Great Garage Sale Day!

I found a listing on craigslist for a school garage sale and it was on my must see list for the weekend. Turns out it was a Jewish Montessori/Waldorf type school so it was right up my alley! The Montessori learning materials were waaayyy too expensive for us this time around but we did find some cool stuff:

The find I am most excited about -- a big basket of Stockmar beeswax crayons for $1. These things are pricey! I posted about their rectangular crayons a while back so we are super excited to try these

A bunch of airtight glass containers, $1 and $2 for the bigger ones. I have been looking for these used EVERYWHERE

Solid wood dragon puzzle. I think it was 75 cents?

3 produce bags. 10 cents a piece. Of course I just bought some from a co-op.

$1.75 for these little jars and holder. It will attach very nicely to P's wooden easel

Also got a few books and a balance/scale set. OH! And a child's size metal shovel for $1. It is going to be GREAT for P's sandpit. Turns out this wasn't the first day of the sale but was the first day they were allowed to advertise? I can only imagine the treasures I would have found if I had known about it earlier! They also had a bunch of child's size furniture etc but we didn't need any :(

And I found this at Kid to Kid along with a bunch of name brand clothes for P. Not the cheapest at $12 but I have been looking for one and it'll be a great learning activity for P

I'm excited!

Plan Toys Co-op

We need help reaching the minimums! We have LOTS of items with open cases that would make great birthday and Christmas presents. If you're interested please leave a comment with a contact email or username or something and I'll send you a link to the thread!

We Have A Clean(er) Pantry!

Still need to organize all the craft supplies in the pantry but here's what I did tonight while P scattered books and couch cushions throughout the house

Before and After

Before and After

 

I just got a bunch of spaghetti sauce mixes from the latest Frontier co-op we ran. I hate them all floating lose so I 'upcycled' this soda carrier to hold them all!

I also managed to get rid of some of the stuff I have been 'hoarding' -- a bunch of things that have been sitting in our pantry for months and months, if not years unused, and we're never going to use them, I just hate to throw things out -- J will take them to work tomorrow. I'm sending all the free bags of rice I got with him too, I'll bet someone can put them to good use!

And last, but not least, I just had to share, we found this nice non-toxic, glass container at a garage sale in Dallas, I got two of them for 50c and I made J iced tea for the first time today. He doesn't like it sweetened so I figured it might be a good way to cut down on his diet coke consumption. Don't tell him I told you that ;)

Make It.... Organized?

Where do I even begin? Oi.

This is my kitchen. It.is.a.mess. Well, it's usually a *bit* cleaner but we just got back from a long weekend out of town so there is stuff everywhere

And my 'cooking corner' aka. spot that gathers all the crap.

And my out of control pantry  Right now it holds food, cleaning supplies and all my recycling and craft supplies. Need to fix this.

My mission for this week is to get my kitchen under control and better organized. Next week you get to see our closet! LOL

$1.50/1 Kiss My Face Product

We love Kiss My Face products! They are all natural and often organic too so they don't contain any nasties. We love the kid's toothpaste for P as it is SLS free. coupons.com has a $1.50 off any Kiss My Face product right now. Our Kroger has their bar soaps on sale for $2.22 so I got a couple for 72 cents today. My Frontier co-op can't even beat that!

Chocolate Coconut Slice

I made these for my Foodie Friday post (sure, I ACTUALLY made them to eat the entire pan...) but we were busy this past weekend! Forgive me!?!

 (sorry about the yellowness, I really need to take my photos when there is some natural light to work with)

These was one of my favorite slices growing up in New Zealand. My husband seems to like it too ;)

Chocolate Coconut Slice Ingredients

125g butter, melted
200g Brown Sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g plain flour -- about a cup
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 cup desiccated coconut -- I prefer to use unsulphured, raw coconut
Extra coconut to decorate 

Chocolate Icing Ingredients

1 cup of confectioner's sugar

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 knob of butter (approx. 10g)

11/2 Tbsp hot water

Slice Directions:

- Preheat oven to 345°F then grease and line a rectangular slice tin (19cm x 29cm) with baking paper.
- Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in a bowl. Sift in flour, baking powder and cocoa and mix well, stir in coconut.
- Spread mixture into tin and bake for approx. 20-25 minutes or until firm.
- Remove from oven and spread with Rich Chocolate Icing while slice is still hot, then sprinkle with extra coconut. Allow to cool before cutting - slice should be slightly chewy.

Icing Directions:
Measure confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder into a bowl, add butter and hot water, mix well until smooth. Icing should spread easily, if it is too thick add a little more hot water to allow it to spread well.

EAT!

Non-toxic Food Storage

I have 25lb of whole wheat flour sitting in a box in my pantry and it has been there for a month or so. I have been having a horrible time trying to think of a way to store it; I won't use plastic food storage buckets because well, they are made of plastic and I had never seen a glass or stainless steel container big enough (and cheap enough) until now. Well, they're not cheap but they are DEFINITELY non-toxic and plastic free!

These are stainless steel 'dressing jars'. They are made of food-grade stainless steel and used by doctor's and hospitals. I initially found them on Amazon but bought them from a medical supply company at wholesale price so they were half the price of the ones on Amazon.

