DIY Decor Links

Not too long ago, I learned how to bookmark blog posts that I loved, so that I could go back and access them at a later time.

I can't believe that it took me so long to discover this, and there is no telling how many wonderful posts I have read and forgotten about over the years, but no more!

Delicious.com is my sweet friend now, and because of my new friend, I was able to quickly and easily find these great links to share with you today!  

I'm actually not a big DIY kind of girl, BUT, I love to save money, and these are some ideas that 

I AM IN LOVE WITH!

I am seriously wanting to make a drum shade like this one that Thrifty Decor Chick did!

It is exactly what we need to hang over our school table.  

She gives step by step instructions, and I think I just might be able to pull it off...for CHEAP!

That's in my budget!

And how about these pretty curtains that Kimba @ A Soft Place to Land pulled together?

You won't believe the bargain that you (or I!) will be able to get on these!

Looks like hanging the rods would be the hardest part!

I WANT THEM!

And just for a little inspiration, take a look at this pretty space...

Check out Carrie at Buzzings of a Queen Bee, and see what this space looked like "before".

It is a rental home, so no major fix ups were involved.

She and her "distraction decorating" philosophy, show us how to get busy using what we have!

Take a look around her site...she transforms space after space!

Amazing.

And last, but not least...how cute is this???

Jessica at Chapman Place has a tutorial on how to make one of these for your front door.

She has also done a heart for Valentines day.

I'm thinking that a big flower for spring would be fun!

Crock Pot Chicken Lasagna

I love crock pot recipes, and this one really is delicious!

My whole family loves it!

It is one of the more complicated crock pot recipes that I have tried, but very worth the effort

Even though it has spinach in it, my 4 year old loves it...

that's gotta tell you something! :)

I began making this last year, before we realized that Caylie can't have gluten.  

As with many recipes, this one could be modified to be gluten-free by substituting the pasta and the cream of chicken soup with gf versions.

2 cans Cream of Chicken
1/2 package of frozen chopped spinach...thawed, drained and squeezed
1 (9 oz.) pkg. of frozen, diced, cooked chicken
1 (8 oz.) sour cream
1C milk
1/2 C Parmesan cheese
1/3 C finely chopped onion
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
9 uncooked lasagna noodles
1C shredded mozzarella cheese

Stir together first 10 ingredients in a large bowl. Spray crock pot with Pam and place 3 lasagna pieces in bottom. Break pieces as necessary to cover the bottom. Spread 1/3 of the spinach mixture over the noodles. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the mozzarella. Repeat these 3 layers 2 more times. Cook on High for 1 hour and Low for about 5 hours.

Notes...
* I was kind of generous on my cheese measurements. :)
* My lasagna started getting pretty crispy around the edges after about the 4th hour (which actually ended up adding to the flavor!), but keep an eye on it toward the end if it is your first time to make it

Five Question Friday

This is my first time to participate in

Five Question Friday.

It is a weekly meme, with different questions each week!

1. Do you know what your REAL hair color is?

Yes, and unfortunately, since it has been way too long since I have had my highlights, everyone that sees me knows what my real hair color is too!  :)

2. Do you plan ahead for summer, or fly by the seat of your pants?

We usually plan some sort of family vacation,
and the older kids spend a week at a
Christian summer camp,
but other than that, we just kind of let things happen.

3. What is your favorite meal to cook?

I don't know that I have a specific single favorite meal,
but this potato cheese soup recipe
(linked to my recipe blog),
is one that is fast, easy, and delicious.
Everyone always likes it.  

4. Do you get offended by not receiving thank yous?

Thank you notes?
Not at all!
A verbal "thank you" when I give someone something is more than enough for me!

Save yourself some ink and a stamp when you come to my name on your thank you list!

Sorry Miss Manners...I've got bigger fish to fry than waiting by the mailbox for a thank you note!  :)

5. How did you meet your best friend?

I met my BFF, Teresa, in college at OBU in Arkadelphia! We were both in the same sorority (EEE). 

Right after Corey and I got married, I schemed with our other sweet friend Nancy, and we forcefully, I mean, thoughtfully set Teresa up on a blind date with Ky, Corey's best friend from high school. 

The rest is history!

5 kids, and almost 20 years later...
we still love to tell the story...and we are all still best buds!  :)

Here is a picture of me with Nancy (far left) and Teresa (far right) when we met for breakfast at Mimi's Cafe last year.

