Super quick & easy bath salts

Hello Crafty Friends! Just poppin' in to show off these super cute, super quick, and super easy gifts in a jar! I made these super simple and very pocket friendly bath salts. I made a few of these for teacher's gifts for my girl's last day of school before they went on winter break. 

You can find more info here  from a previous post.

I packaged my salts in simple glass jars I bought from my local dollar store. Wrapped the base of the neck with this adorable stitched grosgrain. And, tied cute handmade gift tags to each.

To make these super cute tags I used Pink and Main's Frosty Friends and Snow Globe stamp sets. And for the cute scalloped edge on the bottom of the tag I used Martha Stewart's Eyelet Lace border punch. Then I added bling to the centers of each snowflake as well as in between each scallop.

Bath Salts

I've been on a "Gift in a Jar" making spree lately. My most recent one I made was a birthday gift for a dear friend of mine.  I decided to make her some homemade strawberry scented bath salts. 

And, here it is

If you read my previous post about my homemade colloidal oatmeal bath... half of the bath formula called for bath salts(also homemade). But unlike that post, instead of using just two ingredients (Epsom salt & fragrant oil), I added a third ingredient... color. I did this by just adding a few drops of colorant (these are the same colorants you find in the soap section of your hobby/ craft store) to the salt & oil mixture and stir with plastic spoon as if you were mixing cookies dough...almost smashing the color into the crystals. For the intensity in my jar I added about 4 or 5 drops of colorant.  Mix till fully blended. And pour into jar or container of your choice.

For the label I used Design on Cloud 9's Artisan Labels. I sized it 3" wide by 1" high.

More jar projects are soon too come!!

But for now, I'm going to enjoying soaking in my bath tub smelling like strawberries!

Craft Happy Friends!

Colloidal Oatmeal Bath

So... I have a friend who is a bazillion weeks pregnant... ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration... ok-ok-ok, maybe like only 38 or 39...well, anyway,  she's due within the week (at least that's what I've been told)... and she has been having the major case of the "itchies".  So I came up with making her a gift that would help her soothe her skin and ease her "mama-to-be" aches and pains.

Well, I remember being a zillion years pregnant myself (having 4 babies back to back)... and I kept thinking and thinking about her and how miserable she must be.  I decided to make her some homemade colloidal oatmeal. But not just plain colloidal oatmeal. I wanted something to ease her itching AND wanted something to take away her aches and pains too.So, I concocted a special bath soak that will do both.

First, I needed to make the colloidal oatmeal... wait, what is "colloidal oatmeal"? Colloidal oatmeal is just grounded up oatmeal to a super fine powder.That's it. Wait, that's it??!! No way!! That's it, people!! The same stuff we buy at our local drug store that comes in a box with 4 small little paper packets barely filled with brown dust. Yup, the same stuff that sells for $6 or more... hey on etsy it's $10!! That is stinkin' redonkulous!! How 'bout... "uuughh no, thank you"! I can grind up my own, thank you very much!!!

So, with the help of my vitamix blender and the dry goods blending container. f you don't have one that's ok... a food processor works fine. You could use pretty much anything that will grind/process your oats to a fine powder (blender, food mill, coffee grinder). I blended about 4-5 cups of oats (you'll need to use the regular old fashioned oats NOT the instant kind). Then, this the hard part, I flip the switch and made the machine do all the work! Then I finally stopped blending when it looked like that brown dust I used to get in the little paper packets ... you know, the ones that emptied my poor pocketbook... yeah, exactly like that. 

I used 4-5 cups of oats(with this project you don't have to be exact, I just eyeballed it) blending half the oats at a time to make sure I got them down to the finest powder possible.

        

And, that's it... instant colloidal oatmeal! This stuff is great for dry skin, eczema , chicken pox, poison ivy, & insect bites to name a few. It moisturizes as it coats the skin.

But the colloidal oatmeal was only half of what's in my special oatmeal bath. The other half... bath salts.

And, again I opted to make my own. This was also a very easy thing to make... 2 ingredients:  Epsom salt & fragrance (fragrant oils used for lotions and soaps)... and the second ingredient is totally optional... I just added them because I wanted the bath to smell pretty.  I added the oil to the salts and not to the oatmeal because I didn't want the oatmeal to clump from the oil. I made sure to stir with a plastic spoon to evenly distribute the fragrant oils throughout. And that's it. EASY PEASY!!

I used 2 heaping cups ( again, I just eyeballed the amount... it doesn't have to be exact).

I filled just filled the straw's length full (about half a teaspoon) of oil and stirred. 

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  Stirred with a plastic spoon until fully blended. And all done...look, no clumps!

Epsom salts as a bath soak works as an anti-inflammatory and aids in the relief of sore muscles and bruises. Which is perfect for my poor friend's self inflicted beaten up body. She's so itchy and sore it's driving her nuts!!

Well, where was I? Oh yeah, back to the bath...

Then I simply layered both the colloidal oatmeal and salts together in a jar and shook until blended.

Tah-dah!!

Add some decorations to the jar and ... Voila!! A great gift for just about anyone... especially pregnant, itchy, sore friends!! 

I used Designs on Cloud 9's cutting file Chevron Labels to make the the label on the jar.

 The font used on the label is called Cafe Rojo.

And there you go... I quick & easy & homemade gift!!

Thanks for looking!!!