Food

Beeswax Candle and a Wood Burned Bowl

9 · Jul 17, 2013 · 10 Comments

Hi Whipperberrians!I am so excited to be back for month #2 on the Creative Team here at Whipperberry. What an amazing bunch of girls they are!! You can find me and my sis-in-law Jen posting over at Eat.Sleep.Make.

Today I'm sharing with you how to make a scented beeswax candle and as the container, I'm using a wooden salad bowl that I bought at an estate sale for 25 cents.

What you will need:

A wooden bowl

Wood burner

Block of beeswax (got mine at Hobby Lobby)

Wooden wick (Hobby Lobby)

Pasta Pot

Pyrex 4 cup measuring cup (or something similar)

Start by customizing your bowl by burning a design into it. If you don't have a wood burner, you could always paint a design.

Next is the hardest part. You need to guesstimate how much wax you will need to fill your bowl. You want this to be in smaller chunks so it will melt properly. I just stabbed the block with a knife and plied chunks off of it.

You need to use a double boiler to get the wax to melt without burning. I kept my stove set on medium. I found that if I turned it up higher than that the boiling water would jump into the wax (which, like I discovered, causes issues in the drying process).

Use a cooking thermometer to monitor the heat of the wax. It should get up to about 160-165 degrees and never go over 185 degrees.

Once the wax was completely melted, I used some perfume oil I had from The Body Shop to scent the wax. Essential oils can be used as well. (If you want a candle that will relax you, use Eucalyptus Essential Oil and burn it while you are taking a bath.. so relaxing!)

Now, pour the wax in your container! You can place the wick in first or after it is poured. It doesn't really matter. I had some wax leftover, so I used a vintage baking tin for the rest.

The drying part can be quite tricky. If it dries too fast, you will have cracking (like you can see in the photos of mine below). Upon doing some research, it is best to place the containers on a cookie cooling stand so that the wax can dry from the bottom up. This will also help prevent cracking.

Once my wax was completely cooled and hardened, I saw some separation from the side of the bowl and discovered all the water that had jumped into the melting wax had caused the wax to pull away from the container. The water all dumped out, but it's definitely good to try and avoid this.

Fortunately, after burning for a little while, the crack will fill itself in, so no worries!

I'm definitely over-the-moon pleased with how this turned out! This was my first run at making candles and I think I'm hooked. Would this not be an awesome house-warming gift, too?

I'll see you all next month!

In the meantime, come visit me here: Facebook / Pinterest / Blog

Check out some of our favorite projects!

DIY Arrow Bouquet // Plywood Inspire Boards // Gem Earrings

Finding my Inner Artist for my Skinny Cow WoCavé

4 · Jul 15, 2013 · 1 Comment

This post brought to you by Skinny Cow // So… the other day I shared a little about a fun challenge that I am participating in for the next two months. The Skinny Cow WoCavé Challenge.

What is a WoCavé you ask? In a nut shell, it's pronounced wo-cah-vay and it's what ever you want it to be. If you are lucky enough to have a space in your house where the pink is plush, the men are scarce and the Skinny Cow treats flow freely, that may be your WoCavé. Your WoCavé may be a fun night out with your best girl friends to your favorite restaurant. It may be a quiet place where you can escape and refuel your soul by reading your favorite book. Your WoCavé may take you to the tallest mountain, challenging your physical self or on a stage overcoming a lifelong fear. You get to decide what your WoCavé is.

Your WoCavé is what ever helps you find your true self, it's what helps you fill your tanks so that you are ready to make life magical for your loved ones and tackle the challenges of the day.

The folks at Skinny Cow sent over a challenge…

It was a little intimidating and scary…

It was way out of my comfort zone…

But that was good. Challenges are meant to stretch you and help you find parts of you that you never knew you had…

Where did they send me? Boot Camp? The Antarctic? Snake charming school?

They sent me to Art School!!

I know, I know… That really shouldn't be hive inducing.

You would have to understand that I have grown up feeling like I really wasn't an artist because I couldn't draw or paint. For some reason, no one ever told me that art is EVERYWHERE and it comes in so many different mediums, and… I could LEARN how to draw and paint. No one sits down and whips out a Rembrandt or Picasso the first hundred or even thousand times. I think I sat down when I was young and tried to draw or paint something and with my perfectionist brain, I felt like the piece was unsuccessful and therefore, labeled myself as unartistic.

It makes my skin crawl to think of all the classes and opportunities I missed because I imprisoned myself with this label.

Inside that little box that Skinny Cow sent over was an invitation for myself and a couple of my friends to attend an art class at Urban Legends Art Studio with these two lovely ladies, Anna & Cindy…

They are two of the cutest ladies I've ever met. They have such amazing talents and a drive that won't quit. They have built their whole shop from the ground up with passion and such a creative spirit. Anna & Cindy have created the perfect WoCavé!!!

Their mission in life is to share art with the community and to teach people, like me, that we ALL have artists inside just waiting to come out.

First, we dawned our recycled shirt aprons that were soooo cute! My friend Kim totally rocked her apron. Then Anna held our hands, opened our eyes and carefully walked us into the artistic world that we had been missing.

Anna taught us all kinds of tricks that actually made me feel like a regular ole' Georgia O'Keeffe.

img source // red poppy by georgia o'keefe

Ok, maybe not quite Georgia level, but we thought we did pretty good…

Once we were done we shared a victory Skinny Cow Cookies 'n Dough ice cream bar in true WoCavé form.

