What do you do when you can’t eat anything and you’re craving something cold?  Make Slurpees!

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  Here’s the recipe I used.

2 cups club soda
3 cups crushed ice
1 packet Grape Kool-Aid
1/2 cup sugar

Blend and then put in the freezer for about 30 minutes. It tastes just like a Slurpee, and you don’t even need to leave the house. 

Happy blending and happy healing!

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Happy embroidering!

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We put it to good use.  We bought a whole, cooked, ham at Costco.  Then we spent about 10 minutes with the meat slicer.

We like our ham thinly sliced, so we chose the thinnest cut without shaving the meat.

We ended up with 3 plates of sliced ham!  Do you have any idea how many weeks of lunch meat that is for us?

We used the Food Saver to separate the meat into week size portions.

These bags went right into the freezer and we can take them out as needed.  I love a good money saving tip, especially when it involves a few fun kitchen appliances!

Thanks for the tip, Grandma!

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The roof even comes off so little girls can easily reach in and pet their ponies.

This is a beautiful, heavy, wooden barn by Breyer. I found one on e-bay for $200. We paid…. drum roll please…. $15!

My daughter has been having SO much fun playing with her new barn! Oh, how I love garage sales!

Here are a few linky parties I like to participate in.

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When I was at Goodwill, the same day, I spotted a hand knit, very thick, wool sweater. I didn’t know how it would work, being so thick, but the price was right. I brought it home, washed it in some lavender detergent, and went through the same process for making my sweater into a pillow.

Here’s the sweater.

 

And here’s the pillow!

 

I’m in love! I love the texture, the neutral colors, and the warmth it adds to any room.

 

 

I really should have scoured every thrift store around before posting this. Mareen and Diane are probably at Goodwill right now!

Happy thrifting!

Check out these parties I like to link up to.

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Start with any old sweater. Mine was $3.99 from the Goodwill. I washed it in lavender soap when I got home, so now it smells good too. My pillow form was 14″x14″. Pillow forms go 50% off at JoAnn Fabrics, so keep an eye out for a good sale, or use a coupon.

 

I cut the arms off my sweater so it would be easier to work with. I’m also going to use the sleeves for another project, so I wanted to set them aside. When I make pillows with decorator fabric, I leave a 1/4″ around the edge for a seam allowance, cutting a 14 1/2″ inch square. I wasn’t sure how much of a seam allowance I’d need for this project or if the sewing would be bulky. I started big, with 2 15″ squares, just to make sure the sweater wasn’t too tight and pulling. No one looks good in a sweater that’s too tight and pulling. This sweater wasn’t bulky, so I ended up cutting two 14″ squares. I still used a 1/4″ seam allowance. The sweater stretched just enough and wasn’t saggy. Lesson learned: thin knit sweaters don’t need much seam allowance because they stretch.

 

I pinned the right sides together and sewed all the way around, leaving about a 5 inch hole. After flipping the sweater right side out, I stuffed the pillow form inside and hand stitched the bottom.

 

 

Hello, Pottery Barn Knock Off Pillow!

Ok, neighbors, if you want to give it a try and don’t have a sewing machine you are welcome to bring your sweater and pillow form over and I’ll walk you through it. It takes no more than 10 minutes. (No, you can’t use that liquid-stitching-glue stuff… you know who you are.)

Happy Sewing!

Check out these parties I like to link up to.

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Don’t you just LOVE this sweater pillow from Pottery Barn? Every time I see this, I just want to grab a book and cozy up on the couch. Unfortunately, the $39 price tag is not in this teacher’s budget. So, I decided to try my hand at making it myself. A $3.99 sweater from the Goodwill, a 50% off pillow form from JoAnn, and about 5 minutes of my time. That’s all it took.

 

 

Let’s take another look at the comparison:

I think I’d better run out to Goodwill before I post this. All of my neighbors will rush out and buy all of the good sweaters!

Happy sewing!

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We spent quite a bit of time discussing layout, how to reconfigure the hallway, and design from the outside. I even started collecting pictures so I’d have some ideas to show an architect someday.

Everyone wants a bonus room, right? You have the family room connected to the kitchen (where you spend most of your time), a formal living room for entertaining, and a bonus room for movies, video games, kid clutter, craft projects. I had images of Pottery Barn Kids dancing in my head.

One day I was watching HGTV and my friend Genevieve (okay she doesn’t really know me, but I feel like she’s my BFF because we spend so much time together) told me that I really don’t need any more space than I already have.

She said that so many people think they need to build an addition, when really they just need to learn to use the space they have. Hmmmm, I was thinking she may be on to something. We went from a 1,500 square foot house to a 2,600 square foot house and I thought I needed more room??? Time to rethink.

This aha moment happened last summer around the same time as the CHAIR incident. That’s when I decided to let go of the formal living room. I sold the formal lamps and replaced the “look but don’t touch pillows” with kid friendly pillows. I did some rearranging and was able to fit a cabinet with the kids’ games and puzzles in the space. One year later, I find that it’s a favorite spot to curl up and read books in the evening. There are usually an assortment of princess puzzles on the floor. The open space is perfect when you need to build yourself a fortress as protection from Nerf gun bullets. Mom doesn’t yell, “Not in the living room!” Now the living room is a room to live in, messes and all.

The idea of building a bonus room has now been crossed off the To Do list. Just like that we have saved ourselves $50,000, a lot of headaches, and a ton of stress. We are perfectly content to love what we have, live in all of our space, and enjoy our home just the way it is.

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That brought me to my next small change. We now use cloth napkins instead of paper. We’ll keep paper napkins on hand for things like school lunches. Right now my kids think the cloth napkins are pretty fancy. I just hope I can keep up on the laundry so this small change will be a keeper.

 

 

One more small change is real plates instead of paper. Usually when I’m feeding a boat load of kids, I’ll break out my paper products from Costco. Paper is quick and easy, but real plates mean less in the garbage and less out of my pocket. (By the way, this picture looks like I’m feeding my kids a ton of processed brownish orange food, but there really are fresh peaches and carrot sticks on their plates too.)

 

What small changes have you made recently?

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I love my new food saver. We bought it at Costco. I was tired of throwing out meat and bread because it had freezer burn. My first project was to divide out the parmesan cheese from Costco and freeze it in 3 cup portions.

That lead to taking everything out of the freezer and food saving anything and everything. I’m thinking my food saver will be a money saver, since there won’t be as much waste. We’ll see.

I can’t wait until berry season!

Here are a few parties I like to participate in.

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