Everyone has a comfort food. I have two.
Firstly: Kraft Macaroni on Cheese. In the box. Beautiful. It tastes like motherly love and warm, cozy winter evenings bundled in blankets. Of laughter that starts on your insides like a warm tickle and follows your soul out through your mouth.
Secondly: Crunchy, Nutty, Granola-y Cereal. Hard work and persistence in a box. With skim milk. It tastes like early mornings, silently bonding with dad, preparing for a day of hiking or building a tree-house. Of making things happen.
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| Three lines of Kraft; Glueing the second cereal box |
And when I'm having a hard time, these I stick to. Every morning starts with cereal, and (almost) every evening ends with Kraft.
Right now, I'm having a rough time.
I'm also in need of some place to store my essential oils!
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| Trimming edges in step 2 |
Back in January, I began my journey into Young Living essential oils, and though I haven't worked out all the kinks yet, I've certainly seen how valuable they are in my daily life. Since I only use a few drops at a time, and Young Living has lots of free promos, I have, pretty quickly ended up with a decent collection of oils. But what to do with them?
For a while, I have them lined up in alphabetical order on my dresser, but that didn't work. They made quite a nuisance quite quickly.
Then I tried stacking them in an old YL box by the mirror. Same result.
I started looking online, and saw many beautiful ideas for storing them
vertically (which I had by now realized was optimal), but they were all expensive or required nailing something into the wall, which I couldn't do in my apartment.
Finally, it dawned on me. I don't need a long term fix; I need something that will last me a few years while I continue to jumble from apartment to apartment, until I move back East for good. And I need something cheap.
And so I made one out of old Kraft and Cereal boxes.
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| Adding the second cereal box |
- The process was pretty basic. I cut most of the Kraft box off, just leaving about 3/4" of box left from the bottom. I tried doing this with other boxes, too, like rice or spaghetti, but soon discovered that they were all ever so slightly differently sized and it would be better to just save up the Kraft boxes. I also cut up the side of a cereal box and lay them it flat.
- Using a glue gun, I attatched the Kraft boxes on their skinny sides, making three sets of four boxes. Three oils pretty much exactly fit in each box, so that worked out nicely. Then, I glued the first line of Kraft right on the edge of where the cereal box curled up. I worked upward, adding the other two lines to make three shelves. Then, I trimmed the edges to be even with the Kraft, and discovered that it didn't really stand up on its own.
- At this point, I cut up the side of another cereal box, and glued it to the back of the first one. I glued the edges over on the top and bottom, and bent the box up on the sides and glued it to the edges of the Kraft rows, and then trimmed the excess.
I really like the result! Look at all those pretty oils in a row!
I'll probably paint it or cover it in wrapping paper or something later, but for now, I just need some organization.
Look at them all nicely in a row! I love it! And I had just enough room at the end to add a bottle of my own blend (LLP) and the promo packets. Oh, and that box you can barely see on the left edge? That's a box of extras/replacements!
What do you think?
Does anyone else have any other suggestions for Essential Oil storage?
Last week, Dedri posted Part 1 (and Part 2) of the Sophie's Universe CAL. Today, I'll be showing you my version, complete with a color list.
The package arrived with two complete front-pieces, a complete back piece, and one sleeve. The problem, of course, was that Grandmas was many sizes smaller than Aunt Vi, so I had to figure out some way to make it work.
Firs things first, I whipped up a matching sleeve and seamed all the main pieces together. I decided on finishing the raw button-band edge with a pattern, and then creating a matching belt, and boring old me decided seed-stitch would work just fine.
I had hoped to post this with a picture of Grandma wearing her sweater. Instead, I'm left with a lovely wrapped gift under the tree. A box with a sweater and a note, and a topper with her two dishcloths. I'm honestly not sure what I will do with them. Maybe I'll give them to Aunt Vi's daughter. Right now, it's too painful to give them away, so they continue to sit in our family room, reminding me of times we once thought we might have.
This past Thanksgiving was... difficult.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was able to open these dishcloths with their intended recipients at the funeral of our beloved Grandma (more on that later). It was wonderful to see the joy they brought to those who received them in remembrance of the the three Ladies in their Eighties, who have moved on.
My second "Little Star" Dishcloth, this one used up some scraps of Persimmon and Baby-Yellow, and crocheted up nicely.
Dishcloth Forty-Eight
This year, after moving and dealing with certifications and legal drama, I took a job in the fall as an after-school instructor at a local middle school. One of my responsibilities there is to create 6-week enrichment classes, and without further ado, I present to you the results of my first class: Fiber Works!
We're nearing the end of these borderline obnoxious dishcloth posts. Even I'm sick of them. Only one more after this.
Dishcloth Thirty-Seven
