Homemade Vanilla Extract

For a few years, I wanted to try my hand at making homemade vanilla extract.

The upfront cost scared me out of it. I would ask for birthday and for Christmas for vanilla beans and vodka, to no avail.

My vanilla beans soaking

This year, I decided to buy the ingredients to make my own Christmas presents. Problem solved! I was buying this for gifts.

My husband and I went to Meijer to buy 3 liters of Vodka. Man did we feel like we were ready to party it up. Next time, I think I will try to find a higher proof of Vodka. That might take a little more searching though :)

I decided to try out some vanilla beans from ebay. I didn't know about trusting the people, but I checked their feedback and picked wisely. Hasn't affected us yet! Check around online to see what people recommend of how many vanilla beans to put into a liter. There are some various opinions.

Cut your vanilla beans down the center and stick in the bottle of vodka or put both the beans and the vodka into another glass jar. Let the jar sit in a dark place for anywhere from 2-6 months. Make sure to shake occasionally. I started using ours around 2 months. Pretty good stuff!

I bought these Boston Round Bottles, 4 Oz Pack of 12 from Amazon to be able to give the vanilla as gifts.

I was pretty pleased with how the vanilla turned out. One of these days I will get to make more!

I am by far not a vanilla making expert though, so I would love to hear any advice that you have!

Ore-Ida Coupons

I contacted Ore-Ida and asked them for coupons. The mailed me 4 coupons for 75 cents off any Ore-Ida Product.

With a sale, I was able to get their bags of fries for $1.00. Not too shabby!

See what other companies you can contact.

Goals: Week of January 28th

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What excitement! I was able to cross off everything off my list for last week. Now to try to do the same thing this next week.

Last weeks goals:

1. Exercise 5 days this week
2. Take all the covers off the chair I am recovering. And clean the chair.
3. Work on making a template for pinnable pictures and do a blog with a picture
4. Follow up with reading endorsement
5. Try to sell some of my parent's neighbor's belongings
6. Patch Scott's coat
7. Organize Pinterest Board

This weeks goals:

1. Get out of bed by 8 and exercise 5 days this week
2. Make up a blog schedule for the next month
3. Make 2 boys shirts and list on etsy 
4. Repurpose a dress into a skirt
5. Cover one section of the glider
6. Start on Vaentine's Day project
7. Plan tea party. You can see what we did last year for our spa day

What are you planning on getting done this week?

Upcycle Sweater to Infinity Scarf Tutorial

My grandma had been given this sweater a while ago and she didn't want it. I did not like it as a sweater, but something about it drew my attention. 

I wanted to make something out of this sweater. Stockings and a hat crossed my mind, but neither of these had been exciting enough to me to do them. I then decided on an infinity scarf. And off to work I went.

The first thing that I did was cut off the sweater right under the arm pits.

Next I sewed a zig-zag stitch around the edges that I cut. If you have a serger, this would be even better. Just trying to keep the edges from raveling.

I cut up one of the side seams. Then I folded the material in half, right sides together, and pinned it together.

I then sewed it together and turned the scarf right side out.

I then took the ends and put right sides together. I sewed these together as far as I could with my sewing machine.

I was left with a little hole.

I sewed this hole together by hand.

There you have it! Great way to make an ugly sweater come to life.

Make sure you pin this project to use in the future!

Linked to Romance on a Dime, Craftionary, Ladies Holiday, Serenity Now, My Repurposed Life

Goals: Week of January 21st

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Last weeks goals: 

1. Do crunches and push ups 6 days this week- I did 5 days this week
2. Finish cardigan and blog about it- I did this and didn't really like how it turned out :(
3. Clean out oven and clean under our bed- both of them are kinda gross!
4. List items on etsy
5. Update etsy shop to make it more customer welcoming
6. Check into reading endorsement- sent an email and am waiting to hear back about it
7. Contact 10 companies about receiving coupons

This weeks goals:

1. Exercise 5 days this week
2. Take all the covers off the chair I am recovering. And clean the chair.
3. Work on making a template for pinnable pictures and do a blog with a picture
4. Follow up with reading endorsement
5. Try to sell some of my parent's neighbor's belongings
6. Patch Scott's coat
7. Organize Pinterest Boards
   

DIY: Upcycled T-shirt Headband Tutorial

I love repurposing things that I am not currently using. I had a t-shirt from Scott that I made into a scarf. I didn't want to throw away the shirt, but it was beyond wear! You can see about that here.

Well, that left me with some knit scraps that were too good to just throw away. I went on a little bit of a headband craze.

I don't have much of a headband head, but these work well for me. Plus they are super comfy. Double bonus, I got to use up some material that was sitting in my closet...sometimes this causes an explosion. Or maybe most of the time. 

Here is how I made them. There is a lot of variety in how you can make these! My example will show you how to make these from a large adults t-shirt.

Cut 2 1" strips under the armpit of the shirt, using the whole circumference. I cut mine in half so that I had   just one long strip. 

Cut 2 1" strips that are 10 inches long.

Cut 2 pieces that are 2" by 3".

