I periodically get on DIY kicks. Sometimes it’s sewing, sometimes it’s food… recently, it’s – let me start back a little further.

What with the dancing and everything, I discovered a newfound love of makeup. And also how comparatively crap my existing, elderly, cheap makeup was. So, I gradually invested in better quality makeup, in the right colours for me, and generally the result makes me happy.

I have funny skin, sometimes. My face annoys me, because it’s greasy around the chin and flaking-off-terribly across the eyebrows. (Of all the things I had to inherit from Mum, why that?) So, moisturiser became a requirement. To be fair, this was one of the things that goes with realising that, at age 29, I should probably attempt to take care of my face and/or act like a grownup. Astonishing concept, I know.

But oh man, moisturiser is expensive, and smelly, and half the time it irritates my skin, and wah wah wah. Then, lightbulb! Why not make my own?

Some time ago, I’d bought a jar of coconut oil on a whim. I mostly use it as a deep conditioner for my hair. Then I bought some beeswax – I think I originally pondered making a candle? Then I had a lightbulb moment, put the two together (along with some olive oil and butterscotch flavour oil), and voila – lip balm. Which I also use as cuticle cream and t-zone moisturiser at night. Even my lovely husband has noticed the improvement in my skin!

I ran out of coconut oil, inevitably, so ordered more from that fine source of all random things, The Internet. The stash arrived today; and an hour or so later, I have two bottles and four jars full of moisturiser. Coconut oil, cocoa butter, olive oil, vitamin E, beeswax, butterscotch and coconut perfume oils. It’s a lovely consistency, I inexplicably smell like walnut instead of any of the other options, my skin is lovely and soft and happy.

I am going to have to offload some of the results onto my mother, because otherwise I will still be using this in Christmas 2015. But you know, I’m OK with that.

This has been the LOVELIEST Christmas.

Christmas day, we had the usual suspects for dinner, five altogether. Boxing day, we had seven; then the 27th, a pair of friends with three kids dropped in, for a further excellent dinner.

There has been lots of food and ham and puddings and ham and more food and we don’t want ham again until at least Easter, seriously, and fruit mince pies – I still have 1.5kg of fruit mince jarred up, will it keep until next xmas you think? and excellent company, and games of the card, computer, and beach-ball variety, AND I still don’t have to go back to work until the 7th Jan and I am a happy woman.

I’ve cleaned some things, but not all the things I want yet. Still, I’m happy with the overall success of Operation 2012: the house is still a bit of a problem in certain areas, but I feel more on top of the overall operation. Life-management is always a work in progress.

I’ve also had the time to be crafty. In the last couple of days, I’ve finished these two. It’s continuing to be a good vacation.

It’s been a mildly productive weekend. Mount Washmore has been re-vanquished, and new laundry hampers obtained. One is black, one is white; the uses should be pretty obvious from there.

We actually operate three hampers; darks, lights, and my delicates slash stuff I’m going to wear again but isn’t clean any more. It works well.

I also got my crafty on. Coming up to giftmas, I knew I’d have to reorganise the cards, envelopes, wrapping stuff, etc etc etc. Last time I juggled the snug, I’d tidied via the method of “put things in a drawer, worry about it later” and last night was “later”.

After four shelves in my Expedit were rejuggled such that their contents were a) accessible b) sensibly arranged, five drawers ditto, I was left with a pile of tidy things. Two large Tupperware containers were called into service, and two Pringles tubes have been modpodged with fabric, sealed, and commissioned for the purposes of holding tape. Said tape was previously corraled in a ziplock bag, which did work, but made the drawer an absolute arse to rummage through.

I also bought some decent eyeliner, for the first time ever. One of the things that became apparent with the round of dance performances in the last month was that either my makeup-application abilities were sorely lacking, or my actual makeup was sorely lacking. I bet on the latter, bought some decent brushes, a gel eyeliner; found the makeup mirror hiding in a drawer in the spare room (why?), repaired it (the plastic support frame had cracked), and this morning experimented with my new eyeliner.

A webcam is not really an ideal source of eye photography, but I’m quite pleased with myself. Eyeliner! where it belongs! unsmudged! Hooray!

I spent a few hours today painting this little guy.
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He’s a Windstone Paint Your Own Foo Puppy.

I finally started the chair/sofa upholstery project. I’ve been plotting it for months – having the idea, finding the supplies, buying the supplies – fabric is NOT CHEAP – finding bobbins for my 30-odd year old sewing machine.

I’m quite proud of myself. It’s quite a lot of work, and I planned it carefully and executed it carefully.

I’m going to sit on the chair for a couple weeks before I do the sofa. Find the bits that need more thought, see if there are any bits I need to reinforce.

The chair has been firmly adopted by my Tigra-cat. She grumble-growled at me when I attempted to dislodge her from it, the other night. Apparently it is comfortable!

I have succeeded in keeping the snug (mostly) tidy and (largely) organised, even with Project in Progress. It’s nice having storage and workspace, and knowing I can do what I like without falling over myself. Operation 2012 for the win!