It's Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day!

I thought this little guy was so cute and funny. Plus I think it's a great list.  So enjoy!

Rust-eze

Remember my Mater look alike muffin tin?

Before I tossed it out, I spent some time trying a few rust removal home remedies.

I searched the Internet and found four different methods I wanted to try.

 Coke's Verdict:  I had always heard that coke could take rust off a nail.  This was the perfect chance to play my own version of Mythbusters. I poured some coke into one of the muffin tins then let it sit over night.
Unfortunately (or fortunately if your a Coke drinker) I think this myth is busted.  It took a little bit of the rust off but not a whole lot. It might have taken off more rust if I had left it longer, but I really don't want a rusty Coke filled muffin tin in my kitchen.

Hydrogen peroxide mixed with cream of tartar Verdict: I mixed the two together until I had a thick paste.  Then using a toothbrush I scrubbed the mixture onto the rust.  Bubkiss!  All it did was lighten the color of the rust.

Lemon juice mixed with borax Verdict: I mixed the two together until I had a thick paste then I scrubbed the mixture into the rust using a toothbrush. (In case you missed it, that was the exact same method I did with the cream of tartar) It did slightly better then the previous method, but still not much. 


















Lemon Juice's Verdict: I poured some lemon juice in one of the tins then left it over night.  It didnt' get everything, but it made a significant difference.

This of course got me curious as to how lemon juice would work on other things.  So I dug around in my kitchen some more and found a knife and can opener that were looking a bit sad.  I let them sit in a cup of lemon juice for about an hour and was pleasantly surprised  at the results.

If all else fails then just do what I did, put your item out of it's misery by tossing it and just go buy a new one.

 

Homemade Swiffer Duster

About a month ago I did a post about a homemade dusting spray.  My final line in that post was,
"It also works well with my homemade Swiffer, but that will have to wait for another post, to be continued...."

I had planned on continuing that post a week later.  You can see how well that panned out.  I've done enough posts now that they are all starting to jumble together and I'm forgetting what I've posted about.

So without further ado, here is the highly anticipated (or quickly forgotten) review for my homemade Swiffer

Homemade Swiffer or another Homemade Swiffer (they are both good tutorials)
You will need:
A sewing machine
A Swiffer wand
Fabric (microfiber and fleece seem to be the most popular when I looked at all the tutorials)
Scissors

Directions:
Cut 2 pieces of microfiber cloth into 4 inch by 6 inch pieces.  Cut 2  pieces of microfiber cloth into 8 inch by 8 inch pieces.  Place one of the small pieces of cloth on top of each of the larger pieces.  Sew each small piece to the top of each large piece. Right down the center.  Place the two large cloths together with the two small pieces facing out.  Fold the small piece of cloth to the side. (both the small pieces to the same side) Sew the large pieces together leaving a  1 & 1/4 X 6 inch slot for the handle to slide into. Cut the cloth into fringe around the Swiffer holder

Before I get into my quick step by step process, let me warn you that my sewing skills are awful.  Want proof? I bet you can't guess what this is suppose to be...

Give up? A pair of boxers that I made in 9th grade.  Yes, I really do have awesome sewing skills.

So with that in mind, you aren't allowed to mock my sewing job on the Swiffer I made..... ok you really are, but only as long as I can join in on the mocking.

I decided to do fleece, since that is what I had on hand.  I grabbed a Swiffer and used that to measure my first piece. 

I then cut out three more pieces, each one smaller then the next.  Apparently my cutting skills are just as awesome as my sewing skills. 

 I placed my Swiffer handle on the fabric and traced it then I sewed on the lines.

Here is where my really fantastic sewing skills came in handy.  By hand, I sewed the top two pieces together and the bottom two pieces together so it would be easy to put the Swiffer handle in. 

 I then cut all around the edge and voila!  It's ready to go.

