A Few Of My Favorite Things Friday

Books! I love the way they feel, the way they smell, the way a stack of old books looks on a bookshelf. And, oh yea, the reading!

 

 

Stars! Whether jewelry, print, lights, trinkets, or most especially, the night sky, I'm a fan. Jeff found me a blue Druzy star very similar to this ring but it's a pendent and it's one of my favorite pieces ever!

 

Zombies! I love the movies, the shows, the books, the graphic novels, I love it all!

I would apologize for the language in the second picture but anyone who was watching that episode of the Walking Dead was thinking the EXACT SAME THING!! 

 

The Undercut! I seriously don't think there's a sexier, more classic haircut on a man.

 

Turquoise! Nugget style turquoise always looks beautiful, no matter the occasion, outfit, or style. The bracelet in the middle is mine and the other two pieces, well, they will be mine!

 

Aluminum Christmas trees! I am still on the hunt but this retro beauty will grace our holiday decorations someday.

 

 

Yves Saint Laurent Rouge Pur Couture Vernis à Lèvres Glossy Stain in #11 Rouge Gouache. This is the absolute most beautiful product! The color goes with almost anything, it lasts for a long time and does stain as it fades.

 

 

 

I'm getting #9 Rouge Laque and #27 Peche Cerra Colla next!

 

I'd love to hear about some of you favorite things!

Open Color Play "Apple Buckets"

A few months ago, I saw the cutest post on Pinterest with two little girls playing with colorful stained, wooden mini-buckets and matching "apples". I was sure Sam would love the game of matching colors and picking the "apples. He's all about object identifiers right now as he's learning the world around him AND he seems to share my attraction to all things miniature (yay!). I logged onto the store listed in the Pinterest post to investigate how to order the buckets for him and discovered that they were $48. Holy F, are you kidding me?!? $48 for six 2 1/2" little buckets and two matching wooden ball "apples" for each bucket. No thank you very much. I can make it!

 

I ordered six 2 1/16 inch buckets from a site I love called craftparts.com. They were $1.35 each with what could have been an unfortunate $8.95 cent shipping cost. I just used that as an excuse to add some other supplies I needed like wooden peg people and holiday cutouts, in shapes I couldn't find locally, to the cart to make it worth while. I purchased a package of thirty-five 3/4" birch balls from Hobby Lobby for $4.70 but with my ever present coupon was closer to $4. Plus I only needed twelve of them so I've got 23 remaining for another project. I already had umpteen colors of Rit dye which works really well on this type of raw wood. It works so well in fact, that I don't usually seal these types of product as the wood really absorbs the Rit dye. If you wanted to, you could spritz them with a polyurethane sealer after you stain. I really like the rustic look of them.

 

Color Match Open Play Buckets And "Apples"

 

I've set them up in all of the above configurations for open play. I've also just laid the box out and let Sam get them out as he likes. So far he's had a ball  figuring out which "apples" go with which buckets, putting the "apples" in the buckets, and dumping them out, over, and over, and over, and over, and over................... Our only problem so far has been a little disagreement over putting water in the buckets. Hard to explain to a 2 1/2 year old that they're not really meant for water.

 

Total project cost = Approximately $12.50. That's almost a 75% savings over the set I saw on the original site. Whoa!

Repurposing For Hands On Learning

Recently Sam has shown a ton of interest in learning letters and numbers. He runs around like a crazy person singing ABCDEHIJMNOPeeeeeeeeDubUYZ. Come on, there are some really good combinations in there! I decided to have some fun with letter sounds and try to practice some of the letters I don't hear much in Sam's alphabet song. AND, I got to repurpose something that only gets used for one month a year.

 

First, the "old" project.

This is the advent calendar I made last Christmas with the Christmas Paper Advent Calendar from Hobby Lobby. I'd love to provide a link but their customer service number tells me it's only available in the Christmas season. I guess this is very timely so that you can pick up one (or more) in August when they put Christmas out (sheesh!).

