Top 10 Ways to get the most from your Straightener

I am convinced out of all the different tools they make for your hair you can get by with just a Flat Iron. And here are the top ten ways to use it!
1) Get some lovely beach waves. With a combination of braiding and twisting.
http://www.ohsoprettythediaries.com/2012/04/does-pinterest-know-everything.html 
2) Create a mane of Frizz: wind sections of hair around U pins
http://thebeautydepartment.com/2011/10/halloween-hair-tutorial-2/ 
3) Make soft lovely curls
http://www.ukhairdressers.com/handbagTV3.asp
4) Traveling and wrinkles go together, set your Straightener on low and instant iron
http://www.livingfrugaltips.com/healthy-living/another-use-for-your-flat-iron/
5) And on that note, Crinkle in your Ribbon? Use your straightener to run your ribbons through
http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/use-a-hair-iron-to-smooth-ribbon-10000001193286/index.html
6)Make some chunky, messy curls
http://www.thewonderforest.com/2011/10/messy-chunky-beach-waves-easy-tutorial.html
7) Use it to seal Mylar bags
8) Color your hair with Pastels and then set with a Flat iron
http://www.seventeen.com/fashion/blog/hair-chalking
9) Diy "sunning" of your hair with out sun
http://pinterest.com/pin/88875792616430441/
10) Get the same look as using your Crimper
http://babesinhairland.com/hairstyles/how-to-get-waves-from-braids-a-flat-iron/

Huh, well know I am thinking about getting rid of the other hair equipment in my drawer and giving my Hair Straightener a place of honor possibly making one of these...?

http://yourcreativejuices.blogspot.com/2010/09/flat-iron-holder.html

Bake Pasta Bake!

Simple, I love simple. Especially when it comes to food. The simpler the better. And if it's tasty, bonus! I found this recipe on "A Great Many Things" via Pinterest. It's got creamy pasta with lotsa cheese. the recipe called for a cup of cheese. But my husband has been known to put cheese on cheese. So I did almost a whole block. Then only thing I regret is not mixing more of the cheese in, as you can see I mixed the cup in then dumped the rest on top. Tasty, but would have been tastier with more in and less on. And don't worry about the block of cheese it was on it's last leg anyways, so at least this way it went to good use. 

Hit with the husband, miss with the kid- this time. Who knows what he will do the next time I make the dish. He will one day turn his nose up at mac and cheese and the next gobble up multiple helpings. Kids be crazy. 

 It was the perfect concoction of cheesy creamy goodness. Pasta bake met recipe card, and they lived happily ever after in my recipe box. To go on to have lots of little pasta bakes.

I have to say I'm enjoying expanding my recipe box. Here is the recipe but make sure you go check out "A Great Many Things" below is her website link.
Ingredients
7 oz of your favorite pasta (I used penne and fusilli)
8 oz cream cheese
1 can chicken broth or substitute with better than bouillon
1 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 packet Italian seasoning
Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Cook pasta according to directions on package
• While pasta is cooking heat cream cheese, italian seasoning and chicken broth on stove until cream cheese melts.
• Place cooked pasta in an 8x8 baking dish and pour cream cheese mixture over top. 
• Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is thoroughly melted 

http://bnoelwilliams.blogspot.com/2012/03/pasta-bake.html

Nasty Nanna's...

Well, another one hits the dust. The bananas never last as long as I wish. And sometimes I even forget that I have them till I look up in my fruit basket and have to hit my head. Gah! more nasty nannas. Time to whip out my mother's Banana Bread recipe. 

Isn't her hand writing pretty? I have had this recipe card for a long time. And it has gotten alot of use. You can see my bananas that I have- I've got two in the freezer and then five still waiting in my basket. The blacker they are, the better the bread. But I can't let them get that bad or else I over think the idea of the bread. Let us be honest, when you are peeling and smooshing the slime into your batter you wonder why you make this bread. Nothing tasty can come from that nasty of an object- but some how when you pull it out of the oven, you have to hold yourself off from inhaling it all in one siting.

Everything is better with chocolate chips. 

Here is the finished project, tasty tasty! You just wanna grab it off the screen and gobble it up. The recipe is really rather simple.

Banana Bread     1 loaf

Preheat oven to 350*

combine 1/2 cup of margarine and 3/4cup of sugar till smooth

Add: 1 egg 2 banana's mix till the banana's are no longer lumpy

Mix in 1 1/2 c Flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

and of course the tasty chocolate chips
Mix well.
Bake for 35-40 min in a grease loaf pan.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. 

I always have to problem of it caving in if I don't get the middle cook all the way though. So this time I had to bake it a while longer- and then turned to oven off while the loaf was still in. Now the bread has a really amazing thick kinda crunchy crust. Quite tasty if I may say so.

