Easy Fall Tree

I had some branches in my backyard from a tree we took down forever ago and wanted to spray paint them black for some Halloween decor. But I was talking with Chelsea one day about it and we got to thinking that it might be better to paint the branches white so that we could use them for other holidays as well. 

The first thing I wanted to make was a Fall Thankful Tree. I've seen these around a couple places and think they are just so pretty. So I gathered up my branches and gave them a couple coats of white spray paint. I used the cheap white paint and it took an entire can to do two coats. I didn't cover the branches completely because I still wanted them to have a bit of a rustic feel. 

Once they were dry I found an old vase I had sitting around and I arranged the branches how I wanted them and tied a bow on it. Then I used a circle hole punch to cut out some circles from scrapbook paper and hung them on the tree. I'm planing to do a family night soon about gratitude and have the kids all write down things they are thankful for on the back of the circles.  

I really love how it turned out and think it goes nicely with my fall decor. I just love decorating for this time of year!!!

Frugal Friday: Jack-O-Lantern Shape Matching

My kids LOVE Team Umizoomi so I was excited to see these cute printable pumpkins on nickjr.com.  I printed the pumpkins on orange paper and the shapes I printed on white but then colored them with a marker.  I laminated everything, cut them out, added magnets and now the kids have a fun, reusable game that's perfect for Halloween and learning their shapes! 





We used dollar store cookie sheets for ours but they would also be fun to play on the refrigerator.  You don't even have to use magnets if you don't want. 

 

-marie

Frugal Friday: Halloween Frames

This is a super easy and really cheap project (my favorite kind!). 

I started out with some ready-to-finish wood frames from Michael's which are only $1.  I spray painted them black, roughed up the edges a bit with sandpaper and then added some embellishments.  That's it!

It's a cute addition to my Halloween decor and it's so fun to display my kids' costumes from the previous year. 

-marie

Frugal Friday: Vanilla Lime Sugar Scrub

I think the only thing I hate about Summer is shaving my legs.  I have coarse, dark hair that grows really fast so I have to shave just about daily.  I also get really bad razor burn AND ingrown hairs, so yeah, I pretty much hate shaving.

I came across this pin on Pinterest for a sugar scrub and decided to give it a try.  I am pleased to report that it worked great!  It really did leave my legs feeling soft & silky and I didn't end up with razor burn.  The scrub also helped loosen up any ingrown hairs, too.  (Now if only I could find a frugal product for making my hair grow slower!)

DIY Sugar Scrub
adapted from Gluten Free Navy Wife

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• juice of a lime (or lemon or orange)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients together until well combined.

To use, draw a warm bath and soak for 5 minutes.  Shave legs using your preferred method. Then use a palm full of the sugar scrub to scrub your legs; rinse.   Now shave your legs again using the residue from the scrub.  You'll need to rinse the razor often!  Use the scrub a second time and rinse. Pat your legs dry with a towel and use your favorite lotion.

I also use this in the shower and when I'm in a hurry I skip the first shaving and just shave once with the scrub.  Still works great!

-marie

Frugal Friday- Drain Cleaner

We recently moved back to Utah and we are currently renting a home. Our shower is older and gets clogged up all the time. It drives me nuts! I got tired of buying expensive drain cleaner from the store, so I set out to find a home recipe to try out and I found this one here. I gave it a try and it worked pretty well. I had to do this twice to get it to really work but as I said our shower is older and could probably use a professional cleaning, so this should work great for just your average clog. 

Pour a 1/2 cup of baking soda down the drain, then pour half a cup of vinegar down. Place a wet face cloth over it and let it sit for 5 minutes and then wash it down with hot water.

-chelz

Frugal Friday: DIY Magnetic Play Sets

My kids love to play with little magnetic play sets but they can be quite pricey.  I found this idea on Pinterest to make your own so I thought I'd give it a try.  I bought these  Avery Magnet Sheets from Amazon. I've never used the magnetic paper before but was very pleased with how easy it was to use.

First, I found a couple of places with images to use.  I found these Toy Story ones and these Angry Birds ones.  (I actually used Photoshop to put all the Toy Story images on one sheet and same with the Angry Birds.)  For the other sets I just used google to find some images I knew my kids would like and pasted them into a word document.  Then I printed each set and cut them out.  The magnetic paper is really thin so it was very easy to cut them out, just a little tedious. :) 

I've made 4 sets so far: Nick Jr characters, Toy Story 3, Angry Birds & Superheroes.  (I still haven't figured out what to do on my last sheet!) You can download the documents I used HERE. 

