Freezer Food Fun!

I found Jaima on ringaroundtherosies.net and decided to give the slow cooker freezer recipes a try! It was really fun and the benefit is awesome! I now have 9 meals in the freezer for future use! All I have to do is dump the meal in the crockpot (I'll take it out the night before and put it in the fridge) and have dinner that evening! There are several recipes I haven't tried yet, but the ones that I did try are below!

This first one is Mexican Style Ground Beef...ready to add to tacos, enchiladas, nachos, or any other dish!

Next is Cranberry Chicken (Yumm!!!)

This is  Lazy Day Stew. As you can see I only froze one of the bags and we had the rest for dinner. It was wonderful!

This is Balsamic Onion and Pot Roast (definitely the most labor intensive of the 5 I tried!, but hopefully worth it!)

 

 This last one is Teriyaki Chicken. Cook some rice to go with it and you're ready to eat!

Seeing the bags in my freezer gives me such a good feeling!!  I can't wait to try some of my own recipes this way. Why didn't I think of doing this before!

 All these recipes can be found on Jaima's blog  These and other recipes are compiled into an E-Cookbook available a tmamaandbabylove.

May Sketch Challenge

I finished my May Sketch Challenge for Friends That Scrap. I used pictures of my granddaughter enjoying a meal and a cookie afterwards! Here's the sketch and the layout.

UGLY PAPER CHALLENGE!

This month the Challenge on Friends That Scrap was to pick out a piece of 'ugly' paper from your stash (we all have paper that we think is ugly!) and send it to an assigned partner who will then use it on a card or a layout. The intent is to use as much of it as you can. So here is the paper that I received from Laura...

 I wanted to use this on a layout and since there was only 2 6x6 sheets, I had to figure out the best way to do that.  I ended up cutting a layered flower on the Cricut (with a coordinating piece as the base), then inking the edges and adding a touch of yellow stickles to each petal. I found several Basic Grey pieces from old lines that I had around that coordinated. I used what was left from one of the sheets and punched the edges and put it behind my picture (hidden behind the pic is the flower cut-out! :-)) Then I used the remainder of the paper to punch some butterflies, along with a few butterflies punched from the BG paper as well. The large letters are Portafolia Chipboard and the smaller are Basic Grey. The rubons are also Basic Grey. Here is the finished product! So what do you think? What we discovered through this challenge is that the old saying "One person's trash is another person's treasure" is often true!

And isn't it interesting that by itself, the paper looks more green, but on the layout it looks more yellow!!

2+2 Card Swap on Friends that Scrap group

Every month on Friends that Scrap you can sign up to participate in the 2+2 Card Swap. You send a handmade card to 2 people (per assigned partners) and in turn you will receive a card from each of 2 different people. I love receiving the beautiful handmade cards, and I also enjoy making the ones that I send. Here is the March 2+2 card that I made. The Hedgehog digital stamp was a freebie offered at Pollycraft Digi Stamps. I colored the hedgehog with Copic Markers, Bic Mark-It markers, and prismacolor colored pencils. Thank you Pollycraft for this adorable digital stamp!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Since I was replenishing my supply today, I thought I'd go ahead and take pics and share how wonderful this is! It took my daughter a while to convince me that this was worth doing, but after trying hers, then doing it myself, I was hooked!! Once you get what you need...it's easy! And it saves a TON of money.

So here we go. The utensils you need are: a very large container, preferably with a lid (we use a cleaned out chlorine bucket), a 2 quart or larger saucepan, measuring cups, grating utensil and stirring utensils (notice my very large wooden spoon from Africa! Works perfect!)


There are only 3 ingredients:
1 bar soap, your choice
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax

 

In a large saucepan, boil 3 cups of water. While water is coming to boil, grate a bar of soap. Add to gently boiling water and melt completely (be patient and stir!!) In a large bucket, pour in 4 gallons of hot tap water Dissolve the Borax and washing soda in this. Stir for about 5 minutes. Add the soapy water. Let the mixture cool overnight. It will be very clumpy and kind of gross looking - but works great! I fill an empty laundry soap container to keep in my laundry room and store the remainder in the bucket with the lid on. You could pour all of it into empty containers if you have them. Use 1 cup per average load. I always shake the bottle before pouring. The kind of soap you use will add fragrance or some color. I use unscented sensitive skin Dove. Here's the finished product as it's cooling.

 Enjoy!!