Learning Something New: Sewing

I'm going to start this off by saying I LOVE JOANN'S FABRIC STORE. I've been an arts and crafts kinda gal my entire life (thanks my lovely mother who is an artist), so crafts stores are like home to me. Since moving to Gainesville to go to college, I've been seriously creatively stifled. I'm used to driving ten minutes to get to Joann's so I can start a new craft. Not here. We have a Michael's, but that store has never had quite what I'm ever looking for. 

But, a Joann's just opened here last month! I can hardly contain my excitement, and today I finally got to go! 

So what was my excuse for going? 

Motivation for learning to sew!

I've wanted to sew and design clothes my entire life, but somehow I never learned. I got a sewing machine as a present a few years back, but I let it rot in my closet for some reason. But, now that I'm out of the house and realizing how expensive clothes are, I had to learn. 

For example, I love fashion and new clothes, and I love having a full closet of super cute things. But, let's be real: Most people can't afford to get a new dress every week.

Check it out. This dress from Forever 21 is fabulous, but it's $29.80. I'm a college student. Ain't nobody got money for that, especially if I want a million fantastic dresses (which I do, obvi). 

Hence, I have to learn to sew. 

Luckily, my mom had a sewing machine from back in the day that she let me take to my new place here in Gainesville! And, she has a stack of books to help me out. 
And, I have a fantastic book from my mom that outlines basic sewing things! You can never have too many resources! 

1976 swag, ya'll!

My first task was learning to thread the machine. This has been my biggest hurdle for years, as silly as that is. My lovely boyfriend helped me figure it out, though! 

Check out our set up! It's pretty glorious. My mother bought this sewing machine with her own money her senior year of high school. She made an El Vira dress for Halloween with it which I think is the definition of fabulous. 

I feel like I'm a cooler person for even having this on my dining room table. See my stack of books on the right side? Invaluable books, most definitely. 

So, what did I make for my first try?

Here in Florida, it was cold for a few weeks, and my hands froze every single day since I didn't have gloves. I started to make a pair from the sleeves of an older sweater, but since it takes forever to sew by hand, they fell by the wayside. Armed with a sewing machine, I had to finish them!

This is one of em! It's not so great, but I think I did an alright job for my first try ever! I'm just proud I got the machine threaded, so making this glove was gravy! These took literally two minutes, though, which is incredible considering it took forever for me to sew just two fingers by hand. And, the sewing machine stitches are magnitudes better than mine.

This takes us to Joann's. 
Now that I can make gloves, I'm not really sure what the next step to take is. I guess moving on to patterns? My boyfriend and I went to Joanns and browsed fabrics forever just for kicks. Kinda like when we go to Lowe's to look at all the pretty plants in the garden section. While there, we got some of these awesome free guides! Seriously, Joann's is the best. 

Me in a year

My lifeline

My next step is to learn how to read patterns. Luckily, this Singer book has an entire chapter on this very thing! 

I can't wait until I'm somewhat decent at sewing and can justify buying all the pretty fabrics at Joann's. Aisles and aisles and aisles of lovely prints! Once I start getting used to pre-made patterns, I could start making my own! I hope to become Mondo from Project Runway. He's my spirit animal. 

Next Project

Aren't these dresses incredible? I like the green one on the right best! These look a little complicated, though, so I might start with this other pattern I have.

Tell me these shorts aren't just dying to be made! Hopefully it's not too difficult, because these are calling my name. 

I'm extra excited about these patterns because they both came from thrift stores! They're unlike any pattern I could ever buy new. My proof? Joann's didn't have anything like it! You can't beat vintage Vogue, folks. Especially when its only fifty cents from the thrifts. 

That's today's adventure in the world of sewing! Maybe I'll take a shot at making something real tomorrow, but maybe not. It's a little scary thinking of working with real fabric!

My new best friend

UPDATE: I finished my first sewing project the next day after hours of frustration from ripping out ugly seams, drawing out patterns, and learning to wind bobbins. Everyone, meet Herman the Elephant! 

My actual new best friend

Burt's Bees Chapstick DIY

I love Burt's Bees. Who doesn't, right? It's akin to kittens and chocolate. You love it or you love it. Normally I'm DIYing things because I can do it cheaper and better, but I'm recreating Burt's Bees for a whole other reason: They discontinued my favorite flavor. 

Anyone else ever had the clove oil Burt's Bees chapstick? It's phenomenal. It tingles, smells nice, and is super ultra healing like all of their chapsticks are. 

So, to get to the root of this, I emailed corporate Burt's Bees. Here's their response:

Very disappointing. I took to Ebay to find some clove oil chapstick.

This was really disappointing, too. If I want this chapstick, it'd be a million dollars, but I guess on the bright side, it's free shipping...

DIY TIME
Since I'm never getting my paws on real Burt's Bees, I'm making it myself!

