Tackle It Tuesday - Jewelry Storage

In February I'm working through storage & Organization for all appearance related items.  Last week was make up.  This week was jewelery.  I still have my closet, dressers, and nail care to go.
This is all of my jewelry, gathered up from no less than 4 rooms and 8 locations around the house.  I know, I know.  But when there is no good system for storage, things can get out of hand quickly.  I've tried a few systems over the years. One of the large jewelry cabinets hidden behind a full length mirror, craft boxes to sort earrings, regular jewelry boxes...  so far nothing has worked well for me. 

After sorting it all out, getting rid of about half, and putting the items I'd like to save, but know I will not wear right now (gold hoops will come back in favor eventually - but for now, I really only wear the silver ones..) in that white craft box to pack away, I came up with this solution:

The key to the success here is location, location, location.  :-)  All of my jewelry is now stored beside the mirror I use to get ready each day. I tackled this project last Tuesday  - and although it's only been a week - I am in love with this.  Before I would set jewelry on the cabinet right outside this door, all the time.  I'd take off earrings while sitting on the couch and let them on a stand, etc.. but this is so conveniently located that I haven't set jewelry anywhere but away where it belongs for the past week.  Awesome.

I don't wear the pins frequently - but to keep it easy to access them, the burlap is hung on picture hooks.  (Cup hooks would work too) so I can pull the entire thing down, remove the pin I want, and put the entire thing back up there.

The necklaces hang on a $3 tie hanger (belt hanger?  I don't know for sure what it is!) that I removed the hanger from.  I found it at Dollar General.

My earrings are on an old chain that is broken and tarnished.
Then in the little flip down drawer on our medicine cabinet, I added some scrapbook paper to the back, then inspired by the bottom photo of this post, I found mini cupcake liners in my pantry and used them for holding the earrings that will not hang over a chain well.  While in the pantry, I noticed a thread holder - a very old metal one - on my sewing desk, and I stuck that in here to hold rings.

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Photos that inspired me:
I love all the old frames re-purposed to frame jewelry.  

Right now my bracelets are stored in two small baskets hanging on the wall - but I might eventually do this.  

I think I'm in love with the luxury of this much space just for accessories.  I love all the different containers here.

I doubt this would be too practical - but I've always loved metal graters, so it amused me

If you had the space, this would be a pretty cheap and quick option.  

Another take on the frame idea - She has a silver one on her site too, and she shows you the thrift store dog photo she started with.  :-)  I love that she used a kitchen towel from the Dollar Store for her backing material!  http://www.320sycamoreblog.com/2012/03/shoe-jewelry-organization.html








Valentines Project - Button Heart on Canvas

Decorating For Valentines Day 2015

 
The inspiration piece came from here:

I had all the materials on hand, but I did buy some extra red buttons, because I didn't want to use up all the red ones in my button collection.  Which sounds silly, but if you have an awesome button collection, you know exactly what I mean.  :-)
It would probably be best to paint the canvas white first, but I was using an old canvas and the black covered what was already on there.  :-)
To evenly space the lines, I covered the top with painters tape, then removed every other strip.

Because it is painters tape, it peeled right off without hurting the paint underneath at all.  
It really made this super quick and simple

Then I used a cut out of a heart and outlined it in glue, to form the heart
On the original she used a red burlap heart behind the buttons - but I didn't have red burlap on hand, and I was ok with some of the background peeking through.





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An Index of My Crafting Posts
https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/p/crafts.html

Tackle It Tuesday - The Medicine (Make Up) Cabinet

I didn't realize until I was done that I never took a before photo.  Just imagine ALL of this stuff, and a whole bunch more, crammed willy nilly in this cabinet.  It took me way too long to find anything, and I ended up throwing out more than half of what was in here.

 

Some scrapbook paper in the back, and a few minutes thinking about what I actually use and how I use it - and this is  much more functional space.  As I type this, it's been over a week, and it's still neat and nice.  

