Do It Yourself – Page 7 – The Creative Salad

Rolling Beeswax Candles

As the days grow shorter, and in anticipation of the approaching holidays, we decided to make our own rolled beeswax candles.

We bought beeswax sheets in a honeycomb design from our local honey and beekeeping supplies store. (Don’t have a beekeeping store near you? You can buy a candle rolling kit here.) We also bought non-toxic pre-waxed wicks that are free of zinc and lead.

(To test for lead or zinc in a wick, press the wick into a piece of paper and drag it while pressing with your finger. If it leaves a mark on the paper, it probably contains things you wouldn’t want to breath.)

After cutting the wax sheets to size, we measuring wicks for each candle allowing for an extra 3/4″ to extend beyond the candle. We then used a hair dryer (set on low) to warm the sheet for 30-60 seconds, until it became more flexible, less prone to breaking, and easier to roll.

We laid the wick along the edge of the sheet (making sure to leave the extra length hanging over one side) and then rolled the wick tightly into the wax. We then rolled the rest of the sheet lightly, ensuring that our candle didn’t take on an oval shape that occurs when you press or roll too hard. We slowly rolled up the candle, making sure the edges stay straight so that the candle has a level base on the bottom edge.

Once fully rolled, we pressed and smoothed the top in towards the wick, and pressed the bottom against the table to flatten the base. We trimmed the wick 1/2″ from the top and placed it into a candle holder, ready for use!

Whether you decide to dress them up (using colorful wax or glitter) or keep them plain (as we did), handmade candles are meant to be used — not just displayed!

We’ve so enjoyed lighting ours.

Homemade candles feel so much more special than store bought ones. For us, it’s as though we are bringing a bit of homemade light into our house as we head into this dark, winter season!

DIY Oversized (Miniature) Coffee Table Books for the Dollhouse

We’re restoring a family heirloom, the dollhouse made for my husband’s grandmother when she was a little girl. Click here to see all the posts about our Dollhouse Redux Project.

We may not have finished painting the dollhouse, but we’ve started restoring furniture and making dollhouse accessories. One project we’ve been working on is a small photo book featuring photos of our daughter and her friends.

At 1.5″ x 2″ it’s small by our standards, but that makes it oversized for the dollhouse. A cute coffee table book perhaps?

Here’s what we did:

We picked some favorite photos and resized them to 1.5″ x 2″ in Photoshop. We then placed two of them side by side in a new image template that was 3″ x 2″ inches. These two pictures would be placed next to each other in the book.

We then printed and cut out around both of the images (not separating them!) for each set of photos.

We folded each set of two photos in half (with the images towards each other, the blank white pages on the outside), then glued them back to back from one page to the next in order to make a book. We glued the cover on top (just one 1.5″ x 2″ photo) with the title of our little book, and pasted a back cover of the same size to the reverse side of the last book page.

Ta da! A small picture book that’s child sized for our daughter’s dollhouse.

She so enjoyed working on this project: selecting the photos for the book, gluing it together, and now reading it over and again.

Next up: a series of coffee table books? I think we need one featuring our family.

Our daughter thinks we need one featuring the dollhouse people’s family. But of course! Why didn’t I think of that?!

New (Old) Dollhouse Furniture

Earlier this week six pounds of dollhouse furniture arrived in a giant box from my mother-in-law in New Mexico.

Our daughter loved unwrapping and playing with each item that had belonged to her great-grandmother. In fact, many of items were handmade, making them even more special for our family.

Now we’re beginning the process of cleaning and lovingly restoring much of the furniture.

Last night’s project involved some cute chairs and pink paint and that’s all I’m going to say about THAT until the big reveal. Stay tuned…

Red Glitter Clothespins Tutorial

Over the years we’ve discovered that you can never have too many clothespins in the house: for drying laundry on the line, for pinning up photos, for hanging artwork, for closing chip bags in the pantry.

And glittery clothespins?! Well, the girls in this house love how fun they are. The three year old especially is all about the sparkle.

So we decided to make a red version of the silver glitter clothespins we made last winter.

We spread plain Elmer’s glue on one side of the clothespins, and then sprinkled red glitter over the top.

After letting them dry for a few hours, we covered the glitter with glossy Mod Podge to seal the glitter on.

The Mod Podge took away a little of the shine, but at least we don’t have glitter all over the house.

Here they are: our red, glittery clothespins, perfect for the holidays or simply to add some more sparkle to a little girl’s room.

Lilly’s Mouse Ears

A Halloween preview for you…

I’ve written before about our daughter’s obsession with a little white mouse named Lilly from Kevin Henkes’s beloved children’s books. (Remember this magnet project?)

Over the past few weeks we’ve been hard at work on her very own DIY Lilly Halloween costume.

We’ll share the rest with you tomorrow after tonight’s Trick or Treating adventure. Happy Halloween!