We took these on a long car ride and my kids loved playing with them.  Some dollar store cookies sheets worked perfectly with them.  It was only $8 for pack of 5 magnetic sheets, so that made each set just under $2. Can't beat that!

 




Linked to: Craft-O-Maniac, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, Becolorful, C.R.A.F.T.  Sugar & Spice, Fine Craft Guild, Classy Clutter, Michelle Paige,

Frugal Friday- Gardening Tip

I have been working on getting my garden all together and everything planted. I will post some pictures in a future post once it is all finished. My parents used to garden and just love working in the yard and they passed that love onto me. When I am out working in my garden I feel connected to my parents. I miss them.

 Anyways on to the gardening tip... to help keep creepy crawlies out of your plants so, that they do not eat them keep your eggshells, crush them, and then mix them into your soil. The eggshells scratch their bodies as they try to crawl in the soil and they obviously don't like that, so it keeps them away from your plants!

-Buff-

Frugal Friday: Dollar Store Car Oranizer

We recently took a long road trip with the kids and I found so many great ideas on Pinterest to keep the kids happy on the way.  One thing I loved was this idea to use a dollar store organizer on the back of the car seat to put the kids stuff in.  It worked perfectly for my kids!  They started out with some books, treats, markers, etc and as the trip went on they got some new things to keep them busy that they stored in this, too.  (I'll share some of my other travel ideas next week!)  Usually the kids' stuff ends up all over the car when we travel, but this helped so much to keep things in one place. 

Frugal Friday- Homemade Hash Browns

At our house, we love to eat breakfast for dinner! Who doesn't? A lot of times we make our own hash browns and it ends up being a lot cheaper than buying them from the frozen section at the store.

What you will need:

- about 4 raw potatoes
- chopped up onions (as much or as little as you would like)
- 2 eggs (to hold the ingredients together)

Mix it all together in a bowl, and then spoon into the pan to cook. You could also do this on a griddle. 

This is a fast and easy way to make your own hash browns at home. Hope your family enjoys this as much as ours does!

-Buff-

Frugal Friday - Veggie Alfredo Pizza

Every Friday in our home is pizza/movie night. I'm constantly on the lookout for new pizza recipes so we have a variety of pizzas to eat each week.  One of our favorite take-out pizzas is the Veggie Gourmet at Round Table Pizza.  This is our version of it.  Much cheaper but sooooo delicious!

Ingredients:

• pizza dough - premade or homemade
• olive oil
• garlic salt
• shredded mozzarella cheese
• alfredo sauce (I cut THIS recipe in half and use half on the pizza and half as dipping sauce)
•  red onions, sliced
• green onions, sliced
• baby spinach, chopped
• zuchinni, sliced and quartered
• artichoke hearts, chopped
• sliced mushrooms (we like the baby portabella)
• tomatoes, chopped
• minced garlic

Preheat the oven to 425°.  Roll out dough onto a greased pizza pan and brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt.  Using a fork poke holes in the dough and then bake for 7 minutes.  Spread on the alfredo sauce, cheese and toppings and bake an additional 7 minutes until crust is golden and cheese is melted.  

***A great tip for any leftover toppings is to use them in omelets the next morning.  So good!***

Frugal Friday- Restaurant Pasta at Home

I LOVE pasta! I was in the mood for a good pasta the other night and went on a search to find a good one I could make at home. I found this one from Chaos in the Kitchen on Pinterest and gave it a try. 

I made a few changes to the recipe. I didn't have any shrimp on hand so I substituted chicken. I also did not have fresh parsley, basil, or garlic cloves. So, i used parsley and basil seasoning that I had in my spice rack. For the garlic, I had a thing of minced garlic in my fridge and used that.

This was a fast recipe to make and it was a HUGE success! Everybody loved it! Next time I definitely want to try it with shrimp.

This was a great restaurant style pasta that I could make at home with pretty much the things I already had on hand. This is a great way to go to save money instead of going out for a good pasta! This pasta cost me under $5 to make!