Divine French Toast

I'm a sucker for all things breakfast. My husband works long hours so I can usually get away with doing breakfast for dinner, most nights. If you think I'm fibbing or stretching the truth go with me to a restaurant and if breakfast is an option, it will be on a plate in front of me.
This recipe jumped out at me, the picture looks so amazingly delicious that I had to make it! It was pinned by Danielle and I am very thankful that she found it so that I could find it.
Head over to Chef In Training for this amazing recipe. See bottom of post for the site link.
The recipe is super easy. I loved that I could make it the night before and cook it the next morning-or in my case the next night. There's alot to say about breakfast for dinner.

There were two distinct parts. You make a type of sugary glaze that you put into a cookie sheet. The recipe called for a jelly roll pan... To be honest I googled that- yah can we use normal english, Jelly Roll Pan is a cookie sheet with a good lip around the edge. But now I know and so do you. You spread the sugary mixture all over the cookie sheet then place your bread over the top. I used a loaf of french bread that I cut.

This picture is of the egg mixture that you spoon over the bread, I just poured-no sense in dirtying yet another dish. Just do it slowly, try to be fair. Don't want your bread slices to get jealous of each other. 

Here is the tasty dish after it baked for 30 min's at 350. Yes it doesn't look so divine but looky looky what's hiding underneath,

Now that is what I would like to call Ddddivine French Toast. So tasty, ate more then I probably should have. And this is great if you're out of syrup, no syrup needed in this dish. Of course if you have water, sugar and mapline flavoring- you'll have to come up with your own reason to make this dish. But a reason you need, you will be missing out if you don't give this dish a try! 

http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/01/overnight-creme-brulee-french-toast.html

How do we measure up?

I can not wait to get a house! To have a yard for my kids to play in, not to mention to be able to get a dog- that I can send to the back yard when it's stepped on my last nerve-and to paint what ever crazy colors I want. But one thing that I really look forward to is to have a  piece door trim to mark the every changing growth of my precious children. So that the day they go to kindergarten, graduate from highschool, get married, have children- will be forever recorded. But the list of debts we have (although shrinking surprisingly fast) still stands between myself and that dream of having a house. What to do what to do, and like always Pinterest to the rescue!

I found via pinterest; Six Sisters' Stuff have a diy lovely large ruler. They have made their's very classic and clean looking. New wood and using paint for the numbers and marks. I choose to use some old barn wood- from the farm I grew up on, along with my fantastic wood burner that I bought a few months ago and am always trying to use for things.
The first thing to do when you want to make one of these (other then getting wood and figuring out how you would like to do the marks paint vs. wood burning it's your choice) is to get your hands on a normal size ruler. I used my ruler to make 1in marks that were about 1in in length. With the foot marks about 2in length wise. Use pencil first you know what they say "mesure twice, burn once."

 Then using my tool I started to bun the wood. The straight marks are pretty easy, once you add curves to the mix it becomes a little harder to keep smooth lines, tricky but not impossible.

 Below is the finished product, I was so supper excited that I wanted to go wake up my first born and have him stand to measure him... But I decided that it would be better to let sleeping children lie. Must learn patience. I do have a great family night activity now, so that's good, bad thing is we will have to wait a few more days.

To finish the project I'll simply attach a picture hanger to the back so that I can hang it on the wall, and then take it off to do the marking.
I would still love to have the house of my dreams in bright crayon box colors, but at least I now have a wonderful piece of art to track the growth of my children, no matter where we go. Bonus, I won't have to pry off door jams to take the records with me!

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/02/giant-kids-growth-chart-ruler.html

Mmmm Tasty homemade Bread

Is there anything that can rival the smell of fresh bread baking in your oven? I beg to state that there is not!
While checking pinterest out one day I came across a interesting recipe for refrigerated bread. It has only essentially three ingredients. Flour(6 1/2 cups of it) Salt ( 1 1/2 tablespoons of this one) and Yeast (1 1/2 tablespoons) Plus your water and there you go! Super easy recipe I thought and the best part is that you can make this bread right in a container. Picked ours up at a dollar store so it was cheap, but there is a "handle" of sorts on the side, which makes it easy for holding- not so easy for getting your hand inside to mix the bread.
So keeping it short and sweet; get some warm water, 3 cups worth. And dump it right into your large container (think one you would use for storing sugar) stir in the 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt till it's dissolved. Once the salt is dissolved sprinkle the yeast over (that's 1 1/2 tablespoons.) Once your concoction starts to bubble you can pour in your 6 1/2 cups of flour. There is no "clean" way to do this next part. So just accept that dive in. Or if your lucky enough to have a child old enough to understand what you want- have them do it. You will remain fairly clean, they will get to be un-clean along with the rewarding feeling of know that they helped you. Win for everyone.
The lady who wrote about this diy said that she doesn't wash the container out she simply leaves it in the fridge so you get that old sour dough taste with your brand stinking new bread. I'll try this out but I've never been a big fan of sour dough.
Here you have your bread all mixed- this took alot of work for me, the jar I used was narrow. Leave your bread on the counter to raise for a few hours, mine didn't rise quite as long as it should have. Then simply move to your fridge for storage. When the need arises for that delectable smell of fresh bread (you know that you Need it)  simple yank a wad out place in your bread pan and bake!
I thought the bread was so amazingly good and with only a few ingredients  I was quite impressed. I got three loaves out of this but it will vary on how big your loaves are, and again I didn't let my bread rises as long as it initially should have.  Hope you enjoy the finished product!