 


Menu Planning

How I Plan Our Menu

1. Set Basic Themes
  • Monday - Sunday leftovers re-purposed.  (Roast for Sunday dinner becomes beef pot pie, or beef vegetable soup.  Roast chicken or turkey becomes pot pie, or chicken/turkey gravy over waffles, etc).  If there are not leftovers to work with, this usually becomes my chicken day.  Some sort of chicken breast recipe.
  • Tuesday - Taco Night
  • Wednesday  - Crock Pot Night (I'm out of the house a lot on Wednesdays with BSF) & salad.  
  • Thursday - Pasta night.  (In football season, this is so our son has pasta the night before the games.  It became a habit over the years that has stuck even out of football season).  
  • Friday - Pizza Night - which is usually homemade calzones.  I buy provolone, mozzarella, sliced ham & pepperoni all in the same aisle at Sam's club, then bring it home and section it all into "portions" for calzones, and freeze it all.  Because Thursday night is pasta night, I can often set some sauce aside Thursday to dip the calzones in on Friday.
  • Saturday - Soup & Sandwiches.  Saturdays are often so chaotic, I like to have a soup on the stove or in the crock pot all day.  
  • Sunday - We have big traditional Sunday dinners here.  The rotation is usually Roast, roast chicken or turkey, pork loin,  lasagna.  The lasagna is served with salad & garlic bread, everything else is mashed potatoes & a veggie, often stuffing & applesauce too. 

These are not set in stone, and change as needed - it's just the basic template I work from.

2. Create Pinterest Boards For Each Theme
As part of of my electronics decluttering project in February, I am trying to find the best way to store my recipes electronically.  I still haven't come up with a good solution.  But for recipes to try, pinterest usually works great!  I have a board for each theme above, where I pin recipes I might want to try for Pasta night, or taco night, etc.
Pinterest Boards:


3. Create a Menu Calendar in Google Calendar
I've tried a variety of apps, notebooks, and pretty gadgets for menu planning..  but google calendar just works best for me.  It's helpful to see our schedule when planning our menu.  This is what January looked like - 
I uncheck the box beside menu so it doesn't show up on our calendar most of the time - except on the widget on my phone that shows my agenda for the day.  (I have two seperate calendar widgets on my phone, on different screens  One screen is a month view of our calendar that takes up an entire screen.  The other is my "daily" screen that has my agenda, my daily to do list (it resets every morning) and short cuts for our grocery list, to do list, and my husbands to do list.)

4. Set Taco Night & Pizza Night as repeating events on google calendar.
     This just saves me from entering them over and over.  They automatically repeat every week

5. Go through the pantry, open the freezer, fill in meals that use ingredients we have on hand
There's so much food in our freezers, and we need to rebuild our savings, so using what I have is a priority right now.

6. Fill in the blank days, using Pinterest Boards for extra inspiration as needed
This is rarely a needed step, this time of year. I'm more likely to try new recipes in the spring and summer, when more produce is fresh and local.  Winter is more of a "clean out the freezer and pantry" time of year for me - but an occasional new recipe is nice.

7. For meals that need prep ahead, set reminders in google calendar.  
If we're having turkey for Sunday dinner, set a reminder to pull it from the freezer a week ahead, Thursday I pull the calzone ingredients out of the freezer to thaw, etc.  Reminders set in google calendar pop up on my phone screen when scheduled.

8. Add ingredients needed to Out Of Millk
My favorite shopping list app.  I can add items on my phone, or on my computer.  https://www.outofmilk.com/

9. Keep ingredients on hand for some basic meals that can be made in minutes on nights that don't go as planned.
  • Hot sausage & pierogies
  • Jars of Ragu sauce, spaghetti, meatballs & frozen ravioli (quick pasta, or meatball subs)
  • Toasted Cheese & Tomato Soup
  • Sausage or bacon for Breakfast for Dinner

#EmptyShelf 2015

Last year John Acuff started an "empty shelf" at the beginning of the year, then filled it with the books he read throughout the year.  Like many others, I loved the idea, but really only read ebooks... so I tried a digital version, here on my blog.  I didn't keep up with it - but I left the post up thinking sometime this year I might go back and finish it.  

For 2015 I'm starting again -  I'll stick to just text links without pics for those books that were not my favorites, that might make it simpler.  

