Gettin' Crafty

Another spray paint post, yay! This isn't only about spray paint though. I had a set of frames that aren't completely hideous but I'm tired of looking at them as is, and I have five of them. Believe me I've learned my lesson, table top frames are best if there aren't a million just like them in the same house.
Before:

Hi! That's me and my husband six months before we got married. I would give anything to look like that again, without the bangs. In comes trusty white spray paint to the rescue, for the frame not me. :)

Ahh, much better! My dilemma started here, what do I do with my newly updated frame. Have you seen some of the 3-D artwork around lately, I thought maybe I could create some myself. So I headed to hobby lobby to see if I could find some neat key's or maybe some keyholes I could use. This is what I found.

So cute! A whole set waiting for different projects. It is missing one key because I forgot to take a picture before I painted it, oops. Best of all metalwork was 50% off that week (it is a lot wait till it goes on sale to buy) so I got all five for $6.00. Not bad!
I didn't want to paint the back of the frame, instead I wanted a little bit of pattern. In comes trusty scrapbook paper. On sale at hobby lobby that week for a quarter a sheet. Another great score.
The end result.

A cute project if I do say so myself.

Cost break down:
Frame, free had for years
Spray paint, free left over from another job
Key, $1.20
Scrapbook paper, 25 cents

Not bad for $1.45! Just wait till the piece it will sit on is painted, you won't want to miss it.

This post is linked to (or will be) to We Are THAT family, Works for Me Wednesday.
Bissfully Domestic, check out the button in the side bar for the link.
Hooked On Houses, what are you hooked on?

Ahh... The wonders of spray paint part 2

Once again my inspiration came from Jen over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam. She is a wiz with her spray paint. She had a blog post about using it on brass. Yes, brass!

Let's face it brass has lost it's value. The only bad thing is there were so many pieces and some rather cool designs that were made. I, like most I'm sure, always looked past it at garage sales. Jen didn't and I for one am glad she decided to give brass another look. I found these lovely treasures at the first garage sale of the season.



My husband looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted them. He certainly didn't want any brass up anywhere, I couldn't blame him before Jen's post I didn't either. I decided to give the spray paint a try, if it didn't work I would only be out $2 (for all 4 pieces!) the spray paint I would only lose a trivial amount. On the way home we picked up a can of lacquer spray paint, to me lacquer gives a much better result than a traditional paint. Plus, it is a very durable surface that bonds to metal fairly well. This is the end result.




Isn't it cute! I got some rather good looking white pieces out o the deal. The butterflies are going in my nieces bedroom, it has lots of butterflies all over the place. The key will go in a spot with family photos as it is a play on our last name. I hope to find lot of different key's all over the place this year.

A few tips if you are planning on doing this yourself.

1. Clean your piece well. I like to wash it in regular soapy water, then rub alcohol all over. The alcohol makes sure you dissolve anything the detergent might have left behind or missed.

2. Go over lightly with FINE sandpaper. And I do mean lightly, if you go to deep the scratches will show.

3. Go over with alcohol once more. It gets the dust off and makes sure there is no lasting residue to interfere with the paint sticking.

4. Just like in my door redo make sure to go cover lightly, drips can happen easily and they aren't pretty.

Leave to dry and you have a great looking brass piece that can stand the test of time!

This post is linked to Hooked On Houses, what are you hooked on?
For more great Works for me Wednesday tips head on over to We Are THAT Family.

Garlic Surplus

I love buying garlic in bulk, especially the big containers of already peeled cloves. I throw those in my food processor and pulse till I get a minced texture. Add a little of olive oil and salt, then drop by the tablespoon in an ice tray. Make sure to really press it in, when hard pop out and put in a freezer bag. It is very easy to throw it in any recipe.

If someone in your family doesn't like chunky garlic bits let the food processor go until almost pureed. Add a little bit of olive oil to make it a little more liquid, garlic has a tendency to be paste like. Do the same process as above and use in any recipe asking for garlic.

