Valentine's Day is Coming

I think I've mentioned this but I'll say it again: I am not the fan of Valentine's Day. But my daughter will be on school vacation around that time and she has become aware of the significance of the holiday. And last year she had me convinced that Valentine's Day is best celebrated with children. They have the best perspectives on any life event. So I have downloaded loads of images to inspire me. I am thinking of hosting a Valentine's Day sleepover for Hazel. We'll see..

Pretty in the Bath

 

Ever since I made the bath bombs for Hazel's School Craft Fair, I am pretty obsessed with everything related to a big tub of steaming water and me. And, I keep thinking of what the various products out there are. Like, is that scented oil in that little bottle and are those cylinders of soap and can I make them at home? Well, the answer is yes to all of those questions. So I am watching every single youtube video I can find on how to make bath salts, bath bombs, bath melts, rosewater and cold-processed soap (I hope you have time because this is mesmerising). They'd all make great gifts for friends at special holidays; but honestly I am only thinking of myself at this point. I have become very familiar with the supplier called brambleberry and I am now simply trying to figure out if there is a European equivalent (if you know of an EU supplier, email me) because if not I'll be shipping a whole bunch of stuff from the US.

Bath Craft

I am absolutely not a craft mom. Despite the fact that I love interior decor and I am style, fashion and art crazy, I am not the one to modge podge, etc. But I get the feeling that once you have a child you are dragged kicking and screaming into the craft lifestyle.

So, as I told you earlier this week, today is the day that they have the craft fair at Hazel's school. I needed to make something that did not require any modge podge, sewing, knitting, weaving or any of that other -ish. I am not the one. So I decided to just go with the flow and make what I know. I am the DIY expert in bath supplies. I troll the internet for DIY beauty products. So, for example, anything involving turmeric, honey or avocado and the skin: I am tthe one. So I was very much interested in making a DIY bath/beauty product. Thank God for youtube because they've made being handy and skillful easier for craft-dummies like me.

Every Sunday after Hazel's ice-skating class we come home and have a hot steaming bath with bath salts. I buy mine at the pharmacy usually.  I never thought of making my own but it is ridiculously simple and does not require any sewing (lol) or me burning down the house. Also, I love candles and since we moved to the Eastern Europ...ahhh..actually Nothern European ice-box called Lithuania, we are more susceptible to the sniffles and stuffy noses and burning throat. So it's good to be able to make my own mint-eucalyptus candles and bath salts which totally clears the sinuses.    

So for Hazels craft fair I made: 

Soy Wax Eucalyptus-Mint Candles in a Tea-Cup ( I bought the tea cups at a second hand shop);

Bath Bombs (which is epsom salt with corn starch, baking soda, essential oils and citric acid for a nice fizz molded into a ball shape and for some decadence, I added rose petals and lavendar pods/buds);

Eucalyptus-Mint Bath Salts (with epsom salt, dead sea salt, baking soda plus mint and ecalyptus essential oils)

Rose-Mint Sugar Scrub (with Sugar, Almond Oil, Rose Oil and Mint Oil).

You can find know-how and recipes on my previous post. The supermarket will have all the powders, sugars and salts. And the pharmacy or the herbal supply store will have all the essential oils and the soap colouring/pigment.

My kitchen smells like the inside of a Lush store.

Kaziukas

Every first weekend in March teh city of Vilnius has a craft fair and the vendors roll out their traditional foods, specialty tea, Easter bunnies, woodwork, straw/hay floral arrangements, beeswax candles, knitwear and linen-tailored shirts and dresses. My midget and I went to have a look. Our favourite? The Easter Bunnies.

So what did we get? We got smoked cheese--smells like smoked red herring and tastes like haloumi. Very yum. And a Pony Ride.

For most of March there'll be craft fairs put on by schools and other towns. This Friday at my midget's school there'll be a craft fair in the gymnasium and parents are expected to make and bring their own crafts. I am making candles in teacup and mint-eucalyptus bath bombs and sugar body scrubs which I'll put in little Ikea spice jars. Seems relatively straight-foward, right?

DIY: Tile Paint

Not a single shop sells tile paint in Lithuania. Basically, the big home improvement stores like  Ermitazas and Senukai do not sell tile paint; neither do the art supply shops. I think it's because renters in Lithuania do not get into the business of DIYing their landlord's home. But it was critical to figure something out because I am not the one to be living with those not-quite-italian-restaurant-maybe-German-kitch-or-Pennsylvania-Dutch-ugly-kitchen-tiles. So I decided that I needed to paint the kitchen tiles. They are the ones you see on the wall in the kitchen. I wanted white tile paint and I was not trying to order it from the U.K. So I set about figuring out what the composition of tile paint could possibly be. I figured that exterior concrete paint would drive me insane because of the fumes that it would give off during application. But then I realised that even if I bought tile paint there may be fumes too. So I went with glossy metal/wood paint in white. I used a primer coat first to give the paint something to adhere to. For sure it was smelly but the smell wears off once the paint is dry. Result below (I am not the greatest with a SMART phone camera).

The cream/beige,orange, gray, kitchyness has gone and is replaced by sedate white. (Yeah, I removed the cupboards too and am replacing them with shelves).  I'll let you know how the paint stands up to hot water splashes and stove/grease cleaner.  So there you have it: if you cannot access tile paint use a very good quality primer followed by metal or wood paint.

Next stop: the ugly yellow tiles in the bathroom. As I mentioned before: I am not the one.