DIY Essential Oils Kid's Kit

DIY Essential Oils Kid's Kit:  Rainbow roller bottles with labels
detailing the blend in each--details in this blog post.

 Our family began using essential oils about a year ago, and over that year our use of essential oils has increased drastically, in just about every way possible.  We use them in minor first aid and self-care, better health & wellness, improving sleep and avoiding nightmares, beauty and skin-care, and cleaning to name a few.  My children are no exception to the use and love of essential oils.  My 9 year old was actually the first one in our family to use Young Living essential oils and she still has the tiny little sample of Purification a friend gave her at Family Camp last summer to help with the itching of her mosquito bites!  The way she coveted that tiny little bottle was adorable!

Being the crafty chick I am, I tend to try to find a DIY for nearly anything I want to get or make (within reason).  Young Living has a "Kid Scents Collection" which is awesome and diluted to the perfect ratio for kiddos to safely use, but I wanted to make something out of blends I knew work for my little lady and I wanted to prepare them sooner rather than later!  In thinking about making them special for my girl's likes, I went on the search for RAINBOW roller bottles (and I found them--SCORE!).  I made these a few months ago and at the time didn't photograph the process but they are one of the simplest projects EVER!

A note of caution:  My daughter is nearly 10 years old and pretty mature.  We have talked extensively about essential oils, safety, proper application, and so on.  Use your common sense and knowledge of your own kiddo when choosing whether or not to make and give a Kid's Kit to your little one!  I would not recommend this for any child 5 or under--not because I really think they'd get themselves into trouble, but because the younger the kiddo, the more unpredictable their behavior can be, and safety is of utmost importance in anything with our precious little ones.

Supplies:

--  Roller Bottles of your choice:  I chose these smaller Rainbow Roller bottles (amazon) for the novelty of it and knowing my kiddo loves rainbows!  I also thought this way I could give each color a "purpose" to differentiate them other than labels!

-   Carrier oil of your choice:  I used Grapeseed oil

-   Young Living Essential Oils (see below how to order if you're interested) of your choice:  all of my blends and the number of drops of essential oil for safe dilution for older children are listed below.

-   Glass dropper if needed

Here are the bottles I created:  color, name, and recipe.  Once you've placed the essential oils into the roller bottle, fill the remainder with your carrier oil, place the roller bottle on, push to secure, and place your cap--BAM!  You're done!  You're a rockstar!  And your kid is going to be SO excited to have his or her own set of oils!!

Red:  OUCH:  2 drops Lavender essential oil, 2 drops Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) essential oil

Pink:  Focus:  2 drops Orange essential oil, 2 drops Peppermint essential oil, 2 drops Valor essential oil blend

Orange:  Stay Healthy:  4 drops Thieves essential oil Blend

Yellow:  Joy:  4 drops Joy essential oil Blend

Green:  No Worries!:  2 drops Stress Away essential oil blend, 2 drops Lavender essential oil, and 2 drops Ylang Ylang essential oil

Blue:  Sweet Dreams:  2 drops Lavender essential oil, 2 drops Cedarwood essential oil, and 2 drops Stress Away essential oil blend

Making these is super easy--for any other blind chicks (or dudes) reading today, I prefer to drop the oils directly from the essential oil bottle to the roller bottle.  Reason being, I can generally hear the oil as it comes out--it makes a slight ticking noise as it comes out to the essential oil bottle so you can hear it drip and you can count the drops by sound.  I just make sure the bottles are basically touching so that the oil goes into the roller bottle.  If you prefer, you can always use a glass dropper to get the essential oils from the main bottle into the rollers.  The glass droppers ARE handy for the carrier oil, in my case grapeseed oil, because it is all but impossible to get out of its original bottle and into the roller bottles without your counters taking a grapeseed oil bath!  

Essential Oil Kid's Kit "Ready to Go" with a perfect size
clear plastic carrying case from Dollar Tree

Our daughter takes her Focus, No worries!, and Stay Healthy, and Joy rollers to school often in her backpack!  I think her favorite is Joy--but that's always been a favorite for her!  The little carrying case pictured above I found at Dollar Tree.  It contained three miniature antibacterial hand soaps when I bought it, but it's the perfect size to hold most of the Kid's Kit!

If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about Young Living Essential Oils please feel free to contact me at neschultz@gmail.com and I will gladly talk oils with you and provide my Young Living Essential Oils Distributor information.  If you follow the link above to get your hands on these incredible oils you will want my full name and distributor number.  They have been such a phenomenal addition to our family's health and wellness!  

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Happy Crafting!!!

