Succulent arrangements clas

Cute succulent arrangements in cups

This past Sunday (March 30, 2014!), Whole Foods invited Fair Ivy owner Lucy (that’s me) to teach eager crafters about a fun way to personalize your dinner place settings.  The DIY Dinner event was connected with Whole Foods’ new online publication called Dark Rye.

I decided to combine three of my favorite things to create this DIY class:

  1. Crafting
  2. Upcycling (definition: The process of converting old or discarded materials into something useful and often beautiful.)
  3. Succulents!

So I headed to the art store, the thrift store, and my own garden to gather the materials.  Check out the photos from the successful event!

Succulent planters

Twigs for succulent name tags

Succulent collection - how to plant succulents

Washi Tape collection

Dark Rye Whole Foods Presentation by Fair Ivy - Succulent Arrangements

The main materials were:

  • Pots and cups that were upcycled with spray paint
  • Succulents snipped from my own garden as well as from generous friends (you can just put a clipping into the dirt and 90% of the time it will just grow its own roots!)
  • Paper scraps and twigs to create the name cards

Below are a few simple samples I brought to give participants an idea of how these succulent arrangements could be used as DIY dinner table settings—plus, as party favors that guests can take home at the end of the night!

Thrift store dishes upcycled into cute succulent planters!

Dark Rye Whole Foods Presentation by Fair Ivy - Succulent Arrangements

Dark Rye Whole Foods Presentation by Fair Ivy - Succulent Arrangements

Dark Rye Whole Foods Presentation by Fair Ivy - Succulent Arrangements

Whole Foods presentation - Lucy from Fair Ivy

Above: Me in action, teaching the steps.  Below: Whole Foods was generous and provided us with delicious snacks and drinks that were perfect for the warm yet breezy afternoon outdoor event!

Whole Foods snacks

Whole Foods Dark Rye Recipes

Whole foods presentation from Fair Ivy

Succulents in cups

Make a succulent mini planter

Make a succulent mini planter

There were so many wonderful cute succulent arrangements created by all the participants!  Check out some of my favorites below:

Thrift store dishes upcycled into cute succulent planters!

Thrift store dishes upcycled into cute succulent planters!

Thrift store dishes upcycled into cute succulent planters!

DIY succulent planter

DIY succulent planter

Succulents in dishes

Thrift store dishes upcycled into cute succulent planters!

Cute Succulent Arrangements

Succulent how to

It was a ton of fun—a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  A big thanks to Whole Foods for inviting me to teach, and to all the wonderful participants who were so enthusiastic and creative!

Best Homemade Beauty Products: Recipes

Homemade Beauty Products:  Recipe list from Fair Ivy

Fair Ivy receives tons of submissions each week from artists and handmade businesses, looking to get their products featured as one of our monthly surprise packages.  We thoroughly enjoy perusing each and every submission, and have found that over the years we’ve gotten very familiar with handmade and homemade beauty products.  And now we’re hooked!

If you aren’t a subscriber to Fair Ivy’s handmade surprise packages, you still may be interested in buying or making some handmade or homemade beauty products on your own.  And we’re here to help!

One of our absolute favorite creators of handmade beauty products is Mickey Cho from Fabled Soap Co.   She’s been a featured artist with her gorgeous soaps on Fair Ivy both in August 2013 and October 2013, and we’re sure she’ll be showing up a ton more.  However, she doesn’t just make soap and lip balm.  Check out these wonderful homemade beauty products she creates:

Homemade beauty products : bath soak
Bath soak sample set
Homemade beauty products : Laundry detergent
Homemade laundry detergent
Homemade Beauty Products: Soap samples
Soap Samples – Handmade Old Fashioned All Natural Vegan

Alright, enough of our gushing about how much we love Fabled Soap Co—onto some recipes!

Our favorite homemade beauty products recipe sites:

  • The Daily Green: This lists 10 different types of homemade beauty products and the recipes to make them!
  • Refinery29: This site focuses on the thrifty aspect of homemade beauty products—it’s true, they can be really cost-effective!
  • Babble: List of recipes, with great photos
  • Keeper of the Home: Along with recipes for what ingredients to use, this page tells you what ingredients you should specifically AVOID using. Very helpful!
  • Wellness Mama:  With just 7 ingredients, make 20+ different items!

If you have any of your own favorite recipes, please send them along and we’ll post them here!

Rubber stamps

A great way to improve your product packaging—or make your personal gifts look more awesome, is to make or buy little rubber stamps and stamp the packages up!

I made a few different “handmade” ones that might be cute to use if you sell handmade products online.

Simple but cute, no?

Masquerade Mask DIY (holiday craft idea, masquerade diy)

Ok, so here’s a fun Masquerade Mask DIY I came up with.  Every New Years for the past 4 years I’ve tried to do something slightly different than normal. This year, it involved going to a proper Masquerade Ball—in San Francisco, with the symphony orchestra.

The invitation said that masks were supplied, but we decided we didn’t want to fit in with the crowd…so we made our own.  I used Christmas ornaments to create mine, and Chris made his out of paper mache, paint, and hot glue!  Check it out!

Masquerade Mask DIY

What we started with:

Masquerade Mask DIY
What we ended with:

Masquerade Mask DIY - from Fairivy.com (subscription gifts for women)


Chris’ manly mask:

He altered the shape of the cheap plastic green mask by adding hard paper, then paper mache to the outside.

 A paint layer next, to get rid of the newsprint!

The finished product!  I didn’t capture the in-between steps, but he used hot glue to make the swirls, then metallic silver and bronze paint to make it look like metal!



Lucy’s somewhat more-feminine mask 
I started with a couple of Christmas ornaments we picked up for free at a thrift store the day after Christmas.  I smashed them (carefully—they are sharp!) and then flattened out the top gold hanging part.  Each one was different—they are very handy craft items!
Masquerade Mask DIY - from Fair Ivy (unique, monthly boxes for women)
Next, I got a cup of tea (important step), and hot glued the ornament pieces all over the mask in a mosaic style.  I added a couple of the awesome gold hanging pieces as embellishments, and a few vintage buttons (courtesy of my mom) on top of the feathers.
 
Me happily crafting away (it was a rainy day, even better!)
The finished product!
And here’s us posing before the ball 🙂

I’ve added a little single image tutorial for making masks out of Christmas ornaments, in case anyone wanted to repost or add it to Pinterest! 

Enjoy!