One woman's trash is another woman's treasure

It's starting to get chilly y'all!!! I really enjoy fall and the first part of winter. One of my favorite things about this time of year is when we get to have a fire in the fireplace. The problem is that I can't start a freaking fire to save my life. Seriously, it has got to be pretty hard to light a house on fire because I can't even get one started in my fireplace. I usually end up shelling out money for those little fire starters at kroger and they are so expensive! Last year we actually started using a combo of dryer lint (at the suggestion of a fireman friend I have) and papers that we needed to shred (because we don't have a shredder.) 

It was still a long process though, I would have to sit there and keep stuffing papers around the wood until it finally caught fire. Well, this year I have discovered how to make my own firestarters and the credit should go to Jillee (again)!!! Really! I can't tell you how excited I am, because the best part is that they were totally 100% free to make. FREEEEEE! Now I can smirk when I walk past the pile of "kindling wood" at kroger that is on sale for only $8....hahaha. The best part, I can have a roaring fire in 5 minutes flat, yep, that fast! So here is a tutorial, full of pictures.

I may be a mom, but I am still a woman

I love being a mom and I mostly love being a wife. I am so happy that my husband is able to provide enough for our family so that I can stay home and take care of the kids and the house. Don't get me wrong, we have to make sacrifices for that luxury, for instance we don't pay for cable or satellite and we are a one car household for the moment as well. But that's fine, because I get to meet my kids at the bus stop in the afternoons and give them a snack while we talk about their day at school. I am here to help with homework and make sure my teenage son isn't getting into trouble on the internet. The problem is that it's so easy to slip into the mindset of practicality over appearance. Since I'm not going to a "job" in the corporate world or even to anyplace more fashionable than the grocery store I can get away with wearing my yoga pants and a lucky charms t shirt all day with my hair pulled into a ponytail. I think we all, as moms, think of that as one of the perks of our job or even think we don't have time, energy or money to do so. But I want to convince you to change that.

Boo! It's time to decorate

I love halloween! Let me clarify further, I am a Jesus loving Christian and I love halloween. I have some parameters set for my kids about halloween, for example I have explained the origins and I don't allow them to dress up as evil things. No blood and gore here, but I LOVE cute pumpkins and spiders (plastic ones anyway) and black cats and getting a little bit frightened. So, it is time to decorate and I don't have a ton of moolah to spend on halloween decor. So I have come up with some of my own decorations and I wanted to share. My adventures in halloween decorating began with my house o' lantern. I got this idea from an article in family fun magazine a few years ago, but they did it backward. They had the whole window covered in one large piece of cardboard with holes cut out for the eyes nose and mouth with plastic covering the holes. That seemed like a lot of work to me. I was also afraid that it wouldn't let in enough light during the day. So, I switched it up and made it my own. I like it better my way.

So simple it'll curl your hair!

I am so excited about today's post! I have always had the hardest time with curling my hair. I have really thick hair and If I use rollers to curl my hair, it goes wild and gets big and poofy. Poofy was fine in the 80's, great even, but nowadays nobody wants poofy hair. I have been seeing a lot on pinterest and youtube lately about using curling wands and certain flat irons to get that loose curl/wave, but I don't have a curling wand and my flat iron (which I love, by the way) doesn't get hot on the outside, so I was out of luck. Until the other day, when I stumbled on a new tutorial on Pinterest. Unfortunately, it was a set of pictures and didn't lead back to a blog or tutorial, the pictures were enough for me to figure it out and I thought I would create a tutorial for anyone else who was interested. 

Here is how to go from:

                         

It is pretty simple once you get the hang of it and depending on how much hair you have should only take about 20 minutes. I washed my hair the night before and let it air dry. I already have somewhat wavy hair so I didn't have to curl my bangs, they just kinda do that if I don't flat iron them or dry them with my round brush. So, I started by sectioning my hair into 6 sections and pinning the top 4 sections up with a bobby pin. BTW, let me just apologize for the awkward pictures since I had to do my hair and take pictures with no help. 

 You want to take a relatively small section of hair, maybe an inch(?) and curl it around your fingers like your going to make a pin curl.

Carefully, without burning your fingers, put at least half of the curl (or more if you can) into the flat iron. Hold for 5 - 10 seconds and voila, a perfect curl. Keep going until all of your hair is curled.

Spray it with hairspray and then finger comb.

That's it, you can leave it down or pin some of it up. Heck, if you want to go all out, check out this youtube video on a cute curly updo. I've been getting lots of compliments on my hair like this. Let me know if you have any questions. Also, if this doesn't make sense I have included a quick video below showing you how to do the pin curl.