$3 Easter Egg Wreath

Having waited entirely too long to change out the wreath in front of our house, I was subject to parental ridicule inquiry as to whether I was ever going to change out the wreath and if I owned a spring / summer (or otherwise more happy, cheerful, non-Minnesota dreary) wreath.  I have wreaths for fall, winter, and around Valentine's Day...  So, it was time to add an Easter wreath, hopefully one that would be super bright and fun but not $30 like the single Easter egg option available at my fav, Target Boutique.

Here ya' go!!  This project is perfectly easy for both sighted and blind chicks (and dudes, of course, we don't discriminate around here).  The eggs have a tiny plastic blip that I oriented toward the back of the wreath with each egg--easy point of reference by touch.  The wreath foundation is totally tactile and will guide where you decide to place your eggs.  I didn't follow a pattern at all, in fact, contrary to my completely just sliiiiiiiightly perfectionist tendencies, I placed the eggs as randomly as I could.  Borrowing someone's eyes, or using an app, to separate the colors of eggs may be helpful so that you're randomly placing eggs but not ending up with six orange eggs on one side or something.  I guess that could be cute, though, actually, as I think of it.....  it could be a rainbow Easter Egg wreath....  oh man, that may be even better!  Rainbow makes EVERYTHING better!  (Must stop thinking now.)

Alright, here ya' go.....

Supplies:
- Ribbon
- Wreath form:  I found this one at Target in the Dollar Spot, woot $1.00
- Regular Plastic Eggs & Mini Plastic Eggs:  I got both of mine at Dollar Tree--I chose them in the same color palette as they had bright sets and pastel sets--this is the bright set
- Hot Glue Gun & Sticks

I began by simply tying the ribbon on to the wreath form, it's made of reeds so I was able to slide the ribbon through it about three inches apart so that it will hang nicely.  I made sure to hold the ribbon at the top point after typing the left side and moving on to tie the right side.  I double knotted each and trimmed the excess ribbon.  The ribbon I used was in my craft closet but it ended up being a closely coordinating green color!

Photo Description:  Empty white reed wreath form with green
ribbon tied at the top left and right sides

Next, I just jumped in....  I have a tendency to overthink and overplan things, even things like this....  What if I put them in the wrong place?  What if the little ones don't fit?  What if it looks stupid?  What--ever!  So, what if it does?!  If it does, you've spent $3 and chances are it doesn't look bad at all--you just think it does because you're a perfectionist like me! Hah!!

Just start gluing those eggs on!!  I glued the large ones on first--the only "intentional" thing I did was to try vary the egg color rather than have two like-colors next to one another.  This is where an app or borrowing sight may come in handy!  I began with each egg by placing a tiny drop of glue on the inside of the egg to hopefully keep it from opening as I'm working with it or once it's on the wreath.  Half the time I didn't have to squeeze the glue gun at all to do that as there was a tiny bit of hot glue on the tip of the gun.  I touched it to the inside of the egg and closed the egg.  I'd say this step is entirely optional.  Then I placed glue on the form where I was going to place the egg and on the back or sides of the egg accordingly.  As I got further into the project, I glued just the egg I was placing based on what parts would touch other eggs or the wreath form and then I stuck it on--went a little faster.  I held the egg steady for a few seconds and on some of them gently blew on the glued area to cool the cool.  I did have to add a drop of glue occasionally, often to the egg next to the one I was placing if they touched one another--the drop of glue gave a bit more support to keep it in place.

Wreath after adding first six eggs:  pink, yellow, blue, orange, green, and purple.
How did I NOT see rainbow potential in this?!?!

I continued with the large eggs and finished with those before moving on to the mini-eggs.

Wreath with 17 eggs:  They seem to begin forming groups of 3-4 eggs.

After I had added all the large eggs, I got started with the mini eggs.  The mini-eggs were used most to fill in gaps where the wreath form was visible and where the wreath needed a bit of rounding out.  I began doing these on the counter like the others, but then moved the wreath to hang off of a cabinet for me to check the shape and open spaces that could be seen (yeah, yeah, by the sighted chicks and dudes) when looking directly at the wreath as it would hang.

Wreath after beginning to add mini-eggs

Wreath hanging from cabinet--still a fair amount to go!

I ended up with two mini-eggs left!  I could have added them but frankly it seemed like the wreath was ready and I didn't want to add eggs just to add eggs!  I"m SUPER excited about how it turned out!  Thirty minutes and $3.00 later and we have a bright and shiny Easter wreath!!

All finished and outside ready for Spring!

And, now the parental units can't complain that our wreath is so dreary!  Time to welcome Spring!!

If you try this project--enjoy!!!  And come back with a photo of your wreath!!  I would love to see them!  The kiddos will love this project too but this time, it's just me....  :)

Have fun Crafting!