It couldn't be easier and it is a huge time saver! Fresh garlic (even when frozen) tastes so much better in your recipes than garlic powder. Although, this year I am going to experiment with making my own powders.

For more great Works for me Wednesday tips visit We Are THAT Family.

Works for me Wednesday backwards edition.

This week we are supposed to ask the masses for help.

Mine is scheduling. Being a stay at home wife means I don't have to get up in the morning. However, it is a huge drawback if I don't. I can't seem to get anything done and I'm not sure what to do about it. If I don't have to be anywhere why get up early?

What is your schedule like? If you have kids now, how did you get up before kids?

For that matter, how do you get to sleep? If it difficult for you do you have any tricks?

Head on over to We Are THAT Family for more questions that need answers.

Swagbucks!

Swagbucks! You've probably heard all about it by now. I wanted to set up my account and get a reward before actually blogging about it. Swagbucks is simply a service for you to do your internet searching through, similar to google or yahoo. You simply go to their site to enter what you are searching for or you can download a toolbar that makes it quick and easy! The difference is you can collect the Swagbucks and redeem them for prizes and gift cards. The major one for me is the Amazon gift cards, with that you can get just about anything.
The extra cool part is if your friends sign up for a Swagbucks account through your referral link you win the same amount of Swagbucks they do up to 100! You can't beat that and it's all for doing a regular search that you would have done anyways.
Come join me at Swagbuckss and let's redeem prizes and gift cards together!Anywhere you see the word Swagbucks is my referral link, click on it to set up your account.

Check out We Are That Family for more great Works for me Wednesday tips!

Keeping Cheese fresh longer!

Ahhh... Cheese! How I love it so! One thing I have never liked is how fast it seems to go south. I have learned is it can actually be cheaper buying the more expensive ingredients. One of them being Parmesan cheese. It tastes so much better and it lasts for months for me!

I take my block of cheese and wrap it in a paper towel, making sure that no cheese can touch the plastic bag. Put it in a ziplock (or off-brand, that's what I do) and park it in the fridge. It will last a long time. Every so often change out the paper towel, if it ever starts to feel damp you don't want that sitting around your cheese. That's it! So simple to do and I kid you not that we have had a nice chunk of Parmesan last over 3 months! We don't how long it could have lasted because we ate it.

We do cheddar and all our other cheese the same. Another tip I have is use block cheese and grate it yourself. They put stuff (I'm not sure what) around cheese to make sure it doesn't clump together. It tastes a lot better and it doesn't take long to grate a little bit of cheese. I've found that it melts a lot better too.

Fore more great works for me Wednesday tips visit We Are THAT Family.

Money Saving Scrapbooking Tip!

Let's face it scrapbooking supplies are expensive. The main cost for me is letter stickers. I love American Crafts Thickers. And using them I've found a way to stretch my scrapping buck. I buy only the white. Then using a marker I color them to whatever color I need!

Here is a layout featuring "white" thickers for the word grown. I colored them with an American Crafts Slick Writer and then covered in diamond stickles.

I have another that I colored the same letters black but that layout isn't quite done yet.

Stickles are a product that come in several colors. To save money you can buy only the Diamond or Crystal colors. They are clear and allow whatever color you have under it to shine through.


For more great tips stop by We Are THAT family.

Vinegar

I'm allergic to traditional fabric softener. For some reason manufacturers seem to even put irritants into the hypo allergenic varieties as well. I had heard about using vinegar for fabric softener but thought that had to be some kind of joke. My towels kept getting scratchy so on one desperate day I gave vinegar a try. It worked! Everything smelled better as well, which is odd considering you I used vinegar. I'm not questioning it though, as long as it works it's fine with me!

Keep your drains clear. Put 1/4 of a cup of baking soda in your drain (this works great for kitchens or baths) follow that with 1 cup of vinegar. Let it sit for 15 to 30 minutes then rinse with hot tap water. I do this every other week and my drains work great! When we first bought the house they were a little on the slow side, I promise this works.