The one on the right is a 8 quart jar and will likely hold around 13lb of that flour. I have two of them. One will go in the freezer for long term storage and the other will stay in the pantry. They are not air-tight though the lid is snug, but I will secure the lid of the freezer one. The one on the left is a 6 quart jar and will be put to good use holding something else I buy in bulk; probably the English Breakfast tea leaves I have coming from my latest Frontier co-op.

So besides these being a great option for bulk food storage they also look gooood. I might even get some more to go on the kitchen counters lol

Oh, and for those wondering; yes, they are new as I could not find them used anywhere, but they are made by a US company! So there :P

Update On Us - And Our Veggies

I've been a little MIA lately. I have been dealing with some anxiety/depression over my health. I had been having some symptoms that made me think that I had another pancreas cyst. Going through that all over again was freaking.me.out. So I was wallowing and hiding away. BUT I had a CT last week and got the results today; besides not having a spleen and missing 1/3 of my pancreas everything is normal! I am just fine besides having a bit of a sluggish thyroid. It's a good thing I told the guy I was missing my spleen... that could have been a surprise lol

So today has been a good day! P and I celebrated being normal by going down to the closest Kid to Kid clothing store. Their 3t selection was SAD but I managed to find a pair of shorts and a shirt for winter - Janie and Jack, one of my favorites, with fire engines, P's favorite! The shorts are a size 4 but his cloth diaper bum means they fit everywhere but in the leg, I will take them up a couple inches and we'll call it good.

We also made a yummy dinner and dessert too! Well, I did, P threw things and screamed while I worked in the kitchen.

After dinner we went outside to check on our vegetables. The ladybugs are really working hard, it's really neat to have a garden full of bugs, they're everywhere, but the leaves are looking good so they're doing their job!

Here is our first zucchini 5 days ago

And here he is now!! Isn't he pretty? When do I pick him? I'd say he's ready but how much bigger could he get if I leave him??

And some of my baby tomatoes -- I think, based on their shape, these are all roma tomatoes?

I also have a bunch of green beans ready for picking (I think?) though I think they need a bit of food, they're not looking very dark green, poor things. Anyone know of any good organic fertilizers? I have compost teas and such but I think they need MORE, demanding little plants.

Make It Monday - Pajamas!

Here are P's newest PJs. The footies are made of natural (because I can't decide if I trust the dye or not?) wool interlock and the shirt is 100% cotton interlock. What I love most about these, besides them being more natural than his normal fleece footies is that they are NOT treated with flame retardant chemicals so I can sleep easy knowing his skin isn't soaking that rubbish up.

They are, obviously, a bit big. Making things is a little more labor intensive than running to the store to get PJs so I made them to last until winter hopefully. He needs footies and longer sleeves because we have the air conditioning running all night living in Texas! I think I am going to work on a tutorial for both pieces but that'll take me a bit.

He LOVES his car pajamas!

THREE Ingredient Icecream

You may remind my ONE Ingredient Icecream post? Well, this one has two. Well, three actually.

Tonight we used 3 bananas; sliced and frozen. A 1/4C or so of milk and a handful of frozen strawberries. It was super yummy, could have used a litttllle honey or something sweet to really finish it

Challenge Update

It has been a week since we started our Thrifty Green Challenge, or maybe it would be more accurate to say; since *I* started.

I am pleased to announce that *I* have not broken the rules. The only new thing I have purchased in the last week was an organic pillow for P from kidbean -- they are going out of business and he needed a pillow anyway so I figured it was good timing. Pillows count as a bed bug containing item so new is allowed.

On Saturday we stopped by one of the local thrift stores to see what we could find. I found a truly hideous 'bronze' lamp that is PERFECT for my sewing room. I could barely see what I was doing before so the extra light was definitely needed. It was $5. J found a child's rocking chair that he's going to try restore and I also got a handful of books for P; some animal encyclopedia type books, a dinosaur book (I'm collecting for when we do 'homeschool' projects) and a couple Dr. Seuss books, bringing our Seuss collection to FIVE books, none duplicates and all used besides one that a friend got us. I am going to remove the first page (they're just illustrations) from most of them and frame them for P's big boy room -- he got a Pottery Barn Dr. Seuss bedding set from his Mimi for his 2nd birthday.

On Sunday we ran into a few issues. J took P out for some manly errand running and came back with a new Shrek DVD. The first DVD in our family movie collection. It was only $7 at Best Buy but it WAS new so he got a talking to for that. I had better start looking for used movies before he buys more!

I tried my hand at making P another pair of denim shorts and they were too small! They took me 5+ hours! ACK! I might just have to start looking for used ones. HA!

My first pair of wool footies turned out very well though. I'll make another pair and a couple matching shirts and we'll have some super cute, 'green' PJ sets for the summer. Here's the practice pair I made out of fleece before I dared cut into my beautiful wool interlock

I am really enjoying the challenge so far. It has motivated me to get off my bum and get back into sewing. I also have more money in my 'new' freezer fund because I can't spend it all online. I am stalking Craigslist for like new chest freezers... now what do I do with the co-ops I have coming up??

FFS - 2 Swaddlebees Pail Liners

I have two large Swaddlebees pail liners up on diaperswappers free-for-shipping (FFS). If you need a couple (well used) pail liners come enter the lottery!