Because you know, WoCavé's are where the men are scarce and the Skinny Cow flows abundantly!

I can't thank Anna & Cindy enough for creating this magical WoCavé experience for us. And… for my sweet friends Kim from Here's Your Sign Design and Natalie from Wright's Sheds for coming with me. Because really… what is a WoCavé without friends!!

What does your ideal WoCavé look like? Is it artistic like Urban Legends, or full of good food and belly laughs? Come on over to Skinny Cow's WoCavé Polyvore Challenge and design your pefect space!

For all the contest info, visit this site to design your WoCavé and enter to win the $7,500 gift card!!

Disclaimer // This is a sponsored post by Skinny Cow. However, all thoughts, ideas and opinions are my very own.

Healthy Ice Cream Sandwiches

2 · Jul 15, 2013 · 1 Comment

Hello Whipperberry readers! Jenn here from Clean and Scentsible! I'm so excited to be back here today sharing one of our kid-friendly, healthy summertime treats…

These ice cream sandwiches are very simple to make and the kids can have lots of fun coming up with their own variations. To make the "ice cream" simply blend up 2 ripe, frozen bananas in your blender or food processor until it turns soft and creamy {like a soft served ice cream texture}. Spoon the mixture between 2 graham crackers and place in the freezer for approximately 20-30 minutes {makes 6 sandwiches}.

My oldest is a huge sprinkles fan, so we added some colorful sprinkles to these ones. They also taste wonderful with peanut butter {or Nutella!}spread over the graham crackers and, of course, adding a little chocolate is always a yummy option too! 🙂

If you get a chance, pop on over to Clean and Scentsible for some more summertime inspiration! There's always lots going on and I would love to hear from you!

Summertime Caddy and Frosted Mason Jars

Watermelon Pudding Pops

Sisal Rope Flower Pots

You can also connect with me here:

Facebook / Pinterest / Instagram / Twitter

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer!

A New Summer Adventure… Finding My Skinny Cow WoCavé

0 · Jul 14, 2013 · Leave a Comment

This post brought to you by Skinny Cow // How often do you have a chance to step out of your comfort zone? I mean really get out of your routine and stretch yourself?

Think about it… We as women have so much on our minds, on our to-do list, responsibilities (whether we want them or not.) We dive into our daily routines; family, work, school, church, giving back to our communities. Making sure our loved ones have the best that we can give them and at the end of the day… what have we done to stretch ourselves, to think beyond peanut butter and jelly and do something that scares us and in the same time, invigorates our soul and helps us find our joy. What have we done that refills our tanks so that we can get up the next day and start our routine all over again.

I'm super excited, the folks over at Skinny Cow have challenged me to find my WoCavé.

What is a WoCavé you ask? Well first, it's pronounced wo-cah-vay and it's what ever you want it to be. If you are lucky enough to have a space in our house where the pink is plush, the men are scarce and the Skinny Cow treats flow freely, that may be your WoCavé. Your WoCavé may be a fun night out with your best girl friends to your favorite restaurant. It may be a quiet place where you can escape and refuel your soul by reading your favorite book. Your WoCavé may take you to the tallest mountain, challenging your physical self or on a stage overcoming a lifelong fear. You get to decide what your WoCavé is.

Your WoCavé is what ever helps you find your true self, it's what helps you fill your tanks so that you are ready to make life magical for your loved ones and tackle the challenges of the day.

Skinny Cow has set-up three challenges for me in the next two months to help me find my WoCavé and I'm super excited to see what they have in store. The other day I received this box with my first challenge inside…

You'll have to wait and see what it is, but I will give you a little hint… It's something totally out of my comfort zone. An activity that I would have never even thought of doing because I felt I lacked the talent. It was scary and silly at the same time. I was able to take some friends and we had a BLAST!! And yes… Skinny Cow was had by all. Come back on Tuesday and you'll see the fun activity that helped me totally find a part of my WoCavé that I didn't even know existed!

In the mean time… Skinny Cow is hosting a fun WoCavé Challenge for you as well.

You can head over to Polyvore and design your dream WoCavé for a chance to win $7,500… Um, yes please! For all the details on how to enter, you can visit the WoCavé site and start creating your special place! Come back on Tuesday… for all the juicy details on my first challenge!

disclaimer // This post was sponsored by Skinny Cow. However, all thoughts, ideas and opinions are my very own.

Friday Flair Link Party // Features no. 4

0 · Jul 12, 2013 · 25 Comments

Friday Flair Link Party // Welcome to the weekend… It's finally FRIDAY!! The temperatures are heading up and we've been busy trying to stay cool. We had a full week with all kinds of fun projects and new adventures that you'll get to hear more about next week.

Hales a.k.a Lil'Whip got her drivers permit this week, and I am now officially a crazy, nervous wreck! I don't know how parents have done this before. I know people do. My parents did… But how is this really going to work. I feel like the minute she walked out of that DMV with that permit in hand, I was officially sending her out to the wolves. I'll get over this, we all do… hopefully. You know those commercials where the little 4 year old is sitting in the car with the father giving her instructions on how to drive… Yea, that's how I feel.

On that note, how about some fun from last week's Friday Flair? We had all kinds of fun goodies that I can't wait to share…