Tutorial: Kids Play Makeup

Posted By:  Stephanie

Lately my little girl who's 2 loves to play with makeup.  It doesn't matter to her if it is real or fake, to her it is all VERY real = )

I decided that I would get a head start on Christmas gifts and make her a set of eye shadows and blush to go in a "makeup" kit for her.

I got these from the Dollar Store, that way I wasn't wasting good makeup.  I don't wear enough myself to have a lot of spare containers laying around, if you do use those.

Pick some nail polish colors you feel would work well for your "makeup".

I found using a toothpick and running it around the outer edge of the makeup made it either pop right out or break up really well so it came out pretty clean.

I then used a q-tip to clean out the corners to make them really look nice and real makeup free.

Next add the nail polish.  I did just enough so that the bottom was covered and you don't see metal, then paint the outer brim of the metal to give it the effect that it is completely full.

There you have it, mess free makeup for your little one or as a gift for a little girl you know would love it.  All you have to do is wait for it to dry.  Warning, this is a bit of a stinky process!

My New Excitement - The Compost Bin

Posted By:  Stephanie

Hey there!  It's almost Friday!  Thursday is my favorite of the mid week days.  I feel like of all the work days (Fridays don't count) people are in the best mood on Thursdays, mostly because they know that the next day will be their last for the work week.  There are also good TV shows on, which I like a good show, and the weather is always nicest on Thursdays, for real it's not in my head (or at least don't tell me if it is)!

As you know from these posts I like to recycle.  We do not have recycling available where we live but I do what I can to reduce and reuse on my own to make up for it.  I also hate letting good things go to waste or spending money on unnecessary items.  My newest excitement that will take care of a couple of these issues is our new compost bin!!!

Isn't she a beauty?

Will, Our Girl, My Mother/Father-In-law and I all got involved in the excitement.  As I mentioned before we live on the same property next door to each other so we like to share cool things like this and the garden too.

It's so easy to do!  All you have to do is throw your compost items in.

Rotate it a few times.

Once your stuff is all mixed up it looks like this.  You can keep adding to it and then eventually in 4-6 weeks we'll start getting rich amazing compost.

Materials OK to Compost

- Animal manure

- Cardboard rolls, cereal boxes, brown paper bags

- Clean paper

- Paper towels

- Coffee grounds and filters

- Cotton and wool rags

- Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint

- Crushed eggshells (but not eggs)

- Fireplace ashes

- Fruits and vegetables

- Grass clippings, yard trimmings

- Hair and fur

- Hay and straw

- Houseplants

- Leaves

- Nut shells

- Seaweed (rinse off saltwater)

- Shredded newspaper

- Tea and tea bags

- Wood chips, sawdust, toothpicks, burnt matches

Materials NOT OK to Compost -- and Why

- Meat, fish, egg or poultry scraps (odor problems and pests)

- Dairy products (odor problems and pests)

- Fats, grease, lard or oils (odor problems and pests)

- Coal or charcoal ash (contains substances harmful to plants)

- Diseased or insect-ridden plants (diseases or insects might spread)

- Pet wastes (dog or cat feces, cat litter) (might contain parasites or germs)

- Yard trimmings treated with pesticides (might kill composting organisms)

- Black walnut tree leaves or twigs (substances harmful to plants)

Here are some reasons whey everyone should compost:

1. Composting Is Easy

All you have to do to is open the lid and throw your compostable items in.  Doesn’t get easier than that!  You are already doing the same thing with your trash, but this is actually doing good!

2. Composting Is Dirt Cheap

Other than the initial investment in a pail, or composting bin you are paying nothing to compost.  You will actually save money on dirt/fertilizer for gardening and you may be able to get a smaller trashcan because you are wasting less.

3. Compost Makes a Healthy, Thriving Garden

You really can't find a better soil amendment than compost. It loosens clay soils and helps sandy soils retain water. And not only does compost contain no petroleum-based compounds (like most commercial fertilizers do), it can suppress plant diseases and pests. Gardens that are composted produce higher yields of healthier fruits, vegetables and flowers.

4. Composting Is Good for the Planet

Landfills everywhere are running out of room, and the EPA estimates that roughly 25% of the garbage in the U.S. is made up of yard trimmings and food scraps. That's over 60 million tons each year! Instead of watching your local landfill get bigger and more expensive to maintain each month, try composting.

