Turn Broke Crayons into New Crayons

For some reason my kiddos do not like to color with broken crayons. I guess there is just something awesome about coloring with a new, perfectly pointed crayon.  Did you know crayons break really easy, and they do not stay perfectly pointed for long? We decided to give new life to these abandoned crayons, making them fun once again. It only takes a couple of steps:

1. The first thing you have to do is take off all the paper from the crayons. This is actually the most tedious part of the project, from here on out its a breeze.

2. Now melt the crayons in a double broiler. I just put my glass measuring cup inside of a boiling pot of water. I filled the pot a third of the way with water, and turned it down to medium/high after it started boiling. I like using the double boiler method because it is easier to prevent your crayons from burning. Now add your desired color of crayons to the glass measuring cup. Stir slowly till the crayons are completely melted. Please be careful during this step because the melted crayons and boiling water are extremely hot. If you are a kiddo, please get an adult to help :)

After the crayons are melted go ahead and pour into your desired mold. 

We put the poured crayons in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes, and popped them out. 

Here are how they turned out! Super cute, and the kids are so excited to color with them.

Quick Halloween Costume- Sugar Skull

)My daughter is part of student council at her school, and this year they threw a spooky Halloween party.  I needed a quick costume, and decided to learn how to do some 'Some Day of the Dead" make up and be a sugar skull.  Thanks to the video below I was able to create this look.  I had to do a lot of substituting because I didn't have the same make up, but I think it turned out pretty good :)

Thank you mayratouchofglam for the tutorial!

Make sure you check out her video :)

DIY Spooky Skull and Brain Bath Bombs

I hope you enjoy this pic tutorial :) Here is a link to a video that shows the finished product.https://youtu.be/jB_zj6ef2Sk Have fun!

How to Paint a Herring Bone Pattern

Since I had my dryer out to repair the other day, I decided to take the opportunity and clean out my laundry room. I have more of a laundry "closet" really instead of a room. I thought it would be fun to paint a pattern in my closet. I chose to do a "Herring Bone" pattern, and it ended up being pretty easy. Here is how I did it :)

For instructions pay attention to my pink arrows. I'll try to make this as least confusing as possible. Next time I do this kind of tutorial, I'll really try to talk more pics during the whole process.

Step 1: Using blue painter's tape, put one strip vertically placed from ceiling to floor smack dab in the middle of the wall.  My pattern did not go to the floor, so I made a horizontal baseline with painter's tape also. 

Step 2: Now figure out how many more vertical lines you want. The length of my wall is 80 inches, so every 20 inches I decided to have a vertical line. So my project went like this: left wall, 20in, 20in, 20in, right wall. I only had to lay out 3 vertical strips of painter's tape.

Step 3: Mark where you want to connect your painter's tape to your vertical lines. Every pink dot represents where I marked my tape for connecting. From ceiling to baseline my project measured 60 inches, so I decided to make it easy and mark my vertical tape strips every 10 inches.  

Step 4: Now you just connect the dots with your painter's tape. I started on my middle vertical line and worked my way down, then I did left and right sides. The arrows below are to help show where to start and end your strips.

Step 5: After you complete step four, all you do is paint! Go over all your tape  with a paint rolling brush and your choice of paint color. I like to remove the painter's before the paint dries too much. That seems to help keep your lines clean.

Here is a pic of my finished painting project! I love how it turned out, and really it was pretty easy :) 

I hope my directions were not to confusing, and hope you have fun with your own painting project :) 

I'm off to put my laundry room back together now that the paint is dry!

How to Make Sidewalk Chalk Paint Water Balloons

My father in law and I were talking about painting with water balloons, and I immediately thought about how fun that would be to do with the kids. The only down part is it would be super messy, and hard to clean up. For my youngest daughter's birthday I bought her a sidewalk chalk painting kit with rollers and everything. As I was pondering the, "Painting with water balloons" idea, I thought back to that kit and aha an idea was born! Sidewalk chalk painting with water balloons!

How I made the paint is really easy. All you do is mix water and cornstarch in equal parts, add a couple drops of food coloring and stir. Note: For painting on the sidewalk you would want a thicker consistency so mix 1 part water to 3 parts cornstarch. Since I'm using water balloons, I wanted it to be more liquidy. 

Now how did I get the paint in the water balloons? Also easy :) I used a water bottle.

Just fill it with about 1 cup paint.

Put on the cap, and place on balloon.

Squeeze the bottle enough to get every drop of paint into the balloon.

And here they are :) You can kind of see the mixture separating in the balloon as they sit, so give them a little shake before you toss.

We had so much fun with this idea, here a video of how it went. 

http://youtu.be/eywQWUZ1aKY

Me vs. Whirlpool Duet Dryer

Is there nothing you can not learn to do from YouTube!?! This video taught me to change my own dryer belt! So awesome :) http://youtu.be/BO8IBoY-wlU 

Last week I was doing laundry, and I heard a loud "snap"! I looked at my dryer, and it stopped working. Since I have a family of 7, I wanted to get it fixed as soon as possible.  I assumed the belt breaking was the loud snap I heard, so I took off the front panel to check it out. The belt was dangling in the back for sure.  My father in law is actually an appliance repair man, so I told him my predicament. He suggest I order a "repair kit", because it's a good idea to replace common movable parts while I have the dryer open. The picture below is what came in my kit. 4- Drum Rollers, 1- Belt, 1 - Idler Pulley Wheel, Washers and some Tri-rings.

I only need 2 tools for this project, a flat head screwdriver and a 1/4 inch nut driver. Below is the nut driver :)

I have to admit that I was pretty scared when I got everything taken apart. My father in law said I could call him for back up if I needed, but I ended up getting it back together :)

This was a messy project for sure. Lint was every where, and it is amazing how much grease those drum rollers have. 

Ya baby, I did it!!! After putting the dryer back together and plugging it in I held my breath while I pressed the power button. Whew, it started right up and sounded quieter then ever :)

Its been about 4 days now since my repair, and the dryer is working great :)

EOS Handsoap

My oldest daughter is so smart and crafty :) She figured out how to combine two of my favorite things, EOS Lip balm and soap! She made an EOS portable hand soap. The EOS container makes carrying your handsoap around really convienent, and you don't have to worry about spills :)

First she cleaned her EOS container thoroughly, and boiled it for a couple minutes to get rid of all lip balm residue.

Next she cut up pieces of melt and pour soap, and heated it in the microwave using 15 second intervals. 

Once completely melted she added color, and stirred. This is also where you would want to add scents if desired.

She sticks the grate of the EOS container into the lid, and pours the melted soap to the top. 

After being placed in the freezer for 20 minutes, this is what it looks like. nice and solid.

She popped the bottom on to the lid and...

Wa La, EOS Handsoap! It's so pretty :)

Way to go Lex! Awesome project 👍