I made my own face cleansing cloths!

Okay, once again I am bringing you another idea compliments of Jillee. I saw her post about making facial cleansing cloths/baby wipes and I was so intrigued. It's no secret that I am broke frugal. I am also somewhat lazy, not in the "I'm not going to clean my house" kinda way, but more in the "I'm too tired to wash my face, I'm just going to bed" kinda way. Plus, I just really hate the way that water drips down my neck and into my cleavage when I try to wash my face at the sink. It never works the same for me as it does for the cute model in the face wash commercial. You know, that really cute girl with perfect skin who just splashes water on her face and then opens her eyes with a smile on her face? Yeah, when I try that water drips into my bra and then some errant soap suds drip into my eye and I start shouting because it burns and while blindly walking towards the towel hanging on the back of the door I trip over the cat and end up with a concussion. I also have to say that I was compelled to do something to get my eye makeup off every night since my Mary Kay lady told me that I would get eyelash mites if I didn't (eeeeewwww!). So once again, when I saw this I was INTRIGUED! I made some and I love, LOVE, LOVE them!!! They get all of my makeup off and remove dirt AND my face feels so soft afterwards. Not to mention, I can tell you (from personal experience) that these are very soothing to and help heal chub rub (If you don't know what that is then you are skinny and so it doesn't apply to you anyway). So here is my tutorial, with Pictures to follow.  

Face Wipes/ Baby Wipes

You will need:

Large container (I found that a large leftover coffee canister was perfect for this)

Roll of paper towels (I like the select a size, because the small size makes the perfect face wipe)

4 cups warm water (some use distilled to inhibit mold, but I just boil the water and haven't had problems)

2 tbs Extra Virgin unrefined coconut oil (so good for you inside and out)

2-3 squirts of Your fave face wash or baby wash

Cut the roll of towels in half and then cut the cardboard roll and pull it out of the middle. I used a bread knife to cut it, but I am sure an electric knife would be even better. With that done, you will be able to pull the wipes from the inside kinda like a dispenser. Put the roll in the canister, save the other half for later, or use it to make some wipes for a friend. If you are not using distilled water you will want to boil it to keep away any mold. While it is still hot or warm you want to add the coconut oil so it will liquify. The water needs to be more than 76 degrees for it to liquify. Stir it until completely dissolved and then add 2 -3 squirts of your favorite face wash or baby wash and stir again. Pour the mixture over the towels being sure to soak the whole roll. That's it, you probably want to wait for the water to cool before you try them though. I have also found that they are extra oily if you use them right after you make them. It's best to let it sit for a couple hours before you try them out. Check out the results, it removed all of my black and purple makeup! Cool huh? 

The coconut oil is what takes the makeup off and moisturizes your skin. I have to say that my complexion is so much better since I started using these. I used to get acne really bad, especially at THAT time of the month, but I am proud to say that this picture was taken when the acne should be the worst and I only have one blemish that is actually in the healing process, not the pus filled process. So, I am all for this, plus you really should check out this article about coconut oil. It is antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and anti-hatred. Okay, maybe I made that last one up, but it's awesome stuff! It's also been proven to help with Thyroid function for those of us with hypothyroid disease. Did I mention how much I love the stuff!? In case you are wondering where you can find it, I bought mine at the International farmer's market, but I think whole foods would carry it and I am pretty sure that my local Kroger carries it in their organic section. The main thing is you really want to make sure that it is unrefined to get all of the benefits. Anyhow, I hope you will give this a go and let me know what you think in the comments section. If you try it out, let me know what benefits you notice.

Who loves Cheese Dip??

Update: Wow! if you are here visiting from Pinterest, I appreciate you! I had no idea this post would be so popular, but I am honored. After you read this post please feel free to stick around or come back and check out some of my other blog posts. I blog about several things including recipes, crafts hairstyles and neat tricks that have helped me out or saved me money. I would be happy to have you as a subscriber or commenter as well. If you have any questions please contact me using the button to the right and I will respond as soon as possible. Thanks again!

 Hello again!  For the last few days I have been dreaming about Cheese dip, not the Velveeta kind, I'm talking about the creamy, gooey, white kind you get at the Mexican restaurant. They sell a poor facsimile of it at my local grocery store, but it's not the same and I was thinking that I really ought to share something that I already knew before Pinterest. Guess what!?!?! I know how to make that liquid gold that is Mexican restaurant cheese dip. This is the real deal, I got it from the manager of one of the many Mexican restaurants that we have in town. We used to go there a lot before money got tight and the manager, who I am pretty sure is a gay male, REALLY liked my husband. So, he was always giving us free stuff, including this recipe and the recipe for authentic flan (I'll have to save that for another day.) But, wait! There's more! Today's post is a twofer, I am also going to give you my best friend making, party invitation garnering Guacamole recipe....yep, you just heard those angels singing again. So without further ado, let's get to it!

