Wax Paper Transfers: Fail? Success? You decide!

Not unlike the garbage disposal bombs I blogged about last week, this is another pin I've pinned multiple times! 

(link)

I had some wood from Christmas Crafts Past in the closet in my craft room that I knew would be perfect for this project. Unfortunately what I didn't remember is that they're like 12 inches long which was NOT going to work out. So I did what any responsible mother would do in this scenario: I sent it outside with my 9 year old to use the hacksaw to cut it in half. He did a GREAT job! 

A few months ago, I subscribed to Brave Girls' Club Soul School. That's a story for another day but seriously, check it out. I am LOVING it! As part of the curriculum a couple of months ago, we got this beautiful artwork to print and it seemed perfect for the project. 

I don't have a materials shot for you (please forgive me!) but it really just involves wood and wax paper. I pasted the picture into Word (can you see this very well?)

If you're going to try this at home, make sure you mirror the image before you print it. Ask me how I know. I cut my wax paper to 8.5x11 using my paper trimmer because I'm a neurotic freak

I fed the wax paper into the printer; here's where I learned a few things: my printer has different settings like "fast draft" and "photo printing" and "maximum DPI." At first I used the "maximum DPI" setting because I wanted the quality to be really great but it smudged all over the wax paper. Boo. So I changed it to "fast draft" and it went much smoother. My wax paper DID get stuck in the printer a few times because it's super thin, and I can't tell you what I did to finally get it to work. Um, do a dance to the printer gods? It seriously seemed that arbitrary. I DID cut the final strip that went through a little smaller than 8.5. Like, 8.25? Maybe that was the secret. I like to think it was the dancing. 

Now, I thought it would look cool to just put the image on the nekkid wood. The print is kind of vintage-y and I thought a more natural look would be better. I pressed the wet side of the image onto the wood

....lifted it off and voila! 

Okay, pardon the upside-down shot. Seriously, I've uploaded this picture like 5 times every way possible and yet Blogger insists that it's supposed to be this way. Sigh. It's like a metaphor for my life. Anyway, that's what it looked like on the wood. I wasn't super impressed with this, which is sad. I loved this pin! I was so looking forward to this pin! So I decided to try painting the wood and then transferring it over the top of the painted block. Here is the painting...(right side up! Imagine that!)

I printed the image on wax paper again and pressed it on the wood

Removed it....

(Not upside down again. What the heck?!) But I liked THAT even less. Now I was super bummed because I had my heart set on having this beautiful image on this piece of wood that Don Diego risked life and limb cutting. So in an attempt to salvage this project, I printed this same beautiful image onto a piece of vellum

Sorry, this is a blurry picture. Apparently I can only take blurry upside down pictures. (Who me? Overly emotional about the Great Upside Down Picture Incident of 2014?) I cut that to size and got out some pretty upholstery nails I had in the ole Craft Closet. I lined the vellum print up with the transferred image on the wood and hammered them nails! 

Lovely!

Beautiful but it still needed..something..

BAAA! Blurry! Dang it! Sorry. I have failed you with my crappy photography skills, dear Internets! Anyway, I love it. I like the twine--I super loved mixed media and it makes me happy to use paper, metal AND twine. 

So, Internets..blurry and upside down pictures aside, I'll let YOU decide if this pin was a success or a fail. Personally, I'm calling fail. I think if, like our friends over at Picklee, I just needed the outline that I was going to fill in this would be a win. But the vellum thing looks WAY better (you'll just have to trust me on that!) than the transfer in my opinion. I'd love to hear what you think!

Another Split-Decision Pin! Crock Pot Orange Chicken

Okay, I pinned this one twice. (Tangent ahead. Feel free to skim. Here's where I feel like I should let you in on a secret, Internets. I sleep horribly. According to The Boy, I sleep once every other Thursday. This is a problem because I love sleep, I get grumpy when I don't sleep and I turn into a wild-eyed snarling version of their mother who frightens the children. For this reason, I am super great pals with the makers of Ambien. So I take my Ambien and then go to bed and scroll through Pinterest until the ole Velvet Hammer kicks in and I fall asleep with my phone on my face. Yep. It happens. This is how I manage to pin things a thousand times--I'm usually completely Ambienified and have no real clue what I'm doing even though it makes sense in my muddled brain. I have the random text messages and Facebook status updates to prove it! Tangent over)

http://thefrugalgirls.com/2013/04/crockpot-orange-chicken-recipe.html

So to start this adventure, I cut up some chicken (I used 2 chicken breasts and I cut them into bite sized pieces..this fed 2 grown ups and 3 kids) and tossed it in the crockpot. I added a teeny bit of water and also sprinkled a little ginger, garlic, salt and pepper on the chicken. I cooked it on high for 3 hours then added the marmalade, barbecue sauce and soy sauce. I used the exact brands suggested--the Sweet Baby Rays sauce has a teeny tiny hint of spice to it, I think, which helps control the sweetness of the marmalade. 

