DIY Life

Earlier this week, I wrote a post with some ideas for planning every family staycation. As I was browsing the Internet today, I found that lots of other people have great ideas, too, but that the most unique ones came from Better Homes and Gardens.

BHG put together a gallery of their 25 best staycation ideas. Some of their more unique activities include:

• turning your home into a spa -- Make some spa-quality products at home and let the pampering begin: for your face, your hands and body, and your feet.
  
• going on a family bike ride
• flying a kite
• having a field day for the kids -- Or, create your own summer camp.
  
• organizing a block party -- You coulc choose to do this in a Mexican or Hawaiian theme, some of BHG's other party ideas.

Whatever you decide to do on your staycation, it seems that the common themes are relaxing and enjoying the people in your life. What's your favorite staycation activity?

It's getting close to your big day. You've done everything you can to keep your wedding plans simple and frugal. You've made your own invitations, created centerpieces yourself, made your bouquet and even your guest book.

Now, how will you thank your bridesmaids? In keeping with your frugal DIY wedding, a thoughtful and unique hand-made gift sounds perfect.

Spa products
Wouldn't it be fun to have a spa day with your bridesmaids? Since this is an expensive luxury, you could thank them with some homemade spa products instead. Try some of these:

• Facial products: Make a cleanser, scrub, mask, and moisturizer to pamper your bridesmaids.
• Foot products: Create a soak, scrub, and butter -- those feet will be worn out from dancing at the wedding!
• Body products: Make bath salts, body scrub, hand scrub, and body oil, so she can be soft all over.

Join me each week as I explore the naturally aromatic side of DIY. Helpful recipes for your "scentual" pleasure: from essential oils, herbs, and other botanicals, to soap-making, body care products, and other useful blends.

You have soft, smooth feet from our pedicure of two weeks ago. Your face is aglow with healthy skin after last week's facial. What about the rest of you?

Get ready to pamper yourself (or a loved one) with the gift of relaxation and cared-for skin -- all over!

After the break, I'll share recipes for relaxing bath salts, a detoxifying body scrub, a gentle hand scrub, and body oil, along with packaging ideas to make lovely gifts of these homemade products.

All the trendy spas offer health detox and body cleansing packages. If you're somebody who indulges in these little luxuries, good for you. I'm sure you're happy, healthy, thin, and energetic. You may not be one of the lucky ones, jet-setting off to a private island for your renewal, but that doesn't mean you can't get the same benefits at home (minus the pretentious attitude and sky-high price tag).

Home detox 101: 4 easy tips for detoxing at home lets us in on 4 simple secrets for purging those damaging elements and renewing our bodies the DIY way. I was shocked to learn that starting your day with lemon water, then keeping a bottle of water boiled with ginger and black pepper can alleviate fatigue and cure chronic headaches. It will also cleanse your liver.

This is just the beginning, the benefit of skin and tongue scraping will regulate digestion and cleanse toxins. Stressing the importance of a brisk walk, they recommend taking a 20 minute walk to improve circulation, cleanse the colon and give your lungs a healthy dose of fresh air. The article closes with suggestions on detoxifying food and drinks.

If you want to spoil yourself even further, check out Debra's Scentual Life series.

In the DIY spa series we covered the homemade exfoliate, the deep hair condition, and the manicure. Recently, Diane taught us how to save $20 and pluck our eyebrows at home. We're slowly eliminating the need for a trip to the spa all together. Stay home, save the money, avoid the pretentious setting and pamper yourself. Perfecting the at-home pedicure is something I've always struggled with, but these instructions are a great help.

Daily life can do a number on even the nicest manicures, leaving you needing a re-touch every week. Pedicures on the other hand, can look fabulous into the third week. Take the time to care for your feet and your toenails, learning the proper pedicure technique and maintaining them well for a spa quality pedicure at home. The full article takes you through the materials you need, foot and nail preparation, and applying the polish.

