Christmas Crafting

I am working on a few Christmas presents already this year.  One of the ones I’m working on is DIY vanilla extract.  If you are a mom, aunt, teacher of one of my kids, or a close friend, you have about six weeks to forget that you read this.

I got the idea from a few different blogs that I read.  It looked very simple, and it was.  In fact, my friend Laura Lea gave me the instructions, beans, and jar a few years ago for my birthday and it was very simple then.

The hardest part for me was finding a jar that I liked.  In the end it wasn’t so much finding a jar that I liked, but finding a jar in general.  Seems that things like this are hard to come by.  I really liked that flip lid thing, but I couldn’t find any locally and I didn’t really have the time or the patience to order something off of the internet.

I set to work this afternoon and was finished when I ran out of vanilla beans and vodka, both at the same time.  I still have a few jars, but I need to get the rest of my supplies first.

All you need to do this is vanilla beans, vodka, and bottles.

I found the vanilla beans at World Market.  It was a whim that  I went there, and I was very happy to find them.  I thought that I was going to have to order them.

I found these particular bottles at JoAnn’s for a very reasonable price.  Like I mentioned, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but in the end I like them and I think they look great with it all together.

Thomas helped me on round one. He played with his Play-Doh very nicely and didn’t disturb me.  That’s a huge help!

James helped me with the second round until I ran out of beans and vodka.  At first he didn’t want to help, he just wanted to go play, but once we got started I think he started to feel a bit of self worth and accomplishment, because he got really into it.  He pretty much did all of the work.  I already had the bottles washed, so he cut the beans very carefully, and poured the vodka into the bottles all by himself.  I dried the sides of the bottles and he corked them.  Perfect!  Now they need to sit in a dark place for about six weeks.

On a different note, I guess in times like this I’m ok with the fact that no one reads the blog anymore.  I can put this up here without fear that I’m spoiling a Christmas present.  But, if you are secretly reading and I just don’t know it, forget that you read this.

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