Diapers to Toys

 If your family is anything like ours, you probably have a lot of these boxes around!  I found a cute idea surfing a few blogs one day, to cover boxes and reuse them.  So, here is my take on that idea!  


I ordered canvas material from my favorite online store.  www.fabric.com  Then, I went to Wal-Mart and raided the clearance fabric section for cotton prints that would be fun for the kids.  I only purchased 1 yard of the cotton fabric, which worked perfect for this size diaper box.  I ordered a ton of the canvas because I knew I would want to do more than just this one! 

 Also at Wal-Mart, I purchased Spray Adhesive.  It works awesome for this project.  I cut the top four pieces of cardboard off with a knife and ripped off any of the cardboard that was loose.  Then set the box in the middle of the canvas and started by spraying the bottom first and then each side of the box. 

  


I cut the corners one at a time and did a slight overlap with one side or the other to make sure there was not any cardboard still showing. 

  


After I had all the sides and bottom done, I folded over the left over canvas on top, leaving about 2inches inside the box.  The canvas material is quite strong material and really seems to hold up well under my 16 month olds climbing in and out of the box.  This is why I left so much extra, I wanted the top of the box to be strong too.

I then started on the cotton fabric for the inside.  Did the same type of spraying and gluing as the outside, but left the corners for an overlapped kind of look.  You can cut the corners out if you want to do that, too.  I did, for a different basket I made and it worked great.

You really want to leave a couple inches of the material for the outside of the basket, so the glue has a little more to hold on to.  I left two inches all the way around and then ended up doing a little trimming because I wanted to add a ribbon.

 













Since I don't have a ton of sewing skills (ok, really none!!), I used a ribbon with an adhesive back.  It was so easy to stick on right where I wanted it and to make the little pull handle at the end.  I used a piece of the canvas material on the back of the pull handle to make it stronger, then glued it on with the spray adhesive as well.  But, look how well it holds up!  He is 20 lbs and inside the toy box.  He climbs, in and out and in and out all day long!  Just a fun way to reuse an old cardboard box and spice up the decoration, too!   

Sweet and Sour Chicken with Fried Rice

This recipe is one that we use often at our house.  It is fairly healthy and a nice change to every day meals.  Prep and cook time for this one is a little more intensive though, so if you decide to try it, be sure you can devote your attention to it.  Otherwise, you will be like me and it will take 3 hours to get it done!  ;)

It is wonderful though and definitely worth the extra work!

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken

The chicken coating:                                            The sweet and sour sauce:               3-4 boneless chicken breasts                                  3/4 cup sugar
salt and pepper                                                    4 tbs ketchup
1 cup cornstarch                                                  1/2 cup vinegar
2 eggs, beaten                                                     1 tbs soy sauce
1/4 cup canola oil                                                 1 tsp garlic salt

Start by preheating your oven to 325 degrees. Rinse your chicken breasts in water and then cut into cubes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste. Dip chicken into the cornstarch to coat then dip into the eggs. 
Heat your 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet and cook your chicken until browned but not cooked through.  Place the chicken in a 9x13 greased baking dish.
Mix all of your sweet and sour sauce ingredients in a bowl with a whisk and then pour evenly over the chicken.  Bake for one hour and during the baking process you will need to turn the chicken every 15 minutes. 

Fried Rice                                                                                            
3 cups cooked white rice
3 tbs sesame oil
1 cup frozen peas and carrots (thawed)
1 small onion, chopped
2 tsp minced garlic
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 cup soy sauce

On medium high heat, heat the oil in a large skillet or wok. 
Add the peas/carrots mix, onion and garlic. Stir fry until tender.
Lower the heat to medium low and push the mixture off to one side, then pour your eggs on the other side of skillet and stir fry until scrambled.
Now add the rice and soy sauce and blend all together well. Stir fry until thoroughly heated!  

**You could really play around with this rice too!  Try adding some diced ham, or green onion :)  

**For our family, I use 3 lbs of chicken breasts and then double the sweet and sour sauce recipe.  I follow all of the other directions, but we like to have the extra sauce!  It really is wonderful!

Enjoy!

Home Made Animal Crackers

With the littlest of our family having the recent diagnosis of lactose intolerance, I have found myself making more and more food at home.  This recipe is fun, can be done with a 2 1/2 year old (fairly easily!!) and is quick.  I will post the recipe for regular crackers, but remember it doesn't take much to substitute if you are looking for lactose free!  