If you spend your days on DIY projects and not in bedroom slippers, you probably know how quickly your feet can get ugly and achy. The article gives special instruction on how to care for dry cracked feet. They mention using a gentle exfoliate, but I would be inclined to spend a little extra time on this step. Try one of these homemade foot scrub recipes and find the one that you like best. I find that the sugar scrub does the trick for me.

If you're looking to take the DIY pedicure that little bit further, replace the suggested cotton balls or toe separators with packing peanuts the way Garry suggests.

Score points this Valentine's day with something truly romantic, original and best of all, homemade. Handmade gifts aren't always received with the excitement that we imagine. Sometimes they are a total flop. So, what differentiates the gift that she calls all her friends to brag about from the one that gets tucked away in the junk drawer?

I think that all romantic DIY gifts should pass a three-point check:

1. Is the gift personal?
   Even if beautiful, something that could have easily made it into a Secret Santa exchange probably isn't going to blow her away. It should be obvious that this gift was made just for your special someone. Personalizing it with a name or picture is the obvious choice. More subtle: try incorporating an inside joke, or choosing a theme using project elements that have significance for the two of you.
   
   
2. Did the gift take time to make?
   She said she'd like something homemade. You raided the kids craft cupboard and made a card. She's not impressed. Are you surprised? The more time and planning that goes into the gift the more you'll get out of it. People love knowing that they were thought of, and taking the time and energy to plan ahead for a handmade gift shows that you truly wanted it to be something special.
   
   
3. Is it really any good?
   We only make a big deal out of poorly painted, ceramic ashtrays when they come from our children. While some failed projects can still be appreciated for the romantic intention, there really isn't room for the ugly, the tasteless, and the poorly crafted ones. Don't knit him a toque out of leftover yarn in colors you know he'd find hideous and then expect him to wear it proudly because it was made with love. Think seriously about what your significant other would like. If you want it to go on display, consider how it would work with their current decorating scheme.

With these three guidelines, I've put together a list of romantic DIY Valentine's day gifts. Some are old favorites-- tried, tested, and true for generations of lovers. Others are new and inventive, but they are all incredibly romantic and sure to make him or her putty in your hands. Follow me through the break and I'll share them with you.

Do you like Lush? The famous UK retailer has expanded their US business a lot in the last few years, but knockoff products preceded the company's wares onto American shelves: we were familiar with bath bombs long before we could easily purchase a Tisty-Tosty or Avobath.

Two of the major draws of Lush's products, aside from their fabulous scents, are their natural ingredients and the fact that they're handmade. Fans of the company know that their wares aren't exactly cheap, but think they're worth every penny.

But if you like handmade natural bath and body products, it's simple to make your own, or at least to add your own custom scent blends to basic lotions, oils, and soaps. And once you've paid more than $5 for an admittedly divine single-use bath item, you may become even more interested in the concept.

Learn more about it after the break! You'll find links to some great recipes, as well as suggested sources for any supplies you might need. There's still plenty of time to make something for everyone on your holiday gift list.

Hot tubs are great in wintertime. All that holiday stress and running around can be melted away within about half an hour of sitting in all those comforting bubbles. But, the thing is, hot tubs are expensive -- very expensive. Newer models (which can start quite small in size) begin in the range of $2,000 and go up to $10,000. That's a lot of green to relax.

What if you could build a functional hot tub for about $75? Even though it won't win any popularity contests for good looks, this homebrew hot tub uses convection heating and a hollowed-out liquefied petroleum gas tank along with some corrugated iron to get those bubbles bubbling.

And now, the obligatory disclaimer: try this at your own risk, please. It appears that no electricity or motor is used in this hot tub, so no danger of electrical malfunction. But bare flesh and corrugated iron? Yikes -- be careful.

My homemade spa experiments started with a deep condition, then an apple face mask, and finally the DIY'er manicure. The face mask disaster reminded me that sometimes we're better off sticking with a simple recipe rather than adding in all the fancy ingredients. This exfoliating salt body scrub is exceptionally simple and I was certainly impressed with the results. Try it for yourself and let me know what you think.

