Growing up my parents always had a few aloe vera plants inside and outside of our home. My parents are big believers in natural medicine. I did not know how to swallow a pill until I was 18 years old because I never had digested a pill before so when we moved to the country it was only natural for my father to bring me buckets of aloe vera plants as a gift.
The plant behind me (in the picture below) is an aloe vera. My outfit is from She Traveled.
You don’t need a “green thumb” to grow your own aloe vera. They really are fuss free and easy to grow. We have so many offsets (babies) that we remove and plant them in different areas without any problems.
Our front yard is covered with aloe vera plants. We have deer eating just about everything we seem to plant except for aloe vera. In the spring time the aloe vera blooms and humming birds love enjoying this sweet nectar. One of my hobbies is to try to capture these beautiful little, but fast birds in action.
Aloe vera repairs our skin from damage. This anti-aging plant repairs burns, scars, wounds, and acne. The great thing is that you can grow your own aloe vera and extract the gel from inside of the leaf.
Homemade
Since summer is approaching us, we decided that we needed to make some sunburn relief home remedies. The main ingredient is aloe vera.
Aloe vera will stay fresh when stored in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks. If you want it to last longer than you can freeze aloe vera.
We gathered aloe vera from our front yard. We took off the sides and the front side of the outer rind leaving the inner gel and the back side of the outer rind. We placed them in water and let them sit for a few hours. We placed the jar in the fridge. You could skip this part especially if your not planning to ingesting the aloe vera. We chose not to ingest aloe vera but I wanted to teach my children that it’s best to do this wash process because aloe latex juice has a bitter taste and if it is ingested too often can cause health complications.
Below Eve is placing aloe gel and a few drops of vitamin E oil into the jars which will then go into the fridge.
Elizabeth and Eve are working together to make the aloe vera facial spray. All you need is to fill the spray bottle with half aloe vera gel and the rest with water.
Our 3-in-1 growing step stool is from Little Partners. We love it and Eve uses it daily.
If you want to store aloe vera for a longer period of time then you can place aloe vera gel into an ice cube tray and place it in the freezer. Then if you have a sunburn you can take out one of these aloe vera cubes and get a nice cool relief.
It is easy to make aloe vera lotion. You will need 1 cup of coconut oil, a few drops of essential oil (your choice), 1 cup of aloe vera gel, 1/2 cup of granted wax. You want to place the coconut oil and granted wax into the pot and heat it on low heat. You want to heat it until the granted bees wax has melted. Take it off the heat and when it cools down add aloe vera gel and essential oil. Since we did not heat the aloe vera we placed our lotion in the fridge. Many heat the aloe vera but we decided not to. We never want to heat the aloe vera.
Hands on Learning
I loved placing aloe vera plants, pictures, diagrams, cursive board, the homemade products that we have made, humming bird pictures, and art supplies out for my children.
Each aloe vera leaf is made up of three layers : aloe rind, aloe latex, and inner leaf juice. The aloe rind is the outer layer of the plant and it protects the gel. The aloe latex is sap that is yellow and it is between the rind and gel. The aloe rind and aloe latex have no nutritional value.
This beautiful cursive board is from From Jennifer. It is double sided, one side has the alphabet in lower case and the other side has it in uppercase. This is such a great way for children to learn to trace the letters in cursive.
Thank you for reading our post.
Have you used aloe vera before?
Allison
I love this! I used to have a big aloe vera plant that we used for so many things but it died during the cold 🙁 I need to get another and start using it more!
Angela Tolsma
I have two aloe vera but I have never sliced either of them open, even though it’s something I’d love to try. I love love your black and white outfit!
daniella
My parents and we also have aloe vera plants. I actually have never cut one open though before and used it. *face palm*
Kristina
Love the outfit and this is so neat I’ve never seen this process before. I’ve used it before but purchased it.
Sona Jain
I love aloe vera and I have grown lovets of them in my home. it is multipurpose and provides good hydration for skin!
Rhian Westbury
There looks like so many advantages to owning an Aloe Vera plant. I want to get some plants in my flat like this x
Akim
Aloe Vera gives lots of benefits and I love to use it for my hair. I love your photos too!
Jessica Joachim
My aloe plants are some of the few I have been unable to kill in my yard. I am not a green thumb, and they are very easy to maintain thankfully. I will have to try making more out of them as I have always just cut a piece when needed
Jeanine
I have never had aloe vera. I think this is really neat, I would love to get some!
Terri Steffes
I have used aloe vera before. My grandmother kept a plant in the house and we used it on burns. I loved reading about your use of the plant, but I am curious as to why not ever heat it?
priti
I have been thinking from long to have aloe vera plant for health benefits also. This makes me wanna go back and visit the idea again
Dana
I love aloe vera plants but have never extracted it like that to make anything with it! Loving this idea! Usually I just snip an end off and squeeeze some out when I’m in need of some!
Amanda Love
It’s nice to teach kids the value of plants and what they can do to improve our health. I think this was a lovely lesson for them to learn and aloe vera is really beneficial.
Amber Nelson
Aloe is so good for so many things. I would love to get myself my own aloe vera plant!
Arlene
I love this, and I am defiantly going to try this with my girls. Growing up, my grandma’s both had them and used to use them on us kids when we got cuts.
Heather
My grandmother always had aloe vera in her yard and used it for everything. I grew up knowing aloe vera could fix most surface injuries and it’s beyond me that at this point in my life I don’t have my own plant to be sharing with my children too.
HilLesha O'Nan
While it can be beneficial for certain maladies, I have never been particularly fond of modern medicine. Aloe vera is one my favorite all-natural remedies and I even like incorporating it in some of my beauty regimens.
Dawn McAlexander
I have used aloe vera on several occasions. It is really soothing on sunburns. I didn’t have a clue you could make this at home. That is a great idea.
Caitlin
I have an enormous aloe vera plant in my kitchen window – we use it all the time to soothe burns, bug bites, etc. Plus, it’s really pretty!
lydia
I love aloe vera! it’s amazing for burns, mosquito bites, and I agree: so easy to take care of!
Cindy Ingalls
I didn’t know you could freeze aloe vera. Such a good tip. I love having it around in the summer in case I get over heated or too much sun.
Blythe Alpern
I had an aloe vera plant once until my dog decided to go after it. Not sure why, but after that, it died. I would love to have another one, especially since aloe vera has so many health benefits.