5 Stars - Books I Recommend to Everyone 
    
  
These are all books I couldn't put down - but The Nightingale, The Good Girl, & Wonder have been my favorites so far in 2015.  They are 3 very different books - The Nightingale is historical fiction, about two sisters during WWII in France, and how they survived the war.  Wonder is a young adults novel that is simply a GOOD read.  The Good Girl is a thriller - it's everything The Girl On The Train is hyped up to be, but was not.
4 Stars - Good reads, solid favorites
The Magicians Lie - by Greer McAllister  (Described as Water For Elephants meets the Night Magician - it was very good.)
The Julian Chapter - RJ Palacio(Almost good enough to be a stand alone book without the Wonder book - this was VERY good.)
In The Blood  - Lisa Unger ( A good thriller.  one of those that I didn't love, it even annoyed me at times, but I could not put down)
A Memory Of Violets -Hazel Gaynor  ( More historical fiction, this one about the flower girls of London. VERY good)
Private Vegas - James Patterson (one of the Patterson Series that I enjoy)
Confessions Of A Prayer Slacker - Diane Moody 
Queen Of Hearts - Rhys Bowen (Royal Spyness #8) (One of my favorite series - a cozy mystery)
No Biz Like Showbiz (Lexi Carmichael Mystery #4)
No Test for the Wicked (Lexi Carmichael Mystery #5)by Julie Moffett
A Wedding On Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball  (Charming Series - one of my favorites)
Before Amen - Max Lucado (A great quick read on prayer)


3 Stars - A Good Read, I liked it but not enough to really recommend it
Kissing In Action (Lexi Graves Mysteries #7) by Camilla Chafer
Gator Bait (Miss Fortune Mystery, #5) by Jana Deleon
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Detoxing from Church (Some great sound bites, but not really a good book)

2 Stars - I didn't necessarily hate it, but I was severely disappointed.  (These usually end up being series books that I keep reading, even though they really aren't good anymore)

Throw in the Trowel (A Flower Shop Mystery #15) by Kate Collins
Double Fudge Brownie Murder by Joanne Fluke 
The Best Yes by Lysa Teukherst
Dress Shop Of Dreams - Menna Van Prag (not a horrible book - just not something I enjoyed. )
Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt

1 Star - Ugh.  Yuck.  
Mercy Snow by Tiffany Baker
The Girl On The Train  by Paula Hawkins (I hated Gone Girl too.  For this type of book done WELL, try The Good Girl by Mary Kubica)


Haluska

We first had this at a street festival, when the kids were little - and since then I have seen it served a football game concession stands.  It's so simple to make, and it's really a cheap meal - I usually serve it with hot sausage sandwiches. I do not usually make it look purple, but last night I used purple cabbage and a purple onion, and voila - it's purple.  :-)  Purple is not my favorite color for anything but food.  Purple potatoes, purple string beans, purple tomatoes, purple carrots..  there is something about growing purple food that makes me happy.


This is a typical Haluska Recipe:
1 stick of butter (some websites even say "margarine".  Run from those sites.  )
1 16 oz bag of egg noodles
1/2 an onion, sliced thin
1 small head of cabbage, sliced thin
Salt & pepper to taste
Cook the egg pasta, drain and set aside
Melt the butter in a large skillet or pan, large enough to hold the chopped cabbage.
Saute the cabbage and the onion in the butter until glossy and tender.
 Add salt and pepper.
 Cover and let the cabbage mixture simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes.
Mix the pasta and the cabbage & onion together
Serve - optional, serve with sour cream

How I Make Haluska
1 16 ounce bag egg noodles
1 sweet onion sliced thin
cabbage sliced thin
1 to 1 1/2 cups of butter
chicken broth (maybe a cup?  I just mix a little Tones Chicken base with some water.  Tones is $4.28 a tub at Sam's club, and I use both the beef & chicken a LOT around here)
Salt & Pepper
Put water for the pasta on to boil, slice the onion thin
Put a stick of butter in a skillet to melt on low heat
Start slicing the cabbage
Add the pasta to the water once it is boiling, cook it
Add the onion to the skillet with the butter
Keep slicing cabbage.  I used about 3/4 of a small head of cabbage this time.  Fill the skillet to heaping - it will cook down.
once the onion is cooked, add the cabbage on top of the onion, then add more butter.
Saute for a bit
Add some chicken broth - 1/ a cup or so to start, then put the lid on the skillet and let it cook on a low heat
Drain the noodles
Once the cabbage mixture has cooked down to "clear and translucent", toss with the noodles.
Note - purple cabbage doesn't become quite clear and translucent.  Just cook the cabbage until it is obviously cooked and not crunchy.
Then sometimes I add more melted butter.