 

Handmade Advent Calendar

 

The box was $12.99 but I know I had a 40% off coupon so probably paid about $7.90. The glitter stick-on letters came from Dollar Tree but I had to buy two packages to make sure there were enough 1s and 2s so about $2.30 there. I already had the gold spray paint for the box structure and the sharpies to color the boxes.

 

I try really hard in our house to not be a candy, candy, candy family and we have about 17 million little plastic and rubber animals of the Toobs variety so I thought we'd have a Noah's Arc and add a different pair of animals each day leading up to Christmas with reindeer being the final animal. The Arc with a few animal pairs already on it is visible in the upper left background of this photo. I got the Arc from another of my favorite resources for great, cheap, product/craft supplies, Oriental Trading Company. It was $4.38 on clearance with $6 shipping which seems like a lot but I had other things in my cart too! Get it HERE.

 

"Candlelight" Dinner With My Boy

 

Even though this project only cost about $10 not including the supplies I already had, I hated to pack it away for 11 months of the year.

 

Enter - new project.

 

Handmade Learning Letters Play Box

 

I hadn't colored the back of the boxes (originally out of laziness but yay, how fortuitous!). I used a much more colorful palette for the letters side of the boxes than I had for the advent side. Unfortunately, Dollar Tree didn't have any letter stickers on this trip but Hobby Lobby had sheets for just over $4 in the scrapbooking area. Once again, we have what seems like a million little trinkets, animals, erasers, shaped beads, and tons of supplies left over from our sensory bins when Sam was a baby so, after digging I had plenty of letter specific items for each box.

 

I sort of let Sam choose how we play with the letter boxes. Sometimes, he wants to look at one box and everything in it and sometimes he wants to dump everything all over the table or a sheet on the floor and dig through it with lots of questions. I do make sure with this particular toy/tool it's always guided play though as there are small pieces and lots of them. Plus I can make sure than no matter how he's playing with the toys inside we are making our letter sounds as we go.

 

I just love it when a great item serves multiple purposes!

 

I Used A Table Saw Ya'll!

This was the perfect kind of weekend in every way. We started Saturday out with a family project to complete something I've wanted for a very long time, a compost bin for my backyard. We bought the following supplies:
8 1X6X96 boards
2 2X2X96 boards
1 box of 50 - 2" wood screws.

 

 

Thank goodness my brother and his girlfriend left their pick-up truck (hiccup truck according to Sam) for us while they traveled for the holiday. There is NO WAY we could have brought this home in my Cruiser! And thank goodness too that my Father-in-Law doesn't use his table saw so much anymore so cutting the boards to the sizes we needed was an absolute breeze.

 

 

This was the first time I got to use the table saw and I LOVE it! You'll notice that Sam is on his Regalo Toddler Travel Bed mentioned in an earlier post. It's been pretty rainy around here and the ground was "too wet on it" for Sam. Toddler Bed saves the day again! Here's another pic just because he's so darned cute. Happy, dry boy = easier projecting for mommy and daddy.

 

 

We cut 20 - 32" pieces from the 1X6X96 boards and 4 - 36" pieces from the 2X2X96 boards. Then screwed the  32 " pieces of 1X6 to the 2X2 with a little space in between for air circulation. We had a couple 34-ish" pieces left over that we attached to the bottom for some stability.

 

 

We had 2 pieces of 2X2 left over, about 30 inches each. I haven't figured out yet how to use them but oh, I will :). Total project cost = about $70. Total time invested = 2 hours. Total family project time value = priceless!

 

If you're like me, you know composting is a super great way to reduce waste while helping out your garden but you're not 100% sure what can and can't go into the bin. Here's a handy-dandy chart to help you out.

 

 

On Sunday, a colleague of Jeff's was having a birthday party for his daughter. At a little past 2 1/2, Sam is still mostly a parallel player but there were awesome activities including a scavenger hunt, fairy garden, bounce house AND a piñata.