I mixed it all up and cooked it on high for about 30 minutes while I cooked the rice. The instructions say to cover it for these 30 minutes but I wanted the sauce to thicken so I kept it uncovered. 

I don't have a photo of the final meal. Sorry. I had a Youth Council meeting so my family ate without me and when I got home I was so hungry I forgot to take the picture! Whoops! 

Final decision? The kids hated it. I don't think The Boy liked it much but I've not seen him since he ate it (nights like these remind me that we are DANG involved in our community!!) so I can't tell you for sure. I was excited to make it because orange chicken is Don Diego's favorite meal of all time but he was not impressed and only choked it down in hopes of getting dessert. (Denied. Bummer.) Now, I on the other hand, really liked it! I loved tartness of the marmalade and the flavor of the barbecue sauce..yum! So I say win. Everyone else around here says, "only if we get dessert for eating it." I'm a SUPER picky eater so I think it's worth a shot. It's fast, inexpensive..you may like it. Just plan on having dessert afterwards in case you hate it as much as my kids did!!

Clean and white and... armpit stains? Eww.

I'm airing out all of my dirty laundry! (Literally?) This is embarrassing guys. I'm showing you my pit stains today! Awkward... ;) I'm sure you guys have seen this pin because I still see it about a gazillion times scrolling through my Pinterest feed. But I did promise another episode on the cleaning power of dawn dish soap. (What? That was like 4 months ago? Now where did the time go... Oops! Check out that promise here.) So here it is! My gross armpit stain removal post.

I always imagined putting my dirty laundry on the internet as being figurative...

You see that disgusting armpit stain? Full disclosure. That's not an old shirt. I bought it at the beginning of the summer. That's how gross it got in 5ish months. I was so frustrated because I feel like I only get one good use out of my white shirts and then they need to be thrown away. So depressing. I can't afford to only wear a shirt once! I'm poor, remember?! Geez universe. Throw me a bone here. (Get it? 'Cause bones are white?! Ha. Oh. Not funny? My bad.) So I finally got around to trying to do something about this little problem of mine.

This was the pin I saw first, but I actually used the instructions from the video found here.

So, by now I hope you all have these things on hand. Hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and some dawn dish soap.  You'll need a scrubber of some kind too, I just used an old tooth brush. One of the shirts I did I really could have used a bigger scrubber though.

Then I got to scrubbing. This takes a lot of time. Fair warning. Then again, maybe if I didn't do it on every shirt I own all at once... Right. So you dump the peroxide, then some dish soap, then some baking soda and scrub it all in. And then just let it sit. I let mine sit for more than an hour because I went and ran a bunch of errands.

Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub... I used a little too much dawn on this one, and not enough baking soda. It should be pretty pasty. But liquid enough to really get in there.

Ta-da! Perfectly good white shirt renewed. YEA!!! Pinterest for the WIN! :D




 

Plop Plop Fizz Fizz...

Alright, this is one if those pins I've pinned like 3 times so clearly on some perhaps subconscious level I have a deep-rooted fear that my garbage disposal stinks. I drink enough Dirty Diet Coke that I usually just toss the limes down and turn that sucker on but alas! Belt tightening. One million Peggy Points to the person who shows up at my door with a beverage for me. Unless I don't know you. Then those points may or may not he converted into a restraining order..all depending of course on how large the beverage is and whether it not you sprang for extra coconut. But I digress!! So here's the pin

(Link: http://www.popsugar.com/smart-living/Homemade-Garbage-Disposal-Refreshers-27889472)

So it seemed really easy with products I have on hand--a good thing since I'm living a cash-only life and spent my extra money on frites and a gaufre (fries and a waffle from the most AMAZING little Belgian establishment in Salt Lake) and feel zero remorse. Oy with the digressing already! Sorry. These were my supplies:

Baking soda, salt, dish soap (any kind) and a lemon. Easy peasy!

First I mixed 3/4c baking soda and 1/2 c salt in a bowl. I added 1/2 tsp dish soap as per the directions but ended up adding more later. You'll see. 

Then I used a zester to get all of the lemon peel all the way around the lemon (photo cred to Don Diego since I couldn't  zest and photograph at the same time!)

So glad you can see the heap o crap on my counter top!

Then I squoze (squeezed? Had squozen?) the juice from the lemon. This was the dangerous part. The lemon half slipped right out of my hand causing me to cut one of my fingers with my fingernail and since my hands were covered in lemon juice...does anyone else have these sorts of problems? I swear! Anyway..the juicing..