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grind oats until fine using a blender or food processor.

In a medium bowl, stir together the blended oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or your fingers until the butter lumps are smaller than peas. Stir in the buttermilk and honey to form a stiff dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto cookie sheets or pizza pans!

Bake for 5 to 7 minutes in the preheated oven, until edges are lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.   Makes about 48-60 cookies depending on the size of your cutters.  I filled my reusable peanut jar (pictured above) and still had about 10 left over. 






To make these little gems lactose free, I simply substituted regular butter for soy butter and made my own buttermilk with soy milk and lemon juice.  I also decided to add a little extra honey into them since the real "animal cracker" has more of a sweet taste to it.  I ended up using 4 tbsp of honey vs. what the original recipe called for.  Still makes a wonderful, healthy snack for my littlest man!  Enjoy!

Home Made Laundry Detergent

It really is this easy.  Today, I figured out what the cost of making my own laundry detergent vs. buying it at the store...I am saving $.12 per load...yes, per load.  Store bought detergent costs about $.13 on average to wash one load of laundry.  With the batch of detergent I made today, I will be washing our clothes for $.015 per load.  Worth my 25 minutes of time, all day long!  I was slightly skeptical of trying this project because I have two of three kids with skin irritations.  Logan and Sophie both have eczema, plus Sophie's skin is super sensitive to everything.  About 2 weeks ago, I made a sample (smaller) batch of this and fell in love.  The scent is wonderful, the cleaning power is fantastic and it does not irritate my kids skin AT ALL!!  Hooray!  Here's the step by step.  All of the ingredients needed can be found in the laundry department of your shopping center.   

Ingredients:
 
1/3 bar of Fels-Naptha (grated)
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Soda (do not use baking soda!!)
bucket (has to hold at least 2 gallons)
empty containers with lids for storage (washed out milk jugs, old laundry soap bottles, old fabric softener bottles, anything!)

Directions:

In a large pan, combine 6 cups water and Fels-Naptha soap.  Over medium heat, cook until all of the soap is melted.  Add Borax and Washing Soda and stir slowly until both have dissolved.  The consistency should be slightly like gel.  


 



Pour 4 cups of hot water and the mixture into a bucket.  Add 1 gallon (16 cups) and 6 cups (total 22 cups) of water.  Stir.

Pour detergent into sealed containers and let sit for 24 hours.   The consistency may be different, depending on what type of water you have, watery and lumpy is fine, it still works great!  Stir or shake the container before each use, because the detergent will continue to gel.  This is a very low sudsing soap and works great in HE washers.  For top load washers, use 1/2 cup per load.  For extra dirty laundry, you can add up to another 1/4 cup.  For HE machines, use 1/4 cup per load.  Here's the break down on price:


Fels-Naptha $1.00/bar at Wal-Mart
Arm & Hammer Washing Soda $2.89 at Wal-Mart
Borax $2.98 at Wal-Mart


Using the small amount of the soda and Borax, you will only be spending about $1.02 on this entire batch of detergent.  The above recipe will make a little more than 2 gallons of detergent.  That is 64 loads of laundry (in a top load).  


Other positive aspects of this detergent are:

Fels-Naptha is a natural pretreater.  I have not pretreated anything since I started using this.  It also removes the oils from poison ivy from your clothes.  It also has a clean, fresh scent that I personally love.  If you are not big on the scent, you can add essential oils to this recipe to change the scent to your preference.  


And you are done.  I couldn't believe this was it.  It works.  Try it out and let me know what you think!  :)








 

Shredded Chicken Taco's

My newest creation is Shredded Chicken Taco's.  Such a huge success at our house!  :)  We love taco's.  At least once a week, one of the kids or the hubby requests taco's.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love taco's too, but over and over again, get a little tiring.  So, I started brainstorming new ideas for our taco nights.  I found a few recipes that looked okay, but not something that I thought my whole family would enjoy.  So, I took a few different recipes and came up with my newest idea.

Ingredients:
1 package of taco seasoning
1 package of ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup sour cream
4 chicken breasts, shredded
10-12 corn taco shells
The following ingredients are all optional, it is what you generally put on a taco!  Just use what you already love!
1 large tomato
1 can black olives
1 large onion  
shredded lettuce
shredded cheese
taco sauce (Pace, Ortega, your favorite!)

