DIY, Fall, Kids

Inside Out Halloween

This year our family decided to be the Inside Out characters from the popular Disney/Pixar film. Today I’m sharing some pics of our costumes and a few DIY helps if your family wants to dress up as these characters too 🙂

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DIY, Friday Favorites

Old Frame… New Chalkboard Sign

So this post is half Friday Favorites and half DIY! I love the idea of having a cute chalkboard sign to decorate with each changing season. I don’t love the prices of said cute chalkboard signs. So I went through some old frames I’m not using and decided to make my own for free!
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DIY

The Gift of Babysitting

My sister recently had a birthday and my Mom and Dad gave her and her husband a night out at the movies as a gift. I wanted to offer babysitting their sweet daughter as part of my gift and went online looking for a cute printable coupon to stick in her card to let her know. I looked and found nothing I liked.

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Recipes

Best Yeast Rolls

I don’t usually like to title anything as the “best” anything. Yet, these yeast rolls are not only great tasting but also easy to make and versatile. When I say great tasting I mean there are never left overs… ever. When I say easy to make I mean they take very little time (aside from rising time) with simple ingredients and directions. When I say versatile I mean the dough can be made into a loaf, or used in lots of other recipes calling for bread dough. They are also great frozen!!! Yes I said frozen. I like to make a big batch and once I finish making them into balls before the second rise I freeze them on a baking sheet (not touching). Once frozen I put them in a gallon sized freezer bag and pop them out of the freezer and into the oven anytime I would like to add fresh yeast rolls to our meal. This works really well if you live alone or with just one other person. When Eric and I were first married we were together 3 1/2 years with no children. I would make these and have a freezer bag full so I could grab 4 or 5 out for dinner with no prep! So nice. Also if you have to cook a huge meal for Thanksgiving or something like that these are simple to make ahead and freeze saving lots of prep time on the day of. My mom has been making these rolls for me since I was a small girl and I will continue to make them for many years to come. Continue reading “Best Yeast Rolls”

craft, DIY, Fall

Pumpkin Pie Sugar Scrub

I enjoy giving friends and family DIY gifts that offer a chance to pamper themselves. In the past I’ve shared some of those with you, and now I’m sharing a fun fall treat. I have several people in my life who are super busy this time of year and could use a bit of encouragement to slow down and take care of themselves (me included)! I also love pumpkin pie spice everything. Yep I’m that typical girl in love with all things fall right now.  Continue reading “Pumpkin Pie Sugar Scrub”

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites! 

Hi friends! It’s Fall! I love Fall. I’m sharing with you a new Friday Favorite today. I’m really excited about this one. Seriously, less than 5 minutes after opening this one up from the delivery my husband was making it clear that he “NEEDS” one for Christmas! Talk about awesome. My husband is one of those really hard to buy for guys. Yay for an easy, inexpensive gift idea!

Is the suspense getting to ya?! Well here it is…


The Mighty Mug! Not impressed by a travel mug? Just wait for it… it is spill resistant and tip resistant! No really you can give it a push, bump, firm tap, or knock and it stays in place. I was skeptical when the company reached out to me asking if I would mind reviewing their product. So when it came in the mail and it truly works I was floored. When placed on a flat surface like a table and bumped it stays! Lift it straight up to drink and it comes right up like any cup. No suction involved! Crazy good innovation here. My husband Mr. Skeptic himself was super impressed too (hence the declaration of a must have Christmas gift). Here are a few more pics of my mug:


  
It may or may not be borrowed (stolen) by a jealous coffee addicted hubby in the next week or two. Till then I’m in love and want cups like this for my kiddos!

If you want one of these amazing mugs or just want to go check them out go to: themightymug.com. For how great they are the prices are super reasonable! Mine was only $19.99!

DIY, Domesticity, stay-at-home-mom

No Grate Powdered Laundry Soap

Hello again friends! It’s been a long summer of travel with teens to conventions, camps and more. It has been a blast but I am so ready for fall now! I love the schedule that school brings, being home with my 3 kiddos is my dream come true. Our homeschool begins this Monday so I’ve spent the last week prepping our school room and home for the up coming year. 

Part of this prep was making our laundry soap for the next 6 months. We were running pretty low and it needed to be done. I can’t complain since I only have to do it twice a year! Plus it is really fun, only takes about 20 minutes, and best part… saves us around $120 a year in other store bought laundry soap! 

First of all let me tell you about my many fails at DIY laundry soap! My original attempt was to make the liquid kind where you grate the soap and then boil it with water into a liquid soap (with other stuff too). Well I put in the hours and made a ton of it. We used it for a year. After about 6 months I could see a change in our clothing. Not a good change… our clothes were dingy, losing color and wearing out at an accelerated rate. I thought it was my imagination, but after a year there was no denying it was ruining our clothes. Since it was an attempt to save our family money this was an unacceptable result. We never made it again.

A year or so later I came across a new recipe for a powdered laundry detergent that didn’t ruin clothes. I gave it a try. Just making this DIY laundry powder was a workout! The grating alone reminded me of why I didn’t enjoy this process at all. Still I made it and it worked great! 6 months no change in our clothing’s appearance or integrity of the fabric. Wonderful news until I needed to make a new batch… ugh the grating again. I will admit I bought a jug of Tide to “tide us over” until I felt like spending an hour grating soap again. 

Then I found this (cue angels singing in my head):

  
WHAT?!?! No more grating?!?! SOLD!!! I’ve been using this almost a year now and clothes are doing great, we are saving money, and absolutely no grating! Just mix it all up 🙂 

  
Ingredients:

1 Box Borax 

1 box Arm and Hammer Laundry Booster

2 bottles Downey Unstopables (or a different scent booster you love)

2 boxes Zote Soap (pre-grated) 

2 small containers oxy-clean 

1 box baking soda 

Mix it all up and put it in a cute container (mine is a huge glass jar from Walmart for $7)! I use a trash bag to mix mine up 🙂 it’s hard to stir in the actual jar I use. Here it is all ready to go! I use a 1/2 cup scoop but usually only need to fill it halfway per load. If it’s my son’s t-ball clothes or we did something particularly messy I add a full scoop. 

   
   
Well that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by 🙂 

Johanna

Friday Favorites

Friday Favorites

On Fridays I am going to share something that is a current favorite idea, product, recipe, etc. Today’s favorite is a product that has helped my daughter Bella so much I want to share it with my readers.
My little girl has always had a very tender head. Brushing her hair has been a real struggle. No matter how gentle I try to be she cries and is in a lot of pain. Barely brushing her head results in an all out battle sometimes. As a mom this is very frustrating, because what mom wants to feel like she is causing her daughter pain?

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