 

 

Sam didn't care much for the fairy garden but I thought it was awesome. Inspiration! The bounce house on the other hand was hard to tear him away from until the piñata. I think he was like "wait, you WANT me to hit this with a bat....on purpose?". I'm definitely keeping a piñata in mind for Sam's birthday!

 

After Sam was in bed Sunday night, we had a surprise visit from my friend Steve. He had a birthday in early April and we just now had a chance to get together to have a drink and a celebration. It turned into a bottle per person/OMG, it's after midnight/friend sleeping on couch because there's no way he can drive home, kind of night. Rare these days, but always a blast! I had been holding on to a killer gift I picked up for him in Mexico in April. Behold the magnificence.......

 

Luchador Mask

And this was early in the night too.

 Memorial Day is a fun day for us to both remember, and celebrate. Check out my Sous Chef helping me make shortcake to go with the strawberries. Yep, that's raw flour on his face. He said it was "YUMMMMMM". What a kook.

Sous Chef

A little tip, I discovered well into the baking process that I didn't have any milk for the shortcake. I took a chance that instead of 2/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup cream and 1/3 cup half cream, half water would work and it was brilliant. I'll never make it with milk again!

 

I found this sweet margarita party ball at Sams Club. It reminded me of the Coors Light party balls that were really popular when I was in college so of course we had to have it!

 

Party Ball

And, my friend Erica joined us with her daughters. Her girls were so great with Sam. I am really lucky to have such great people in my life! Lucy, who's going to be a sixth grader, even got knee deep into the Duplos with Sam and very patiently made too many towers for him to knock over to count.

 

 

 One of the best parts of the day? The rain held off until the burgers and brats were done AND the kids had exhausted themselves on the trampoline!

 

 

 

 

 

A Month's Worth Of Meal Planning In About Two Hours

Anytime I tell anyone that I plan my family's meals, and my grocery shopping, a month at a time I get looks of disbelief or comments such as "I don't have that kind of time", "That sounds hard", or sometimes even "There's no way, that's crazy". Add to that, the evidently, "unbelievable" part where I cook our week's meals while Sam is napping on Sundays and my day-to-day life can be spent playing with Jeff and Sam while dinner warms in the oven. I'm telling you, I would never do it any other way.

 

I use a monthly calendar that I picked up from my church to plan the month. This one was free to me, but I've seen similar ones for a couple bucks at area retailers. May's meals are outlined below as an example. You can see that each day has our lunch and our dinner listed. It's not a reinvention every month, we do have family favorites that appear again and again. You may also notice that Mother's Day is blank :). I did not cook on, or for, Mother's Day. This calendar lives on our refrigerator so everyone can see what's coming up

 

 

 The most important thing to ensure that my time isn't spent in vain is to keep it all organized. I found this binder works the best for me. It comes in 9 amazing colors and patterns and since I'm an Amazon Prime member, cost me $12.99. I would highly recommend subscribing to Amazon Prime. The subscription fee is $99 per year but I can not tell you how much it has saved us in shipping cost!

 

DUO Binder

I have several sources for my recipes; Pinterest, cookbooks, magazines, and other blogs. For the recipes that aren't already in a cookbook, or that aren't electronic, I put them in the 3 ring part of the binder, in order, for the week that I'm working on.

 

The rest of the paper recipes that are already on cards or are torn from magazines go into the folder part of the binder, in order, by week. The very back pocket is where I keep interesting recipes that I find over the month for use in coming months.

 

After I gather all of the recipes I'll need for the month and organize them, it's time to make the shopping lists. I built this shopping list in Publisher to meet our specific needs including LOTS of room for fruits and veggies, and a separate space for Sam's Club and a local whole foods style market. If it meets your needs and you would like a copy, I am always happy to share.

Weekly Shopping List

 

I have one of these for each week of the month but only do one big shopping trip/day per month. That's right, only one BIG shopping trip per month. All non-perishables, frozen, canned or jarred, bulk things like shredded cheese or applesauce pouches, meats, and condiment/spice items are purchased on the very last Friday/Saturday of each month for the following month. Each subsequent shopping list for the month is pretty short, mostly the fruits and veggies for the week, dairy, and items that I've used up in the big Sunday afternoon meal prep. These shopping lists are so short in fact that I keep a cooler in the back of my car and do the shopping (except for the big one of course) on my lunch hour each Friday. Boom, more time with the boys!

