This year Olive helped me make this tiny pot of lip balm for her big sister as Olive’s Christmas gift to her. Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t resist sticking her little fingers in to test it.
We used this recipe with a few tweaks of our own.
Olive helped me grate the beeswax (I ordered a block of organic cosmetic grade beeswax from a small Australian apiary – happy to provide details if anyone would like). I melted the beeswax with some olive oil and then she added a few drops of orange flavouring essence. I didn’t add any honey as the comments below the recipe indicated it was difficult to incorporate.Turns out so was the orange flavouring.
Sophia doesn’t seem to be put off by the slightly oily orange film that lies beneath the solid portion of the lip balm but next time I will definitely use a proper essential oil. Cowboy sewing is okay but cowboy chemistry, not so much.
A little leftover play dough pot was recycled to become the perfect little lip balm pot and after I cut a piece of Sophia’s favourite fabric, Olive stuck it carefully to the top.
Sophia made these sweet little magnets for Olive just using Sharpies (permanent textas) and a sheet of magnetic paper.
There is always a risk that sibling gifts will be received with this kind of reaction:
That picture CRACKS ME UP every time. It’s from this spot-on post on the trouble with handmade sibling gifts on the lovely Sugar City Journal blog.
We scored a win this year as my girls anticipated and received each other’s gifts with genuine mutual delight.
But I just know there is a photo like the one above in our future.
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