Papa (my Dad) we were able to make some Pine Cone Peanut Butter Bird Treats.


It had been many years since my Grandmother showed me the recipe to make these little delights, so for the most part I winged it (pardon the pun).  I could remember the ingredients, but the quantity escaped me.  So throwing caution to the wind, we dug in and started off on the right foot by gathering the ingredients:  suet, peanut butter, bird seed, pine cones and some string for hanging.


We needed some suet.  It just so happens that I cooked up some bacon to serve with breakfast and saved the grease.  (See, I did have SOME forethought of the project! lol)  And as luck would have it, I bought the wrong peanut butter at the store.  We don't care for crunchy peanut butter, so another good save!! .... we donated it to feeding the birdies.  I had some wild berry bird seed on hand (what a coincidence) and it is considered one of the best for bringing in the finches, blue birds and cardinals.  (Which are ALL Nana's favs! Another good save. hehe)


Now, we needed to scavenge some string.  Well, I do seem to have an unlimited supply of hay twine.  So we took one strand and broke it down into several more and tied them around the top of the pine cones.


Now, I didn't think of taking pictures until Way had already gotten a couple of them done.  But as you can see from the pictures, it's kind of messy with the suet peanut butter.  But we had alot of fun putting it all together and then packaging them with love for Nana!


See the recipe at the bottom of this post.

The suet peanut butter is a bit saucy, but to get it in the little crevices of the pine cone it was

necessary to make it that way.

As you can see here, it kind of drips off the pine cone.   We attached the string first,

making it easier to dip, then double dip in the bird seed.  I used a muffin tin to rest them in,then placed them in the freezer for about 15 - 20 minutes to set the suet mixture.

I don't have a final picture, but as you can see from the one sitting in the muffin tin

that is what they look like.

Nana loved the Pine Cone Peanut Butter Bird Treats and is ready for us to make some more! :D

I think I will adjust the amount of suet I use next time and see if I can make it a bit less "soupy" and try

more of the packing method to see if it works out better for us.

Here's the Peanut Butter Suet recipe:

Ingredients: (Makes 12)

1 cup Suet (I used bacon grease, warmed)

2 cups Crunchy Peanut Butter

1 lb. Wild Berry and Nuts Bird Seed

String

Directions:

Now (as I said before) I'm into re-purposing as much as possible, so I used some twine from the hay that we get for the horses.  But any type of string will work, or wire if you prefer.  Be creative with it, as it doesn't have to be perfect, just look perfectly unique when your finished.

I separated the twine to make into more manageable pieces of strings.  And as it turned out it made 12 strings for 12 pine cones.  Now lace the string thru the top edges of the pine cone.  It doesn't make any difference which end you use, but I opted to use the flat edge, so I suppose for all intense purposes that would be the bottom.  After bringing the string together, I tied a knot in the middle.  Leaving enough string to make a loop at the end to hang it from the branch.

Next I took the suet that had been warmed and added the peanut butter to it. (I want to add here that I warmed it so that it would make a soupy mixture so that it would get into the crevices of the pine cone easier.  However in retrospect I might not warm the suet so much next time).

I set the bowl of suet peanut butter next to the bowl of bird seed.  Dip the pine cones in the peanut butter mixture and rotate a few times.  We used a spatula to make sure the peanuts got into the crevices too.  Then transfer it to the bird seed.  We used a double dip method and it worked well.

Place each pine cone in the muffin tin, then place in the freezer for 15 - 20 minutes until the suet is set.

Once the suet is completely set, we packaged ours and Way presented them to his Nana. :D

After Nana hung them up, she started getting in the blue birds that are her very very favorite next to cardinals.  And now enjoys watching her blue feathered friends thru the big picture windows with Papa. 

Simple, easy, made with love and perfectly unique!  Now that's what I call a great gift idea.

DIY Gifts - Eggshell Candles

Alright, I bet you thought I forgot about showing you our DIY projects didn't you. :)

I wouldn't forget! 

But I have to admit, I am rather slow on the uploading of the pictures I've already taken.  Or is that downloading? hmm.  Well I did my part, I took the picture. :P

Ok, here is one of the easier projects that we did as a Christmas present for my daughter in law.  Angie absolutely loves candles and is quite into holiday themes so we tried to come up with something that she could use throughout the whole year, not just one.  We decided that a present of eggshell candles would be a great gift for her.  I gotta admit though , once we delved into this project we almost forgot our objective.  I had seen these made when I was a child and they had holly leaves and berries painted on them after they were set.  Then placed decoratively on the table to create a wonderful christmasy centerpiece display.  She almost got holly leaves and berries on them too, just not for the same reason.  Just in the nick of time we remembered not to paint them!  Read on to find out why ...

Now I'm an avid DIY'er and make the candles from scratch most of the time.  So already having the materials here to make the candles we set to work eating eggs for the next couple of days.  (ALOT of eggs!)  Now, we eat alot of eggs anyway, but when you have to be careful how you break the eggshell it becomes a bit more interesting. So we ate ALOT of eggs and picked the best shells for the project. For this project we used home grown eggs as they're a bit thicker and more durable than a store bought egg.  haha  (I needed all the help I could get, so we went straight to the top... 'er bottom of the matter! lol)

Wanting to keep the colors soft, I opted to use the soy wax and instead of using the wax dye, Way donated his old crayons to the cause for that "personal" touch.  Then added some wonderful berries smells to each batch.

