Tag: crafts

Humble But Beautiful

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

It’s Christmas Eve, and I am a mess from the holidays. I worked all day long, literally, to finish my daughter’s quilt for Christmas. I kept trying to work on it all December, but something always comes up–like an injured duck, a duck who won’t eat, a chicken who stayed out all night, a kitty trying to get a duck, lots of frozen water, a storm, loss of power, cello rehearsals, essay grading, and so on and so forth.

It has been a wonderful month though, and by some miracle, my daughter’s quilt is finished and is beautiful. It’s purple floral, and I love it! Ron and I also wrapped the presents tonight. We do not use paper. Every year, we reuse the same holiday fabric and fancy ribbons I bought several years ago. I had meant to make gift bags out of the fabric, but I have never had time. Hopefully, one day! Still, I refused to buy more paper, so we just wrap our gifts in the fabric and use the ribbons to hold everything together. Then, after we open presents on Christmas morning, we roll up the ribbons, fold up the fabric, and we are all set until next year.

It’s a little rustic. It’s definitely humble. But there’s no waste, and, to me, it’s beautiful.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! This year, our family celebrated three winter holidays, and our Christmas is the last of them. It’s been lovely. I hope your holiday season is lovely as well!

Candles

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

Day 151 of 365

I make candles. This is a humble brag. I realize it’s only a brag to people who want to make candles. I also realize that this is probably a fairly small percentage of the population. Still, I am bragging on myself for this because I wanted to make candles for years. When I finally had a good idea for a candle that a) I could create with my limited skills and b) seemed both beautiful and useful to me (beautiful and useful go hand in hand to me), I was so excited that I could make it.

I have a very creative soul with limited skills. When I can find an outlet for my creativity, I feel very fortunate–and proud of myself for learning something new that makes me happy.

Today was a candle-making day. I have had quite a few orders in the Etsy shop in the last couple of weeks, and we sold out of the handmade beeswax candles–and then some. So, today, while I talked to my wonderful aunt on the phone, I made candles.While we talked, she asked me questions about how I made the candles, and this was just the best to me. I loved that she was interested in the story of how I made them. I love to hear stories, but if I have a good story, I also love to tell it.

So it was a great afternoon of making candles and telling the story. The conversation made me realize why I find these candles so beautiful. First, they are useful. As I mentioned, if something is really useful to me, I will find it so beautiful. Good food. Good tools. Pencils. A Le Creuset pan.

I made these candles with pure organic beeswax with just a little organic coconut oil, so they burn clean and burn forever. I have one that I am still going on, and I have hit over 36 hours with that candle–and there’s still some left. I think it will last like 50 hours, but I have to keep testing to know for sure. We use these to make the house feel cozier, but we also use these when the power goes out. And, here in rural Maine, that happens quite a bit, especially in winter storms. So, I treasure their practicality.

I also love that they are made with old jars that I fell in love with for their size and shape. I am a lover of jars. There is actually a Mason jar Facebook group. I didn’t join. I didn’t want to feed my tendency to save any and all jars I come into contact with. I stare a long time at that pickle jar. There must be something I could do with that thing, but so far, I have resisted the urge to keep it. The shelves in our basement can only hold so many mason jars before Ron is going to want to divorce me. I am always so happy when I find a good use for a jar. It moves jars off of the shelves.

I am also thankful to these little candles. They are one of the best sellers in our Etsy shop, and that shop funds the journal. The support is so helpful.

If you would like to know how to make one of these candles, I wrote up some directions here. I think these will make others happy too. And, if you don’t have the time to make one, you can get one from our shop. I’m convinced I accidentally put happiness in them because I love them so much. I have had customers write notes to me about how much they love the candles. How cool is that?

And I make candles. How cool is that? Now, if I could just learn how to carve a wooden spoon…