And here is a picture of Corey, me, Ky and Teresa with our youngest kiddos, Carson (the mystery man under the party hat), and Rachel as we celebrated New Years Eve a little over a year ago!

Love ya Teresa! 

Get Motivated

Sometimes I find myself just not wanting to get to work on laundry, or on dishes, or on picking up around the house, etc.

Does this ever happen to you?

I have a few little tricks that I sometimes use.  

The first one is setting my oven timer for 20 minutes.  

What happens with me, is that once I start moving, I keep going, but sometimes it is just 

that first spurt of energy and motivation that is hard to come by,

and my timer provides that spurt!

When I know that I am allowing myself to waste time, I often set my timer, and make myself start knocking things out.  Sometimes I have a list, other times, I just walk through the house, and can clearly see what needs to be done.  The game is that

for every 20 minutes of work that I accomplish,

I earn 20 minutes to do something that I am wanting to do

...computer time, reading, rest, etc.

Of course this really only works well during

Carson's nap time, or if he is not home!

I did this a couple of days ago, and was amazed at the difference a few 20 minute segments of work made!  The tasks that I was dreading, and avoiding, became much more manageable, and were taken care of painlessly...with a little bit of fun time mixed in!

Another trick that I play on myself involves TV time.

I am not a big TV watcher.  Occasionally I will DVR shows to watch after I go to bed (and skip through the commercials), but I rarely watch daytime TV.

One day this past weekend, Corey and the kids were all away, and although I had lots of things that I needed to get done, there was a Lifetime movie on that got my attention.  I made a deal with myself that

I could watch the show only if I worked during all of the commercials.

For most shows, about 1/2 of the time slot seems to be taken up with commercials, so watching a 2 hour movie allowed me to get quite a bit of work done, while still watching a whole movie!

The last trick that has worked for me, I have only done once, but it really worked well!  

One morning, my BFF Teresa and I were talking on the phone.  Our youngest kiddos were not home that day, so we had quiet houses, and chores to get done.

We decided that we were going to give ourselves 2 hours, and told each other the chores that we wanted to accomplish in that time

We hung up the phone, and hit the ground running!

When we got back on the phone 2 hours later,

we were both exhausted from working so quickly for 2 whole hours...but excited to report to each other how motivated we had been...and that

we had gotten everything on our lists done!

We both laughed and talked about how it had really lit a fire under us!

(I just texted her and told her that we need to do it again!)

How do you get motivated to do house work?

School Room Reorganization

Saturday morning, I woke up wanting to tackle a project.  I didn't have anything specific in mind, I just knew that
I wanted to get something done, and check it off my list!

When I went downstairs into the school room/dining room, I decided that it was time to reorganize.

It wasn't horrible, but as the year has gone on, the shelves had gotten a little messier, and there were things that needed to be moved to new places and other things that just needed to be thrown away.

Here is the "before" of our school bookcase...getting kind of sloppy.



And "after"...much better.

Caylie's supplies.  (Many of her books and supplies are kept in her Co-Op backpack.)

Christian's school supplies.

Teacher resources for Christian's subjects.

Teacher resources for Caylie's subjects.

Reference books/ books that are not currently being used.

The trash pile.

The "move to a different spot" piles.

This is where we keep my old scrapbooking supplies, that are now great for school projects.  I also keep homeschool catalogs in here, as well as some of the curriculum that Caylie has finished with, that will be passed down to Christian.  This cabinet needed a little bit of work as well.

Before...

After...just neatened things up a little bit.

Top drawer is for pens, pencils, etc...

One side drawer is for our chalkboard supplies, and some guitar supplies.

And when I was finished...I had an empty cabinet on one side...

and an empty drawer right above it!

Love that!!!  :)

Stuff

While I do consider myself a bargain shopper, over the past several years, I have become more and more picky about what I want to come through the doors of our house.

I am strongly focused on finding the balance between nothing...

and too much...

In the early years of my marriage, I enthusiastically mastered the whole "feather the nest" thing by finding bargains at every store around.  I loved fixing up our house, and gathering things to make that possible.

Years went by, and at some point, that "gathering stage" ended.  I found that I

did not want more stuff...

it just made life more cluttered, and difficult to manage.