5. You Can Compost Even if You Don't Have a Yard

No yard? No worries. You can use compost even in a window planter box. And many cities have compost programs which will haul away your composted organic material for free. Not sure how to find one? Consult Earth911.com or the EPA for local resources in your area.

6. No Smell, No Pests

The rumor that compost attracts bugs, mice or other pests is a dirty, stinking lie. Only compost done wrong smells, or attracts vermin. To do it right, keep dairy products and meats out of your compost pile.

I got this great information from about.com.

Want to know the best part about the compost bin we chose (other than it rotates super easy)?  It was $69.00!  Two years ago it was at Costco for around $200, earlier in the season it was around $100 and now because it is "out of season" Will and I got it for $69.00!!!  So thrilled about that savings!  When I was looking up information on composting an ad came up with the same exact compost bin for $179.00.  Now I feel like I should have purchased two, although that would be a little overkill for our beginning compost adventure and killer on your bank account.

Do you compost?  What do you compost that isn't on my list?

Entryway Windows

Posted By:  Stephanie

Will, My Girl and I live in a manufactured home that had not been updated in years.  Lucky for us, although Will is handy, his dad/my father-in-law LOVES projects.  Before we moved in he did some woodwork and put in new floors (I will show you those at a later time) that have been used twice before, starting as a gym floor.  I just LOVE knowing they have been used twice before because I like to imagine what type of story they have and even more because you know I love a good excuse to recycle/repurpose!

One of the updates that he did was take out these icky glass pieces in the entryway that look from the dining room to the entry way and vice versa.  I love what he did with the holes that were left.  A few pieces of wood, trim and stain and we have a great new open space while salvaging the wall that works as a great divider.

It's amazing what a difference it makes to open up a space like this while removing an eye sore at the same time.  You may have noticed the difference in wall color from the "before" to "after" photos.  That's because Will is a genius painter and painted almost every wall in the house before we moved in.  You can see his handy work HERE when he helped me transform our master closet into my craft room.

What SMALL change have you made in your house that made a BIG difference?

(I only call it small because I didn't have to do it.  If I were to take on this project I would probably still be working on it haha!)

Tidy Tip - Organizing Plastic Grocery Bags

Posted By:  Stephanie

I have to start this post by saying, I know I really should be using reusable fabric shopping bags, which is also one of my near future goals.  In the meantime we use plastic grocery bags and re-use them for things like Will's lunches.  I don't know about your bags, but my bags were taking over our pantry!  I decided to go back to my middle school days of writing and folding notes and I'm very pleased with my very much improved grocery bag storage.

First I dug out all of my grocery bags and threw them on the kitchen table.  As you can see, we do a LOT of shopping at Walmart.  We get all of our groceries there because in our small town our only choices are Walmart and Safeway.  Walmart is a much cheaper option when living on a budget.  I'm so thankful for our new Walmart!

Lay out your grocery bag and flatten it out.

Fold it in half...

and in half again.

Start from the bottom and fold the corner in,

and continue folding into triangles over and over until you reach the top.

You want to stop when there's about this much left at the top.

When you stop folding make sure that your are at the part where you have a little pocket like this.

Tuck the handles into the pocket.

There you have it, a nice compact grocery bag.

I continued and folded all of my bags which took just a few minutes.

I took one of my milk jugs and made it into a container as shown here so that I would have a place to store the folded grocery bags.

As you can see in my first before and after picture it made a BIG difference in my pantry.  How do you store your grocery bags?





Birthday and Milk Jug Repurpose

Posted By:  Stephanie

Hey there!  If you've been following along then you know that yesterday was my 25th birthday!  My sweet sister posted about it yesterday here.  I was so surprised and loved what she wrote, thank you!  Bubba (Kristi) and I are 2 years and 3 days apart so her birthday was on Thursday, September 1st.  If you missed the posts about her birthday you can read about it here and here.

I had a great birthday because I have such an amazing family that works so hard at making sure that my day is special every year.  Will put balloons in my bedroom just like he does every year for me.  My mom used to decorate the family room for Bubba's birthday, take it down and completely re-decorate for my birthday as well as put balloons on our bedroom floor for us to wake up to every year.  One year we were in Seattle and I still woke up to the balloons, we have the BEST mom!  Will has taken over that tradition for my mom and as our girl gets older and we have other kids we will do the same thing for them.  My husband is the greatest!