Control the shower sprayer. I hate when I turn it on and some nozzles drip while others spray off to the side. I like to unscrew the shower head and put it in a plastic bag filled with vinegar. Leave it overnight for the best results and in the morning you will have a shower head that is like new. If you can't take yours off secure the plastic bag over the shower head with rubber bands and leave it that way. Just make sure you take off the bag before your husband gets in the shower. If you like practical jokes leave it, it is quite funny to see his reaction. I promise I didn't do it on purpose! I laughed for days over that, is that wrong? LOL

Try one or all of these tips and see if they work for you! And if you know something else let me know in the comments!

Make sure you check out We Are THAT Family for more great tips and tricks.


For 175 uses for vinegar check out this Readers Digest article. It is amazing all the things it can do!

OAMC for Smaller Families or those with Small Children

OAMC or Once a Month Cooking can be a real chore when there aren't many people to feed. You might only have two adults and a couple of small children that don't have big appetites. That is where my very favorite OAMC tool comes into play.



A loaf pan! First a normal recipe can be split three times! That itself is a great savings. But there aren't leftovers that will turn into science projects in the fridge. Plus your portion control is automatically built in. How many times have you made a big pan of lasagna so you would have some leftovers, and someone went back more times that they should? It's a common occurrence in this house.

Right now I'm using the smallest loaf pans I could find which happen to be the disposable kind. I know it isn't the greenest option but you can reuse them! When my family grows or the summer hits and Becca is here, I'll go to a normal loaf pan which is bigger. That might be the better option for you to start out with.

This works for me! For more great tips visit Rocks in My Dryer!

Healthy Ground Beef Mix

I am very excited to participate in my first Works for Me Wednesday!

My topic is something I have struggled with, veggies. I just plain don't like the taste of most vegetables. You see, I'm the picky eater. I'm not alone though Jason is just as bad. Becca is the one that will eat, or at least try, almost anything. I figured something had to give I had to find ways to sneak vegetables into my diet. So I came up with my healthy ground beef mix.

First, let's discuss ground beef. Let's face it on it's own it just doesn't taste very good, that's why we add seasoning and sauces. You never see anyone eat ground beef on it's own, but why? After all isn't that what a hamburger is. What about steak? Ground beef can left over steaks ground into it but it still doesn't taste as good. That's because it gets those nice brown bits on it! Every chef will tell you that is where the flavor comes from. Next time you brown your ground beef don't just cook till no longer pink, actually brown it. You will amazed at home much better it tastes!

Ground Beef Mix:
1 lb. Ground Beef
1 (med.) Onion, diced
1 (med.) Carrot, grated (make sure to read to the end to see my grater, it's key)
1 to 2 Stalks of Celery, grated
1/2 to 1 whole Bell Pepper, grated
1 clove Garlic, minced
1/4 cup Quick Cooking Oats, lightly ground (after I measure I crumble with my hand)
Salt and Pepper

Cook ground beef till no longer pink. Add the rest of the ingredients and brown.

Those are 3 of my most hated vegetables but when I grate them up and cook them you can't notice any flavors standing out. And, the carrots add a great sweetness to the mixture. It really helps to stretch your ground beef as well. It is so much more healthy for you as well. I made my mix with 5 pounds of ground beef today and it didn't take any extra time.

One key for me is the grater I use as well. If you use a regular box grater you will notice the vegetables in it and that isn't what it is about to me. This is the grater I use. It makes it small enough to incorporate the vegetables in for nutrition, but no offending tastes stand out. I use that grater on an almost daily basis, I just love it! If you can't get that grater make sure to use a small hole on your box grater.

I'm going to start experimenting with adding lentils, brown rice, and zucchini as well. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes as I go along!

For more great tips be sure to check out Rocks in My Dryer.