DIY Recipes

DIY Gift Idea: Peppermint Sugar Scrub (and review of the Epson LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit)

December 24, 2020 by Sandra 6 Comments

I partnered with Epson for a review of the LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit.

Sugar scrubs are kind of…amazing.

Truly, I had never used a sugar scrub for the first twenty-nine-years or so of my life, and I was missing out. 😉

Now, I whip them up on a regular basis for my family and show others how to make them as well. Besides that, sugar scrubs are fabulous during the winter months, because they moisturize your skin and keep it from feeling all dry and itchy. We’ve been using our homemade peppermint sugar scrub all winter, and it’s made such a difference in my naturally dry skin.

I love it!

This particular peppermint body scrub only takes a few minutes to make, and it only requires three simple ingredients: sugar, coconut oil, and peppermint essential oil. Easy enough, right?

Sugar Scrubs Make Great Gifts

Now besides pampering yourself with a homemade scrub, you might consider giving one away as a gift. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner… 🙂

And to make your homemade gift extra-special, you can put the scrub in a brand new mason jar and adorn it with ribbon.

Like so.

I used the Epson LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit to create a ribbon that not only lets the gift-receiver know what type of sugar scrub is in the jar, but also gives this homemade gift a little charm and elegance.

The red ribbon with gold lettering was perfect for this project. Best of all, the ribbon was easy to set up in the label machine. I’ll confess that I read the directions on how to get started with everything, but being the non-crafty person that I am, I still didn’t know what I was doing afterwards.

One quick YouTube video later, and I was all set. 😉

I thought the Epson LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit was straightforward and a snap to use. Even my kids enjoyed it.

The large, green button on the side of the label printer is what you push to cut the ribbon after it comes out of the machine. My kids LOVED pushing the button and asked if I could make all sorts of ribbons for them.

I did, of course. 🙂

I put the final touches on this homemade gift by using a couple of items I already had on hand: a wintery snowman gift bag and plastic ribbon to tie everything together. I love how it turned out!

Here’s the printable recipe for the Peppermint Sugar Body Scrub:

Peppermint Sugar Scrub

Ingredients

½ cup coconut oil
1½ cups granulated sugar
10 drops of peppermint essential oil

Instructions

In a small bowl, thoroughly mix together the coconut oil and sugar.
Add the peppermint essential oil and mix just until it's infused throughout the sugar scrub.
Store in a covered container, and use as desired.

https://thesensiblemom.com/2020/12/diy-gift-idea-peppermint-sugar-scrub-review-epson-labelworks-printable-ribbon-kit/

I’m looking forward to using my Epson LabelWorks Ribbon Kit to pretty up many more of my DIY beauty projects and even to personalize wrapping paper, foodie gifts, and more of my kids’ creations. 🙂

Do you make your own body scrubs? Have you ever used an Epson label printer?

DIY: Baby Wipes

October 28, 2019 by Sandra 29 Comments

homemade diy baby wipes

Homemade baby wipes. I never would have thought of making homemade baby wipes for my firstborn, twelve years ago.

It has taken me 12 years and 5 children to finally make homemade baby wipes.

And it was so easy. A 9 yr. old can do it. (except for the part where you need a very sharp knife to cut the roll of paper towels in half – do not let your 9 yr. old do that :-))

homemade baby wipes

Here’s how we made our baby wipes:

DIY Homemade Baby Wipes

Ingredients

1 Roll of high-quality paper towels (cut in half)
2.5 Cups of water (1 1/4 cup per half-roll of paper towels)
2 Tablespoons of baby wash (1 Tbs. per half-roll of paper towels)
2 Tablespoons of olive oil (1 Tbs. per half-roll of paper towels)
1-2 Containers to store baby wipes

Instructions

In a small bowl, mix together 1 1/4 cups of water, 1 tbs. of baby wash, and 1 tbs. of olive oil and set aside
Place 1 half-roll of paper towels in the container you will be using to store your baby wipes, then pour the mixture you set aside over the top of the paper towels
Place the lid on the container and let the baby wipes sit covered for 10 minutes
After 10 minutes are up, flip the container with the wipes over and let it sit another 10 minutes
When the second 10 minute chunk of time is up, open the container, and remove the cardboard center - it should come out easily and your wipes will now be ready to pull through the center
Repeat these steps with the second half-roll of paper towels
Store in covered containers and pull the wipes through the center/middle of the paper towel rolls to use

https://thesensiblemom.com/2019/10/diy-baby-wipes/

Here’s what our finished baby wipes looked like in the container:

The picture only shows one half-roll, but we ended up storing both half-rolls in the container pictured. They fit snugly together.