RECIPE:

• 3 tbsp beeswax pellets
• 2 tbsp coconut oil (or cocoa butter)
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil
• 8 drops of Vitamin E oil
• 9 drops of peppermint essential oil
• 12 drops of clove essential oil

You also need some chapstick tubes! I went on Amazon to buy an entire bag of these bad boys. 100 for $20! 

DIRECTIONS:

This was super easy to do. First, you want to set up a double boiler in your kitchen. Here's mine: 

Simple method. All you do is place a glass Pyrex bowl in a pot of boiling water and let the steam melt everything! This is very important to do because the direct heat of melting all the oils in a pot will make a huge mess and burn all of your fancy oils. 

In the photo above, I've already added all of my ingredients except the essential oils. Heating essential oils will lead to a degradation of the scents which totally defies the point of doing this at all. 

After it's all melted, add your essential oils! I then used a chopstick to dip in the lovely mixture and test it out. Once it's the texture you like, try rubbing some of it on your lips and see if there are enough essential oils in it for your taste! For example, my chapstick tingles a little bit because of the peppermint, so test it out and see if there's enough tingle for your life!

Here's where I destroyed our kitchen and made a huge mess doing this.

Pouring the oils into the tubes was the most difficult part of this entire endeavor. We tried pouring them into the tubes with a funnel, but then if we poured too quickly, it spilled everywhere. It was a hassle. Invest in an eye dropper if you're going to do this. Seriously. This was an issue. 

FINAL RESULT 

My chapstick finally dried, and it turned out really well! It feels almost exactly how the Burt's Bees clove oil chapstick felt, and I'm so proud that I was able to make it myself! Now I don't have to pay $99 for some tubes of chapstick. 

Oil Cleansing Method

The easiest, healthiest, cleanest way to wash your face!

Some of the different oils you can use 

Everyone wants beautiful skin, but the media is constantly bombarding us with different products they want us to think we need, and different chemicals to put on our faces. Some are better than others, but the best method of all is the Oil Cleansing Method. 

So what is it?

We will literally be washing our faces with oil. OIL?! Yes. Oil. Hear me out. We've all been told that oil is bad for our skin, and we dread when our skin gets oily and greasy. But, this isn't exactly true. Oil is a natural moisturizer and absolutely wonderful for skin.

To understand why this works, we have to 

consider what actually causes acne and other skin problems. In a healthy pore, Sebum (oil) is produced within the sebaceous glands inside a healthy pore, which is also the hair follicle. This oil lubricates our skin and hair, and as it goes up to the skin surface, it takes dead skin cells with it to make room for new, healthy cells! 

When we get acne or pimples, this is caused by our skin producing either too much oil, or too many dead skin cells. Then the two mix to clog the pore. This hair breaks off inside the follicle, and the sebum becomes trapped underneath the skin. The sebum and skin cells then become infected and inflamed, causing the raised pimple surface that we all find so super cute. 

Notice now, the hair follicle and gland in its entirety is much larger than in the first diagram. 

Since the oil combines with the dead skin cells, we all often assume oil is awful for our skin, and we avoid it in our makeup products like it's the plague. But, here's where the fun information comes in: Oil is great for our skin. 

"Like Dissolves Like": Why oil cleansing actually works

One of the first rules of chemistry you learn is that "like dissolves like." What this means is that polar substances dissolve other polar substances, and nonpolar substances dissolve nonpolar substances. 

Water is polar; oil is nonpolar. 

That's why oil and water don't mix. They can't dissolve each other! So, when we use skin cleansers that don't contain oil, you're not actually dissolving any of the sebum oil that is beginning to accumulate on your face. 

When you put oil on your face, it dissolves the sebum oil that your face naturally produces. Thus, it washes away all the dirty, gross oil and replaces it with happy, clean oil! This allows the most natural, complete clean feeling you can ever have. When you use conventional cleansers, you are literally stripping away all of the oil your skin produces, so your face goes into hyper-drive trying to replace it all. Then, you end up with more acne than if you would've left it alone in the first place. But, the Oil Cleansing Method (OCM) keeps all of the oil in balance!

If you don't believe me, just give it a shot. All of my friends were very skeptical of me until I convinced them to try it. They all insisted it would cause them to break out, but lo and behold when they tried it, they said they had never had a better complexion, even when using expensive acne-treating products like Proactiv. I've converted five of my friends to this, and I hope you give it a shot. If you hate it, you can always go back to using your normal skin regimen. 

Which oils to use:

While oil in general is good for you, there are a couple oils you want to avoid putting on your skin. Mostly, these are coconut oil and olive oil. The molecules of these oils are too large for skin, so it actually ends up clogging the pore that you're trying to unclog. Do your best to avoid those, but in a pinch, it'll most likely work. One of my friends who is not prone to breakouts gets away with using olive oil every night, and she hasn't had any issues. But, for my more sensitive peeps out there (like me), you need to avoid it. 

Some of the better oils to use are:

• Jojoba oil
• Grapeseed Oil
• Sunflower Oil
• Argan Oil
• Apricot Kernel
• Avocado Oil
• Almond Oil

I personally use sunflower oil. It's cheap, and it smells pretty good! Jojoba oil is the best to use if you can afford it because it's closest in structure to the sebum your skin naturally produces. 

When selecting an oil, make sure that it's cold-pressed. This ensures a purer oil that will give you a better clean. 

I got this huge thing of sunflower oil from Trader Joe's for about $4, and it's lasted me months, even while giving tons of it away for friends to test drive it! I keep it in this small vial in my shower for easier use. You can find sunflower oil almost anywhere, though. The first bottle I had of it was from Walmart! The other oils are more specialty oils, though, but you can find those at places like GNC, off of Amazon (Now Foods is a high-quality brand to trust), or your nearest health-store. 

Actual Method!

You can wash your face either in the daytime or at night, or really any specific time of the day you like! Although, I personally wash my face with oil at night in the shower. I only wash my face once per day because the OCM is so cleansing and moisturizing, I don't feel the need to cleanse more. 

The texture of the oil will take a little while to get used to. The first time I tried this, I grimaced at the idea of putting actual oil on my face. It was greasy and slimy; trust me, I understand any apprehension you have. But, you'll get used to it, especially once you see the great effects it has on your skin!

Step 1: Using a washcloth, open your pores by applying warm water to your face. 

If you're in the shower, you probably don't need to do this step because the steam will already have done this for you. 

Step 2: Pour a quarter sized amount of oil onto the palm of your hand. 

Step 3: Massage the oil into your face. I use it like a normal cleanser and rub my face in circular motions as I would any other face wash. It's really not a big deal if you wash your face however you want. It's not a specific, scientific thing!

Step 4: Using your washcloth, apply more warm water to your face to help the oil dissolve more of the sebum on your face. Hold it on your face for about 15 seconds. 

I normally do this twice because the water cools off on my compress. 

Step 5 (optional): Use your washcloth to remove the oil from your face. I do this step, but you certainly don't have to. My sister likes to leave the oil on her face for extra moisturizing effects, but I personally don't see how else you're going to get the dirty oil off of your face if you don't remove it. I recommend trying it both ways and seeing what is most comfortable for you. Your skin will still feel very, very moisturized even if you remove the oil. 

Some notes: Use a different wash cloth every night to remove the oil from your face. Otherwise, the oil buildups on the cloth, and you could risk replacing dirty oil with more, older, dirty oil. Who wants that? 

And that's it!

It's really that simple, and it's so cheap! I can get 8 ounces of conventional facial cleanser for $5, or I can get 33.8 ounces of sunflower oil for $4! The price comparison alone could make anyone consider switching! 

At this point, I assume you're pretty skeptical. I was, too, at first. All I ask is that you try it once. If you hate it, you're certainly able to go back to your old methods. But, one thing I absolutely promise is that it will not make you break out. My friend and I each have very sensitive skin and are both prone to breakouts when switching skin care products. Trust me, it's fine. You will not break out afterwards. 

I certainly hope you try it and fall in love with the Oil Cleansing Method like I have!

-Kristen

Homemade Laundry Detergent

As a broke college student, I'm always looking for new ways to save more money. Laundry is a chore I don't enjoy, so the fact that it costs so much for detergent is very upsetting. The nice Tide brand detergent (which is my go-to) is $16 for a decent size (approximately 66 loads of laundry), and the cheap stuff is around $6 and never cleans my clothes. 

Another factor that's very serious to me is my health. If you look on the back of any laundry detergent, you'll see a list of twenty or so odd ingredients made of chemicals even the best scientists can't pronounce! Then, the ingredient label "fragrance" can literally be anything: Fragrance isn't regulated by the FDA, so companies can put any carcinogenic, untested ingredient into the detergent they want. This wouldn't be a big deal except that I wear clothes every day. They're on my skin, the largest organ in the human body. The skin has an incredible property that causes it to pull any nanoparticles into your bloodstream. These particles include fragrances and even air pollution. If you're someone who wears clothes a lot (which I certainly hope you are), then this can be a serious issue. I'm all about my health, and I don't want unregulated chemicals in my bloodstream. No thank you!

When making my own detergent, I know exactly what I'm exposing myself to. For example, Borax is sodium borate, a naturally occurring salt. There are some concerns for people questioning its safety, but a great article I've read about it is here from Crunchy Betty. I for one consider it safe, and especially when compared to the chemicals in laundry detergent, I personally believe it's fine to be using. Then, washing soda is just sodium carbonate, also known as sodium ash. Its high alkalinity binds to the hard water used while doing laundry and allows the other ingredients to better remove stains. 

