Disaster into Genius

So a while ago I decided that I would start an etsy shop and start selling appliquéd onesies. No I haven't ever posted anything on my "shop" yet but I will someday. I made a bunch of patterns to use for the appliqués, bought a whole bunch of onesies and fabric. Sounds like I'm all ready to start those cute onesies right? Well my plans were thwarted when I realized I don't have a lot of time having two small kids and all. But the thing that halted me even more was one lovely day I decided that I needed to wash my bright white onesies with my new fabrics. Which of course included a dark never-been-washed hot pink. I know if I would have use a bit of brain power I would have never made the mistake. So about 20 new onesies had blotches of bright pink all over them, and not in a cute way. I have been dreading the day that I would have to work on those spots one by one to make the onesies white again. Until the other day my sis-in-law was telling me that she dyed some of her onesies. BING! Light of genius finally kicked on in my head. I can dye all of the really badly stained ones pink and see if I can salvage any of the ones that aren't to bad and make them blue! Totally worked!

My final product.

Pretty awesome huh? Now they are all ready to have cute appliqués on them!

Thanks Dylon fabric dye!

Appliquéd Onesies

My latest onesie I made for a neighbor. I used my last white onesies on this one.

These are ones I've done in the past.

This one is missing it's buttons.

Scripture Covers

I covered my daughters scriptures and she loves them!

I just got her a paperback copy and slipped extra cardboard in to make it more durable.

So now its durable and adorable!

Made a few flowers, one for the Velcro strap, and two for the cover.

This one is mine. We did this as a craft activity in my church.

So cute, so fun, ENDLESS possibilities!

Meal Schedule

I recently made up a calendar of every meal for every day for an entire month. I figured that we could follow this food schedule and then just repeat it each month. I did a WHOLE BUNCH of shopping and just multiplied the things I'd need over the next few months. Which has been a big help to get food storage and meals done.

So NOW, I know what's for dinner!

I am going to share some of my tips, calendar, and recipes in posts to come. Hopefully it will help someone else.

So here is what I've done. I figured out Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner for each day, (figured how much we eat on weekdays, the kids and I, then on weekends remembered to count daddy.) I'm super luck to have such generous and helpful parents and they have all of they're kids over every Sunday night and have dinner. So you may need to think of an extra meal. I usually have a "fill in meal" for those nights you didn't remember to put it in the crock pot or you just don't feel like making the chosen meal of the day. I have a bag of frozen pot stickers for our "fill in meal" it's easy and yummy and no one minds the "fill in meal." We have left over night on Monday's because it usually works best for us on that day. You may need to move it to a different day. And if you have no left overs, that is a "fill in meal" night. I also keep cans of soup handy which also makes for a good "fill in meal."

*These meals are what we normally eat, but I think I would like to implement more meals that have more 'food storage' ingredients.

I made the calendar first and then figured out what I'd need for each meal for the whole month. This may be different for your family. We have two adults and two small kids in our family. I'd say try to stick with the schedule for a week and see how much food your family eats and then calculate the numbers according to your family. It was a lot of work but it was worth it. These are meals I know my family likes and will eat. If you don't like the meals you may want to make up your own using mine as a guide. Here is a tip if you have your menu for an entire month you can watch the deals and sales on the meats you buy and then stock up. I have all my meat frozen and I can either stick it in the crock pot frozen or since I know what the weeks meals are I can thaw it.

Don't forget snacks: yogurt (I freeze mine), cheese, crackers, pretzels, pudding, Jell-O, apple salad, frozen/can fruit, muffins, cookies (make a batch every once in a while freeze the dough and you have a few cookies whenever you want them), cake, vegetables, raisins. I didn't calculate real specifically on the snacks.

Bridal Buds

Flowers made out of panties and thongs.

Happy. Bridal. Shower.

Glass Etched Pans

Amor Etch + Cricut + Glass Pans =

LOVE!

Some vinyl, a Cricut, and Armor Etch.

Use a Cricut to cut your vinyl (backwards) stick it on the back of your pan. Apply a generous coat of Armor Etch wait 5-10 min. Scoop excess back in bottle and re-apply, scoop excess back in again and wash glass.

Other tutorials @ Not so Idle Hands, and The Idea Room

Organize

That is a funny word now that I have to spell it out. It has nothing to do with an organ yet when you spell it out it seems it should.

Anyway on with my tip. I do like to be organized but I'm just not one of those that has months of plans in advance. Which is fine if you do but I just don't. I do keep a calender though and I love Google Calendar. It allows you to make different "calenders" which are different colors and it has a task option, a little check list, on the side you can see mine.

I have my chores that I should do each day on my calendar. These I can repeat however often I want them done. (For those odd jobs you want to remember to do on a more scheduled basis.) Most are rotated every week but I have some rotating every other week and some every 6 weeks or something strange like that. And it emails me each day of the things I'm doing that day! It's easy to use easy to look at and makes my life easy.

My point is that Google Calendar helps me to stay organized even for my chores.