5 Dinners In One Hour

I have mentioned this program in the past but I wanted to show you how we use this in our house.

Just a note this is not a sponsor I just love this program SO MUCH that I feel I have to share it and I seem to talk about it all the time to my friends.

 

If for some reason you have been stuck underneath a rock and have not heard of this let me explain what it is.  Upon subscribing, which you can do HERE, you are emailed a month worth of recipes, Each week is on one page and a shopping list is on another page, for only $15 you get 3 months of recipes.  Now I’m not going to lie I thought I’ll do 3 months and cancel my subscription and rotate, but then I got emailed the menu for May and it included many recipes for the grill, one of my favorite things to do!  So I have decided to continue.  I like the the menus rotate around the seasons. 

Since I plan on reusing the meal plan I wanted to make them easy to reuse and this is what has worked in our family, after wasting several printed pieces. 

I took a binder and bought some plastic sheet protectors and placed a week menu on one side and the shopping list on the other side.

When it comes time to do my shopping list I choose my menu for the week take a dry erase marker and mark what I already have on hand.

After I do my shopping I then flip over the page and the week full of menus are placed on the fridge.  If we don’t like a meal, which occasionally happens we write a few notes on the actual paper and write what we didn’t like.

I make the meals and they wait in the fridge and as we make the meals, we never make them in order we cross them out with a  dry erase marker at the end of the week we wipe of our marks place it in the binder and start it all over again.  I know that there are only 5 meals but we rotate our meals on a 5 day basis,  it is nice because we now have 3 months worth of menus and can get away with doing that.

Something else amazing with this program is that there are several meals that can be frozen.  I recently went through and and separated the frozen only meals.  I did this because a friend of mine had lost a family member and I wanted to help but in a different way. Having lost a sibling myself I know that it is when everyone leaves after that first week of the death that reality really sets in and the casserole seem to no longer exist.  I set a week of freezable meals aside sent instructions to each meal so that when they felt like it they could pull the nearly-premade meals out.

I really love this program and I urge everyone to try it out because it is completely AWESOME and there are so many amazing things you can do with it.  It is designated for a family of 5 I believe and being only a family of 3 it has been easy to adapt it to our family size.

Craft Room Wall Tiles

I have wanted to do this project for quite sometime, I have been saving up supplies and thanks to the One Month Two Win It competition I sat down and finished it, despite not winning this is one of my favorite pieces that I have ever created and even better it is something that I made for me, quite a rare treat. I am completely rewriting this post from what I wrote on the competition and posting better pictures, the reason being because when writing the post for the competition I was focusing on staying completely anonymous, and it totally sucked. My original inspiration for this project came from Pottery Barn Teen with this image.

Trying to start a business I want to make sure that I have everything accessible in one place and upon seeing this I knew that I could make it work for my needs. Being that it was for my needs and that I am not a teenager I wanted to give it a more grown up look and I think I achieved it, with a special thanks to The Graphic’s Fairy.

The first thing I did was I started shopping around for the supplies, I wanted to be able to make this project for fairly cheap, and the total cost can easily be replicated for under $30. I found four cork board tiles on sale at Fred Meyer for $5, I bought them and based everything on the dimension of those tiles, which thankfully were 1-foot by 1-foot.

I had purchased some off-white canvas, for another project (that I won’t be doing), and cut it so that I could cover the corkboard with it, being that the project was wall art I wanted to print an image on it, enter The Graphic Fairy. The problem: these fabric pieces were right around 14 inches wide and my printer will only print 8.5 inches wide. I really didn’t want to use t-shirt transfer, I know it is a fine alternative but I didn’t want that glossy look on my fabric. So with A LOT of pressing I was able to fold down the fabric to fit into my printer onto fabric paper, it was a bit thick but once it took the fabric my printer had NO PROBLEM printing on it. I didn’t know what option to do, and I still don’t think I prefer one over the other, so for two tiles I just stapled the fabric on using a regular stapler and on the other two tiles I hot glued them, both optioned worked fine.

