Happy Monday everyone! I can hardly believe Christmas is only two days away! And if you know me – you know I am really terrible about waiting until Christmas to give gifts.  Partly because I know that with Christmas being a family holiday – there’s a really good chance I won’t see my friends until after Christmas. So since a couple of my friends already got their presents – I thought I’d share the fun stuff I made for them this year!

As I’ve written before – I have a serious love/hate relationship with Pinterest. But when it comes to DIY projects – I’m definitely a Pinterest junkie. I saw these awesome tutorials on how to make your own luxury bath goodies and I had a couple of friends who I knew would enjoy a relaxing bath.

I wanted to make a variety of things so they would last a while and the girls could combine things if they wanted to. So I made sure all the fragrances went together well. Lavender is a lovely relaxing scent and one you’ll notice often in store bought bath salts and things, and I, personally, love the refreshing scent of lemon. So nearly everything in the goodie basket was some combination of these scents.

But what all did I make you may ask…. Well here’s my list with links to the original tutorial and my little tidbits about it. 🙂

• Lavender-Lemon Bubble Bath – http://julieblanner.com/homemade-bubble-bath/
I LOVE this one!! It was super easy to make, smells amazing and it makes an amazingly scented bubbly bath! (Yup! I tried this one myself the other day and loved it!) I think the original tutorial was to use lavender essential oil only and actual lavender sprigs, but I chose to combine lavender and lemon essential oil and leave out the actual lavender entirely.

• Lavender-Chamomile Bath Melts – http://www.bebeautiful-beautyblog.com/2012/08/diy-lavender-chamomile-bath-melts.html
I haven’t used any of these but I must say, based on when I was making these – I am convinced these will really work wonders for soft, silky skin. The cocoa butter was super firm and it took some effort to scrape it out of the tub but it is amazingly rich moisture-wise. So if you are looking for some silky skin goodness – I’m pretty confident these will do the trick. (Two notes – the chamomile and lavender do tend to float along the surface and may not look very pretty when they’re done. But the tops of them still look very lovely! And also the measurements they give of 50g equates out to about 1/4 cup in case you are wondering.)

• Lemon Bath Salt – http://www.deniseinbloom.com/homemade-citrus-bath-salts/
This was really easy to make too has a lovely lemony fragrance. Make sure you have plain epsom salt and not something that’s already scented unless you are wanting to combine flavors. I haven’t used any of this yet to really critique it but it smelled awesome!

• Lemon Scented Bath Bombs – http://www.skiptomylou.org/2011/02/04/youre-the-bomb/
Seriously my least favorite one of these I made. This was a PAIN to do because if you get the mixture too wet it starts to fizz, but if it’s not moist enough it won’t pack together. They weren’t expensive to make or anything – just difficult to properly do. I actually immediately wrapped them in tissue paper and then put them in the fridge to harden. I don’t know if you’re technically supposed to do that but it was the only way I was confident they’d stay together.

• Lemon Sugar Scrub – http://www.maybematilda.com/2011/04/baby-shower-gift-homemade-sugar-scrub.html#.UreTZfZSu1I
This was another easy to make product. Obviously you could add any essential oil fragrance you’d like. I liked the idea of the refreshing scent of lemons as you exfoliate and slough off old skin. The texture of these was awesome – harsh enough to slough off the skin but not so harsh as to cause irritation which can often happen with store bought exfoliates. And most of these ingredients are things you’d have in your pantry.

• Homemade Perfume – http://mymerrymessylife.com/2013/04/homemade-all-natural-perfume.html
This one looked pretty easy to me so I thought I’d give it a try and see. But I thought how fun would it be if I could make my own perfume! I’d always told Ryan if I could find a perfume that smelled like my lemon vanilla candle – I’d wear it everyday. And now I can! Well kind of… there’s actually an art to creating perfumes. You actually have different notes. You have to start with a strong base note like sandalwood or some other harder more wood like fragrance. Then you can add your middle and upper notes which are softer like fruits and flowers. But you have to add them in the right order and the right quantities. I’m still learning how to combine them and things but it was really fun to give it a whirl, and I’m excited about making more.

(PS – Please excuse my poor quality iPhone photo. I took these right before I gave them away. :))

So yup – that covers everything in these little goodies baskets. It was a fun project and I was super excited to be able to share it with some friends I knew would appreciate it. I hope you all are having a fantastic day!

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