Dream catchers

One of my first dreamcatchers
Photo by Alexis Richey

A couple of months ago my grandmother moved and was getting rid of some old 45 vinyls. I grabbed them knowing I would come up with some kind of art project for them.

My first completed dreamcatcher
3 little birds

To make the dream catchers, I start by making holes in the vinyl. I do this by heating up a drill bit with a lighter until it's hot enough to push through the record. It's important to do this part in a well ventilated area because it smells awful and the fumes should not be inhaled.

I make one hole at the top, 5 to 7 holes at the bottom and 6 to 8 holes around the inside circle.

It took me a while to figure out how to get the actual dream catcher part right. I tie the string in one of the holes and thread it through the rest until I come back to my first knot.

Then I loop the string through each of the loops I just created. With the 45s I can usually go around 3 to 5 times.

I've added beads and experimented with different strings.

Now would be the point to add glitter or decorate the middle.

When I first started making these dreamcatchers, I cut out feathers and other shapes from felt.

Now I mostly use faux feathers I picked up from the craft store.

I hot glue string or hemp cord to the feathers or shapes. I add beads and tie the ends into the holes I made at the bottom of the vinyl.

I've had so much fun making these. I've given most of them out as gifts and gotten great feedback. I love being able to turn something that was headed for the trash into something beautiful that people can enjoy.

Homemade Granola Bars

Last year I made granola bars as Christmas gifts for most of my family and friends. Everyone loved them so I'm doing it again this year. Like most foods, making granola bars from scratch creates a healthier version than popular pre-made brands. This year I've slightly altered my recipe and created nutrient fact panels.

Here's the basic recipe I've been using:
Recipe:
8x8 pan
1½ cup Oats
½ cup Brown Rice Syrup
1 cup Crunchy (nuts, graham crackers etc.)
½ cup Sweet (chocolate, marshmallows, dried fruit etc.)
½ cup Other (pumpkin seeds, sesame sticks, cereal flakes, etc.)
Optional tablespoon of peanut butter, coconut oil, etc
Optional teaspoon vanilla extract, cinnamon, cocoa powder etc

Makes 8-10 bars

Bars stay fresh for two weeks.

1. Preheat oven to 325F
2. Mix ingredients in a bowl
3. Lightly grease pan before pouring in the granola mix. Distribute evenly
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes
5. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting

For Christmas 2014, I made flavors like Cranberry-Walnut-Pumpkin Seed, Dark Chocolate-Walnut-Cranberry, Peanut butter-Chocolate chip, Smores (chocolate chips, marshmallows and graham crackers), and Dark Chocolate-Coconut-Cashew. In my original post, I explained the health benefits of some of the ingredients I chose. 

For Christmas 2015, I mixed up the ingredients creating flavors like teddy-graham smores, cranberry-almond-pumpkin seed, double nut-chocolate chip, and dark chocolate-walnut-cranberry. This year I used the USDA super-tracker site to get nutrient information and a free label generator from onlinelabels.com to create nutrient fact panels for my bars.

Almond-Cranberry-Pumpkin Seed Bars:


















Double Nut-Chocolate Chip Bars:

Teddy Graham Smores Bars:

When comparing my bars to popular brands like Quakers, Nature Valley and Special K bars, I noticed that these brands seem to determine the bar size based on the amount that will equal 100 calories. My bars are much larger (about 1 inch by 4 inches) than Quaker or special k bars. They are closest to the size of a nature valley bar but a bit thicker.

While my bars contain more calories than these brands, they also contain more protein, dietary fiber, and minerals like calcium and iron. Except for my smores bars, I used all organic ingredients containing no soy or corn syrup. (I used teddy grahams and marshmallows in the smores that did contain these ingredients and were not organic.) 

My fruit, nut and seed bars are a healthy alternative to more processed products available today. Pumpkin seeds, cranberries, walnuts, almonds, cashews and peanut butter are healthy snack options that provide a variety of nutritional benefits. 

Homemade Lavender Lotion

I became interested in making my own lotion from scratch after making it in a lab for the organic chemistry course I was taking. We used lanolin (sheep fat) which is pretty common in commercial lotions. In the lab, we experimented with different ingredients to see how they impacted the final lotion product.

  

        I enjoyed the lab but wanted to make a vegan lotion, using plant based fats. I wanted to add scent and possibly color. I started googling recipes for diy lotion and quickly became frustrated. Many diy recipes for products like lotion and soap are just wrong. Lotions are emulsions, meaning there is a liquid portion blending with a fat/oil/wax portion. In order for this to occur, an emulsifying agent must be used. Far too many of the diy recipes I found were just blending fats together (won't moisturize skin and dosent really qualify as lotion) or missing the emulsifying agent (meaning the final product will separate when left standing)! I lost some faith in the internet diy community that day.
        I started by looking at ingredient labels of lotions from my favorite natural body care brands, including Lush, Honest Co and the Body Shop. I looked at what ingredients overlapped, what was found in all the lotions. I researched the ingredients that stood out and started developing a recipe with them, following the model we used in the chemistry lab. While the chemicals in lotion making are fairly harmless, I strongly believe that a background knowledge of some chemistry basics is necessary to make a proper lotion from scratch.

