New shorts for the little guy

So I have a pair of jeans that give me a saggy butt. Quite the saggy butt too. So I finally cut the legs off and turned them into summer work shorts. That way I am not tempted to wear them in public.

The leg fabric was perfectly good denim though. To use it up I made James a pair of little boy shorts. I whipped them out in about 20 minutes by cutting off a strip  of fabric from an old T-shirt for a soft waistband and adding 1/2 inch elastic. For the shape I just traced a pair of his other pants to get the crotch right. They are a little snug because (not thinking) I used a pair of 12 month pants, and though he is a little on the lean side he is still almost 17 months old and growing.

They are still pretty darn cute on him.

Live and Love

Jean Rag Quilt

So for the first time in a long time I have actually finished a quilt. I love to quilt but it is very time consuming.

I started this rag jean quilt when I was pregnant with James. That was when I found that I really don't want to be on the floor snipping the seams at 8 months pregnant. I like the quilt, it was a good use of old jeans, but it took me a total of about 6 hours to snip all the seams. For how small of a quilt it is, by the time I got to the end I was going to go snip crazy.

The front is all recycled jeans, along with a pair of tan cordoroys thrown in. The back is just brown flannel.

I intend to keep it in the car, to be able to just throw around when needed. When fixing the car, on the ground in the summer time, to protect the seat. You know, a throw.

But all in all, I like it a lot and am just mostly glad that it is finally finished and out of my 'in progress' pile.

Live and Love

An Upcycled Sweater for James

Mr. Sir had a sweater vest that neither of us liked on him. So I took the fabric and upcycled it into a sweater for James. It consists of an upcycled sweater vest, some scraps of black wool for the sleeves and is lined with black fleece. I still need to apply the buttons but I had to post it because it was super cute. It is a Kwik Sew pattern.

 I don't have a picture of it on him because it is way too big for him yet. It might be a 2T. I am not quite sure. It should fit him this fall though.

 I just know that it is adorable.

Live and Love

Baby stuff you just hate to throw away.

I found out about this website.

           http://www.babyearth.com/renew/

                             It is excellent.



You know that stash of baby stuff that is just sitting in storage. Those expired car seats, old strollers and etc. This company will recycle them for you. They accept
- Strollers
- Car Seats
- Swings
- Jumpers
- High Chairs
- Diaper Bags
No needing to track down  someplace that will take them. You just pay shipping, send it off, and they give you a 5$ coupon to their store. Sounds good to me! James's car seat expires next December 2014. I have been dreading that time, because I have to throw it away instead of keeping it for future children. (My sister used it before me for my niece, so it has been used quite a bit!) The reason I cringe is because this car seat still looks like new. A sticker has fallen off, but other than that it looks perfect even though it is going on the second child.

I urge you to check it out and keep these large items out of our landfills to be repurposed or find new homes.

Here is James chilling in his car seat earlier this summer. I believe he was 3 months old. 

Live and Love

*I am in no way affiliated with BabyEarth.com I just find their mission to be excellent.*

Recycled Baby Leggings

So every year Mr.Sir gets me tall socks for Valentines day. I love these socks, and I have worn through the toes on a few pairs. Also, I hate toe socks. With a passion. My toes are meant to sit together all snug and comfy, not be separated. I also happened to have a pair of Halloween socks that I received from my late grandmother a few years before she died. I wanted to stretch the lives of these socks just a little bit, without having to deal with chilly toes.

So I took my holey-toe and toesocks and cut them off at the heel (or just above the toe confines). I folded down an edge and serged it down (if you are trying it, a zig-zag stitch works just as well), ironed and wha-la. Baby leggings for the wee-one.

We don't know what we are having, if it happens to be a boy, well, I don't think he will care if he is wearing pink leggings just at home.

They will be handy with the bulkier cloth diapers, so when hanging out at home we don't have to constantly take off pants to change the diaper.

 Live and Love

Cloth Baby Wipes

Mr. Sir and I decided to cloth diaper the wee one when it comes along. (less than 6 weeks now!) and it makes sense to use cloth wipes along with the cloth diapers. We will be doing the laundry anyways, so why not add a little more to the load.

I had an old stained white sheet laying around that had really soft, comfortable flannel. I cut the pieces into 14 x 7 pieces and then folded them in half.

 Then I traced around the corners to make it easier to serge. That way they were all the same. After that, it was time to serge, serge, serge.

 I serged around the corners (ignore the stray thread that I forgot to nab before I took the picture). The edges I didn't tidy as much as I could have, I figured they will be wiping poo, they don't need to be pretty.

I got about 44-7x7 cloth wipes out of the sheet and 5-3x7 wipes out of the extra fabric. I know that we will need way more than that, but it will make a good supplement to the disposable wipes that we will use also.

I plan on mixing a water/coconut oil/ tea tree oil solution and keeping the wipes in a wipes warmer to make it easy to use.

Live and Love!

Food Storage, Rice and Beans

A few weeks ago I came across this blog called Earthineer. It is pretty neat in general but I found this article called "Long term food storage, done cheaply" about storing food long term, on the cheap. They just use 2 liter bottles and put rice and beans in them with bay leaves to kill any bugs or larvae that might be in the rice. It keeps for years and stacks nicely in little crannies. How ingenious. Right now I have 20 lbs of rice taking up room in my freezer.

