Christmas presents mishap D:

So, this year I decided to make a homemade salve for my mother, I had a pound block of beeswax and I was wracking my mind on what to do with it, so light bulb moment~ SALVE!  I also had plans to send some to other family members and some friends if I had salve to spare, so I was really excited to make something like this for this years Christmas.
I started out pretty good last night, prepped everything, sieved my oil (came out a pretty light gold color), chopped up my beeswax, boiled my water, melted the wax, mixed in the oil, and et voila, I ruined my salve 8D  Okay, not exactly ruined, I just added in too much beeswax and either too much or too little essential oil.

The oil to beeswax ratio should be 4:1 but since I didn’t have a kitchen weight available and since I chopped up my beeswax from a larger peace, I had to eyeball the amount.  At first it was fine, but when I was melting it I panicked a bit and added more beeswax.  The end result came out fine on first sight of it (after it solidified) but I kept a test jar, just to… err… test.  It should have been solid enough to resist an initial poking but it turned out slightly harder then a beeswax candle is.
When I was adding the essential oil I use a muscle mix of Eucalyptus, Orange, Rosemary, and Peppermint; I also added some Lavender essential oil.  The problem with this is I forgot what the ratio for that should be, I only added a little (too little apparently) muscle blend and a bit more of the Lavender.  When everything solidified I figured I probably didn’t add enough :/
The biggest problem I have right now is the hardness… So I’ve decided to re melt everything and add in some olive oil to balance everything out~  Also adding a bit more essential oil :D  I’m going to keep everything a while after that too test and then I’ll be able to mail everything out, hopefully lol.

I am the maker of oil!!!

So, blah blah blah, haven’t been blogging for nearly a year, blah blah blah.  Now that we have that out of the way, onto my oil!

In an effort to get a head start on some of my Christmas gifts, I’ve decided to attempt a salve for some people in my family.  I settled on using Castor oil as the main base and mixed it with Grapeseed oil since the castor was so viscous (like really viscous, I worry that the salve might come out too sticky).  If the salve does end up too sticky in the end I’ll probably use less castor oil next time and mix it with a less viscous oil (like grapeseed, apricot kernel, sweet almond).

As for my herbs to infuse the oil, I ordered some dry lavender (to make another project) and some dry rosemary.  I picked lavender because the aroma causes to to relax (hence my other project) and the rosemary was really for my dad’s arthritis, soothes the achy muscles too.  The ratio I just kind of winged, it’s not for consumption so I did go a little heavier then if you were cooking with it.

A Fluffy JDAM

Since this is obviously a habit of mine, I have returned once again from neglect.  Given that I post to coincide with my mood and my mood is oft unpredictable, and  apparently neglectful, I'll nonetheless apologize for my time away. 
That out of the way, I had finished my brothers promised bomb sometimes the week before Christmas.  In true Chango form, I have decided to post about it two months after the fact, yay.
A rundown of what I’m actually talking about…

• What:  JDAM (military) Bomb my brother requested
• Yarn:  2 Lion Brand Jiffy Solid Yarns, one in Dark Grey Heather, one in Silver Heather, and a little bit of mystery yellow acrylic (possibly Red Hear) in a contrasting yellow
• Other:  Some matching thread, some coordinating felt (acylic), and the much important polyfill

1. The Bombs nose, 2. The Bombs guts, 3. 002, 4. 001

For something that didn’t exist before, I think I did pretty good.  Granted the pattern I  had to make up isn’t the most difficult of things to make.  In fact I’d say cylindrical and conical shapes are much more mindless than a square when it comes to crochet.  You don’t have to worry about turning and making sure your tension is spot on for a perfect rectangle/square.  Warning though, if you’re just starting, do your rectangles/squares, although not a noticeable, you can screw up mindless tasks really easily.
So, if you look at pictures of actual JDAM’s you’ll notice the curves from the nose to the body to the tail are much more gradual then what I actually did.  I wanted to make it more accurate, but my brother wanted it with much more pronounced points.
For the most part, the whole softie was pretty easy to make, cone, cylinder, cone, easy right?  Well yes, but the felt “sleeves” (which are removable) or whatever they’re called (anyone?) were a pain to make.  Lots of hand stitching (too small for the machine) and lots of little holes to cut out for my crappy little embroidery scissors.

1. The Bomb 002, 2. The Bomb 003, 3. The Bomb 001, 4. The Bomb 004

Out of the whole ordeal, I learned a couple things:

1. Acrylic is killer on my sensitive little fingertips
2. Burt’s Bee’s Hand Salve is a Gift of the God’s and possibly made from unicorn tears; it’s that heavenly
3. Going off on my own and making something up on the fly isn’t as terrifying as I initially make it out to be
4. I did pretty good, if I do say so myself
5. I need new embroidery scissors…