We are in a bit of a cold snap this week in our area of Oklahoma. The first of the week was in the 80s and then yesterday we dropped to the 30s and even snow flurries! I don’t mind the changing weather, it is one of my favorite things about living where we do. Yet it does not feel very springy here right now. So I made a new spring wreath for the front door, then I made one for a friend also 
It is starting to feel more like spring! Warmer weather, gardening underway, and my kids and I are loving the extra time in the backyard! I have been freshening up some of our yard decor lately and wanted to share the results. I have some gnomes in my raised herb garden given to me by my gnome loving husband, they are on their third summer though and have seen better days. So I decided to repaint and relacquer them. Then I noticed our plain wooden bird house didn’t weather the winter well. Several pieces of wood had fallen off and the wood was dirty and yucky looking. So I used wood glue to repair it and then painted a fun spring color Read the rest of this entry
We are getting ready to go on vacation to visit my husband’s family in Florida. There is excitement and anticipation aplenty around our house. Also many things to do before we leave. On top of laundry, packing, and cleaning we are also trying to eat up any perishable food we have. Sometimes there is no using up certain items before they expire.
I have eczema, my three kids sadly inherited my eczema also. So itchy dry skin is a constant issue in our home, especially in the winter. I am always looking for products that will help ease the symptoms of our eczema. Especially soaps, I usually only buy body wash or soap that is for sensitive skin or extra moisturizing. This can be expensive! I am a (non-extreme) couponer, so sometimes it is cheaper to buy the moisturizing/sensitive bar instead of body wash. Yet my entire family prefers body wash over slippery bars which turn into little slivers that get wasted and thrown away. So I buy the bars when I can get them cheaper than body wash and use them to make our own body wash! Read the rest of this entry
I love febreeze, but it is a rather expensive product and I have seen many pins on Pinterest for making your own cheaper. The ones I have seen are made with liquid fabric softener, and for various reasons we do not use liquid fabric softener in our home. In an attempt to make my own febreeze cheaper and without liquid fabric softener I have come up with my own that I love and want to share with my great readers!
I have my linens stored in some big beautiful old wooden drawers set into the hall of our home. I love having them there but the old wooden drawers smell just that old and wooden. I go to great lengths to have my laundry smell fresh and clean. I even use an in-wash scent booster that makes my laundry smell great out of the dryer. I fold my sheets and then put them into the drawer for that size sheet, even just a week later I pull them out to put on the bed and they smell like a musty old wooden drawer. Not wanting to change where I store them I began trying to find a solution. I tried scrubbing out the drawers with cleaner, no change.
The girls and I had 2 lbs of strawberries, wanted to make freezer jam and I had no pectin. So I looked around online and read some different recipes, and came up with my own
see the full recipe here
So I had this idea suggested by a reader and I love it. Fill a balloon with play dough and you have a cheap and kid friendly stress ball/toy! I made one last night as a trial to take to the ball field for my almost two year old as a boredom buster. It ended up being a fight between my three little ones over who got to play with it next. Several adults also stole a turn or two Read the rest of this entry