 The Verdict: If you have used a Swiffer then you know that there is something on it.  Something that helps the dust get collected then stay put. So it wasn't a big surprise to me when this homemade version only succeeded in pushing the dust around.  I ran around and dusted my family room and when I was done the homemade Swiffer looked brand new.  There wasn't a speck of dust on it.  The dust was currently floating around in the air trying to find another victim to land on.

However, when I spray it with my homemade dusting spray, it works pretty good.  Not as good as a store bought Swiffer, but the money I save by having a reusable duster is worth it. 

 Maybe I can use that saved money for sewing lessons.

Body Scrub

The very first DIY I did was a body scrub.  I loved it so much that 5 years later I am still making my own body scrub and I frequently give it away as a gift.

While there are many pros to homemade body scrub, the main reason I love it is because I can customize it a thousand different ways. 

Homemade Body Scrub
You will need:
Some sort of abrasive substance such as salt, sugar or Epsom salt
Some sort of oil such as olive, canola, almond etc. 

Directions:
Mix two parts of your abrasive substance to 1 part oil.  If you use an oil that is hard, like coconut, melt it before adding the abrasive substance.  Don't get it to hot or your salt or sugar will dissolve.

You don't have to be exact with the measurements, but you want to have a consistency similar to this.

 The oil will settle to the top, but you can give it a quick mix with your finger before you use it. 

Customize:
Now comes the fun part. You can add food coloring, essential oils, dried flowers etc.  Throw in anything you want to make it look cute and smell good.  The soap making section in craft stores usually have great scents and dried plants that work great with body scrubs.

The Verdict: I have made countless batches of this stuff and I have found that sugar and coconut oil are the best combination.  Epsom salt can be a bit rough and table salt is very unforgiving if you have any sort of open wounds.  Coconut oil isn't as greasy as other oils and it absorbs into skin pretty quickly. 
 The bad thing about coconut oil is that it will re harden.  I keep my scrub in a sealed container in my shower and by the time I'm ready to use it, it's usually soft enough that I can grab a handful. 

This is a citrus blend I made and gave away to several people.  I got a lot of complements on this one, unfortunately I can't remember how I made it.  I just sort of threw stuff together without paying attention. I need to be more organized. 

Homemade Almond Coconut Candy Bars

When it comes to chocolate I am pretty much a stereotypical female. I am a ''put down the chocolate and no one will get hurt'' kind of gal.

My favorite candy bar of all time is Almond Joy.  It's not so much the coconuty and almond goodness, but the nostalgia I have for it.  The only time I ever had Almond Joys growing up was when my dad went hunting.  He would buy them on his trips and when he came back there was always left overs in his cooler.

This brings us to our post for the day

Almond Coconut Candy Bars
yield: 30-40 candy bars, depending on how you cut them 
7 ounces sweetened condensed milk (half a standard 14-oz can)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups powdered sugar
14 ounces (about 2-1/2 cups) shredded coconut
3/4 cup whole roasted almonds
1 lb chopped dark chocolate, or chocolate candy coating