I had my four cork board tiles I knew that I wanted to do nine tiles, I wanted two that were magnetic chalkboards, I knew that I wanted a clock, and I knew that I wanted a dry erase board but I really didn’t want it white. I went to the craft store and found this scrapbook paper, I knew that it would fit beautifully within the other images. I purchased that and some clear plastic that was meant to cover a calendar. I sort of had eight of my tiles planned out. So the next step was to drive the 65 miles to my parents house and have my dad help me out with the logistics of it all, when I showed him what I had and my drawing he quickly wrote down P-P-P-P-P-P-P, Oh yes, Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Production. We sat down and talked and decided that the best option would be to buy some velcro and a white board to hang and mount with, we each had our shopping lists and decided that we would meet back up the following weekend, THE WEEKEND THAT MY PROJECT WAS DO, talk about no time to screw up.

I had issues with finding a cheap metal for my tiles, I had some decorative metal signs that I have never hung up that I was debating parting with, but luckily my dad found something that fit into my budget he found a flat galvanized stove pipe. I cut it down to size by just using some gardening clippers, easy peasy. Wanting to have the tiles all be the same thickness I glued the metal onto some of the white board that I cut down using construction adhesive, I then went outside on the cold, snowy mountain and spray painted them with chalkboard paint.

I took another piece of the white board spray painted it periwinkle blue and then took some more images from The Graphic’s Fairy that I had printed on paper and mod podged them on, this tile was for my clock. I wanted it nice and glossy so I went over it several times.

I took another piece of the white board and Mod Podged the scrapbook paper onto it, I didn’t know how I was going to attach the plastic over it, I finally decided on just super gluing the edges on, the problem with this is that it did stain my paper a bit, it looks a bit water damaged, had I have known it was going to do that I would have just glued it all over and gone for a nice vintage water damaged look, it still works though.

All the tiles are done now I just had to frame them. Again, wanting to keep this project cheap I bought some cheap press board molding, it was also light weight which meant that it wouldn’t be that heavy putting it up on the wall, living in an apartment I wanted to make sure that I didn’t damage my wall. I cut each piece of molding 36-1/4 inches, and remember when I said that I had no time for error, whoops, cut one piece of molding upside down and didn’t have enough extra. Enter my AWESOME DAD he drove the 65 miles north and purchased another piece of molding and drove it back down, while he did this I glued down the 3 sides of molding onto the remaining white board using some more of the construction adhesive and finished the remaining tiles. Once he got back cut the last piece of molding, properly and glued that on. I let it set for a bit removed the clamps and spray painted it with some almond spray paint I covered it a few times and then went to bed.

The next morning everything was completely dry and I started placing my tiles in it, the almond spray paint was YUCK, it was just too matchy-matchy so I took some black acrylic paint brushed is on and it gave it a nice aged look.

I drilled a hole in the middle of the clock tile and set up the clock mechanism placed it where I wanted and then cut out a hole in the back of the whiteboard for the clock mechanism. Every back of the tile had two pieces of velcro on it and that is how they are attached to the frame. It is nice because I can easily switch out the tiles and it makes life a lot easier when the time comes to change the battery out on the clock.

Despite being a LOSER I really do love this piece.

After Valentines Flowers

I love buying flowers after Valentines Day. Flowers are usually at the cheapest after Valentines Day and I love thinking of these late bloomers, the flowers that didn't make the cut for the holiday, the flowers that weren't quite mature enough, the flowers who just didn't quite matter enough for someone. I appreciate these late bloomers more than I do the flowers that are ready to be purchased and overpriced for the big day!!!

I splurged yesterday and bought flowers, they all looked so beautiful and the prices were just amazing, I found the 3 large vases at the second hand store and was dying to fill them with blossoms. What is even more amazing about these vases is one simple flip and they become candle holders, BONUS, 2 for 1 design LOVE IT!




Now be kind I am by no means very good at flower arranging but I love the LIFE the flowers bring to my living room, especially among the winter conditions outside. Go ahead buy yourself a gift of flowers for yourself or someone else, it is totally worth it.

Nook Cover

For Christmas I was given a nook. I have thoroughly enjoyed having it, especially that it is compact enough that I can just throw it into my purse. However, often times I go and grab it out of my purse and the battery is nearly dead because it accidentally was powered on. I also hate when I throw it into my book bag that there is absolutely nothing to protect it from damage.