        The first recipe I concocted was:
5 cups of Water
1/2 cup Sweet Almond Oil
1/2 cup Emulsifying Wax
1/4 cup Stearic Acid
1 Tbsp Citric Acid
1 Tbsp Potassium Sorbate
1/2 teaspoon Vitamin E Oil
1 teaspoon Lavender Essential Oil
Blue & Red Cosmetic Grade Colorant
(yields 48 oz of lotion)

Pot one: emulsifying wax, almond oil and stearic acid

Pot two: water, potassium sorbate

Both pots are heated. Pot one is removed from heat as soon as wax has melted.

Pot two is removed from heat right before boiling and citric acid is added. At this point, I took the temperature of both pots to make sure they were close to each other.

Pot two is slowly added to pot one while stirring.

Stirring really helps the emulsifying agent do its job and keeps the oils and liquids from separating. I stirred for a solid 5 minutes and then let it sit, stirring every 20-30 minutes for the next 3 hours.

After the lotion had cooled for one hour, I added the lavender essential oil, vitamin E oil and cosmetic grade colorants. I didn't really measure these, just slowly added and stirred until I got the color and smell I was looking for. (I went for a light purple which was hard to capture in pictures)

Once the lotion had almost cooled completely (about 3 hours) I used a funnel to bottle my lotions. I'm really happy with the way the lotion turned out. I had fun labeling the containers too.

I used 8oz and 4oz containers for my lotion. This recipe yielded 48 oz of lotion. The consistency was somewhat liquidy making it ideal for a pump style container. It has a nice lavender scent and moisturizes the skin without leaving any greasy residue.

Homemade Apple Sauce

It's easier than you think to make delicious home-made apple sauce!

Ingredients:
4 Apples*
3/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

Directions: Peel & chop apples. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cover with a lid and cook at low/medium heat for 20-30 minutes until apples become soft. Allow the sauce to cool before mashing the apples. Serve warm or cool in the fridge.

Ingredients in the pot:                         After cooking for 10 minutes:

 

 
^After cooking for 20 minutes          ^ After cooking for 25 minutes &
                                                            cooling. I started mashing
                                                                          with a fork                                                        

**Note on Apples: the type of apple you use makes a huge difference! I recommend McIntosh apples for applesauce because they really break up on their own, you wont really have to mash them. This time I tried Gala apples so that's what you're seeing in these pictures. It turned out great but I had to put more effort into mashing than with McIntosh apples.
Best Apples for Sauce:
-McIntosh (my favorite for apple sauce so far)
-Golden Delicious
-Fuji
-Cortland
-Honey Crisp is okay
-Gala is okay
-Red Delicious
-Pink Lady is okay

Nutrient Facts:
Homemade Apple Sauce Portions: 4
Food Groups	Amount Per Portion
Whole Fruit	1¼ cup(s)
Limits	Amount Per Portion
Total Calories	125 Calories
Empty Calories*	50 Calories
Added Sugars	50 Calories
Nutrients	Amount Per Portion
Protein	0 g
Carbohydrate	33 g
Dietary Fiber	3 g
Total Sugars	28 g
Added Sugars	13 g
Total Fat	0 g
Minerals	Amount Per Portion
Calcium	25 mg
Potassium	167 mg
Sodium	8 mg
Vitamin A	4 µg RAE
Vitamin C	6 mg
Vitamin K	3 µg

Remember you can go to supertracker.usda.gov to get nutrient information for your own recipes.

4 Ingredient Home Made Deodorant (Coconut Scent)

I originally tried natural deodorant when I got one in a monthly subscription box from VeganCuts. I had not put much thought into my deodorant choices in the past, I'd been using men's Old Spice for years. I was hesitant to try this new five-ingredient deodorant. I wasn't sure if it would actually work and the consistency was different than traditional deodorant. I have been using the natural deodorant for about six months now. It last longer than old spice ever did for me. The scent is more subtle but it truly does the job. My first natural deodorant was from North Coast Organics. I have since discovered a similar 6 ingredient deodorant from The Fanciful Fox.

 

I really liked this deodorant. As it started to near the end of the tube, I read the ingredient list and realized I could easily make this. I went online to compare recipes and ended up with this based on what I had in my apartment. Other recipes use different types of waxes or oils. I like coconut oil for the tropical smell. Coconut oil has a pretty low melting point (76F) which makes it easy to work with and it wont be hard to apply because it wont get too solid. I live in New York. If you live in a warmer climate I would definitely suggest using a more solid base for your deodorant. My first batch with just 4 basic ingredients came out looking like this:

Recipe for DIY Coconut Deodorant:

4 Tablespoons Virgin Coconut Oil

1 Tablespoon Shea Butter

3 Tablespoons Baking Soda

2 Tablespoons Cornstarch

*optional 5-10 drops oil for scent

- Makes 100mL

- Store at above 77F to keep it solid