Pinter*Mel Christmas 2012 - SPOILER ALERT FOR FAMILY

Hey Everyone (except for family, because if you're reading this, then the presents currently sitting under the tree from me are no longer a surprise...however they might not be already because I've been posting quite a bit of stuff to Facebook, in which case, carry on.)

This year for all the ladies in the family I decided to make my own version of the natural beauty box; a box full of lotions, lip balms, bath bombs, and linen spray all made by yours truly and only using all-natural ingredients. 

I purchased all I would need to make these back in early October from a great online retailer called Savon Populaire out of Montreal. Yes their website it completely in French, however if you're using Google Chrome their translate button will help you out. 

Here's the numbers I started out working with:

First of all I went to the Dollar Store and picked up some nifty little wooden boxes, which I proceeded to paint with watered down acrylic paint (acts like a stain so you can still see the wood grain), and then sealed with Polycrylic. 

Then I started into making lip balms. I used the kit from Savon Populaire, and purchased their vanilla flavouring. I found that the flavouring was lacking in the vanilla'y department, so I added the vanilla I had purchased for making bath bombs. I also made lip balms that are flavoured with the orange essential oil, and then another set with the peppermint essential oil that I also purchased from Savon Populaire. 

(Sorry for the abysmal lighting, I took this with my smart phone during sunset.)

This was stupidly easy. Seriously. If you ever want to do this with your kid as a birthday party favour or something, they could totally do this with your supervision of course...because there's a stove and boiling water involved. Okay, upon review this might not be the safest thing to do...iirc I think I ended up burning myself. Forget what I said. 

Then, once they were cool and set, I minimalistically labelled them. Orange for the orange flavour, green for peppermint, and yellow for vanilla. The labels are basic shipping labels with Sharpie paint marker paint. 

After that I decided to make Christmas cards because a) stationary was on for $1.50 at Michael's, and b) stamps were on 40% off, and then were on 'buy one, get one for a cent' sale!

I had initially done the entire inside of the card in the hand-stamped letters; "To So and So, Merry Christmas, Love Evan and Melissa xoxo". However when I showed it to my fiancé he said it looked a wee bit ransom-note'ish, so I decided to just go with Merry Christmas and write the rest. 

Those were all sent out today...so if you're family and reading this, the surprise is now ruined. You'll get your card in 2-3 business days. 


On to the body butter. I made this from a kit from Savon Populaire as well. I made two different kinds; one was lavender/lime and the other was a scent called "Day at the Beach", which is a combination of grapefruit, bergamot, and coconut. 

Wine was needed. 

This was also stupidly easy. It's impossible to mess it up. You melt the stuff they give you, add the scent, and then load it into the containers. Wait for it to cool/harden, then close'em up, wipe'em off, and label'em. 

On to bath bombs. I made 5 different kinds this year. Vanilla, Day at the Beach, Lavender/lime, Lavender/chamomile, and then straight up orange for the littles. 

I packaged them all in individual cellophane packages with hand-stamped labels. 

And finally, I did the linen spray. Which is really just water, witch hazel, and the essential oil of your choice. I did 3 kinds; orange, lavender, and vanilla. 

That's it! Done. Not so bad, eh?  

I'm not going to show you the packaged up version, because there has to be some holiday surprise! But needless to say all of the stuff went into each person's painted box with a list of all the ingredients in each product. 

So that's it! All the ladies are done for Christmas! DIY styles! 


What presents did you DIY this year?



Cheers, 

Melissa

Official Pinter*Mel Project FAIL #2 OR How my intended bowl is now an awesome coaster.

I had a plan to make little bowls for Christmas present presentation this year. I thought a cute little bowl with an owl stamped into the bottom would have been a nice way to hold the homemade beauty goodies I plan on giving out as presents. This was the plan...it's a good thing I'm flexible, and willing to improvise. 

The Inspiration: DIY Lace Bowl

So my first mistake was buying Sculpey Original, not that there's anything wrong with the product, it just was the wrong version of this product for this particular project.