The pin says to use about 3 Tbsp of juice. I used all of it. Then I started mixing it with a spoon. Then the instructions say to mix it until it's the consistency of coarse sand. I was worried it wouldn't hold up so I added more dish soap until I could just form it into a ball

The instructions suggest using a rounded measuring spoon to form them but I was worried about them popping out easily so I used one of these silicone cookie scooper things where you push the bottom and out plops the dough (or in this case, heavenly scented concoction)

I kept going until I was out of stuff. I put some parchment paper down on a pan and put the little blobs on that so they can sit overnight. I got 13 little blobs (the Boy felt it best to err on the side of caution and not call them "bombs" on the blog.) Whatever you want to call them, here they are. Sooo pretty and they smell fantastic. I love that you can see the lemon rind..

Tomorrow I'll update you. I'm not optimistic they won't crumble when I put them in a glass jar..we shall see. ´A demain, cher Internets!

***Good morning! So I took the blobs off the parchment and put them in a jar. They held their shape just fine but ARE a little crumbly. I'm still worried the ones on the bottom if the jar are going to get crushed and crumble. Time will tell. I put one in my garbage disposal, added a little vinegar (to react with the baking soda) and it was awesome! This pin (with a few tweaks) wins!!!

Scratched DVDs and the End of the World

As a parent, I want my kids to have a better life than I had. I want them to be able to enjoy activities we couldn't afford, make memories we didn't make and have some of the things I wanted but never had. For the most part, in the 9 years we've had this parenting gig, we've succeeded. Granted, we've never taken the kids to Disneyland (Don Diego feels especially ripped off in this arena), Mademoiselle still needs Fluttershy to complete her My Little Pony collection and Poquito Tito suffers all the injustices of hand me down everything. But still they are blessed with waaaaay more than the Boy or I ever had. Which is why it makes me almost unbearably twitchy when they don't.take.care.of.their.stuff!!! As parents we feel such gratitude when friends and family members give gifts to our children. And we feel unspeakable frustration when we see those gifts carelessly lying around. One of the most commonly abused items in our home are movies and video games. One comes out to put a different one in and the replaced item gets set down somewhere to collect dust and get scratched. For this reason, this pin shot a glimmer of hope into my heart

http://thehandmadedress.blogspot.com/2008/09/do-you-suffer-from-scrached-dvds_27.html?m=1

Our friends at The Handmade Dress boasts that some children's Crest toothpaste, warm water and a soft cloth can solve all of our scratched disc woes, no matter how abused. The pin says it works on DVDs as well as Wii games so I tried it on both. First, the DVD. I'm not sure how this happened, clearly the DVD player had some dirt or something in it because our Planes DVD has perfect circular scratches in it. Can you see them?

I used one of the 12 million sample sized tubes of kid's toothpaste we've gotten from the dentist (according to the pin is HAS to be kid's toothpaste)

And I squirted some on the damaged disc

I rubbed it around the disc gently with my fingers until the whole thing was coated

Then I gently rinsed the toothpaste off with warm water and dried it with a lint-free super soft cloth

I still saw the scratches but knew that obviously the function of the toothpaste is to fill the little gaps where the scratches are. So we put the movie in the DVD player with bated breath and....it skipped. And paused. And Poquito Tito lost his mind. (This isn't quite typical, I think he's not feeling well) Weeping, wailing an gnashing of teeth feels like a huge understatement to describe the fit he threw because he couldn't watch Dusty Crophopper. So not only did this pin NOT work, it also ended in a temper tantrum that put Poquito Tito in time out! Oh the humanity! I realllllly wish this pin had worked. I tried it on a Wii game as well with similar non-results. Have you ever tried this toothpaste trick? Did it work for you?

Taylor Hates to Cook

     Hello internets! I, like my cohort Peggy, had many grand intentions for the summer and early fall and all the amazing things I could accomplish and blog about. But then life happened. How rude of it, really. So between finishing my last class for my bachelors degree in July, and switching jobs at the beginning of September, that whole "Homemaker" thing, has been a no-go. My poor husband has had a HUGE chunk of household responsibility thrown at him. He does pretty much all of the cooking lately. Unless of course we go out. (That may or may not happen WAY too often...) I don't come home until about 8 pm these days and if I didn't like to cook before, I hate it now. It's so much WORK! How do you people manage to do this daily? (Really, I'm being serious, HOW?!) So since my partner in crime isn't the *best* cook in the world... I had to come up with something to stop personally funding the restaurant industry around here.
     I've heard so many great stories about freezer crockpot meals. But... I'm a picky eater. I hate onions, guys. I hate them. Even onion salt. I don't like it. I'm sorry, but you CAN taste it, and it still tastes disgusting. (Insert whining here...) So I was really hesitant to try it. But, I did. And I am SO glad. These freezer meals have been life savers on more than one occasion!