 

The lists hang right next to the refrigerator so if Jeff runs out of a toiletry item, or we run out of cat food, dog food, diapers, or anything else, I can just add it right to the list. I never have to search for a pen or pencil either because of the little beauty you see attached to the right side of my clipboard. I LOVE these! Get them HERE! A three pack is only $8. These are an organizational MVP! I put these everywhere, the cars, the computer, the side of the gift wrapping tub, on the notebook I keep in the nightstand to get information out of my head for a restful night's sleep, you get the idea.

 

Here's what the counter in my kitchen looked like Sunday during Sam's naptime.

 

Mise En Place

 

I got everything out that I needed to make lunch and dinner for the week (I'm a firm believer in mise-en-place) and by the time he woke up we had a roasted turkey breast for sandwiches, taco meat for taco salad, Asian chicken lettuce wraps, drunken noodles, Puttanesca tomatoes, and Greek steak salad. I also pre-prepped hamburger patties and brats, and made mac & cheese and German potato salad for Monday's BBQ. I only have to chop up some tomato and lettuce on taco night, make some lettuce cups for Asian chicken lettuce wrap night and cut up the salad together on Greek steak salad night. Otherwise, it's just heating ingredients when we get home from work!

 

I spent about an hour and a half deciding what to put on the meal calendar, less than 30 minutes gathering the recipes and making the shopping lists, and just a couple hours a week cooking. Yes, it take some discipline but now that it's a habit, how can I go back?!?! My life is SO much easier this way. Find a system that works for you, or hell, steal mine, and give yourself back a little peace of mind and a lot of time!

A Few Of My Favorite Things Friday

When Sam makes this face my heart soars. I love his excited and exciting little heart!

 

Trent Reznor did it for me then, and he does it for me now!

Trent Reznor

MANY have tried, few have managed to be as brilliant as these three, all at once, in the boys comedy playground of the time. Maybe it was the 70s, not-ready-for-prime-time-players zeitgeist, maybe it was a soul's deal, or maybe, it just was........

Jane, Lorraine, and Gilda

Could Peter Stormare be any more brilliant?

Peter Stormare

I get to be whatever, or whomever, I want on Halloween.

Paper Mache Pumpkins

The very first time I ever loved Norman Reedus. The rest of the cast was brilliant too! Check out Billy Connolly's performance as a criminal psychopath.

Boondock Saints

Orange roses remind me of two of my favorite women in comedy history, Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. They also just feel warm and lovely.

I wish I had 100 crocks to store absolutely everything in!

I'd love to hear about some of your favorite things. 

Laundry Soap WAS Much Too Expensive

I haven't bought laundry soap in more than two years. You read that right, two years. I stumbled upon a homemade liquid laundry soap recipe from the Duggars of 19 Kids & Counting fame and decided to give it a try because I physically shuddered at paying $12-25 every month at the store. Additionally, EVERYONE in my house has sensitive skin and I thought it might be nice to remove some more chemicals from our lives.

 

I made a shopping run to our local True Value and bought the following: Borax 20 Mule Team for $6.99, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda for $4.79, and a bar of Fels Naptha for $1.49. That's right at $14 after tax.

*Rapidly browning bananas and adorable dog not included.

The grater came from Dollar Tree and I purchased a 5 gallon bucket to keep it in from Lowe's for $4.86. Everything together for my first batch was right over $20. The only thing I've had to buy since my original ingredient purchase is a bar of Fels Naptha every 6-8 months at $1.49. It was more frequent when Sam was a baby because of the amount of clothes we went through for him on a weekly basis but right now I'm less than halfway through the batch I made in January.

 

Also, I still have enough Borax and Washing Soda to make at least 3 more batches so basically, I went from about a $225 expense per year to barely more than $25.00 in two years.