Did you know that some rice comes complete with bug larvae? That is why when you leave it in a warm (sealed) container in the cupboard you still get bugs in it. Personally, I don't care about the bugs as long as they aren't alive destroying my pantry. So I freeze them and kill them. Problem is that now I am out of freezer space. So I am now going to try this bottle storage trick. We don't drink much pop out of 2 liter bottles but I do save all of our old liquor bottles. Something about the glass feels classy, even though its not.

So here I go. Being all frugal and stuff. I will update later when I find out how well it works. Until then, Live and Love.

Urine.

Urine.

I know, attractive title right? Mr.Sir and I just adopted a new puppy. His name is Sherlock. He is only 5 months old and needs some training, which is to be expected. Of course, we are still learning what his 'gotta go, gotta go' cue is, resulting in 3 accidents. Two of those three accidents were on our bedroom carpet. Yikes.

We have had a urine problem with Luna too. She is a feisty Siamese and can be temperamental and decide that the couch, my old roommates bed (I am still sooo sorry about that!), or any soft spot on the floor makes for a good substitute for her litter box. So I had done plenty of research for pet urine removers, before the puppy. The best I found was Natures Miracle from the pet store. But at 8 dollars a bottle, it gets pricey and I am frugal, frugal, frugal. So one day, I was talking to my pastor's wife and she mentioned a mix that she used on her puppy piddle spots. I tested it on the kitty urine couch cushion and it worked!

Pet Stain Remover
- 3 tbsp Laundry Detergent, I use a homeade mix which is 1 box Borax, 1 box washing soda, 2 bars fels naptha soap. (I think I keep messing up and telling people 1 bar, but I am pretty sure I used two, just so all you family type people know) I got the recipe from Being Creative:To Keep My Sanity then I drop essential oils in it and shake it real good.
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 cups white vinegar

I mix the laundry detergent into the boiling water until it is all dissolved, let it cool a bit and add the vinegar. I use an old olive oil bottle because it has a decent spout. The original recipe didn't have as much vinegar but I feel it is needed for the odor. *test the carpet/furniture first like with everything other foreign cleaning mix* then soak down the spot, let it sit just for a couple of minutes. I like to do some rubbing to get into all the crevices of the carpet then I step down on it to soak up as much as I can and let the rest air dry. It is so cheap that you can use a ton, like I did for my couch cushion, I made a HUGE bowl of it and just drenched the cushion, then I used the hose to rinse it all out.
Hope it helps!
Live and Love

Veggies, Flowers and a learning curve.

In February Mr. Sir and I moved into a little house, when we were looking for houses one requirement was that it had to have a big back yard so that we could garden. Now anybody who knows me well knows that I have a black thumb, I can't grow anything. If I manage to grow something well, I kill it off accidentally. Well Mr. Sir is slowly training me how to take care of plants. It is one big learning curve for a black thumb such as myself.

One reason we decided to have a big garden is to save money. Eating healthy is not always the easiest when it comes to budgeting and being a really frugal person like myself. Also, I hope that I am doing my part by not making my food travel thousands of miles to get to my table.

(Above) This WAS a tomato plant before the bugs decided to have supper. We started 30 plants from seed. Only 7 survived the bugs and now only 3 have leaves. Thank goodness for an amazing mother-in-law who provided us with some more tomato seedlings to plant out when the garden gets less muddy.  (Right) And these are our beautiful peas that are just thriving. Mnmm snap peas.

These are beans. They are thriving as much as the peas and make our tomato-less, lettuce-less, carrot-less garden look less sad.

 This is our potato/onion garden. We have five rows of potatoes and 2 of onions. Gonna be making lots of frozen hashbrowns and french fries.

 Of course I can't put pictures of the garden up without taking a picture of Mr. Sir's lilys. They are just getting ready to bloom.

This is my attempt at growing herbs. Mr.Sir gave me my own herb garden. All I have growing in there right now are flowers and some garlic chives. This is some basil that I have growing in a pot. (Below) And these are our first blooms of the year. Some lily's that the previous owners left us. Yay flowers!

Live and Love

Halloween Costume Swap

Did you know that about 6,250 tons (or 12,500,000 pounds) of Halloween costume landfill garbage could be avoided if kids only swapped their Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones. I know that it is a little early to thinking Halloween (or Christmas for that matter, but some department stores don't agree). But I came across this statistic in my RealSimple magazine and it hit me like a stone. 

I don't have kids at the moment or any Halloween costumes but I found this extremely interesting. Especially because one day a year can create this much GARBAGE. 

Sure, growing up I had Halloween costumes but I also remember making use of what I had. For example, I used my grandfathers plaid bowler hat and my dads coat; add a magnifying glass and I was Sherlock Holmes and another year I wore my pink power ranger onsie pajamas and was the Pink Power Ranger. You don't need some fancy plastic mask to have a great costume but in the case that having the plastic mask is something that you require, you can go to this website National Costume Swap Day   on October 8th and find out more about swapping costumes this year if you want something new. You can also find out how to start your own swap in your neighborhood. 

Money is tight everywhere these days, and the world is full of trash. So find a way to avoid both of them in an act as simple as a swap.

Live and Love