Hang Up Your Boots!

I forgot to take my own picture, but this week I started cleaning out our hall shoe/coat closet. Step one was hanging my boots up! I saw the idea on this pin. The original picture is from Brown Eyed Belle. It works GREAT! I didn't even buy anything, I just used some skirt hangers I already had.

That was the only step I did in cleaning the closet, but what can ya do? Baby steps, people.

This pin was a big win! Linking up to Pin for the Wednesdays on Mommin' It Up!

Apple Pie Dip

Photo from The Peach Kitchen

I found this wonderful pin and had to try it right away. I pinned it 6 weeks ago and made it the next day for our monthly Pinterest party. Of course I forgot to post anything until now and I didn't take my own picture. It was deeeeelicious! I highly recommend visiting The Peach Kitchen and whipping up a batch for your next gathering.

I did not make the cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips (although they do look easy enough), I served the dip with cinnamon-sugar Stacy's Pita Chips which are ah.ma.zing. 

This pin was a big win! 

Pinning for the Wednesdays with Mommin' It Up!

Diaper and Wipe Strap

I found this pin a while back and thought it was super-cute and useful. The tutorial on calico is great and easy to follow. Here is her original

diaper strap tutorial on calico blog

And here is my version. I think it turned out great!

I made a little fabric rosette out of the same fabric and attached it with glue instead of using a button. I think I will make more of these for gifts for baby showers.

Also, Pinning for the Wednesdays with Mommin' It Up!

Homemade Hand Soap from Bar Soap

I finally tried this pin that I've seen on Pinterest for a long time. I had a very large bar of soap that I had gotten as a gift several years ago. I don't know why I never threw it out; probably because I felt bad about throwing away a gift. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't because now I have enough liquid hand soap to last a lifetime!

So I grated the soap (be careful not to breathe it in, yuck)

Stirred it into 10 cups of water along with 1 Tablespoon of glycerin

I got the glycerin on Amazon for like $4. I stirred everything over medium heat until the soap dissolved, then poured it into a glass bowl to cool overnight.

The next morning it was a really weird consistency, kind of like Jello. When I stirred it it kind of loosened up to be more of a soap-like consistency. I used a funnel to pour it into my empty hand soap refill container and into an empty lotion bottle.

It works perfectly! I only used about a quarter of the grated soap that I had, so I should have enough of this stuff to last pretty much forever.

This pin was a win! Linking up to PinFTW at Mommin' It Up.

Hot Air Balloon Birthday Party

I had a bunch of winning pins this week! My precious little babies turn 1 year old TODAY so we had a little family birthday party on Sunday.

I had a whole board for their Hot Air Balloon Party. The pins I ended up using were this one  for centerpieces, and the rest for inspiration. I bought this printable party decoration package from Etsy and it turned out super cute! I didn't do as much as I wanted to for decorations, but you know how that goes.

Here are my hot air balloon centerpieces:

And the cupcakes in their cute little printed wrappers:

And the silverware in mason jars:

Lily

Amelia

And the birthday girls loooooved the cupcakes!

Linking up to Pin for the Wednesdays at Mommin' It Up!

Bow Clutch

I wish I would have picked sewing back up before I had so many kids! I'm having fun with all these Pinterest projects, but I wish I had more time to do all the ones I have pinned!

I pinned this cute little bow clutch from elm street life 9 days ago and I've been obsessed with it ever since. I cut out the pieces last night at our monthly Pinterest party, and sewed it up yesterday in about an hour.

I won't try to lay out the steps, the tutorial is great. Give it a try, even if it looks a little scary! It was actually really easy!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Bad picture, but it's pretty self-explanatory.

There are a gazillion recipes for homemade laundry detergents on Pinterest, but they are all pretty much the same. Here is the one I used. It was super easy, just dump all the ingredients in a big bucket and mix. I wanted a powdered one because I was so not into boiling gallons of soap and trying to transfer that to other containers. From Sugar Pie Farmhouse (super-cute blog, btw):

1 box of Super Washing Soda $3.09
4 1-lb boxes of Baking Soda 4 x $0.59
1 box of Borax $4.09
3 bars of Kirk's Castile Soap-grated $3.79 for 3 (this was a pain, but didn't take too long)

I just mixed all the ingredients in a large container I already had, and then I threw in some Oxy-clean because I remembered seeing that on another recipe. I just use 2 tablespoons per load, and throw it in on top of the clothes, not in the little drawer where I would normally put liquid laundry detergent.

It has worked great so far, and the total cost was $13.33! I'm thinking this should last me a looooong time, even with 3 little girls and stinky dirty lumber-jack husband.

Dish Towel Apron

Artfully arranged doodles to disguise my messy kitchen.

So I thought I had an original idea.

Whenever I'm working in the kitchen, I tend to wipe my hands off on my pants. I can never find a towel in a convenient place, so I just use my clothes.

Anyway, I had a brilliant idea to make an apron out of a dish towel! I had it all laid out and everything. Then I started to think... "You know what, I bet someone else has thought of this before." So I searched Pinterest for "dish towel apron" and lo and behold, it came up with a gazillion pins for super cute aprons made out of dish towels!