Printing Monograms on Burlap

Did you know you can print on burlap, just using your printer?
This is an old post, from 2014, long before I even knew what a Cricut machine was.  But even n w that I own a cricut, this is still a fun project.  

Step By Step Home Made Peppermint Soap

Step By Step Cold Process Rustic Peppermint Soap
(This is a "How I did It" post, but to make soap, you really need to read up on it before making it yourself, and be very, very careful with the lye.  I never have a problem with it, but it can be dangerous.  My favorite book is the simple, pretty, Soap Book by Sandy Maine)

Find a Full List Of Soap Making Supplies & Resources here


You can make pretty white soaps with dyes swirled through, etc, but that's not really my style, and mostly exceeds my attention span.  (Most things do...)  I like rustic looking soaps.  I use herbs and essential oils mostly.  Not because I'm opposed to the fancier soap fragrance oils, but mostly because they have to be ordered online and I don't often plan ahead well enough when it's time to make soap.  Perhaps one year when I'm not knee deep in football season during soap making season.. or maybe some time I'll make soap at a different time of year.  But for now, I usually make soap in September or October.  Which means I intend to make it in September, to give it 3 months to dry before Christmas, but I rarely get to it until October.  :-)

Traditionally I'm in sync.  Soap used to be made from the lard, after fall butchering.  So this is the time of year my ancestors were most likely to be making soap too.  I've tried making soap with lard, but  I can't get past the smell. It is a very, very strong smell.   Crisco works fine.  It's a little more expensive, but I gag just thinking about heating lard to make soap.


The Oils
Note - 
The formula for Crisco has changed since the early 2000s. It now incorporates a fair amount of hydrogenated palm oil, which is good for making soap. If you're using Crisco, be sure to know what kind you are using and and adjust your lye calculator accordingly. Most lye calculators have a setting for "old Crisco" and "new Crisco." If your label lists "hydrogenated palm oil" as one of the ingredients, use the "new Crisco" setting.
I used it here with no problems.

Soap making is a science.  You can not just substitute one thing for another.  You cannot be casual about your measurements.  You need to use the exact measurements of the exact items.  No guessing.   No substituting.  As casual as I am about cooking, I never approach soap making that way.  This is not a cheap hobby, you do not want to waste all of your ingredients by not following the instructions exactly. A postal scale works great for measuring.

This recipe is from the book by Sandy Maine,  Soap Book.  I highly recommend it.  It's a little book, and other than the scents and additives, it's mostly the same recipe over and over, but the instructions at the front are what you should read and understand before making soap.  She explains all the whys, as well as the hows, of soap making, in simple, easy, terms, with photos.

So for this recipe, I'm using these oils:
24 ounces Coconut Oil
38 ounces Crisco (MUST be 100% vegetable oil)
24 Olive Oil (Be sure it is 100% olive oil!)

All of these can now be found at Sam's club.  SO much easier than when I first started making soap!  I bought this olive oil at Wengers, because I was there when I thought of making soap, but I've bought olive oil at Sams' and the prices are comparable.

Cost Breakdown: (From 2014)
Crisco $7.98 for 96 ounces
Coconut Oil $15.98 for 56 ounces
Olive Oil $13.98 for 3 liters, roughly 101 ounces

Although I'm specific in my measurements of the oils, I'm going with loose math for the costs, knowing the prices change regularly anyway.  This is just a rough idea - 
Half a bottle of Coconut Oil $8
Half a can of Crisco $4 (it's not really half, like I said, rough idea here)
1/4 of a bottle of olive oil  $3.50
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Roughly $16 in oils

Some of the other oils I use in soap making are even more costly.  I often use palm oil & shea butter, in different recipes.

