The Ultimate DIY At-Home Spa (for less than $15)

Sometimes I get home from work and all I want to do is take off the heels, put up my feet, and turn off my brain for the next 4 hours. Sometimes I get home from work and all I can think about is settling into a comfy message chair at a spa in town and having all my tiredness and achey-ness scrubbed and polished away so I come out of it refreshed and smelling pretty. All of the time, I am looking for ways to save money and live on the cheap... because I'm broke, what else is new? So naturally, my favorite weekly tradition is the $15 Home Spa, putting together all my best laziness, sweet-smelliness, and cheapiness ideas into a luxury experience I don't have to get in my car and drive to. I do this little spa treatment once a week, and it's the perfect kick in the butt for going from "ugh, I'm so tired and bloated, I hate life" to "gosh I'm cute! and perky! and I smell pretty!"

Adventures in Bread Making: Soft Vegan Whole Wheat Bread

The search for homemade, vegan, healthy, whole what soft sandwich bread has come to a happy ending with a warm and delicious discovery!

Reusable Sandwich and Snack Packs (Pattern)

I like to make some small efforts in being environmentally friendly, especially when it comes to waste. I try to have those reusable grocery bags on hand when I go to the store, and even though I forget sometimes, I save all my plastic grocery bags to use to make plarn (plastic yarn), so at least they're not going out into the dump. I also try to be conscious of my daily waste, especially my lunch stuff. I already use reusable lunch containers - I like my To-Go Ware stainless steel tiffin and my little bento-sized Lunch Bots - but sometimes I still use little plastic zip bags for snacks and sammies. I always feel bad when I throw one out, too. I have a couple of reusable snack baggies that I picked up from Bed Bath and Beyond (they are also available at reuseit.com), but those are a little pricey for just a couple of bags. And then I thought, this can't be that hard to make at home... so I made a pattern for snackies packs! And then I made another pattern for sammies packs!

Wingardium Leviosa: Levitating Water Science Trick

"Wingardium Leviosa" by Arieare on DeviantArt

Personal confession for the day: I am a serious fantasy and science fiction fan; in fact, I have what could be considered an "unhealthy" fascination with Harry Potter and his Wizarding World (admitting it is the first step to recovery). But I'm also super into science, which I think I've mentioned before. My job as a museum educator is so awesome, I can combine these passions for the fantastical and the empirical in cool ways to get kids interested in science and have a little fun with it. I really like putting together science magic demos and showing my art students how optical illusions work in the brain. When I was going through some of the demos we keep around in the museum for a special outreach event, I re-discovered this  very awesome water trick. I get geeky excited when I find a science experiment that demonstrates interesting real science AND looks like a wizarding spell from HP himself. I mean seriously, you can make water levitate, this is some real sciencey Wingardium Leviosa, baby. It's so simple and easy to put together, you can do it at home, right now, on a whimsical impulse if you want (those are the best kinds of science, BTW).

3 At-Home Science Experiments

Just for the heck of it, and because science is fun, here now are three science projects, tried and vetted by me personally in my adventures as a museum educator. Of course, I can't help but put a little science blurb about each, but you don't have to read them :)

Thauma-what?

Thaumatrope (English pronunciation) is a Victorian-age optical toy, one of several early animation inventions (others include the zoetrope, the magic lantern, the phenakistoscope, the praxinoscope, and the flip book).