So I'm not brilliant. But I did do this little apron all by myself. All I did was take a dish towel that I already had, folded it up about 2/3 of the way, and stitched up the sides. I stitched up 2 more seams to make 3 pockets for my apron, then sewed a wide ribbon on the top for a waistband. I used about 2 yards of ribbon, but you can just measure around your waist and then add about 2 feet for the amount you need. It was super-easy and only took about 15 minutes to make.

I use it all the time and I'm pretty proud of my "original" idea!

I didn't use this tutorial, but oddly the towel and ribbon look exactly the same as the ones I used.

Also, Pinning for the Wednesdays!!!

Stop Spamming Pinterest.

Is anyone else sick of the spam on Pinterest? It seems to be especially prevalent on the Kids board. I rarely browse that board anymore because it is so annoying. Not sure what to do about it.

Recycling Scentsy Wax

So I saw this pin on making emergency candles for power outages. I thought, "That's a good idea, I should make an emergency kit." Then of course I didn't do anything, because that's what I do. A few days later, I was dumping the wax out of my Scentsy warmer (need some Scentsy? My friend Jana sells it.), thinking, "This is kind of wasteful."

In the words of Mr. Gru, "Liiiiiiiiiiiight bulb!"

So I bought some wicks from Michael's, used an old jelly jar (yes! finally a use for all the jars I save!), and started pouring my used Scentsy wax in the jar! It's a gradual process, I just pour in another layer each time I empty my Scentsy.

Here it is so far:

I use the pencil to hold the wick up straight while I'm pouring. Now I can start my emergency stash! One candle down, lots of stuff to go.

I'm Pinning for the Wednesdays at Mommin' It Up!

Circle Earbud Pouch

It's time to PinFTW again! I have been eyeing this pin for a long time; it was actually one of the first things I ever pinned. I took forever gathering the supplies (not that they are rare or hard-to-find, I just take forever to do everything). Here is the original pin. Super cute, huh? I pinned it 15 weeks ago and just now got around to making it. 
This little circle pouch wasactually really easy. I'm pretty inexperienced at sewing, but this wasn't too challenging. I won't try to explain the steps, Erin Erickson from dog under my desk has a great tutorial. If you don't have a lot of fabric scraps laying around, don't worry. This can actually be made from 2 5-in. charm squares (quilting speak). I shopped at the "mom boutique", so it didn't cost me anything. My mom has gazillions of fabric scraps and little packs of quilting squares, so I had fun scrounging through them to find some patterns I liked. This probably only took me 45 minutes or so, and if you're an experienced seamstress you could do it in like 10 minutes. These would be fun little gifts for all your iPhone-toting friends.
I'm Pinning for the Wednesdays on Mommin' It Up!

Dulce de Leche Rice Krispies Treats & Spinach Artichoke Poppers

These were just eh. They just tasted like regular Rice Krispie Treats. Delicious, but you couldn't taste the dulce de leche. The dulce de leche itself is another post; it is DELISH!

From this pin.

THESE, on the other hand, were YUM! You make spinach artichoke dip, chill it overnight, scoop into balls, bread with panko, and fry. How could it be bad??

From this pin.


Pinning for the Wednesdays at Momminitup!

Re-growing Green Onions

So this was the easiest thing ever. Just take the ends of your green onions (you know, the ones you usually throw away), stick them in a jar of water, and they start growing again! I swear mine grew 3 inches in one day. I've seen this all over Pinterest, so I'm not sure who to give original credit to, but thanks whoever you are!


Edited 4/4/12 to add the original pin I got this from.
And here's the blog the pin came from.

Aaaaand, Pinning for the Wednesdays!

Glitter Clutch!

Another easier-than-I-thought project. I bought 2 bottles of Martha Stewart fine glitter (on sale!) from Michaels. I mixed together a sapphire blue and emerald green 50/50, then mixed in Mod Podge. I used a cheapo foam brush to brush on the glitter mixture fairly thinly. I let that dry for about 15-20 minutes, then brushed on a second coat. Let dry overnight, and voila! Beautiful glittery clutch. This one is really only about the size of a wallet, so it won't hold much. I am in love with the color though. It makes me think of peacocks! Definitely doing this same thing on some crappy old Target flats too. I think I will spray it with a clear acrylic glaze just to finish it off, but the glitter really doesn't rub off much. A few pieces have fallen off, but it doesn't shed nearly as much as some glittery things I have bought.

Here is the original pin!

UPDATE: I did do the flats! They turned out super cute, and they hardly shed any glitter at all!!

Homemade Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Recipe from Mrs. Happy Homemaker, found on Pinterest.

I can't believe how easy this was, and how long it took me before I got around to doing it! I have had this pinned for awhile now, and just haven't mixed it up.

Super easy; just a can of sweetened condensed milk, refill the can with regular milk (2%, skim, whole, whatever you have), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Shake, and you're done!

I used an empty International Delights container that I had just finished. I'm going to experiment with different flavor combinations. Next on my list is chai spices, yummmm :)

Pin It