The Lye
Do not mess around with lye.  It will burn you severely.  This is not something to work with with small children around.  Notice that I use all pyrex when making soap - it handles the heat very well.  When you add lye to water it heats up VERY fast, and to a very dangerous temperature.  My pyrex bowls have always handled that well.  You cannot use aluminum when making soap - it will mess it up.  Plastic spoons are best, although I've always used wooden or bamboo.

Where to buy Lye:
Lowes or Home Depot - Look in the drain cleaner aisle.  Just be VERY, VERY sure it is 100% lye, and not just a drain cleaner.  I bought a roebic brand there a couple of years back, if you look at the back of the bottle it should say "100% sodium hydroxide".


Cost:
$9.95 for 4lbs (64 ounces)
Roughly $2 for this batch of soap

Notes on the Water:
Hard water does not make good soap.  If your water is hard, it's worth it to buy a bottle of spring water.

Mix The Lye & Water


I put some ice water in my sink, set the bowl of carefully weighed water in the sink, then carefully, very carefully, add the lye to the water.  Stir.  Make sure the water in the bowl was very cold - do not use hot water for this.  Then I let this sit in the sink, stirring occasionally, while I mix the oils.

Mixing the Oils
I thought I would dry melting the oils in the microwave, but I didn't have a bowl large enough - so on the stove it is.  :-)  Heat the oils just enough to melt them all and mix them all thoroughly.  

Then I remove the lye water from the ice water in my sink, add more ice, and place this pan in.

The goal is now to get both the lye and the oils to the same temp, between 95 and 100 degrees.  Use precise thermometer.

Making Soap

Once the oils and the lye are the same temp, mix them together.  Then use a stick blender (you can make soap without a stick blender, but it takes a LOT of stirring..  a stick blender will do the same work in a much more reasonable amount of time)

Once the soap reaches "trace", add your scents and colors.  Trace is, essentially, when you can pull the stick blender out, move it back and forth over the top so that the mixture on the blender drops down and it lays on top of the mixture in lines rather than dropping in and disappearing. There should be a "trace" when the liquid from the stick blender fell.

I put the peppermint leaves in my ninja and pulverized them, before I started mixing oils and lye.  This mixture, and a 2 ounce bottle of peppermint essential oil, went in once the soap hit trace.  I used half the amount of essential oil the recipe called for.  

Cost:
Dried Peppermint (On hand, I don't know what it would cost now)
Peppermint Essential Oil $6.50

In The Mold
I'm fortunate to have a variety of nice wooden molds made by my husband and my mom.  You can use rubbermaid containers though - these aren't necessary.  But they are nice.  The ends screw off of these, so the soap can be removed easily.  Sometimes I line them with wet muslin, sometimes I just coat them in crisco.  This time I used crisco.


Check out this silicone lined mold on amazon
Silicone molds are wonderful for soap making, the soap pops right out



This is the color when I poured it into the mold
A few hours later, you can get a better idea of the final color, around the edges of the mold here.  It usually gets really dark a few hours after it's in the mold, then it starts to lighten as it dries.

Always let soap in the mold 24 hours.  Longer is ok.  I left this one in about 36 hours.  The white here is from the crisco I lined the mold with - it wipes right off.  (This is after I unscrewed the ends from the mold)

I huge bar of soap, ready to be cut.

When I cut soap, any of the rough edges that I cut off, I roll into balls, like on the far left here.

This will sit for weeks - preferably 3 months, but in this case, until a few weeks before Christmas, when I label it and wrap it for gifts.  You could use it right now, but it's soft and the bars would disintegrate fast.  Letting it sit will allow it to fully harden, so that the bars last.

Final Rough Cost:
$6.50 Essential Oil
$2 Lye
$16 Oils
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$24.50 for this batch of soap

That's not including the basic items that you'll need to get started - like a postal scale, a good thermometer, molds, etc..  but once you have those items, that's a good rough idea of the costs for making it right now.  A lot depends on the additives you use - those essential oils and fragrances are a big part of the cost of soap making.

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An Index Of My Soapmaking Posts