This is what my birthday looked like:

Flowers, balloons, gifts (many not shown below), yummy cheesecake for my sister and I (we celebrated with the family together yesterday), great brunch provided by our mom, and evening at the river and just a great time with family.  My dad got me a new camera, because like I mentioned here my camera was left at Target and I now have a new one!  Thank you SOOOO much dad, you are so awesome!  In the meantime my amazing mother-in-law Cathy has been letting me use her camera, I really appreciate that, it has been a lifesaver.  I'm feeling very grateful for so many things, I could go on and on and on.

Here is a great tip that my mom came up with yesterday.  My girl has a tendency to pull place mats right off the table so she used a Silpat because it doesn't slide easily.  BRILLIANT!  The mat stayed on the table the entire time.  Thanks for the tip mom!

In the post found here I talked about how much I don't like that we don't have recycling where we live and that I was trying to come up with ways to use things that I have been throwing away.  I have now found a way to use an old milk jug.

First I washed out the milk jug.

Then cut the the jug in half right under where the handle is.

I like to keep My Girl's socks in a container in her drawer so that they don't get mixed in with her clothes.  The socks share a drawer with other things so I like to keep them organized.  I am staying home with her now and that means being even more frugal now then we were before.  I wanted to use this container for something else that would be seen so I needed a replacement.

YAHOO!  I have a new sock holder!  Best part about it is that the container is taller so it holds all the same socks that were in the other container above and now there is even more drawer space for other things.

This is what I got out of it.  Good trade, good trade!

What do you use old milk jugs for?

*Update*  I finally have a picture of our sister Samantha wearing the zipper headband that I made here (when you go the the link, scroll to the bottom to see the picture), although the headband is cute, she is MUCH cuter!  ; )

Toddler Tuesday - DIY Noise Maker

Posted By:  Stephanie

This morning my girl and I went out in our pajamas to play in the rocks and make a noise maker.  You can do this with all kinds of things but we made her noise maker out of a cleaned out peanut butter container and rocks that we found outside.  My girl had a great time picking out the rocks to go in the container, she took a few in and out until she was satisfied.  It was a beautiful morning to take a few minutes to do something different outside.

As you can see above, she thought this was SO much fun.  Once we went inside she was shakin' the rocks like a Polaroid picture, okay not really but she did shake the container and love it.  This is a very simple project that you can repeat with different objects and experiment with the different sounds that come from changing out what is in his/her noise maker.

Have fun shaking things up a bit with a simple project like this one!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Medicine Bottles

Posted By:  Stephanie

Where I live we don't have recycling, I mean, NO recycling.  I think it is just crazy, and it is bugging me, so I decided that I was going to come up with uses for some of the things that we have been throwing away.

I have been going through children's Advil for the past 8 months or so while our girl has been teething.  Of course, we only give it to her when she really needs it, but in that many months we have gone through a few of these little bottles.

First I took off the label, it came off a lot easier then I thought it would.

I chose some paper that I thought would cut out into a strip nice.  A lot of the paper I have has big designs, for such a little bottle I needed something that was going to look nice and be small enough.  I found this paper that was going to be easy to cut because it was already a stripe design.

I cut the paper to fit the bottle.

Next, I made my own mod podge out of water and Elmer's School Glue.  I did about 1 part glue to 2 parts water and mixed well.

Using a paint brush I painted my mod podge onto the back of the paper,

then wrapped it around the bottle.

After I wrapped the paper around the outside I coated that in mod podge too.

I really like the way it turned out.

Next I followed the same process for a pill bottle.

Here is the paper I chose.

The top of this lid is flat unlike the other one, so I decided to cover it with left over paper from the strip I had already cut to cover the bottle.

Tada, it is complete!

I haven't decided for sure yet but I think I'm going to keep diaper rash cream in the smaller bottle.  I don't like carrying tubes of it in my purse because I'm always afraid that it is going to come open and get all over the place, this will solve that problem!

The larger bottle I will use when I travel, or in the car to keep things like, Q-Tips, tweezers, a few earring backs, a couple toothpicks, and a band aid or two for "just in case" moments.

What have you used an old medicine bottle for?