Homemade Creamer and other Completed Craftiness

Where've I been?  Honestly... I'm cheating on my blog.  Pinterest has become something almost consuming it it's hold over me.  I pin all the time.  I pin the bath, I pin when I'm cooking, I pin when I'm cleaning, I pin while watching TV or movies, and I even manage to pin while having conversations with my husband.  I think I have a problem.

Pinterest is so much less work than a blog, you see.  You just make boards and stuff things there in categories that may only make sense to you.  I've started so many recipe boards and money saving type boards (like DIYs for cleaning supplies, furniture, sewing, and hygiene).  If I try something and like it, I move it to a different board, so it's easy for me to find again.  If I don't like it, I move it to yet another board, so I know not to use it anymore.  It's pure awesome.  A few of my pinned projects have made it over here, but I think I've been extraordinarily neglectful of my blog over the past several months.

While not a pinterest project, I have added a few more diaper covers to my stash while I was away.  My husband is so tickled with these things.  He brings me chocolate every time I finish one... I am not sure if that is incentive to make more, or if I should stop before I gain even more weight with this pregnancy escapade than I already have.

This has also been completed while I was away.  The sideboard is made of scavenged pallets.  I love it all unfinished and rough around the edges, especially with my cast iron hanging above from a likewise rough shelf/pot rack.  B made them both, and he seems to think it's a bit odd that I just love that they're not quite true, that there are knot holes in them, and that there aren't two boards of the same color among them.  It makes me happy.  He wants things to look nice when he makes them, and even though the materials are really primarily responsible for the finished look, he gets frustrated when he can't make crooked boards make straight lines.  He gets over it because I just love it!

These are my answer to canisters.  I spent $24 total on a case each of half gallon and quart jars.  I'd love to have some gallon jars for flour and sugar, but the half gallon ones work out fine.  Wide mouth jars have a big enough mouth to easily get a 1/4 c measuring cup in there, and I am pretty sure a 1/3 c measuring cup would make it, too.  I can scoop out what I need without having to lug out the big buckets underneath where I store the bulk of my bulk dry goods.  The shipping tags were only $3.99 for a package of 100 from Office Depot, and the jars came from Ace Hardware's website, since it seems to be impossible to find half gallon jars in stores when it's not canning season.  I think they're super cute, and they fit right in with my primitive/rustic storage.  I also love the fact that they're not $20 each like the glass canisters at the store.  The lids and rings won't last forever, but those will be cheap and easy to replace when the time comes.  I'm happy with them.

These were a pinterest project.  Dollar Tree baskets ($1 each), and cotton print fabric on sale 30% off at Hobby Lobby.  I spent about $12 on the whole project (not counting the glue sticks, since I already had those), and ended up with 4 fabric covered bins for the price of one (or two if you're lucky) from Wal-Mart. I hot glued some cute little painted wood cut outs onto the sides.  There's a motorcycle, a tiger, and a guitar. Somehow when I was in Hobby Lobby, I forgot I had 4 baskets and only got 3 embellishments, but it works out since one of the baskets really isn't very visible in it's place on the bottom shelf of the changing table.

This actually might deserve an entry to itself.  It is another pinterest project that I have altered and tweaked over the past few weeks until I have almost exactly what I want.  It's liquid French Vanilla coffee creamer, and it's way cheaper than $4 per bottle.  The original recipe I found on pinterest called for a can of sweetened condensed milk, milk, and real vanilla.  Yes, it honestly did taste better than mine.  Mine, however, can be made for even cheaper, and all the ingredients can be bought in bulk and used for plenty of other stuff (like cream of anything soup mix, homemade bisquick, and homemade instant oatmeal packets, for a few).
I use:
1.5 c powdered milk,
1 c sugar
2.5 c hot water
5 T imitation vanilla flavoring.

Truth be told, real vanilla would make a big difference in flavor.  It's more intense and really shows off with the coffee, but it's also a LOT more expensive.  That big bottle of imitation vanilla was just a few dollars at Sam's.  Real vanilla is several dollars for a tiny little bottle that you'd use up in a single batch and dramatically increase the cost of making this, thereby defeating the purpose.  Put it all together, stir it up good, and put it in a container of some sort.  I reused a liquid creamer container I'd saved.  It only take a few minutes to mix up, and the dry ingredients have a really long shelf life.  I have no idea how long it keeps once mixed.  Ours never lasts more than a week with both of us having a couple cups of coffee each morning.

Recipe Holder - pinterest inspired

Please ignore the clutter in the background.  I'm getting ready to make dishwashing detergent, and got side-tracked.  My brain is so completely squirrelly lately that I am amazed I ever finish anything I start.

Have any of you seen this pin?

A friend of mine pinned it, and I repinned it thinking it a fabulous idea, if fabulously tacky.  It's been floating around in the back of my head for at least a few days.  I was trying to think of ways to make the hanger not look like a hanger.  I know, it's perfectly functional, but... I don't like it.  I also don't like my recipes getting icky.

I used to keep my recipes in one of those static page photo albums.  The clear laminate protects the recipe from kitchen effluvium, and they're easy to rearrange.  The only aggravation I have with those is you can't easily flip the recipe over.  I like to jot notes about alterations, substitutions, additions, and their results on the back of a recipe.  Sometimes the recipe is just too long to fit on the front of a card.  Sometimes I have two related recipes on one card (i.e. I have a recipe for two cupcakes, and on the back of the card I've got recipes for two servings of icing).  So, the static pages are a mixed blessing.  Something else I tried was just a binder with clear page protectors in it.  But that doesn't let me put more than one recipe in a pocket, unless there's nothing written on the back of either one.  Same problem.  So I like the concept of the hanger... just not the execution.

