Book Illustration Project

I've never illustrated a book before but my friend Nikki wrote a cute children's story that I am working on the pictures for. I think I need about 12 pictures so the challenge will be to not burn out! My granddaughter has already burned out with posing but next time I will use real cupcakes to make it interesting! She posed for this one with a fake cupcake.

Mermaids

When someone gave me some naked Barbies for my grandchildren, I decided that they all should become mermaids. At the fabric store I got two mermaidish types of fabric and proceeded to sew tails for each doll with a small Velcro closure at the back.

Homemade Lip Balm

I've been wanting to make my own healthy lipstick ever since I read that the average woman eats four pounds of it a year! The recipe I used was 20% beeswax, 25% coconut oil, 15% cocoa butter, 40% olive oil and small amounts of dried red wine (for color), argan oil and rosemary oil. Just melt the beeswax, coconut oil and cocoa butter in a can in a pan of boiling water and add the other ingredients when these get melted - then pour into chapstick containers. I thought I was making a small batch but I ended up with 44 tubes! I will say my dried up wine was not totally successful as a colorant so now I am drying a beet for the next experiment.