You see, most of the DIY air-dry clay recipes call for 3 cups of white glue. I don't know if any of you have purchased white glue lately, but buying enough to get 3 cups worth isn't exactly cheap. Also, making this stuff is kinda labour-intensive. I wanted to see if I could make this pretty quickly to gauge if it was going to sink or swim for Christmas presents. 

Yay! Sculpey! (and an owl stamp) 

I cut about a quarter of the whole slab off. 

And then proceeded to knead the ever-loving sh*t out of it. 

Then I grabbed my trusty rolling pin and rolled it out...but not too thin; bowl thin. 

Once I got it evened out, I grabbed one of my smaller bowls as a template. 

Then using a butter knife and the spatchula thingy from this post, I cut it out. 

I evened out the edges a bit, and then pressed my adorable owl stamp into the middle of the future bowl.

Then I gently pressed the circle-owl into the upright bowl I used as the template. 

Remember how back at the beginning of the post I indicated that this was the wrong Sculpey product for this project, this became apparent to me at this stage. In order for this product to dry it has to go in the oven, it can't just air dry in the bowl. I needed an air-dry version of this Sculpey product.  SO I FRANTICALLY looked around my house for a like-sized bowl I could repress my circle-owl into and then put in the oven. 

Alas, it was not to be. 

So I did my best to form the edges while my over preheated to 275F. 

While my bowl-fail/coaster-win was baking, I decided to use the left-over scraps to make some ornaments for Christmas. 

In the oven you go! 

Once my bowl-fail/coaster-win had cooled down enough, I threw on some paint. 

And then I threw a layer of Mod Podge Outdoor over top to seal it. 

[Pro Tip: Skip this step. It made my coaster sticky, and now my mug sticks to it. Very annoying.]

Yay! Coaster-win!!!

Moral of the story - buy a clay product that will air dry, OR don't be a lazy ass like me and make your own air-dry stuff. 

Cheers, 

-Melissa

Six Squared: The Big Send Off

So on Monday I lovingly wrapped my 6 canvases in bubble wrap, placed them carefully inside a Canada Post bubble mailer, addressed it, then sealed it up. 

Then I saw the envelope containing the submission form and my business cards laying on the table, because I forgot to put it in the package. There was no way that thing was going to be re-opened, whatever glue they put on these mailers could be used to hold aircraft together. So I ended up taping the envelope to the backside of the mailer. 

Anywho, here are the pictures! 

Here they are all finished: 

BERBLE WRERP!!!

I made some "business cards" out of paint samples to hold me over until my actual profesh cards arrive. 

All wrapped up! 

In ya go! 

Addressed and ready to roll. 

I'll be heading down to Kingston for the Six Squared Gala on Friday, November 16th. Can't wait to see all the other wonderful submissions! 


Cheers, 

Melissa

Six Squared: Canvas 6

Well friends, we've come to the final canvas. Thank you for taking this journey with me, it's been a blast! 

Canvas 6: Put a Bird (Stencil) on it  (YouTube video from Portlandia for context)

First I painted the canvas - two coats, just like always. It wouldn't make any sense to paint the stencil on it AND THEN paint it. That would just be silly. 

Then I selected the awesome bird stencil to paint on it. 

Then I taped that bad boy onto the canvas to it wouldn't move around and mess things up, and selected the colours I wanted to use, and a buncha small/thin paint brushes. 

PAINT ALL THE POSITIVE SPACE!!! (Note: I just totally made that up. Does "positive space" even exist? I know negative space does, because I spent an inordinate amount of time filling it in with ModPodge in my screen printing post.) 

Ugh, not to draw attention to it, but I totally borked the right side of the canvas by getting sloppy with my paint brush. 

It's all good. I got this. FIXED!

I picked up this tester kit of ModPodge at Deserres last weekend, and I couldn't help but notice that there's a SPARKLE MODPODGE (1st on the left). HOLY SH*T!!! 

You better believe I smothered that canvas in glorious SPARKLE MODPODGE. 

Ohhhhh!!! Try not to look directly at it; you could be blinded by it's sparkly, shiny awesomeness. 

TADA!!!

Canvas 6: COMPLETE.