Directions: Line a 9x13-inch pan with aluminum foil and spraying the foil with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, the vanilla, and the salt. Stir them together until they're well-mixed. If your room is fairly cold and the condensed milk is thick and hard to stir, microwave it for 10-15 seconds, just so that it loosens up and is easier to work with. Next add the powdered sugar to the bowl with condensed milk, and stir it in.  It may be difficult to incorporate it all at first, but keep stirring and you should soon have a thick, smooth mixture like this.  Now for the star ingredient: the coconut. Add it all at once and mix it with the condensed milk until there are no dry patches remaining. This can be done with a mixer, but I like using a wooden spoon. Your final coconut mixture should be sticky but fairly stiff. If it's runny add a bit more coconut, and if it's very dry, add a bit more condensed milk. Coconut can have different moisture levels depending on its age and how it was stored, so there's some trial and error involved in getting a texture you love.  Scrape the coconut into the prepared pan. Wet your palms and press the coconut into a thin, even layer. You can control how thick you want the coconut layer to be. I prefer my coconut to be about 1/2-inch thick, so I don't cover the entire pan--I use about 3/4 of it and leave the rest of the pan empty.  Use a knife or a pizza wheel to lightly mark the top of the coconut into bars. This is optional, but it keeps your candy bars the same size and helps immensely in almond placement. Take your almonds and press them into the sticky coconut. I use 2 per bar, to stay traditional, but you can use more or less, to taste. Once all the almonds are placed, refrigerate your pan to firm up the coconut, for about an hour. Once the coconut is firm enough to cut, take it out of the refrigerator. Lift the candy from the pan using the foil as handles. Use a large sharp knife to cut your bars along the lines you marked earlier. Place your chopped chocolate or candy coating in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it in 30-second increments. Stir it after every 30 seconds so that it doesn't overheat. When it's melted and smooth, use forks or dipping tools to dunk each candy bar in the chocolate, then tap it against the lip of the bowl to remove any excess chocolate. Place the bars on a foil-lined baking sheet to set while you dip the rest. Refrigerate the tray to set the chocolate for about 10 minutes.

Did you catch all that?  If your feeling overwhelmed by the directions then I recommend you go to the link.  The directions are broken down with pictures for an easier to read, step by step process.

I mixed the first four ingredients until it was pretty thick and hard to stir.  I then added the coconut until I had a consistency that was wet and sticky, but not to dry.  When I squished it together it stayed together.

I pressed it all into my pan until I had a nice rectanglee. Then using a pizza cutter I made the lines on top of the coconut mix so I could have a reference for my almonds.  I decided to make smaller bite size bars so I just did one almond for each bar.

After it sat in the fridge lone enough, I took them out and cut all the way through the bars.  It was pretty easy to do so, but some of them seemed a bit flaky and dry. 

Then it was time to dip them in the melted chocolate.  I chose to do milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate. I'm not a big fan of dark chocolate, and Almond Joys are made of milk chocolate.   As I started to dip them I quickly got frustrated because they were falling apart big time. The Almonds were sliding all over the place and bits of coconut kept falling into my chocolate. 

Eventually there were so many coconut flakes in the chocolate that my bars went from looking like this.....

To this. Even though they looked horrible, I still had hopes that they would taste great. 

The Verdict: I never realized how much Almond Joys don't taste like coconut.  I bought an Almond Joy so I could compare the two and I was really surprised at how much they differed in coconut taste.  The homemade version has a sort of fresh taste to it.  Like the coconut was fresh.

The homemade one is EXTREMELY sweet.  Clearly I should have stuck with the dark chocolate like the original poster had in the recipe.  

Orange Peel Vinegar Cleaner

 It's funny how great minds think alike.  In the course of a week I had quite a few people ask me if I had ever done the Orange Peel Vinegar cleaner. One person had 2 great questions regarding it 1)does it attract fruit flies? 2) do things get sticky from the orange peels?

I had never tried it before, so of course I had to fix that and test the stuff.  I found many, many, many different websites about it but they all pretty much said the same thing.

Orange Peel Vinegar Cleaner
You will need:
Orange peel (or any citrus peels)
Glass jar with a lid
Vinegar

Directions:
Place all the peels into your jar until the jar is full.  Pour in enough vinegar to cover the peels.  Seal the jar and let it sit for at least 2 weeks.  Pour the liquid into a spray bottle and use as an all-purpose cleaner.  (Some people choose to use it as a concentrate and add 2 parts of water to 1 part of vinegar)

I loaded up on oranges and thoroughly enjoyed them while saving all the peels. It took about 2.5 oranges to get enough peels to fill a regular mason jar.

I poured in the vinegar, sealed it, and put it in my pantry.

 

The Verdict: 2 weeks later I opened the jar, shoved my nose in and breathed deep (and prayed i wasn't about to singe all my nose hairs from a vinegar overload) It smelt great.  There was a hint of vinegar, but it mostly smelled like orange juice.  Unfortunately the smell didn't last.  The orange scent faded over the next week or so and it eventually smelled like the vinegar was rotting. The smell is pretty strong and likes to linger.