How do we like our homemade baby wipes?

They’re great. They get the job done, and they’re not full of chemicals, which is the best part. We’ve been using the wipes for about 1.5 weeks, and they’ve stayed moist like the store bought baby wipes. No drying out.

Overall, a big thumbs-up! And we will be making these again.

Side notes:

You don’t have to store the baby wipes in plastic containers. Large plastic bags would work great, too. In fact, storing them in plastic bags would make carrying the wipes around in a diaper bag a lot easier.
We used cold-pressed olive oil, but you can also use baby oil.
We used Weleda Baby Calendula Shampoo & Body Wash to make our wipes. It’s free of synthetic fragrances, and it was on clearance at Publix.

Have you ever made homemade baby wipes? Have you made any DIY projects lately?

See more of my DIY projects.

DIY: Homemade Air Freshener

October 24, 2019 by Sandra 9 Comments

I’m sensitive to smells, and I definitely lean toward more mild odors when it comes to anything that we put in the air of our home or even on our bodies.

I…don’t wear perfume, and I don’t buy air fresheners for our home because of the bad-for-you chemicals in them.

So naturally when my husband wanted to find a way to freshener the air in our home, we talked about finding a way to do it without buying the spray air fresheners from the store.

He did some research, and he came to me with the idea of using baking soda, some of our essential oil, and a jar with holes at the top.

It made sense. The baking soda removes odors. The essential oil gives off a lovely fragrance. The jar with holes at the top is a great container as it allows our homemade air freshener to remove the bad odors from our home while replacing them with a lovely lavender smell.

He was able to find a cheese shaker (our jar with holes in it) at the dollar store for $1. Yay! That ended up being the perfect container for our homemade air freshener.

We added 1/2 cup of baking soda + 8 drops of lavender essential oil, gave it a stir, and it works. 🙂

After we tried out one, we ended up making 2 more for a total of 3 of these homemade air fresheners for our home. We also let the kids know what they were, so they wouldn’t be curious. So far so good, as we have a very curious 3 year old son.

Here’s the super simple recipe:

Homemade Air Freshener

Ingredients:

1/2 cup baking soda

8 drops essential oil (we used lavender, but you could also use rose, peppermint, vanilla, or whatever you have on hand)

jar with holes at the top

Directions:

Add the baking soda and essential oil to the jar and stir. Cover with a lid that has holes in it. Place in an area of your home that is out of the way of small children and pets.

Enjoy!

Have you ever made your own homemade air freshener? Do you have a natural method to get rid of odors in your home?

Homemade Sugar Scrub: Brown Sugar Face Scrub

September 18, 2019 by Sandra 20 Comments

I’m a huge fan of face and body scrubs.

If you’ve never tried them before, let me tell you, they are awesome! After just one application, you can have fresher, healthier looking skin because of the way sugar scrubs exfoliate those dead skin cells.

The best part is that you can easily make homemade sugar scrubs using everyday items in your kitchen pantry. And your homemade scrubs will cost a fraction of what you’d pay at the store. Have you seen the prices of sugar scrubs in stores? Yikes!

Brown Sugar Face Scrub
I’m hoping to start sharing one DIY recipe each week here on The Sensible Mom, and since sugar scrubs are so amazing, I thought I’d start there. You may remember the last scrub recipe I posted for homemade peppermint sea salt foot scrub. Today’s recipe is just as wonderful, except that it’s for your face.

And it involves only two simple ingredients, honey and brown sugar.

You combine the honey and brown sugar to make a single application of the face scrub. I don’t use it everyday, so I prefer to make only one application at a time. It’s super easy to make this face scrub, though, so I don’t mind. 🙂

Here’s what the end result looks like.

To apply, you simply pull back your hair (highly recommended), and then gently rub the brown sugar scrub all over your face. When you’ve finished, rinse your face and feel how much smoother your skin is when you touch it.

When I used this scrub, I noticed that my skin looked cleaner and totally refreshed right after I rinsed. That feeling carried over into the next day.

Here’s the recipe for my homemade Brown Sugar Face Scrub

Brown Sugar Face Scrub

Ingredients

1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

Instructions

Stir together the honey and brown sugar in a small dish.
TO APPLY: Pull back hair, and gently rub the facial scrub all over your face. Then rinse and enjoy softer, smoother feeling skin.

https://thesensiblemom.com/2019/09/homemade-sugar-scrub-for-your-face/

Do you use face scrubs? Have you ever tried making your own homemade scrubs?

DIY Recipes

Sugar Scrubs Make Great Gifts

Here’s the printable recipe for the Peppermint Sugar Body Scrub:

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