On a recent trip to Barnes and Noble I wanted to buy a cover for my nook, what I didn't like about the covers though was that they are hard and are much wider, it makes the nook appear much more like a book, which makes it less portable, plus they cost a small fortune.

I have seen several tutorials online on how to make nook covers but most of them seem to try and replicate Barnes and Nobles version which makes it hard and wide, NOT WHAT I WANT. I came up with a thinner version that is working quite nicely, it fits in my purse and it protects my nook. I am no longer worried that it will turn on without me wanting it to and I can keep it in the protector and still charge it, another nice bonus.

I was originally just going to use some decorated flannel that I had on hand then I saw the "p.s. ... i love you" frame over at Flamingo Toes and I knew that the notebook paper look would be amazing for a nook cover.



I had some off-white flannel that I thought would give it a nice vintage type look. For the lines I used baby blue and red thread and for the wording I used grey embrodering thread. It is lined with 2 layers of batting. On the front I sewed the words "Once upon a time" and on the back I sewed "And they lived happily ever after."




I didn't want to add a button and ruin my nice lines so I decided to go with a red ribbon to tie it closed, I really love the red ribbon.



To keep the nook in place I used some clear elastic on the top and bottom, which is nice because it stays in place and is still 100% functional, I can use all of the features while it is in the case and I can even charge it.



I really am pleased with how this turned out and I think it looks better than anything Barnes and Nobles sales for the nooks. Now I feel even more confident bringing my nook wherever I go.

Fantastic Fabric Organizer

For today's post my friend Len, from crafty homeschool, shared her wonderful post on fabric organizing. I don't know if anyone is like me but I have a lot of fabric and I feel like I have it under control, except that I have to pull out the boxes and find a fabric that I feel will work. I love her idea of having the fabric easily accessible and still looking amazing. Once I get my crafting area set up I will definitely follow suit with her idea. Take it away Len:

So here of late my fabric has been well a little out of control. I have yard upon yard of pretty fabric all shoved into three bags and a pile of smaller pieces. My dear husband was well, a little irritated by all of the fabric all over my house (rightfully so I'm sure). So I had a brain storm for a cost effective space saving solution to the problem. Well #1 it had to hang on the wall. #2 it had to be thin and #3 I needed it to be fairly inexpensive. Now for the solution, it cost me a total of $22.50 not counting washers and screws (we had those on hand). Here is the finished product (how to will follow).

Here are the supplies you will need, I bought everything at Lowe's, but I'm sure any hardware store will carry the items needed.


The dowels are 3/8" x 48" and are $.84 each (I bought 6)
The brackets where $8.76 each and where 4' tall

I found the metal brackets next to the ladders and some metal sheets. The gentleman said they where used for things like garage door track mounting (not sure what they are called but I explained what I needed and the gentleman knew exactly what I wanted). Then I found the biggest dowels that would still fit through the holes. I bought six of those (I cut mine in half). I imagine that if you had a large wall you could buy three brackets and use a whole dowel. That would give you twice the room to store your fabric with out the dowels sagging. You could also buy taller (like 6') brackets but either you would need a step stool or it would touch the ground, I really like the 4' ones, there is enough ground clearance that fabric is not touching the ground and short enough that I can reach with out using a step stool.




This is the tag from the brackets I bought.
They had taller and shorter ones.



This is the dowel size that I used.
I used the largest diameter that still fit in the hole.

This is the paint that I used it was about $4/can.
You will need to use a primer on the bare metal.
I applied two coats of primer and two of paint.

 

The only thing left is to hang it.

I had to use washers because the holes where to large for the screw heads, so I sandwiched them between the bracket and the screw head, worked great. The brackets are faced that way because of the spacing between my studs. I was able to turn them that way and cut the dowel in half so I ended up with 12 bars to store fabric on. You could turn them the other way, just make sure you mount them on studs and MEASURE it twice before you cut the dowels. You may need more dowels depending on the spacing, I would advise again using the whole dowel unless you buy another bracket as a center support so you don't break the dowels (they are not very strong). I left about 1" on each side, you could put more room on each end (mine could use about an extra inch on each side, but you know hindsight). It works very well and even my husband was very impressed (ok, I think he was happy I finally got control of my fabric).