Save Your Polish, Save Your Money!

With four girls (and myself!) in the house - we have lots of spa days - nails/hair/make-up ... you name it!

Friends love to pass on their used items to us, knowing that we will use it.

What can we do with nail polish that is getting clumpy or just not spreading nicely?

Easy: add a few drops of nail polish remover, shake and repeat if necessary. This thins the nail polish and will bring it back to like-new consistency!

Save Space, Save Sanity!

I would never have thought to fold up my plastic grocery bags.  I have always been one that just took one bag, wadded up all the others and shoved them inside.  Folding them (which I am still in the process of doing, is saving me a TON of room!  If you have a Pintrest account you may have already seen this, but the concept is much like folding a Chinese football (if you ever did that in your school days!) and it's REALLY simple.

None of the instructions I looked at shared this, but I fold in half lengthwise one more time to make it a bit more compact.

From this point, you begin at the corner of the end of the bag and fold it across itself. The fold should look like a triangle.  Then fold the uppermost corner down and over the straight edge.  Repeat this process until you have just a small amount of the handles left.   Tuck the ends of the handles into the folds and you're done!  Your very own Chinese football plastic bag.

Credit and step by step instructions
http://alilbird.blogspot.com/2010/09/tidy-tips-bags.html

I dropped the ball.

Oops - I dropped the ball. Tara and I agreed to take every-other Friday to put up a new blog post. Yesterday was my day. I dropped the ball.

But, hey - it was the PERFECT lead-in for the post - since "balls" are exactly what I wanted to chat about today. Specifically: Dryer Balls. I. LOVE. THEM.

These are mine. They were hand-made by a stay-at-home mom.

They are made of felted wool. I throw 8-12 of them into the dryer at a time. They fluff the clothes, reduce static AND I can scent them. With a needle bought from my local farm store, I draw up essential oil and inject it into the center of the ball - so I still get a mild scent, without using all the chemicals - and without the cost of constantly buying fabric softener.

~Jessica

Are You Ready??

As you can easily see, the look of the blog has been updated and starting on Friday of this week there will be  a post a week going up.  Spread the word and be ready to save some moolah!

Coming soon..

Just an update for all of our faithful readers.

Jess is plugging away in nursing school and doing her clinicals at the present time and Tara has been taking care of an injured mother and been going through her courses for pre-med, so needless to say, things have been crazy!

There will be new posts soon, especially with the holidays approaching.  Keep your eyes peeled!!!

"Mixed-Up" Christmas Boxes

We are beginning a countdown to Christmas.

If you have "liked" our Facebook page, there may be more action there than here lately.

I received lots of requests for the homemade mixes, so I'm going to post them here.

 

Cream of Soup/White Sauce Mix (SOS Mix)

This mix is heralded as Gluten free and cheap and easy to make. So I made it. We loved it and wanted to included it in our "Mixed-Up" boxes.

2 cups powdered non-fat dry milk

3/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup instant chicken bouillon

1 Tbsp dried onion flakes

1 tsp Italian seasoning

3-2-1 Cake Mixes

These were fun and super easy to make! We made chocolate, strawberry and confetti - and the girls, of course, grabbed some mugs and taste-tested them (approved!)!

Simply take one box of angel food cake mix and one box of another cake mix and mix. That's it!!!

Bath Tea Soaks

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 cup dry milk

1/2 cup oatmeal

4 Tbsp tea

The title of the recipes link back to the original site where I found them - the directions for use are in the last picture  - I printed these directions right onto the Christmas cards.

~Jessica

Sunday Reflections

"You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy – the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good."
-St. Vincent de Paul

Sunday Reflections

"Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could."
-St. Gregory Nazianzen

Sunday Reflections

"We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials."
-St. Teresa of Avila

Sunday Reflections

"The nation doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are."
-St. Teresia Benedicta