Since then, while I do like to tweak things and make improvements to our home when we can, I have become very intentional about what I want to add to our "stash".

I have soooo realized that 

more stuff = more work = more stress.  

For the last several years, I have tried to have 2 yard sales each year...one in the spring, and one in the fall.  When the sale is over, we take anything that is left to Goodwill.

I have joked many times that my goal is to some day have one of those yard sales that people look at from their cars, and see that there is just one piddly little table with a few items sitting on it...

so they just drive on by!

Then I will know that I have won the war against stuff!

That hasn't happened yet...and as long as I have kids at home, it probably won't.

(I would rather have my kids, and the stuff that comes with them ANY day!),

So for now, being intentional about what comes IN, and making sure that things are regularly moving OUT, keeps me actively engaged in the battle!

This morning, Nester linked to this post, which I  L.O.V.E.D.

It is a must read.

What do you do to avoid too much stuff?

Writing the Waves,

Christi

A New Laundry System

I was just doing a little blog surfing, and came across a
new laundry system 

that I think I am going to try.

Laura, at orgjunkie.com,, wrote this post about how she has changed the way she does laundry.

Instead of doing what most of us do, and sorting all of the laundry by color, washing, and then separating each family member's clothing before returning it to their rooms, she has done something that 

I had never even thought of.

Each family member has a laundry hamper in their room, and each person has a day of the week for their laundry to be done.

Rather than separating laundry by color, 

each person's entire load gets washed together.

She adds 1/2 a cup of vinegar to the wash to keep the colors from running.  

(Red things are washed separately the first time.)

She says that none of her clothes have been damaged from not sorting by color.

I assume she is using cold water only.

I'm thinking that I will have a day each week (M-F) for each member of our family.

The older kids will do their own load on their day.

I would do a load of towels, and a load of sheets each week, for a total of 7 loads of laundry a week.

What I like about this system, is that it would save time by
eliminating the color sorting, and the family member sorting.

Socks might actually stay together, and be returned to the person that they belong to...as a set!  :)

The only part that I am hesitant about, is whites.  I like to wash my whites with bleach.
Maybe I could just do some whites that need to be bleached once a month or so. Hmmm.

There were lots of comments below Laura's post.
I skimmed over them, and they offer even more good tips.

Anything that might make laundry a little bit faster and easier, is worth a shot!

Do you have any tips for making laundry happen more smoothly at your house?

Writing the Waves,
Christi

How I Make My Own Laundry Detergent

First off...here's my laundry room...

Ha!  I wish!  Just had to make myself laugh this morning!

Ok, now...

I'm actually a little bit hesitant to write this post, because I don't want anyone to think that I am all Little House on The Prairie-ish, because I am sooo not...but I'm putting it out there for all to see...I make my own laundry detergent, and have been doing so for about a year now!

So here's how it started...

I had always hated how often I ran out of laundry detergent, and knowing that if I didn't make a run to the store (which I am also not a big fan of), that I would start getting behind on laundry...fast.

One day, I happened upon this post written by my bloggy friend Jennifer.  She described how she makes her own laundry detergent, in LARGE quantities...and for CHEAP!  

I decided to give it a try, figuring that if it was too much trouble, or if it didn't get my clothes as clean as I was used to, that I would not have invested much, and I could just run to Kroger (AGAIN) to buy more of my usual detergent.

I'm SO happy to say however, that I never had to run to Kroger for detergent, and I don't plan on doing so again!  In the last year, I have only had to buy more supplies once...ONCE!  This detergent is cheap people...really cheap, and it gets my family's clothes just as clean as other detergents did.

The only bits of advice that I would add to Jennifer's post, are that I use this grater from Pampered Chef to grate the soap,

and then when I transfer the detergent from the large tub, into the container that I actually use on a daily basis, I discovered that using this little pitcher, also from Pampered Chef, makes things even easier.

The detergent separates (kind of like gravy), and so before pouring it, I stir it a bit.  By keeping it in this pitcher, I just give it a little pump or two each time, and it is ready to go!

(And just in case you are wondering...no, I have no whatsoever association with Pampered Chef!)  :)

I still keep my Spray-N-Wash and fabric softener on hand, as I always have, but I don't see myself going back to the store for laundry detergent any time soon!

Writing the Waves,
Christi