-chelz

Frugal Friday: Extend the life of your mascara

I saw this tip on Pinterest a while ago and since my current mascara was in that nasty, clumpy, should-have-thrown-it-out-three-days-ago stage, I decided to give this a try.  I just put a couple drops of my contact solution (regular eye drops would work, too) in the mascara bottle and pumped the wand a few times to stir it up.  I swear it was like magic - my mascara was liquid smooth again!  By using this method a couple more times I was able to get 2 more weeks out of that bottle of mascara and never had any more clumps.  Just think of all that mascara I almost wasted.  :P

-marie

Frugal Friday- St. Patty's Wire Clover

I found some extra wire that my husband had just sitting around in the garage and figured I could put it to some good use. This is what I came up with. I took a heart shaped cookie cutter and traced it 3 times onto some cardboard. I then took the wire and just outlined the cardboard so that it would take on the shape. It was super cheap and easy to make and I used it for our wreath...

-Buff-

Frugal Friday: St. Patrick's Banner & Wreath

I don't really have any St. Patrick's Day decor so I decided to make some. These two projects were super quick & easy.

I really loved this book page banner I found through Pinterest and decided to make a similar one.  I didn't have any books I wanted to cut up so I picked one up at the dollar store, along with some glitter foam shamrocks.  I also used some string & green cardstock I had on hand.

First you'll want to cut the cardstock & book pages into banners.  I cut the cardstock 4x6" and the book pages slightly smaller, then just cut a notch at the bottom.  You'll want the book page to be slightly shorter on top so that the green can fold over the string.  Then just staple or glue the banners on and glue on the shamrocks.  Super simple, right?!

For the wreath I used a twig wreath & green garland from the dollar store.  I just wrapped the garland around the wreath and glued some leftover shamrocks on it.  I made a pennant from scrap paper and jute.  Again, super easy!

-marie

Linked to: The Shabby Nest, Thrifty 101, Tales from Bloggeritaville, The Frugal Girls

Frugal Friday- St. Patrick's Day Wreath

Remember our Valentine's Wreath? I just took the Valentine's decor off of it and replaced it with some cute green accents, so that it is ready for St. Patrick's day!





















The clovers are made from glitter foam craft sheets. I made the wire clover and will show you how in a future post!

-Buff-

Linked to:

Frugal Friday- Acne Solution

This may be hard to believe, but this acne solution is totally FREE!  Drink a mug of hot water every morning on an empty stomach. REALLY, that's all it is. Once you drink it, you can eat what you normally would for breakfast.


Fill a mug with water and put it in the microwave for about 1 minute. Drink it as hot as you can stand it, you may need to let it cool for a minute.

 I used to have breakouts really bad as a teenager, but Buff got me started on this and my skin cleared up! It will take about a week for your skin to really clear up.

Even if you don't have breakouts this helps brighten your complexion.

Why it works... you get pimples from many things and among them is dirt and bacteria not only from the outside but from inside our body. The hot water kills any bugs that you may have in you.

We also use this trick when we are sick and we recover so much faster when we do. About a month ago a stomach bug was going around and we were able to recover within two days instead of a week like everyone else.


The best part.....IT'S FREE! So, from here on out make it a part of your morning routine to drink a mug of hot water every morning on an empty stomach!


Give it a try and let us know how it works for you!




-chelz & Buff

Frugal Friday- Buttermilk

We like to make buttermilk pancakes at our house like we did here with our Chocolate Cake Batter Pancakes. It is really cheap and easy to make homemade buttermilk. Here is the recipe....

Milk                                  
Vinegar




I use apple cider vinegar, but it really doesn't matter what kind you use. Put desired amount of milk as the recipe for what you are making calls for and then mix in the vinegar 1tsp at a time until the milk starts to thicken.

-Buff-

*A good ratio is about 1 cup milk to 1 tablespoon vinegar.  You can also use lemon juice instead of vinegar.

Frugal Friday: Valentine's Plate

I saw these white square plates at Dollar Tree and picked up a couple.  I love using plates for decorating and I liked that these ones were square (and of course I couldn't pass up something for just a buck!).

For this plate I used my favorite Cricut Cartridge: Create a Critter.  This cartridge has so many cute animals and fun little images and accessories that I've used on lots of projects.

I just cut everything out on vinyl and applied it to the plate. (You could also cut it out on cardstock and mod podge it to a plate.)

Here are the sizes I cut:

• branch - 4/12 inches
• small bird - 2 inches
• large bird - 2 1/2 inches (flipped image)
• heart - 2 inches

It was a super quick and easy project, my favorite kind! I was excited to use some turquoise vinyl on this.  Turquoise is my favorite color and now that I have a little on this plate I think I'm going to incorporate some more turquoise into my Valentine's decor.

Linked to: