How fun: Recipes!

Are you ready for some fun Recipes to try for this 4th of July Weekend!  Now below are a few that I have stumbled across recently and can't wait to try.


Make your own gummi bears

I Love Gummi Bears- always have. and now use my kids as an excuse to buy them lol. can't wait to see how these turn out.

Firework Floats and popcorn

Can you say YUMMY You basically had me wanting to try this when I saw the pop rocks!! I mean how does that not SCREAM fireworks!! This looks so good.

1 hour of freezer cooking

I love Crystal's recipes and am So inspired by her freezer cooking in an hour series. I love the idea of freezer cooking, but find it hard to make time to do it while working FT and trying to spend quality time with my family. Her 1 hour Freezer cooking posts makes it seem much more doable.

Tres Leches recipe

How absolutely yummy does this sound. Looks light and rich, and might make it to hubbys celebration meal this week. This is Not helping my diet plans.

Which of these sound good to you? do you have any other recipes you love?



I am linking up to a few blog hops:



Joining with these other Great Bloggers;

Homemade soda recipes

So the hubby and I are trying to lose weight by eating healthier options. He is having a hard time adjusting to drinking only water even if it has fresh squeezed juice added to it. He likes his soda, and we have been looking for some healthier lower sugar options. We do make an italian soda using soda water or some type of sparkling water that doesn't have sugar or sodium added to it. Then add sugar free flavored syrup to it, and that is a quick easy refreshing drink.

I also found the following recipes for make your own soda. Have any of you ever tried making soda yourself?? How did it turn out? Was it easy, hard??? any recipes to share?

Almost 'Coke'

List of Ingredients

2 T Sugar
1 t Vanilla
1/4 t Cinnamon
1 t Bottled Lime Juice
1 C Club Soda

Recipe

Mix well and add lots of ice.
This will look different than regular cola, but tastes similar.
You can vary the lime juice and sugar amounts to suit your taste.
Makes 1 Cup

Fresh Ginger Ale Recipe

Yield: 12 Servings

2 c Coarsely chopped, peeled Fresh ginger
3 Strips lemon peel, pith removed
1 1/2 c Sugar
3 Quarts chilled club soda
Ice cubes
Put ginger, lemon peel, and 4 cups of water into a 4quart pan. Bring to the boil, and continue boiling, without lid, for about 10 minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups sugar and boil for about 15 more minutes. Liquid should have reduced to about 3 cups. Pour through a wire seive and discard the peel and ginger. Cool the syrup, cover and chill for at least an hour.

To serve, pour 1/4 cup of the syrup into a tall glass and add 1 cup of the club soda. Add ice and more soft drink syrup if needed.

Al's Root Beer

Yield: 1 Batch

1 ts Dry yeast
1/2 c ;Water, warm
2 c Sugar, granulated
1 qt ;Water, hot
4 ts Rootbeer extract
Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Dissolve sugar in 1 quart hot water. Mix together dissolved yeast, sugar and root beer extract in gallon jar. Fill jar with warm water and stir until all ingredients are well combined. Cover jar. Set in warm sun for four hours. It will be ready to drink the next day. Chill soft drink before serving.

Have you heard of Homesav?


This post had a good write up and info on it, click to see what I mean. Basically Homesav has Daily deals on home décor, furniture and giftware – up to 70% off




New brands almost every day

Great savings for members on high quality products

Furniture, linen, kitchenware, lamps and more

Free membership and delivery to your doorstep

A few items that I found that I loved are below. Some are pretty pricey, but I love the ideas- like these colorful pillows, and the color combos.....


 
 
How cute is this egg chair. Love the orange.
 
MMMMM, Love this rug.
 

 
 
Be sure to check out the link above yourself. What do you like?
 

Project ideas that I LOVE

Camera Strap cover

How cute is this camera strap, easy way to use up those fabric scraps. I have a scrap I can't wait to use to make this!!!


Toy gun holster posted at Living with Punks (don't you love that blog name) , but made by The Boy Trifecta, Has some great boy ideas.


Another way to use this would be those Nerf guns. I have a friend who's son has a ton of the nerf guns- he would LOVE this.....

Getting My daugher involved in projects

One of the recent finds at a new local thrift store scored me this cute basket for just $1. It is metal and wicker and has cute daisy print on it. I knew it would be cute for my daugters room, but could not figure out why something with a cute flower print would be in such a dull lifeless color.

So I showed it to my girlie girl 4 year old Spencer and off we went to Walmart to pick out a paint color.

I was not the least bit surprised that she picked out this watermelon pink color. So we both put on our pink gloves, learned to shake the can together and let her spray the first bit. She does not have quite enough strength to do much, but the point was to allow her the feeling of participating and accomplishing a craft that she can use. I hope this is a skill that she can take on to repurpose- or Upcycle, as the new term is, various things in a frugal manner throughout life. I hope to teach her to use her imagination and be creative in so many different parts of her life.

Well here is a quick picture we took while the paint was drying. My helper would tell me where I missed spots and help hold up the handle so I could get the bottom. We had so much fun together and it was less than 5 minutes of actual work on this project. The rest was waiting for it to dry. This basket just looks so much happier and alive. So summery!

Here is a close up of it when it was dry. See how sweet those little daisy flowers look in a bright glossy pink. This basket is really unrecognizeable. Quick projects like this spur me on to bigger projects. I love having instant gratification of an end result that spray paint gives me.

Quick Remodel

I have found myself quickly falling in love with the modern farmhouse style decor I have been seeing around lately. I just can't help it. It may have to do with the fact we live on a mini-farm, or that we drink from mason jars. Or maybe its the simplicity of it that I love since I have 2 small children now. Anyway. When we built our house my decorating style was a work in progress and based on both of our mother's decor tastes- especially since most of the items came from either of them, or handed down, or a few that hubby and I picked out together. A modge podge collection at best. Thanks to blogworld I have found several pictures and tips of re-purposing already owned items or thrifted items to fit your home better. So Modern Farmhouse is more my style now!! Woohoo! Step one- deciding my style complete. Well my fireplace is a stacked rock in earthtone colors. I had black pillar candle holders from a home party, a wood clock that was a wedding present, and miscellaneous items that we put out of the kids reach as our mantle decor. What? Admit it- you have the omg- takethatouttayourmouth- your gonna-choke items on your mantle too!

So I have found a few items that I just loved along the way that I used to re-decorate this central, easy to see part of my Living Room. First I used this scale I purchased at a thrift store.

Don't ya just love that scale.....ahhhh.

Oh and then there is this lantern candle holder that my MIL found at Goodwill for me! She has finally figured out my tastes YAY

 Then my $3 frame from another thrift store that was a gold metallic color, I sprayed it an ocean blue color.

 

And I took those black pillar candle holders and spray painted them white, then sanded the edges so some of the black could peek through. And I ended up with This look!

Can you understand how much I LOVE this! I forgot to mention the little rooster I found for $1 at a thrift store. It was multicolored- like a rooster, and I sprayed it the same blue as the frame. I think my mantle needed this pop of color. It is so peaceful and calming. I just look at it now and enjoy the 10 mins of work it took me.

Quick Change Baby Outfit!

I found this cute little linen romper outfit. I have heard it called a johnjohn outfit because of John Kennedy Jr wearing it. It was 1.50 at a thrift store and this pale yellow color and had some stains. I don't really Love yellow on kids, especially boys, but since I was looking to make a Baptism outfit for my son, this was sorta the style I wanted to go with. I figured worse case I could use it as a pattern. Then I realized I could use it for more than that. After my trial run using Rit dye on dirty spit clothes with success, I felt confident I could try dying this outfit a royal blue. Again worse case I could just use it as a pattern.

So I used the Royal Blue color Rit dye and followed the directions on the packet for using the bucket method. I wanted to make this DARK, as far from this yellow as possible. So I dissolved my dye in 2c of hot water, and ran hot water into my bucket, then added the pre-dissolved dye. I wet the outfit in the sink to make sure it was good and wet and grabbed a chopstick to use to stir with. What, its free and can be thrown away...

I let it sit overnight in the dye bath to get it super dark. Then I drained the water out, and started running warm water, then slowly cooler water in to rinse it until clear water came out of the outfit. Then washed in the baby detergent. I ended up with this result:

I could Not be happier with how it turned out. Very boyish, clean look. Some cute socks or white shoes would look perfect with this. I am not using it as his Baptism outfit though as due to the linen texture of the cloth, it looks a little like denim, not exactly what I had in mind for his Baptism lol, not that anyone would care but me. So what do you think? Have you tried dying anything? How did it turn out? Success or Big Fail?


I am linking this up, so go check out these great blogs:

I am getting to enjoy my kids this week because I am working 2nd shift, and am lucky enough that hubby just switched to 2nd shift week too, so we are getting lots of good family time in. So, I am so thankful to my blog friends for kicking in a Guest Post so I can enjoy my time. Thank you So much Stephanie, who I met through blog hops and other social media blogsites, for jumping in and helping me out!

________________________________________________________________________________
Hi!  This is Stephanie from Always Just A Mom and I'm hear today to share with you all my mother's "Quick Fruit Cobbler"!  I like to make a homemade bake good at least once a week (the reason I'm on a constant diet!)  My two little guys and the hubs LOVE, LOVE, LOVE dessert and I like to make them.  Sometimes I don't have a lot of time and still want to get something yummy out...so I'm going to hand over my secret dessert weapon.
This is the easiest dessert you will make and works throughout the year...it's my go-to dessert because I usually have EVERYTHING I need to throw this together!!!
What you need:
     *2 Tbsp. Butter
     *2 cups fruit (I'm using blackberries because I got a great deal and they just looked soooo  yummy.)
     *1 1/4 cup flour
     *1 tsp. baking powder
     *1 cup sugar
     *1 cup milk
8x8 pan bake for 40-50 minutes at 325F
9x 13 pan (DOUBLE) bake for 60-70 minutes at 325F
1.  Melt butter in a pan while over is preheating.  Once it is melted add fruit (if there is liquid with your fruit...drain it.  I had my blackberries in the freezer and so when they melted there was a little liquid.)

 Mix your flour, baking powder and sugar.  Then add your milk.  Stir.  You will have a batter that looks like this:

Pour over your fruit.

Put this in the oven!

You will want to bake it until golden brown and bubbly.  I served this with whipped topping but when I make it with apples...I'm all about the vanilla ice cream!
Thanks for letting me share this awesome, super easy, delicious cobbler with you today!  Have a great summer and I hope to see you over at Always Just A Mom!

HT Super Doubles~

 

 

 

I cannot tell you how excited I am to announce Harris Teeter is having super doubles starting 6/22 and ending 6/28.

As soon as I get the ad I will post it for y'all!

 

~Thanks to Desirae at  extremesavingswithdivadesirae

My thrift finds this week!

I am a pretty thrifty gal. I Love the hunt. Love taking the time to find exactly what I want. The trouble lately has been finding time when I don't have the kids. That's tough. But I got a little time to myself this week between getting off work early, and running at my lunch to a few local sites. Including one new one- which I didn't write down the name, oh well.


So I can't wait to share my finds:

Goodwill find $2.00

wrought iron sconces $1 ea

Metal baskets $2

Large frame $3 from SERF

 Now these next few I did not purchase, but I saw them at the new thrift store.

childs chair seen at new thrift in Mt Holly $4

 neat bookshelf $9

nice dining chair $7.50

small shutters $2

 love this blue bottle.1.50

 i could see this mirror in white $5

Love these chairs. They were neat patterns, newly reupholstered. asking $99 for the dot one with ottoman/table and 79.99 for the swirly one.

Father's day card and gift ideas

I just fell in LOVE with the printables I just found. I will be doing one of these as a Father's day card from my kids to their dad, and maybe for the GPs as well.

Download this Free, here

Click here to download this one!

Or Check out this one!

OH and i LOVE this Idea:

found at www.holidaysnobs.blogspot.com

and finally THIS great card you can find at Tiny Prints


Do you have other ideas for Father's day crafts?

You Like Me, and other things....

Yes I am glad to have so many people Like me :-). I am much more popular here than I was in High school. I grabbed this from a new blog I am following. There are some great tips for other bloggers, new bloggers, etc.




Join with other Mom bloggers to find other friends on the blog hop above. I found great tutorials on:
How to Remove Borders from Around the Images you Post

How to setup an RSS Feed Account with Feedburner

How to Remove the Blogger Navigation Bar

Number Your Blogger Comments

How to Add a Copy Code Box for your Button (Video)

How to Add Cute Custom Fonts to Your Blogger Post, Header and Sidebar Titles

How to Make Links and Buttons Open in a New Window

How to Schedule when your New Post will show on Your Blog

Align and Adjust the Sizes of your Buttons and Images

My take on switching web browsers from Internet Explorer to Google Chrome




You can also have her do any of it for you, or create custom blog design packages.

Also a few blog freebies can be found on her site.  Hope you find it as exciting as I did.

Father's Day ideas

Father's Day

I just got the Michael's preview ad, and think that this ducktape project would be awesome for my hubby, who is a Welder!!

You can get the wood ready to finish frames 3/$2 and the duck tape prints to complete this project quick and easy.

There are some other great craft deals at Michael's that I will be hitting up, so I wanted to share with you.

4/$1 Open Stock paper

 

 

2-PACK VALUE CANVAS 12" x 12

40% Off, NEW SIZE
Reg. $7.99
other 2pk canvas on sale also

  

Other Deals!

BASKETS 40% off

ENTIRE STOCK, OVER 100 STYLES

Includes Ashland™ Natural Storage.

50% off HOME COLLECTION & PORTRAIT COLLECTION WALL FRAMES

$0.99 

ASHLAND™ SUNSET FIELDS™ & FALL STEMS

item of the week
Reg. $1.99 - $3.99
Ashland™ Fall Stems also on sale 30% Off