In medium bowl, mix sour cream, package of ranch dressing mix and 2 tbsp taco seasoning.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to eat.

 Quarter each chicken breast and place in large frying pan.  Add 2 cups of water and the rest of taco seasoning to the chicken.  Over medium heat, cook the chicken for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally.  After the chicken has cooked, take each quarter out and shred it with a fork and knife.  Replace all shredded chicken in the pan with the water and seasoning.  Simmer for 10 minutes.
 


While the chicken is simmering, prepare the rest of your toppings, tomato, onion, black olive, etc.  When the chicken is ready, almost all of the juice will be soaked up into the pieces.  Using tongs, place chicken on a serving platter!

At our house, frying individual taco shells one at a time is way too time consuming!  I place the taco shells on a dish towel arranged as I have them in the picture to the left.  Wrap the towel around the shells and place in the microwave for 1 minute and serve!





 


Top each taco with your regular veggies, the sour cream mixture and Ortega sauce (if you want!!)  Enjoy!

 

Home Made Fabric Softener

I am always on the lookout for something easy and green to help my family save money and not bring so many chemicals into our house.  Having the two littles (Sophie, 2 1/2 and Henry, 15 months) at home with me 24/7, I don't always have a ton of time to work on the green projects, but when I find something that looks as easy and money saving as this fabric softener recipe, I jump at the chance.  I am already using a home made laundry detergent (recipe to come soon!!) and I was surfing for a decent fabric softener recipe and came across this one.  It is super easy and quick to make.  I also adjusted the recipe to use it for dryer sheets too.  Using the following recipe, I filled my 65 load fabric softener jug about 3/4 full.  The bottle of conditioner cost $1 at the dollar store and the bottle of vinegar was $1.67.  When making this recipe, you will use the entire bottle of conditioner (15 oz.) and about 1/3 of the vinegar.  Total cost for 45 loads of laundry (including the dryer sheets) is $1.56.  Yep, I will take the time to make this recipe over and over again!!

 

Ingredients:

6 cups HOT water

2 cups Suave conditioner (your favorite scent!)

3 cups white vinegar

Pour the hot water and conditioner into a large pan or bucket.  

Slowly, mix them together with a whisk.  If you stir too fast, the mixture will bubble and you will have trouble getting it all to mix together. 

Add the vinegar and stir with a wooden spoon until mixture is completely combined.  

Store in an old fabric softener bottle or other air tight container.  I used a measuring cup with a pour spout to fill up my jug.  Use the softener in a softener ball, or two tablespoons in the softener section of your washing machine.  This will also work for HE machines!  :)

 

Then I used an old Tupperware container, put about 1/2 cup of the softener in the bottom and threw in my "dryer sheets".  In this case, old socks!!  I have found that it is a wonderful use for odd socks.  Just soak the sock in the softener, using a plastic fork or old fork, scoop one out and throw it in the dryer with the laundry. 

When the laundry is done, the sock is dry.  I just throw it back in the bowl and get out a new one for the next load.  I have done about 10 loads of laundry this way now and I do not have any static in my laundry or any odd "scent" from the softener socks! 

Lemon Poppy Seed Doughnuts

Logan, Henry and I are all huge fans of lemon poppy seed.  It can be any form, muffin, cake or recently our newest favorite, the doughnut!  I had been searching in vain at Wal-Mart and other local stores for a doughnut pan with absolutely no luck.  I found one online for $15.95 plus shipping and tax.  Now, I have never made a doughnut before.  Ever.  Spending close to $20 on a pan that I am unsure if I will ever use again was a little more than I could choke down.  There is an outlet store about 35 miles from our house, but I had no other reason to drive up and hope the kitchen store had what I was looking for.  So, when I found out my friend Theresa had to go shopping for new shoes, I jumped at the chance for a little assistance in my search.  Thankfully, she was a wonderful friend and was able to help me out.  For only $8.99, I got a doughnut pan!  Promptly, two days later, I embarked on the wonderful process of doughnut making!  And just look at this amazing goodness!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk (or soy milk, which I used because of the lactose intolerance)
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

For the glaze:
3-4 tbsp lemon juice (really depends on how you want your glaze, thicker, less juice)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease doughnut pans.
In a small bowl, whisk together milk and sour cream. Set aside.
In another small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In large bowl, or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar, until light and fluffy - about 1 minute. Add egg, lemon juice and poppy seeds. Beat for 30 seconds, scrapping down the bowl as needed.








