My Homemade DIY Endeavors This Week

Earlier in the week, my "happy" box arrived!   I subscribe to the Homegrown Collective service who send out a box of DIY projects once a month. There are generally 3-4 DIY projects with all materials included, and they are seasonally chosen, so the projects are beneficial to the current season each month.

This month the theme was "honey"... it doesn't get much sweeter than this! :)

The box is a delight to open as you have to pull all the items out from under the brown crimped paper to see what came this month.

There was a jar of beeswax pastilles, a jar of raw honey, a bottle of grapeseed oil, two essential oils - peppermint and sweet mandarin, organic chili peppers, as well as the tools for making the DIY projects including a wood buffer sheet, sandpaper, 3 wooden utensils, a wooden honey dipper, 2 lip balm tubes, 2 salve containers, and one mason jar.

I started out with the wood butter project first.

It went very well.  You mix beeswax and grapeseed oil together until they are melted, and then pour into container to harden.

The directions called to melt the beeswax first, and then add the warmed grapeseed oil.

Took just a few minutes to make!

Next, I sanded down the wooden utensils included in the kit with the sandpaper provided.

And then rubbed on the wood butter - wow!  What a transformation!  This wood butter can be used on any wood to buff and restore the natural color.  I have a lot of wood butter left over - it goes a LONG way! - and I will be using it around the house to buff up my wood furniture.

The next project was honey lip balm. I gathered all the supplies...

... melted the beeswax, added the honey, and a few drops of peppermint essential oil ...

... and poured the mixture into the two lip balm tubes provided - it went easier than I thought it would... the mixture poured easily.  Since it was my first attempt, I didn't fill the tubes up all the way because I didn't know how much the liquid would expand when cooling.

And there was enough left over for two "salve" containers full of the lip balm as well.

I apologize for the poor pictures, as we had very little natural light when I was making the balms (it rained all day), and I had to use the flash... which gives poor results... but hopefully you get the idea.

Overall, I was very pleased with those two projects!  One thing that is a problem when working with beeswax is the fact that when it hardens, it is hard to get clean.  I think the cleanup was the worst part of the whole project!

I learned that when working with beeswax, using a wooden popsicle stick to stir the mixture really is best, because it can be thrown away.  The mason jars also work well, but you want to use a wide mouth mason jar so you can stick your hand inside to wipe it clean.  I soaked the mason jar with hot water for a few minutes, dumped the water out, and then wiped the wax off with a clean cloth.

I probably won't make the last project they sent directions for, which is a honey body scrub, as I already have some different scrubs and it is not something I would use.  However, it is great to have the directions for future reference.

This was a fun group of DIY projects, and best of all, I have lots of ingredients left over to play with some other recipes I have in mind! I hope to share those with you soon.  :)


 

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