What you'll need

1. Table salt
2. Oil - recipe calls for olive oil but I used grape seed oil
3. small container

What to do

1. Pour table salt into the container
2. Fill it with oil just until the oil passes the top of the salt
3. Mix it thoroughly
4. Spread over your body
5. Rub in gently with your fingers
6. Rinse off
7. Reveal your new skin

After the break I'll let you know what I thought of this homemade exfoliant. I'll also let you in on the secret powers of grape seed oil and why I replaced the olive oil in this recipe with it.

Manicured nails make a great impression. For most of us, long nails dazzled with jewels just don't match our DIY'er lifestyle. In this edition of DIY spa treatment, I'll show you how to achieve a spa quality manicure that you can live with and easily maintain.

What you'll need

1. Nail brush
2. Soap
3. Nail clippers
4. Emery board
5. Q-tips
6. Nail polish remover
7. Colored polish
8. Clear top coat polish

After the break I'll give you the step by step for your at home manicure. While I am now painfully aware that I am not a hand model, the gallery pictures illustrate each step along the way.

I love coming out of the spa, feeling so relaxed and refreshed. It's like I'm a whole new person. Honestly though, aside from the luxury of a good massage, I'm not really a fan of the spa experience. I like what I get out of it, but I don't particularly like the pretentious environment or the pressure sales at the end. I'm not very good at the soft whisper and light movement that seem to match the tranquil music and mild mannered estheticians.

Spa treatments aren't something I indulge in often, but you can achieve some pretty close results at home. I've collected some DIY spa treatments. I'll try things out as we go and let you know what I think. Today, we'll start with your head (well, actually your hair) with a deep condition, and in the coming days work our way down to that perfect pedicure.

Deep conditioning
The occasional deep condition can go a long way toward healthier hair, especially if yours is exposed to color, straightening, or perm treatments. Most regular conditioners add moisture. This is very important for your hair, but it isn't the only thing it needs. You'll want to add protein if your hair is in need of a little reconstruction. Today I tried this homemade deep conditioner recipe. After the break I'll let you know how it went.

Just in case you haven't filled your quota this month for things you can do with packing peanuts, here's one more idea that just might do the trick.

My wife has discovered that when it's time to pedicure her toenails, placing packing peanuts in between her toes works better than using cotton balls as toe separators. She finds that while cotton balls tend to fluff out and get in the way of the project, the packing peanuts don't have that fuzz which can get in your way. She also says that the peanuts hold the toes farther apart and that they are easily adjustable, while cotton balls seem to always fall down on the job.

One other measurable advantage to using packing peanuts to wedge apart your toes is that cotton costs money and once you have stuffed it between your toes, you take it out and throw it in the trash. Packing peanuts on the other hand, generally come to us free of charge and in a pinch, you could always wash them after plucking them out from between your toes and reuse them as packing peanuts. I myself, wouldn't recommend that. Not to mention that many varieties of packing peanuts these days are in fact biodegradable.

The summer months can be pretty hard on the skin. With all the outdoor activities and sun exposure, my skin looks and feels dry and dull by the middle of July. From time to time I will have a gift certificate to a spa for a slat rub and I come out feeling like a new woman. But as a single mother of three kids, I never buy a certificate for myself so I have resorted to creating my own salt scrubs from a recipe my friend gave me.

Salt scrub recipes come in many forms and many sizes. Some recipes require a variety of essential oils and scents while others are all about simplicity. I like a sweet and simple recipe since my life is fairly hectic and my spare time is minimal. I also make my scrubs up as I go so that I don't have to worry about shelf life The basic gist of the recipe I use is to include a couple different kids of salts to scrub the grub, some oils to soothe the skin and some scent to calm the nerves. My favorite concoction is as follows:

• 2 T. Epsom salt
• 2 T. table salt
• 2 T. sweet almond oil
• 2 T. organic, extra virgin olive oil
• lavender oil to suit my nose

Simply mix the above together, let sit for a few minutes and then rub on to your rough, dry skin and let sit for however long feels good. Follow with a warm, soothing bath for some peace of mind, body and soul.