I'm a paraphin phenatic, so soy wax was definately a new experience for me.  I wasn't sure the paraphin crayon would meld well with the soy, so we ate a few extra eggs just in case. haha

With paraphin, the general rule is to take a test drop and allow it to cool.  That color is the color of the candle.  Ok, I broke rule #1, I didn't do a test drop.  Remember I'm used to paraphin. lol  So imagine my surprise when I check back on our little eggs and find they are allllllll pastel colors.  Ok, not what I anticipated at all!  Here's where we lost our objective.  We decided ok, we can make this a good save by painting holly leaves and berries on them to give them a bit more color.

As I was peeling them, oh I WISH a regular egg peeled that easy!  And if there was a nick in one, it smoothed out very easily with a quick rub of my thumb.  Wish all my deviled eggs turned out looking that good. haha.

Anyway, it occurred to us that Angie really likes pastels and if she wanted to use them for other holiday occassions, those holly leaves and berries really wouldn't work out so well.

So we left them plain and unpainted.  Giving her the wonderful DIY possiblities to share with my granddaughter Zoey... by painting hearts on them for Valentine's Day, Shamrocks for St. Patricks and of course the wonderful holiday of Easter with tulips and butterflies.

Which by the way............ I want pictures of that! :D

Here's the pictures of our DIY Eggshell Candles..

We'll call these the cream of the crop. lol

The hardest part was making sure only the tops were cracked off.

That really took some practice after successfully breaking them in half for 20 years. haha

This was or first batch.  As you can see they're all lined up all in a row.

Well after this batch, I decided that separating them a bit would be easier to pour.

Here, they're spread apart and the pour was alot quicker, easier and less messy.

But then I sneezed and got it all over the place! lol

Good thing I thought ahead and put down some newspaper. hehe

Now you'll notice there isn't a finished picture. Ya well, my batteries died waiting for me to finish peeling one!  See, you have this whole mind set when your holding an egg shell.  The concept is simple... it's fragile!  And when you thump an eggshell, one has to remember not to bang it too hard or what's inside ... well crushes like an egg. haha

Well it took me quite a bit to get past that mind set.  Finally I just BEAT IT ON THE COUNTER and it finally cracked!  Wow, talk about a tough nut to crack. haha

I did take some pictures on my phone and i'll upload (or is it download?) those and edit this post to add the finished pictures to this post in a day or two.

We were well pleased with our DIY eggshell candles and the wonderful berry smell they left lingering in the house.  We packaged them in an egg carton and hand delivered them with a big smile.

That was a double duty DIY for me as the soy wax did wonders for my dry hands for at least a couple of weeks! lol

**EDIT:  I finally got those pictures uploaded.. err downloaded... oh whatever it is. .. I finally got them off my phone, on the laptop and now to their final destination.  This post!  So here is the picture of what the Eggshell Candle looked like when it was finished.

These are the cutest little eggs.  Easy to work with too.  As you can see from the one laying on it's side there is a nick out of it.  I took my thumb and rubbed that spot a few times and it rubbed right out. 

I stored them in the egg carton I poured them in and handed them over to my test panel for their trial test.  (My daughter in law LOVES candles.)  I will make another post when the test results come back.



DIY Gifts - Cookies

There is nothing better than homemade (DIY) anything.  The time it takes and the love you put into it for a loved one or just the gift of giving brings out the best in me.  And something I've tried to instill in both my boys.  Ok, one of them isn't so much a boy anymore (as I am ever reminded when I look into his sons eyes!)  But, it's my bubble and all is right with the world when I think of all the traditions I have been able to share with both my "boys" through the years.

For Christmas we had many DIY gift-giving projects going.  My youngest son is still at home and so we once again broke out the DIY tubs to see what crafty thing we could come up with this time.  DIY around here is a daily/weekly/monthly affair, but I must say a gift takes a bit more thought.  The youngest is now 8 yrs old and can be quite creative and resourceful when he wants to be.

First we made a list of the people we wanted to make something homemade for.  Beside each name, we listed that persons favorite things, then started our DIY quest for just the right gift for each one.

Now to keep our brains from going into DIY overload with the hussle-bussle of the season we kept it as simple as possible.  There were a couple that looked simple that seemed to take the longest.  And as the deadline of Christmas Eve approached I was positive of it!  But in the end it was more than worth the extra time and care it took to complete the projects.

I know it's after Christmas, so why bother posting them now?  Well it wouldn't have been much of a surprise if they had already seen what they were getting... now would it.

I'll be posting all our DIY gift projects one by one.  I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as we enjoyed making them.


Peanut Butter Kisses

First we mixed all the ingredients, then Way rolled each one in sugar.

Now Way is making those cool checkerboards on them.

Then I forgot to take a picture of them coming out of the oven

and him adding a chocolate kiss to each one.

Ok, Ok... my bad.

But, I did remember to take a picture of the finish!

Don't those look delicious?!! Yumm.

Tis' the Season

Now that Thankgiving is over and everyone is enjoying their Bobby's, let's talk greeting cards.

I've come across a site called Shutterfly.  Now I'm sure everyone has heard of it long before I did, as I still pretty much live in the dark ages of the past.  Ya, I refuse to grow up at times too. lol

Anyway, Shutterfly has some great Christmas greeting card ideas that I'd like to share.

Now I'm more into the personal touch of things and am really torn between the timeline card, the family card or the collage.

I have to admit, I keep going back to this one

And for a limited time they are 30% off!

Did I mention it was the Cyber Week sale too!

Happy Holidays.