It's that time of year....

Every year I make about 100 dozen (yes, really) cookies for some of our monthly clients. Next week is that time so I've been busy using my family for taste testing. I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner to share the recipes here, but at least it finally did.

The first recipe we tried was for Lemon Bars from Living Practically's blog.

Now, these are SUPER easy....only two ingredients! A single step (only add water to the mix kind) angel food cake mix and a 15(ish) ounce can of lemon pie filling. Boom! That's it.

 And we liked the way they taste. However, because they really aren't very bar like they won't be included with the boxes of cookies.

I really think it would have been better if I had cooked them a little longer. The bottom didn't cook quite long enough to hold them together when I tried to get them out of the pan. So we just scooped it out with a spoon and ate it that way.

Hey, whatever works!

Now, if you want to make these, go to her blog and read the instructions and follow them. You will find that there are a lot of comments and some of them might scare you away from trying this recipe, but if you follow the directions they're super easy and will work for you. I suspect many of the commenters didn't even bother to actually read the directions.

I would have included a picture but, like I said earlier, I never thought to post the recipe links here until now.

Many more to come.....

Quick Necklace

I put together a quick necklace over the weekend.

I really like it.

Too bad I never remember to wear necklaces.

DIY Coffee Creamer

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it.) We had a great time. The kids turned 14 the day before so we spent that Wednesday celebrating with them. Then everyone was at our house on Thursday and we all ate too much. Mostly on Friday we laid around trying to recover (and eating leftovers.) Then on Saturday Dax and I headed to Las Vegas for several days to attend an accounting continuing education conference......what? if you have to spend your days listening to people talk about accounting, there's got to be something fun to do at night so we don't go completely mad. :0)

We got home late Thursday night and it seems that it's been non-stop business as usual since.

But, some time ago, I found this super simple recipe for homemade coffee creamer at Mrs. Happy Homemaker's blog. Actually, I found it on Pinterest and followed the links to her blog.

It's as simple as these three ingredients.

Milk, sweetened condensed milk, and flavoring.

I used a mason jar and poured in one can of sweetened condensed milk, I refilled the can with regular milk and poured it in the jar, and added some flavoring. I think the original recipe said 2 Tbls. but I'm not really one for exact measurements so I just poured it in until I thought it looked good. Then I put t he lid on and shook it until everything was combined.

You get something that looks like this:

I've made the recipe several times now. I've made the dulce de leche, vanilla, and right now I have a cinnamon vanilla that I just made.

I love how easy it is to make, I usually have all of the ingredients on hand, and I can make the flavors as strong or as weak as I choose. Win, win, win!

Quick and inexpensive gift idea

I saw this some time ago on pinterest but cannot for the life of me find it again to give due credit. I'm sorry to the brilliant person that originally thought of it.


Anyway!!


Dax's mom has been telling me over and over that she needs a new soap dispenser in her kitchen because her other one broke. I bought her the kind that she wants, but decided that before I give it to her, she gets this one first.

I took a picture of Dax and printed it out in color on plain white paper. Then I cut around it and took it to Office Depot and had it printed in color on transparency film.

I cut that out and rolled it up enough to fit inside this bottle of soap, which I peeled all of the labels off of. I really didn't care what scent it was, I just wanted the soap to be clear.

Here's a close up of the picture.

She'll get a big kick out of it.

And really, it only cost a couple of bucks to do. I think it would make a fun gift for anyone, even if the picture isn't this silly. It would be great for grandparents with pictures of the grand kids, or teachers, bachelorette parties,  or just about anybody and you can put any kind of picture in it. (Just remember that you might have to have someone else copy the picture when you take it in. HA!)

A little organization

Slowly but surely I'm going to get my house organized.

I think the key word here is really 'slowly'. But, hey, each little thing is a step in the right direction.

Here's what I did over the weekend.

Well, first of all, I cleaned out my pantry. That, my friend, was no small feat. I have a rather large pantry and it was crammed full of stuff that had no business being in there. It's just roomy and too easy to throw stuff on the extra shelves. There were so many craft things in there that it took me three trips to carry it all out to my craft room. I also went crazy throwing things out and that took another couple of trips out to the trash. In addition, I had a shelf that was nothing but cleaning supplies. I decided those had to go too.

So that gets me to my first organizing project picture.

 This shoe caddy used to hold my girls' hair clips and all of that stuff. But since they're older now and doing their own hair, they've moved all of that stuff into their own bathroom.

Why let a good organization tool go to waste?

I hung it on the back of the door in my laundry room and filled it with those cleaning supplies that I took from my pantry. Woohoo!! This one didn't cost me anything. Score!!

Oh, and I used the 3M removable hooks to hang it so that I didn't have to do any damage to my door. I love those things!!


Next.....

I have two sinks in the master bathroom. However, we only use one sink because the other one always has my flat iron and our blow dryer in it. Ha!

So, I was in Office Depot and bought a magazine holder that is metal to hold the blow dryer and flat iron.

I used more 3M removable hangars to hang it on the side of the bathroom cabinet right by the plug we use.

I LOVE IT!!!

How easy is that? I don't have to mess with the cords knocking things out of the cabinet if I put it in there and my sink is clear. I can't even remember that I can use the sink now because it's been so long.

Anyway, I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have a clean pantry, organized cleaning supplies that are out of sight (because they're on the back of a door that I almost never close), and I can use both sinks in the bathroom (not to mention how much tidier it looks without those things in the sink.) It just makes me giddy!!

I hope it gives you ideas of different ways to use everyday stuff.

Upcycled Clothes

I took a couple of items and made a new shirt.

Here's what I started with:

A purple t-shirt and a pair of long women's socks.

I cut the foot part off of the socks, turned them upside down and sewed the edge inside the sleeve hem.

I also cut  a diamond from an old white t-shirt and attached it to the lower right hand side of the shirt and took some matching orange thread and stitched it across (like the white diamonds on the socks.)

I ended up with this:

(I know it's hard to see the stitching in the picture, but I assure you it's orange and it's there. lol)

Anyway, I'm really happy with it. It turned out really cute and I don't think anyone would actually think it's a pair of socks.

Back to Jewelry

I got a quick little bracelet made.

I got the beads on clearance at Hobby Lobby for around $2 (all of them.)

Dax asked me just the other day why I have to go to Hobby Lobby almost every day. Duh! I made a bracelet for $2 and they add new stuff to the clearance wall all.the.time! Will they every learn?

I also bought some similar beads in a sage green kind of color. I haven't made that bracelet yet, but you know I'll post it here when I do.