Take the long pieces and stretch them so that the knit begins to roll. 

This next part is the hardest. Mess around with it for a little while. The more you do, the easier it will come. 

Take one piece and loop the strip like the picture below.

Take the other strip and follow the following pictures.

Under and Above

The one you put above, goes under the loop.

The one you put under, goes over the first strand of the loop, Under the piece you pulled through. Then over the other side of the loop.

Then pull them tight. You kind of have to wiggle them!

The first time I tried, I was super confused. You haven't ruined anything if you didn't get it. Just go back and try again!

The next thing that I did was that I sewed the 10" piece onto the ends of the part I just tied. you will have the two ends from the one side and the the 10" piece. You could also choose to use your hot glue gun here.

Then I took the small piece and made into into a tube (these last two pictures are from a different headband).   If you were hot gluing, you could just wrap this around the parts that you just glued and glue again.

I then put the loop over where my two pieces met and I hot glued it in place, yes I gave in! Once again, you could sew or hot glue here. This just gives a little more finished look.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I also would love to see if you decide to make this, link up some pictures.

Interested in making this in the future? Make sure that you pin it so that you can!

Linked up to Romance on a Dime and The Peaceful Mom.

Clean Your Oven with Items in Your Cupboard

One of my goals for this week was to clean out my oven. 

I have this fear of cleaning out ovens. Part of the reason why I have been married over a year before I gave my oven a good cleaning. Gasp! The oven needed some attention.

You may be thinking, why do you fear cleaning the oven? Well you see I cleaned my parents oven one time, and the next time they used it the element went out. The clean oven wasn't able to be used. And it wasn't cheap to fix. 

Now, I just try to avoid the cleaning and if the inevitable happens, I am afraid to touch the element. 

I decided the dreaded needed done, but we don't own oven cleaner. I didn't want to buy any. So what do you do when you want to find a cleaner? I turned to pinterest to find a recipe.

I can't say that I was all into following their directions, so I just dumped some baking soda, vinegar, and dawn in the bottom of my oven. I rubbed it around, let it sit while I got supper ready, and then I came back to scrub.

Worked well, except that I need to do it more often! 

I love that I had everything in my cupboard already.

Goals: Week of January 14th

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Not bad, I am looking at last weeks goals and I completely have them done. I didn't do my push ups and crunches on Sunday, but I was ok with taking a break on Sunday!

It is already 11 on Monday though and I still haven't gotten out of my pjs. I guess I better get moving if I want to have a productive day and week!

Last weeks goals:

1. Plan and host youth group activity
2. Make a trip to practically perfect
3. Do crunches and push ups everyday- I didn't on Sunday
4. List a few things to sell
5. Clean front closet
6. Completely clean off my old computer
7. Dye Scott's jacket

This weeks goals:

1. Do crunches and push ups 6 days this week
2. Finish cardigan and blog about it
3. Clean out oven and clean under our bed- both of them are kinda gross!
4. List items on etsy
5. Update etsy shop to make it more customer welcoming
6. Check into reading endorsement
7. Contact 10 companies about receiving coupons

Goals: Week of January 7th

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This past week was a pretty good week of getting things done! Once again, I think it must be one of those weeks when there is a lot to do, things get done. 

Last weeks goals:

1. Budget- this needs some adjustment 
2. Make something to go on all my alligator clips
3. Sub for 3 days this week
4. Do 20 crunches and push ups this week- I did them 6 out of 7 days
5. Repurpose Cardigan- started. Need to borrow my mom's surger to finish this. 
6. One of my friends leaves soon to go back to college, so we need to hang out this week :)
7. Get Sunday School lesson ready

This weeks goals:

1. Plan and host youth group activity
2. Make a trip to practically perfect
3. Do crunches and push ups everyday
4. List a few things to sell
5. Clean front closet
6. Completely clean off my old computer
7. Dye Scott's jacket

Do you have any big projects that you are working on
?

Pinterest Inspiration: Baby Hats

Recently my friend Cindy delivered her baby prematurely. I really wanted to do something to encourage her, but I felt so far away.

Praying became my only and most important resource for a while. I learned that I had to place Cindy and Hudson in God's hands.

I sent Cindy a gift card for a meal, since I could not personally deliver one. I also asked her what she would like for Hudson. She suggested I crochet a hat. The only problem with that is that Hudson would probably be 15 by the time I got it done. 

Next best option, or so I thought, was to go to Meijer and buy some hats. So, I did for 7.00. Not bad for 5 hats but not very personable. 

Then I though, there is this wonderful world of pinterest. I searched to see what I could find. I decided to see what I could come up with. I found an old camp shirt where Cindy and I use to work together. 

Oh so tiny! 

Here is a picture of the hat on his head.

I also decided to make this owl hat.  It turned out a little bigger, but he will grow into the hat before I would have crocheted one.

My hats might not have been as perfect as the store bought ones, but I was happy with the personal, unique aspect of them. And the store bought hats got taken back. Thanks anyway Gerber. 

What have you recently made from pinterest?

Linked up to Romance On a Dime