Then alternating flour mixture and milk mixture, combine all ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix.

Transfer batter into a piping bag, or a Ziploc bag with the tip cut off.
Fill each doughnut indention 1/2 full. Bake for 6-8 minutes, or until the donuts are slightly browned and spring back when touched. Remove from oven, transfer to a cooling rack, and cool completely.

For the icing:
Place wax paper under a wire rack to collect drippings for an easy clean up.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and powdered sugar until smooth. Dip the top of each doughnut into the glaze and transfer to a wire rack to dry. Let set for 10 minutes and serve!
Will keep for a day or two in an airtight container, but are better fresh!

All this work, for a very happy baby and 9 year old.  Very worth it!  Oh, and I had a few too!  Enjoy!

Jumbo Shell Lasagna

Growing up I can remember always asking for Lasagna for dinner.  Every day, every week, all the time.  It was one of my favorite dinners.  It still is.  I love lasagna.  I am always up for a new version of lasagna, it can be so much fun to put a new spin on an old favorite.  This recipe has become one of my kids favorite meals in a very short amount of time.  The recipe is super easy, same ingredients except a different type of noodles.  

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
1 box of jumbo shells
1 can/jar spaghetti sauce (your favorite!)
1 large container of cottage cheese, small curd
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
1.  Cook the noodles to the directions on the box.  After they are done, drain and let sit for about 5 minutes so you don't burn your fingers!  
2.  Take one shell and add about a tablespoon of ground beef, 1/2 tbsp cottage cheese and pour some spaghetti sauce on top.  Place the shell in an ungreased 9x13 cake pan and continue filling all the shells.

 3.  If you use all the shells in the box, you will have to tightly pack all of the filled shells into the cake pan.  (I have to do a few without cottage cheese and cheddar for my lactose intolerant son, so my pan is not quite as full.)

 4.  Once your pan is full, or your shells are gone, you will have about half a container of cottage cheese and 1 1/2 cups of spaghetti sauce left over.  I pour the extras over top of the filled shells and then add the shredded cheese.

 

5.  Place aluminum foil over the pan and place in the oven at 350F for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden.

 I serve ours with french style green beans and generally some home made bread.  Didn't get to the bread today, it was a little crazy, but you get the idea!!  Enjoy!

 

Fruit Snacks

Fruit snacks are a huge must at our house.  Everyone eats them.  The kids like them for a snack, the hubby likes them in his lunch for work, even I eat them as a quick "grab and go" snack.  I started looking into all of the ingredients in a box of fruit snacks, and I was appalled.  Gross.  So much nastiness.  If you are curious, just grab a box out of your cupboard and see for yourself.  We are all guilty of it.  Especially me.  

I started looking for recipes for home made "nutritional" fruit snacks and was having a hard time finding something that didn't closely resemble Jello Jigglers.  There are tons of recipes for fruit snacks that use a box of Jello, but those are not always necessarily "good" either.  Then I came across one I thought I could play with a little and voila, we have a new favorite at our house.  Home made, nutritional, no preservatives, no additives and super cost effective. I made two batches of this recipe, which equals out to be more snacks than one box of store bought snacks.  Total price; $1.18 for a box of gelatin and $1.48 for one container of frozen 100% juice concentrate at Wal-Mart.  I only used 1/3 of the juice, so total price for over one box of snacks is $1.67.  Even if I buy the generic dollar store kind of fruit snacks, minimum price is $2.00.  I used mini ice cube trays for the snacks.  Pick a flavor that is strong, cranberry was a huge hit at our house.  Anything with pineapple in it will not work.  Something in pineapple does not let them harden up.  Now, here is the recipe.  And it couldn't be any easier!

Ingredients:
1/3 cup frozen juice concentrate
2 packages of gelatin (box contains 4 packages)


Directions:
Pour juice into a small pan.  Sprinkle the gelatin over the juice and let it sit for a few minutes.  



 
Over a medium heat, stir the juice mixture until all of the gelatin is dissolved.  I then poured the mixture into a measuring cup with a spout which made it so much easier to pour into the molds.

 After the gelatin is poured into the trays, let it sit for about 20 minutes.  If you start to pull out the snacks and they are still sticking, wait longer.  Once you pull them out, set them on a plate for another 10-15 minutes.  Enjoy!