Peppermint Christmas Gifts

Browsing around Pinterest before Christmas I found a couple cute ideas that I made for teachers and girlfriends. And it all starts with peppermint essential oil...

 

 

Up first is the Peppermint Sugar Scrubs.

You can find a million recipes on the Internet, I just did mine really simple mixing 2 cups sugar with 1 cup oil and adding 1 tsp of peppermint essential oil. To make the red just add a little food color and stir well.

I found the jars 1/2 off at Hobby Lobby, which was really good since I made 8 of these.

The left overs that didn't fit in the jars I gave to my girls and I have to say these feel really  good on dry winter skin!

 

 

 

Next I made some Peppermint Rice Heating Pads.

I found this tutorial on UCreate's 28 Last Minute Handmade Gifts from the Green Wife.

 

 

 

All you need is flannel, rice and peppermint essential oil.

Sew along the outside of the rectangle with right sides together, leaving an opening to pour in the rice. Flip inside out, pour in desired amount of rice and then pin all the way across to keep the rice in place while you sew. Continue making the desired size pockets.

 

 

I made one for myself also =) and I can attest to the rice holding the heat for quite a while and the peppermint oil adding a smoothing/calming effect.

 

Hope you all had a great holiday season!

~ Jessica

 

Apple Ornament for Teachers- Made from a Book!

Doing a goggle image search for an idea for a teacher's Christmas gift I ran across this neat idea from texascottage.blogspot.com. I thought it would be a neat idea for a teacher's gift, I mean what says Teacher more than books and apples!!!

Here's  how I did mine:
First you find a book that you don't mine cutting up. Then remove the front cover and draw & cut out a half of apple shape on to the removed cover.

Use this cut piece as a template to cut the half apple from the book. You need to make sure you place the edge on the spine of the book and not cut this edge.

Use an exacto knife to cut down as far as you can into the book, cutting around the cover as a template.

Continue to flip the cut pages over and cut until you make it all the way through the book.

When done use a scissor to even out the pages and make sure to fold the front page to the back page together make sure that the pieces match, if they don't just trim until they do.

When done it will look like this:

Now is a good time to put the front page and back page together, fan out the pages and see if you need want less pages- really just your preference to how full you want your apple to be.

Next I took red acrylic paint and added water to dilute it. The water will make the color lighter and also let the color bleed into the apple. Now hold the book with all the pages together paint the edges.

After painting you need to dry the pages with a blow dryer so they don't stick together. If you let the pages fan out while drying them it makes the pages spread out nice and evenly- I think it is the heat loosening the glue on the spine of the book.

Next glue a piece of stick into the spine of the book. I used fabric glue because I have found it holds really well and it doesn't make the pages wrinkle. Then glue the front and back pages together and hold them closed with paper clips or binder clips. Only glue the front and back pages together but paper clip more than those 2 pages so that the book drys with the pages spread out.

I let mine dry overnight and voila! A finished book apple! I sprayed mine with clear spray varnish to make the pages a little stiffer.
After making this apple I decided that it would be cuter and more practical to make the apple smaller and into an ornament. So I went back and did all these steps but smaller (I actually fit two onto one book)  and then tied a piece of fishing line onto the "stem" so that this could be a Christmas ornament.

I love the finished product & the teachers loved it too! Might be making these for future teachers for years to come!