Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Greenhouse is done!

                                                    The Suburban Pirate's ship is done!
This is the Greenhouse that my Sister and Brother in law built from windows the bought at habitat for humanity, and all the rest was vintage or used items! Turned out pretty awesome!




All off the white cabinets on the inside of the glass in the greenhouse came from Habitat for humanity, along with the granite counters, the white enamel table is from the 1940's, the floor mats came from our parents house, all the garden containers were picked up at Goodwill and garage sales. The glass tiles on both sides of the doors she found on craigslist. The tin on the inside and outside of the door, were piece from a old hotel ceiling downtown. Here are some of the flowers in her backyard.



















Friday, August 26, 2011

Freezing Fresh Basil

From our Garden!Lemon Basil

Sweet Basil

Sweet Basil in Vita Mix

My Helper


This is the sweet Basil pureed. I put one teaspoon of basil per Ice cube then filled with water, It was about another teaspoon of water to fill the cube. These will be great for making spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce and much more! As for the Lemon Basil I chopped it up with a knife finely instead of using the Vita Mix. This way I can use it for seasoning chicken and other meats. I also put one teaspoon of the chopped Lemon Basil per Ice cube and topped the cube off with water.



Thursday, August 18, 2011

Treasure Hunting

Hi! Sorry for being so quite here on the blog front!! We have all been a little sick and I have been having asthma problems with this humidity. I do not remember it being THIS hot last summer, but it has been nice for the past couple days so we have been doing a lot of going to parks, slip in sides, jumping jax ( indoor inflatable!), crying that all the squirrels ate our tomatoes (kidding about the crying, only minor pouting). I had HUGE tomatoes and I started to see them at the bottoms of the trees in my backyard and thought to myself " Huh, weird. I wonder why one of my tomatoes is at the bottom of the tree with a bite taken out.. ladeda." Went out the next day and they were gone, except three!!! What the heck, I have been robbed!!  Then promptly forgot about it and went about my business the rest of the day. Then went out the next morning to see what was going on, and not one tomato was left, not one!! Well according to Mr. Nie our neighbor the squirrels eat them for the liquid when its hot, I guess the big pool in the backyard is not enough water for them. Next summer I am getting them a dog bowl. Sigh... Lots of other fun things have been going on, but you can see that this Sunday!

My parents have also been getting the house remolded so it has not been easy to get on the computer and stay out of the way, with three Noise Nancy's (Lil, Ray, Remy) wanting to see every single thing going on with all the workmen. So soon I will be able to post daily!!

On to Thrifty Thursday
My mom bought this at a Antique shop in Texas recently. Pretty cool! Its about two feet tall and a foot wide and now lives in one of our Gardens!

Someone and there yogurt tube kept creeping into my pictures!

She bought these at the same shop, they are on a tree above the red flower.
I hope everyone has been having a great week!
~Love Annie

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Fairy Garden

So Lilly and I made these, she helped with most of the painting and it was really good for taking things slow and to  listen carefully to where and what color I told her to paint! I glued all the jewels on.


Lilly did this one


This one she I told her to do what ever she wanted! I think it came out cool!


 Same with this house, she did what ever she wanted!


 

This one she did mostly on her own with really good listening, you can see where the green got high so I put jewels around the bottom and white parts on the top


Same with this one she helped me paint and listen really good I think!!


We made a table for the fairys to have a Tea Party! We also have

Here are some of our Fairy's and Friends. I really wanted to buy the Mary Cicely Barker Fairy's but they are so expensive and breakable and I wanted to be able to play with our fairy garden.

Some of the items we have collected to make pathways and such!

I have some little pinwheels in tiny pots and wooden thread spoons I painted brown for seats to go with the mushroom tables. I have sealed all of the houses with a outdoor sealer.  Here is the village outside of Lillys and Raleys playhouse! They love that its all playable!





Sunday, August 7, 2011

Homemade Laundry Soap

Hi! This  Post is about how I make my own Laundry Soap I have been making it for about 4yrs!

First let me explain how I sort laundry for washing, I do love this recipe but still use store bought laundry soap at times. If I explain how I sort it maybe that will make since?! I put all darks- black, Navy and browns in one pile, Blue's (Except navy) and greens in one pile. Pinks (usually there is so much pink that it makes its own load between the three of us), reds and oranges in one pile. Yellows, creams, and not nice whites ( my workshop house tee shirts or girls Jammie's) in one pile. Nice whites in one pile with a scoop of oxy clean. Towels, panties, and socks in one pile on Hot to kill germs. Kitchen Towels in there own pile.  Sheets in there own piles on hot. Raleys cloth diapers in there own pile on hot and then laid out to dry in the sun if it is nice . I also do not dry most of the clothes for the girls I drape them on hangers and hang them on the top of the door frame.
As for the girls clothes most of it was my nieces clothes which are all from gymboree, or stuff that I have bought usually Janie and jack or Gap, some Target. Or that my mom has bought gymboree, Heartstrings or chocolate soup. Its not that I am all about labels ( most of my stuff I buy I buy on sale or eBay) but I just find that the these brands hold up well and stay new looking the longest I have bought stuff from walmart but I find that it fades a lot even with using Woolite. Since the clothes are for Lilly and then Raley to wear I want them to look nice for a long time and after Raley wears them I resale them ( these brands also have a higher resale value, some of them even if used and in good condition resale for higher then they were bought for) unless I am attached to them and then I keep it. Also I always pretreat the stains asap. So basically I really like it but since it does not have all the chemicals in that other laundry soap has in it but, I do find it fades and does not get stains out as well. I also find that it is a lot better for me and my daughters skin. I have a very fair completion and so do my daughters, Lilly more then Raley. The fairer you are the more sensitive your skin is.
Anyways...

Back to the soap

 I feel that it does fade the dark clothes more then regular laundry soap because it does not have the color protection that Woolite dark does, but that is just me. I use this on all the clothes except the dark pinks/reds, dark pile.

You need:
 1 Bar of Fels-Naptha
 1 cup of Washing Soda
 1/2 cup of Borax
All found at your local grocery store/Target/Walmart


Grate the whole bar of soap. I use the large grate because it takes way to long to grate down otherwise. It may take a little longer to melt the bigger pieces but I would rather stir a little longer then grate longer. That's just me.


5 gallon bucket. I got this at Lowe's for a couple bucks.


Add the Grated soap to 6 cups of water


This is the soap, just pored into the stove top pot to be mixed


Adding Borax and washing soda



Then the Hot soap mix from stove top on top of the powder (some people mix the washing soda and borax in the pot on the stove and then then put it in the bucket, this is how I do it)


After the water is filled to the top and then I stir untill it it all blended.

Always use  Fels-Naptha if you use other brands it will turn out much different than this ( I am refuring to the picture below). The way it is supposed to turn out is similar to "Egg Drop soup" if you use other brands( I have tried Ivory, Dove it turns out like a very very think gel instead of Egg Drop soup and you need a mixer to make it somewhat smooth. This you do not need a mixer you just swirl your spoon around and Tada!! I like to use milk jugs because you can get a good shake with the handle before you use it!

This is after stirring, see how it is all blended together and no big clumps!