So, after perusing Pinterest for a while, I found a lovely recipe online to make my own detergent! 

The whole process only took me 20 minutes, and the yield is 3 cups of solid detergent. You should use 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture for every load of laundry, so you have between 24-48 loads of laundry per mixture of this. Also, the recipe can certainly be halved or doubled depending on how much you need. 

Ingredients:
1 cup Borax Laundry Booster
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1 bar Fels Naptha laundry soap
Essential Oils (Optional for fragrance)

The best part about this recipe is that each ingredient lasts FOREVER and is cheap! As you can see in the photo, these are huge boxes of Borax and Washing Soda. 

Fels Naptha: $1.79
Borax: $3.38
Arm & Hammer Washing Soda: $3.24
Total: $8.41

The actual cost per batch of detergent is only $2.62 for 3 cups of it, making the cost per load only $0.05!! Tide laundry detergent, for example, is $0.18 per load! 

Now, I understand the 13 cents difference is insignificant for a lot of people. If you're someone who loves your detergent and doesn't have the time to make your own, you're not going to run into any judgment from me! But, trust me when I tell you that this really doesn't take that long. 

Something to watch out for, Washing Soda is NOT the same thing as baking soda. It has a higher alkalinity than baking soda and is an entirely different chemical. 

Without further ado, let's make detergent!

Step 1: Measure out all of your ingredients. I halved the recipe to better fit the container I'm using to store it. 

Step 2: Mix em together!

Step 3: You have to grate your Fels Naptha bar of soap using a cheese grater and mix it with your Washing Soda and Borax. It kinda looks like actual cheese to me, but I'm pretty sure it tastes significantly less delicious. 

At this point, the mixture smelled heavenly, and I was oddly excited to start laundry because of it. 

Step 4: Blend everything! Using either a blender or a food processor, grind all of the ingredients together into a fine powder. It'll take about a minute or so.

If you want to add fragrance, now is the time to do it before grinding. The scent is so refreshing without it, but I added a mixture of lavender and lemon essential oils to it for an extra kick! A little bit goes a long way, so I only added about 5 drops of each!

Something to watch out for: My blender froze up while doing this. The powder became jam-locked into the blades at the bottom, so I had to stop blending after about 30 seconds. It took a little while to get the powder out from the blades, but I think if you used a food processor, this wouldn't be a significant issue. 

In the future, I'll stop blending every few seconds and loosen the powder before starting up again. 


Step 5: Put your lovely new laundry detergent into a container of your choosing! 

I got this super cute container from the dollar store! It was the perfect frugal end to a budgeted project!

So there ya have it! Easy peasy, lemon squeazy, which is neat because the detergent smells like lemon. Enjoy your new detergent! :)

-Kristen

I am a Feminist.

"YOU KNOW YOU’RE WORKING IN A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY WHEN THE WORD ’FEMINIST’ HAS A WEIRD CONNOTATION”-ELLEN PAGE

I am a feminist. This doesn’t mean that I burn bras, refuse to shave my legs, or denounce male authors: Although, if that’s who you are, your expression of your views is not wrong and you’re certainly entitled to continue life in that way without anyone judging you. 

The definition of “feminist” can be different from person to person because defining “feminist” tends to generalize people. Just like there are people who like comics and people who prefer movies, there are different kinds of feminists, none who are better or more correct in their presentation and expression than the other.

My definition of feminism is equality.

The general public seems to think that being a feminist means that you hate and denounce men which is simply not the case. We are not radical, unless you consider equal pay and equal civil rights a ridiculous request, which is the case in some regions of the world. Being a feminist merely means that you desire equality between the sexes, and you are a feminist because the women are underrepresented at present. In fact, if men had been used, abused, and neglected throughout the world for entire millenia, then I would consider myself a “masculinist.” On a more broad scale, I am a civil rights activist working against all forms of prejudice, not just those concerned with gender.

Just as Ellen Page said, when feminism has a negative connotation„that indicates sexism and oppression present in the current society. After all, society is what forms connotations and attitudes towards certain concepts; it is the most influential form of propaganda in existence. It has made its stance on women’s rights very clear as of yet, and that’s the ideology we’re all exposed to. From that point, everyone has an individual decision and responsibility to opt for equal footing among everyone.

The purpose of this article is not to discuss the many wrongs that society has inflicted upon women. Rather, I wish to convey the fact that the fight isn’t over yet- feminism isn’t radical or bad. Feminism is the movement for equality between the sexes, and feminists are anyone who believes that men and women have the same value to society. Along this line of thought, men can be feminists, too. We’re not exclusive; otherwise we’d be the sexist ones.


Anyone can be a feminist, and I certainly hope that everyone is. If you’re not in favor of equal rights, then what do you stand for?