B likes to make things with wood.  He usually has scraps leftover.  I am a pack rat, and he's not always great about picking up his leftovers, so we have quite a lot of odd scraps of wood floating around in the storage room.  They also lay in the yard for a while before my inner pack rat wins out over my desire for him to clean up his own messes, so some of the bits of wood are pretty weathered.  I like weathered!

One of the scraps was only about 1 x 1.5 x 8 inches.  It seemed perfect.  A bit of twine, a sharpie, some picture hanging do-dads, and a couple clothes pins looked about like all I would need.  It turned out I used a stapler, too.  I wish my handwriting was neater.

 The picture do-dads went in the top, and I tied a couple nooses through them to string the twine.  B had a great idea to keep the recipe from flopping - attach the clothes pins to the back of the board somehow.  Well, I wanted them to be mobile, because not all my recipes are the same size/width, so we stapled the twine to the sides to create a tight line across the center back.

 Bird "helped" me tie the nooses for the string I intended to hang it by.  There's enough slack were I can easily flip the board over to read the back of the card as well.

So far it seems the best place to hang it is from the little cabinets above the stove hood.  With the cabinet door open, it hangs at eye level, and doesn't interfere with me getting stuff out for cooking, because the only things in that particular cabinet are the mosterously large insulated drink jugs B and the Pup got from 7-11 last year.

I thought about painting it, or using stencils to make the writing a bit neater.  But I decided that i would probably forget about it out drying and never finish it.  Really, my brain is that bad these days!  Besides, it fits right in with my bag drying line and my laundry sign, which are neither one very frilly, just twine, boards, and in the case of the laundry sign, a bit of paint.

Washer/Dryer safe changing mat/organizer - Pinterest Inspired

I pin.  Ok, not just pin, Pin... as in Pinterest.  I am not a pinaholic, yet, but it is a fabulous place to share ideas.  A lot of those ideas never manifest into anything concrete.  I know a few people who actually use what they find on there, but most people just seem to use it as a place to save pictures of things they might like, maybe, one day... if they ever get away from their laptops/computers/cell phones.

I actually use mine occasionally.  

For instance, I found this changing mat that folds up into a clutch.  I thought it was a really good idea, but as I started reading it, I liked her pattern less and less.  Elastic, batting, vinyl. bias tape, buttons...  I mean, I know how to use/apply those things, but boy they're tedious!  And vinyl can't go in the dryer.  I line dried my laundry all last summer, and intend to resume the practice next summer.  I'm being a slacker this year, because frankly toting hampers of wet laundry up a flight of stairs and hanging it out/taking it in in 110 degree weather just sounds really off-putting this summer, especially since going up and down the stairs has become more and more interesting as my balance has changed.  And yes, I realize that the vinyl is supposed to preclude washing much since you can wipe it off, but what about the fabric of the pockets?  It is entirely possible it'll get messy in ways that will spread.  Vinyl would not only keep it out of the dryer, but it could trap moisture and lead to mildew and mold down in there.  

I know, I'm probably reading way too much into this, but these were my thought processes as I'm reading the pattern.  I also really didn't want to fool with bias tape.  Honestly, I think that was my biggest motivation. And it's small!  What kid doesn't squirm?  If I wanted a small changing pad, I'd use the one that came with the diaper bag.  No offense meant to the wonderful people who gave me the diaper bag, and the little changing pad will be fine for those early days when he's small and can't get far.  But later when he starts squirming, and trying to roll over?  I know that it's good for kids to come in contact with a variety of germs so they can build up a strong immune system, but I don't fancy my midget wallowing around in the potential icky of someone else's child's poo and pee (thinking of public changing stations here).  So I think I'd like a bit more coverage, thanks.  

Another factor that came into play was the fact that I'd made some crib bumpers (yes, I know they're not recommended, don't start) that were of a really fun fabric for visual stimulation.  They were also light weight enough to be breathed through.  Unfortunately the lightness made them unable to stay put.  They drooped and sagged in the middle when I put them in the crib, so I decided to find another use for them, rather than just toss them in the trash.  

The pad ended up being about 20 in wide by about 24 inches long (give or take).  There are two layers of fleece inside for padding.  I sewed the two short bumpers together long ways with an overcast stitch so it would lay flat with no lumpy seam in the middle.  The pockets are about 1/3 the length of the pad.  

It easily holds a few diapers + inserts in one pocket, and the other pocket has room for wipes, a diaper cover, a full size container of powder, and a tube of butt cream.

 It folds up neatly, ties with a couple of ribbons, and fits in the smallest of the two diaper bags that came with my set.

Here it is in the bigger diaper bag along with a fleecy blanket, a receiving blanket, and a full change of clothes (underneath the rest).  

It'll completely eliminate the game of dig for the diapers.  Everyone's played that game where you end up dumping the entire contents of the diaper bag out just to find the tube of cream at the very, very bottom, or the wipes weren't even in there, but had somehow made it to a side pocket.  The outer fabric is duck cloth, which does give some water resistance, though not entirely water proof.  All its bits are machine washer and dryer safe, except maybe the ribbon, but they come right out of the loops they're tied through.  

B thinks it's pretty nifty, and I think that it saved me from wasting a couple yards of rather expensive fabric.  Now to figure out what to do with the pieces I cut for the long bumpers.  I'm thinking a few diaper covers, since I still haven't made any larger sized ones.