Laundry-Blogger Therapy

I have to start this post off by thanking Jillee over at One Good Thing by Jillee. My family recently suffered the loss of a loved one and I have just been in a funk over it. I am still emotional and sad at times. Around the time that all of that happened I discovered Pinterest and from there Jillee's website. It was there that I learned you can make your own laundry detergent....wait, what? You can make detergent? Yes, and a whole lot of other stuff too. So, since I was bored and depressed and we are really strapped for cash right now, I decided to try out some of her recipes. I will be posting some of them in articles to come, along with my results and experiences. But today, I am going to post about my all new laundry lineup. I also have to say that Jillee inspired me to start blogging again, which is why I have actually been posting pretty regularly the last few weeks. I feel like I did when I discovered Jesus all over again and I just want everyone to know how awesome this is!!!! I have a dream that everyone will learn the benefits of homemade laundry detergent, cleaning goods, etc. and stick it to the big corporations selling us expensive crap! Okay, I'll get down off of my recycled soap box now. Seriously, I did the math, my favorite recipe for laundry detergent comes out to about 25 cents a gallon and one gallon washes 16 large loads at the least. That's just over a penny a load!!!! Not only am I saving money, but the eczema that both my son and daughter have been experiencing is starting to clear up and our laundry is brighter and smells better than it did with my really expensive name brand detergent. I can't say enough how excited I am about this. So my new homemade laundry regimen consists of Detergent, fabric softener (yeah, that's right) and stain remover.

 You will notice the downy unstopables (yes, it's spelled with one P. you grammar nazi!) pictured as well. I go ahead and splurge on the scent booster since I am saving SO MUCH on the other stuff. You really only need a Tablespoon to get a fantastic scent, as a matter of fact the whole house smells like it on laundry day. It makes me smile. So, the purple bottle is my fabric softener, I also have some in a gallon jug. The milk jug is detergent (I know it looks like water, but it's powerful).  The green spray bottle and mason jar are my homemade stain remover. It's works really well, I have 3 kids who don't stain their clothes as much as I stain my own and it is fantastic for mine. It has even removed a few old stains that I thought would never come out! So without further ado, here we go (with pictures!)

For Laundry Detergent you will need:

3 TBS Borax

3 TBS Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda)

2 TBS Dawn dish detergent

You will find the borax and washing soda in the laundry aisle at you're local grocery store. It was on the bottom shelf at my local Kroger and I really had to look for it.  Put all of your ingredients in whatever gallon jug is appropriate. I make it up in this milk jug and then transfer it to the name brand detergent container that I already have that is equipped with a handy dandy dispenser.

Run about a cup or so of hot tap water and pour that into your jug and swirl it around to dissolve everything. Don't shake it because you will get a lot of foam.  

When everything is dissolved put the jug in your sink and fill it with tap water. I pour it rather than let the faucet fill it to avoid foam. Some bubbles will spill over, but that's okay, you're soap will still be AWESOME!

That's it, you're done!!!! You will need to use about a cup of detergent for a large load. 

For Fabric Softener you will need:

15 - 16 oz bottle of cheap hair conditioner, whatever scent you like is fine.

6 cups water

3 cups white vinegar

Dump the conditioner in a really big bowl.

I am SUPER cheap, so I poured my water into the empty bottle and shook it to make sure I got every stinking last drop all of the conditioner out of the bottle.

Add Vinegar and whisk together. You will want to stir this instead of pouring it all in the jug and shaking so it will not foam up.

Then pour it into your containers. I know, it's unbelievably easy! I like to do a double whammy with my fabric softener. I use the jug just like I would use downy. I pour the same amount as I would with commercial softener into my downy ball and drop it into the washer. Then, when I put the clothes into the dryer I add a few squirts from the spray bottle and start it. The laundry comes out so soft and it smells like whatever scent conditioner you chose. Mine is the V05 Shea butter and vanilla.

Lastly, I didn't take pictures when I made my stain remover, but I will give you the recipe to try out.

You will need:

2/3 cup dawn dish soap (It's great stuff!)

2/3 cup ammonia

6 TBS baking soda

2 cups warm water

Mix all the ingredients and pour it into a spray bottle. Just spritz it on the stains, rub it in and toss the garment in the washer. Easy as pie! Hope this helps someone out and let me know what you think! I welcome comments below.