This is pre-freezing. I did learn one lesson, don't stack them to freeze! They stick together, and are hard to get apart. Ha!

      I'm fired on the photo taking front. I only got this one of them already in the freezer. I did a total of 6 of them to test the waters, and only one was a flop. The broccoli cheese soup was gross. The texture was all wrong and the spiciness was just odd. I'd say 5/6 isn't too bad for a picky eater though!I tried out my favorite BBQ chicken recipe (showcased previously here...) as a freezer meal too, and it was a win! It tasted just as good, which is good to know! I gathered my recipes from all over the internet, but if you're new to the freezer meal scene, this is a good place to start!

     I've found that the 9-9.5 hours between me leaving for work in the morning and me getting home is too long for most of the recipes though, even just on warm. So I pull one out in the morning, set it in the crock pot for my husband and he dumps it in and turns the crock pot on when he gets home. The thawing time is just about perfect . It works for us. It is so nice to come home to dinner already prepared. It's been amazing. Pinterest, I never should have doubted you! ;)

A million apologies and, of course, a project!

Oh Internets! What grand plans I had to spend the summer doing super fun Pinterest crafts with my kids and blogging up a storm! It was going to be pure magic and my kids would grow up and tell their kids about all the beautiful memories we made..and that didn't happen. Okay, it kind of happened. We had a great summer doing fun stuff and making memories and all that jazz it's just the blogging part that never happened! I had equally high hopes when the kids went back to school..with only Poquito Tito home I imagined that I'd have LOADS of time to craft at my leisure and to share those crafts with you! And that didn't happen either. I have no idea why I'm so busy but I swear I live my life at a constant sprint! But here I am. With a rebellious project (inspired by Pinterest, reinvented by me!). But I digress!
So we are tightening our belts around here. Trying to get out of our living nightmare that is this house we own and move back to the big city. (I've started another blog charting THOSE adventures. If you want to read about my inevitable mis-adventures in budgeting, read here.) Part of this process includes me giving up (SOB!) my debit and credit cards and paying cash for everything. Naturally this is a process that can't be done without first going to Pinterest and looking for cute ideas for the Dave Ramsey envelope system that everyone swears by. This is what I found

So these are super easy--there's a printable template that you just print on pretty paper, cut it out and put it together. But my printer was ALL THE WAY DOWNSTAIRS (I am coveting a wireless printer but alas! Belt tightening.) so I got out this fancy little thing:

This is the We R Memory Makers Envelope Punch Board that I got from Stampin UP! I also busted out my pretty paper. The stuff I hoard because I don't want to "waste" it. This here gizmo has a handy guide on the bottom that tells you what measurements to use based on what size envelope you want. I measured a dollar bill and decided I needed an envelope that was 3.5x6. According to the chart, I cut my paper to 7 7/8 x 7 7/8

Then, using the Envelope Punch Board (heretofore to be referred to as the EPB because I'm lazy) I moved the paper to the 2 3/4 mark, pushed the punch button on top and used the score line to score the paper.

Can you see my little score line?

Then I rotated the paper, lined the newly made score line with that pointy part on the left, punched and scored again.

I did this 3 times and then this is what I had

I folded it up and voila--an envelope template ready to just be folded up. Only, when I folded it I realized my little flaps were too long. Sigh. This is my life, folks.

I trimmed those suckers down and realized I left my adhesive in the craft room. Seriously? I think I've had a stroke and I don't remember. Luckily I had some double-sided tape handy (because, really, who doesn't?)

I taped the flaps with the double-sided tape and stuck em together!

Tada! Now I just need some money (who doesn't?) ..I had a dollar lying around. I hope it's not awkward how I flaunt my wealth.

I made two of these--one for grocery/household purchases and another for personal/entertainment. These are really the only things I can use cash to buy. I thought about my shopping trip today and how nervous I was that my purchases would be more than the $100 I'd planned (nothing to fear--it was 99.27! Bam!) and that I'd have to play the "put it back" game. Nobody wants to play that game. So I decided I needed a divider and I'd keep 2 weeks' worth of money in the envelope so I had some wiggle room. I need wiggle room. So I just cut a piece of paper that matched the other envelope and put it in there. 

Voila. Now, I didn't use the pin I found for this project this time. I have, however, used it in the past so I can vouch that it's a win. Whether I can stick to this envelope system or not remains to be seen. Feel free to check out the other blog to find out if I can make it or not. Do you have any great money-saving tips? Feel free to share them below. I need all the help I can get!!!