 

And yes, to answer my frequently asked question, it really does clean. Even baby messes, even toddler messes, even Engineer husband messes, even mom-who-loves-to-cook messes. Heavy stains will require extra attention but I keep an extra bar of Fels Naptha and rub it straight on them before they go in the machine. It's worked for us so far. Note: We did not use cloth diapers for Sam so I can't speak to the efficacy of this soap on them.

 

Finally, this really is easy. It will take you 20 minutes and saves you so much money to spend on other fun family things.

 

Happy soap making/money saving!

 

Here's the recipe: 

*4  Cups - hot tap water
*1  Fels-Naptha soap bar
*1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda * Baking soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium bicarbonate.
*½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. You can use a regular stock pot for this (No chemicals and washes VERY clean.) Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. (It'll sort of look liked shredded paper in gooey water at this point. Don't worry, you're right on track.) Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

•Works well in traditional or HE machines.

•Low sudsing. It is the ingredients in the soap, not the suds, that does the cleaning.

•Clumping and geling of the detergent is normal. Stir before putting in dispenser, and shake before each use.

•For stains, consider using an inexpensive spray-on stain remover before washing. (Zout, Spray 'n' Wash, Oxyclean)

 

 

Where The Hell Is The Tape?!?!?

I absolutely love it when you accidently run across an organizing solution when you're seeking out a different solution. Two birds, one stone! A couple months ago, I was looking for a hanging organizer for my nail polishes. You know the kind, see through plastic pockets, hangs on the back of the door. I sadly didn't find what I was looking for, not that day anyway BUT what I did find was this. Unfortunately Target doesn't sell this online but I found a similar one HERE. It's a 2 pack, but surely another use can be found for the extra.....pants maybe?! It would also work for scarves, ties, chunky necklaces that won't fit in the jewelry box, or spools of ribbon.

I am madly in love with the saying "a place for everything, and everything in it's place". The place for tape in our house was EVERYWHERE! Or maybe NOWHERE I could find is a better way to say that. Now, it all hangs right there, together, neat, on the back of the utility room door. I even put my kitchen twine and a little pair of scissors there so I can always find just what I need.



Tape Organization

 

You'll never dig through 7 drawers, the tool box, under the sink, the craft room, and the wrapping drawer again.

 





Rangling Tangling Hair

I was getting my hair colored last week (sadly, hair doesn't really, actually come in the particular shade of red that I'm partial to)
: observe:

  and was introduced to the most wonderful thing! My hairdresser, Jade, was brushing me out after washing the color out of my hair and the hair brush literally glided through my wet hair. Now, I've got that texture of hair that regardless of circumstances (wet, dry, slept on, sitting still for an hour, doesn't matter) gets awful snarls so I had to know what magic she possessed. Turns out it's the U Smooth Wet Brush. Get it HERE or ask your stylist.

 

Wet Brush

 

Since I don't plan on changing my long hair status now that Sam is out of the stickiest finger stage, I had to have it immediately. Jade is that wonderful kind of stylist who loves to help her clients get whatever they need to have beautiful hair so she offered to pick one up for me. Ladies, stylists of this sort of caliber do exist and they are indispensable. Seriously, I know people who drive an hour or two for the level of service that I luckily only have to go 20 minutes to receive!

 

I received it yesterday and used it for the first time this morning. Thank goodness I had a new beauty product to try out, and ultimately love, this morning because otherwise, it could have been a mildly depressing morning. When I pulled the shower curtain open to get in, it looked like someone had been murdered in there overnight. My, not cheap :(, red tinted shampoo popped open and ran down the wall and entire length of the floor of the shower creating a blood spill effect. Crap!

 

 BUT, the brush, it made me happy. I love it so much, I might retire my detangling comb. I'm definitely throwing out the two brushes I have that came from the drug store and promised painless, low-hair-loss detangling.

Sadly for him, Sam got my hair texture, so now that I'm positive it fabulousness was not a fluke, I'll be getting one for his bathroom too. It's that good!