3 cups water
1.5 tablespoon yeast
1.5 tablespoon salt
6.5 cups flour
450* for 30-35 min

Thank you to the author of Jezebel for this wonderful pin! Go check out her website!
http://jezebel.com/5881847/how-to-make-easy-fast-foolproof-bread-from-scratch

Rice and Beans, not even my beans

So my husband I recently found out about Dave Ramsey, and have jumped on the "be debt free" wagon. He's always saying to live on less then you make and to eat rice and beans. We have actually eaten alot of sandwiches and mac n cheese. There is only so much you can do with rice and beans. But I guess, less still with Mac and Cheese.
In our other town I bought beans, a bag of beans... do you realize the work that is required  to cook beans from a bag? It's a mess. So needless to say we did not eat said beans. And I have since decided that when I need beans, my beans will come from a can. But, back to the story,  when we moved I didn't keep that bag of beans. I didn't keep much of anything, I got rid of $800 worth of things at a yard sale. Things that I now wish I had kept. Like that bag of beans.
I also had a box of scrap fabric. And there was a need to get rid of some of the fabric in that box- it was beginning to leak out forming a mind of it's own. Would it stay closed this time? Or burst all it's fabric entrails all over?
What requires scraps of fabric and beans? Bean bags, my sudden desire for bean bags could not be quieted.
Expressing my desire for beans to my mom she say's "oh I have some" she then proceeds to produce four jars of beans. Not all full, my mom's not crazy. Well, thank you very much mother. Once again your lack of willingness to throw anything away has come to my rescue!
My project could now commence. Bean bags for my son to play with. All you need for this project is ...

Beans
Fabric Scraps
scissors
a template of some sort

Of course if you get easily frustrated w/ cutting then might I recommend
a cutting mat and rotary cutter?

 You will also find a sewing machine helpful, you can do it by hand but I find that method tediously slow and there for use a sewing machine.

Here's  the scrap fabric all cut out and ready to go. I made enough for 10 bean bags- my mom has enough beans to spare for my 10 little bags. My bags are 5x5 but really you can make any size you would like. I hijacked my sister's quilt square but if you get your hands on a ruler and some scrap cardboard. You can have any size you would like. The bigger the bag the more beans you will need, just keep that in mind.

Here is my adorable helper. He was handing me two different pieces of fabric. But he quickly became less adorable and more on the side of annoying. So I put the project on hold till his nap time. While the child's away the mother's can play.

***To do this project is really easy the hardest part for me was trying to fill the bags. But if you have a funnel with a big enough hole it's a breeze. I kept my funnel with the biggest hole, but it still failed to be big enough. If you have that problem, simply roll a piece of paper into a funnel shape. Be sure to tape it or you will quickly become frustrated and you feel that you need multiple hands to do such a simple project.
Placing wrong sides out and the pretty fabric towards each other, sew around the perimeter of the project, being sure to leave a big enough hole to shove the project back through and to also fill with beans. Or else you have a "bag" instead of a "bean bag" far easier to make but much less fun to play with.
Turn your project right sides out through the hole, and using something with a point push the corners out, so they resemble corners instead of round edges. Fill your bag with the beans. Then turning the edge of the hole inside. You can either sew this area shut by hand, or you can sew around the bean bag edge; you can see that's what I went with. It makes it stronger- this toy needs to last through all the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren I plan on having.

Here is one bean bag finished

And the whole set. You can make them match on both sides
But I have much more fun with different colors! 

You then can show your child what to do with bean bags (and you know you will have to, they won't know what to do with such primitive toys); stack them on your head for a race, toss them back and forth, throw them into a bucket...But you know they will just end up having the "Ultimate Bean Bag War" with their siblings. And you know you will join in on it.