I never noticed any fruit flies being attracted to it, but it's also been pretty cold and the fruit flies are few and far between.

It is a bit sticky when wet, but fortunately the sticky fades as it dries. 

All that being said, it's a great cleaner.  Picture this: a little girl sitting at the table downing a blueberry and spinach breakfast shake.  For no apparent reason she decides to throw the rest onto the ground. For many reasons, I didn't get to that spill for 3 days.  It just sat there, happily baking in the sun.  I knew it was going to be a beast to clean when I finally got to it, so I sprayed the citrus vinegar onto it, let it sit a few minutes then went over it with a wet wag.  It came right up, no scrubbing.  Booyah!!!

I was pretty sad that the orange smell didn't stay, so I decided to try lemon peels to see how the smell differed.

When the two weeks was up I opened the jar, shoved my nose in and breathed deep.... HELLO! My sinuses were very clear at that point. There was no lemon smell at all. But the way it cleans and the sticky texture is exactly the same as the orange peels.

So even though it stinks and is a bit sticky, it cleans great and I plan on saving all my citrus peels to make more.

Woodworking

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love DIY stuff, and I'm not picky about what I try.  If it can be homemade, I'll try it at least once. 

Two years ago a friend of mine introduced me to http://ana-white.com/ (it's the same website as knock-off wood if you have heard of that one) and I have fallen in love with building my own things.  I'm not very good at it, but I love it.  Some people have suggested that I add some of my items to this blog but I don't think it would be very practical to give a verdict to a blueprint that I messed up.

But what I will do is give praises to this website and tell you why I love it. If you have ever been interested in woodwork then this website is a fantastic place to start.  You can find  countless plans for building anything from a simple picture frame to a bunk bed.  You can search plans by categories, room, skill level, price etc.  And if you have zero knowledge of tools and working with wood, there are a lot of great tutorial videos and forums that will answer any questions you have.

"But wait, I don't have any tools" you might say.  Well guess what my friend, all you really need is a power drill.  Lowe's and Home Depot will cut the wood for you and if you bat your eyes at the workers, they will even pick out the wood for you and haul it around the store.  Ok, they will do that without the flirting,  all you have to say is "help please" and usually they are ready to jump in.  One time a worker spent 20 minutes telling me all he knew about drill bits.

Having a sander is nice because it cuts down a lot of work and time, but you can sand everything by hand.  I have used a jigsaw on many occasions but most of the time it wasn't necessary, usually it was because I messed something up and had to adjust things. 

Before you start any building project I suggest that you read everything about that project.  Even the comments.  Even though it takes time, and sometimes there are more then 100 comments I have always found something helpful by reading them. 

Let me show you the projects I have done so you can see the great variety the website has.  Again, they aren't great, but when I started all I knew was how to use a power drill.

This library cart was my very first build.   The wheels have since broken off (Trying to wheel it with 50lbs of books on it wasn't a  good idea) but it has held up great.  It holds a lot of books and it's right at the kids level

This end table/mini TV stand was a little bit more challenging because of the drawer.  You can see that it's a bit crooked.  This project also taught me how unforgiving stain is.  It highlights any scratches you have and I don't care what the bottle says, there is no such thing as stainable wood filler. 

Dog food bowl.

The kids have a cute little table I bought on craigsilst a few years ago.  One of the chairs broke, so I made another one using scrap wood I had. 

My sons platform bed.  

 A play kitchen for the kids

My daughters bed, and the source of my concussion.  That 5 foot, 50lbs headboard was leaning against the wall and I was crouched below it messing with the railings.  I'm not sure what happened, but that thing came down and got me in the back of the head.  I don't think i was fully knocked out but I have no memory of crawling out from under it and laying down next to it.  Apparently when working with wood I should start wearing a helmet.  It will look good with my oh so attractive safety glasses.