Good clean fun

I successfully made soap!!

I’ve been nervous to try it on my own but figured with the month of cure time for this cold process soap that I better get over it and do it.

This is a coconut oil and olive oil soap with no added fragrance or color. Figured I better start with the basics and work my way up.

I have to tell you that I was super worried yesterday.

I never got a good “trace” before pouring it into the mold.

So maybe I shouldn’t say that it’s a success yet….

I’ll let you know in a month.

Blog | Crafts | Kitchen

frugal living, kitchen, soap making

7 Comments

halleday

201210/07

Fall wreath for mom

The other day, my mom said that she wished she had a Fall colors wreath for her apartment door.

I took it upon myself to get something made up for her.

I salvaged everything including the straw hat out of the Fall decor/costume box.
I think she’ll be pleased.

Blog

frugal living, Holidays

4 Comments

halleday

201210/03

Wordless Wednesday #2

Blog | Kitchen

frugal living, kitchen, Wordless Wednesday

6 Comments

halleday

201210/02

Apples, apples everywhere

On Saturday, a few families on the block got together to help harvest the apples from our neighbor’s trees.

It’s a big job but the fruits of our labor really pay off.

This year 63 grocery bags of apples were picked.

The apples were all big and beautiful with very few blemishes or worms.

Amazing!

We took home about 6 bags worth.

I set up shop in the garage so I could make a mess and not worry about it.

Concrete washes quite nicely.

After countless hours of cranking the peeler, I ended up with 23 gallon size freezer bags of peeled and sliced apples ready for the next stage of processing.

So far I’ve dehydrated 10 trays of apples, 4 pans of apple crisp-ready to be thawed then baked and cooked up about 2.5 gallons of applesauce.

And I still have a freezer full of bagged apples.

I am going to have to can the rest of the applesauce I make since my freezer can’t hold any more.

Blog | Kitchen

day in the life, frugal living, kitchen

3 Comments

halleday

201209/23

Green tomatoes aplenty

When I heard the overnight low forecast for last night, I decided to pick the rest of the tomatoes off my 12 plants.

Now I have a plethora of green babies that I’m hoping will ripen over time.

Any hints on helping them along??

Around home | Blog | Outdoors

frugal living, gardening

4 Comments

halleday

201205/15

Garden and treasured tea

It’s that busy time of year.

Getting the garden prepped and planted.

I started with my herbs that hang along the deck. I was able to over winter both a thyme and a flat leaf parsley this year. Additionally I started seeds early this Spring and picked up a couple small plants at the greenhouse yesterday.

We love having fresh herbs in our food.