Water to Wine!

Not really, but I needed a cool title, because today's post is about how I used WINE BOXES to make shelves in my kitchen! Wooo!

Okay, back story. I went to Goodwill the other day (How I love Goodwill!), and they had a bunch of wine boxes. By the way, I love that people literally give their trash to Goodwill. "Hey, here's an empty container from like 6 years ago. You can find a use for it, right?"

Why, yes, yes I can.

So I bought like ALL of them (totally 4, 3 large and 1 small), and it came out to about $7. $7? For wooden boxes? Girl, you must be crazy!

Crazy about THRIFTINESS.

So I actually had NO idea what I was going to do with them at first. I brought them home and almost immediately regretted my decision.

And then I saw it.

That GIANT BARE SPOT above my kitchen sink. All that space, going to WASTE.

I knew then what I was going to do with these boxes.

SHELVES. Lots of awesome SHELVES.

Because my kitchen and my bathroom FAIL for storage space. I mean, my kitchen has a nice big pantry, but it's narrow and I have to like climb into it to get anything. It makes cooking a hassle and I want to be able to just GRAB my spices as I cook.

So I didn't want to just nail them up as is, because it was like this huge canvas with which I could make pretty! So I ran to Joanns and picked up some cheap paint (yellow, orange, and blue all together) and some cheap paint brushes and endeavored to PAINT SOMETHING PRETTY.

More story time. I can't paint. To save my life. I try to paint and it comes out looking like a 3 year old dipped it's hands into a bucket o' paint and just went nuts. That being said...

THESE BOXES ARE MY MASTERPIECES.

Like, oh my God, it's as if the world said, "You know what, Liz, just this once (twice even), we're going to give you adequate ability to paint, so that you're kitchen looks semi-decorated."

So pretty *cries*

So the first one I did, I hung up above the kitchen sink using screws. Mr. H was adamant about screws being better than nails, though I imagine whenever we move from this apartment and there are 4 giant holes in the wall, he will possibly regret that decision.

Though considering I spilled paint all over our closet floor, that deposit may be long gone anyway...that's a story for another day!

So up it went! And I'm keeping soap and pretty things there...though I'm not quite sure what pretty things yet! Ideas, anyone???

The second one had a little addition to it. I decided to use the second one for spices, so it needed an extra shelf. I took the small wine box, which I had tried to paint and miserably failed at and therefore must assume the world decided 2 boxes was plenty of talent wasted on me, and hammered off one of the sides. I hammered out the nails and REUSED them to hammer the box side into the big wine box for a shelf!

God, I'm thrifty. Go, Me!

So I put it all together and hung that box above my stove, resulting in an AWESOME spice shelf! The best part is that the shelf I made from the small wine box was shorter than the length of the big wine box, leaving room for me to also store oils and other cooking items!


It's been a good day.

Peace out!
Mrs. H

Mrs. H...for Hippie!

Today was a great day for my hippie side! I took a shower (yes, hippies take showers), washing my hair with baking soda and conditioned it with coconut oil! Usually when I go hippie-fabulous on my hair, I condition with apple cider vinegar, but I read that coconut oil was a great moisturizer for hair, so figured I'd give it a try.

Then I made HOMEMADE DEODORANT. Which I have done before, but it's always fun! Right now, it's sitting in the fridge so it won't melt. It's made with cornstarch, baking soda (I love baking soda!), and coconut oil (coconut oil, you are making a huge break into my life!). Unfortunately, coconut oil melts REALLY easily. As in, I bought it in a solid form several months ago, and it has been sitting in my mildly warm apartment and melted. Crazyyyyyy. But since it melts so easily, I keep it in the fridge.


Short story time! The first time I made homemade deodorant, I took it with me somewhere (for some reason) and left it on the passenger seat in my car. Come back an hour later, and after it sat in my hot car in the hot Florida sun, it melted allllll over my seat.

Lesson learned.


Lastly, today I also made homemade laundry detergent! And it was so easy to make. I'm hoping that it will make Mr. H less itchy, because we are thinking he is allergic to the detergents we usually buy. We will see what happens!


Baking Soda Hair Wash
2Tbsp baking soda
1 Cup water
Put the baking soda in a squeezie bottle, trust me on the one. You don't have to, but it makes it easier. When you're in the shower and ready to wash your hair, just add about a cup of water. If it's a little more or a little less, it's not gonna hurt. You might actually want to play around with the math. I add a little extra baking soda and a little less water because my hair is so thick. The mixture is going to be VERY watery, which is why the squeezie bottle is best. If you just do it in a bowl, you basically dump the whole bowl on your head. The squeezie bottle lets you do it gradually and where you need it.

Coconut Oil Conditioner
You do this AFTER you are out of the shower. Put a VERY small amount on your finger and rub it between your hands to melt it a bit and then rub it through your head, paying special attention to your scalp. Since mine was melted already, I just dipped two fingers in and whatever came out I rubbed around on my hands and then in my hair. In either case, start off with a small amount. If you need more, you can add more.


Deodorant
This stuff is SO awesome. I got the recipe for it here. But if you don't want to go to a different site, it's all good! Here you go:

5-6 Tbsp Coconut oil
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup arrowroot powder or cornstarch

Combine the cornstach. Start adding the coconut oil a little at a time until it's a good consistency for rubbing under your pits (teehee). I liked mine a little mushy, but the first time I made it, it was fairly firm. Pack the stuff into an empty deodorant container, and BAM! Instant deodorant. Remember to keep the stuff in the fridge...


Laundry Detergent
4 cups pure soap, grated
2 cups baking soda
2 cups Borax
Mix 'em all together. Done. Now, when I grated my soap, it was very much like grated cheese. It was still a little too big for mixing in with finely grated borax and baking soda. So I tossed everything into my food processor, which finely ground up the soap. Now it's perfect!

Like I said, I haven't tried the laundry detergent yet, but when I do, I will let you know how it does. Actually, I might have Mr. H tell you how it does, since he's always the one who does the laundry...

Peace!
Mrs. H

Still Dying

Please note that I am still sick from the weekend. Blech. So I haven't done much in the way of creating. I did however find out tonight that frozen blueberries make AMAZING sorbet. Big success there. I also discovered that powdered sugar actually does work better than granulated sugar in the fruit sorbets because it gives it a smoother, creamier texture while granulated sugar just gives it a grainy feel. The powdered sugar helps soak up a lot of the moisture so it isn't just a mass of melting fruit.

So powdered sugar = best for the sorbets.

I am also in the process of

1. Crocheting a lunch bag
2. Hand sewing an actual bag
3. Making a bracelet.

So I should have some better posts when those are finish.

Send me soup,
Mrs. H

Sick

I'm sick. As a dog. Want to die. Need more cough drops!

Mrs. H

Closing Shifts Stink

My first day back at work was Tuesday, and I have had closing shifts ever since. Considering I don't get home till 11:30 and don't wake up till 9:30, I never have time to actually DO anything to blog about!

However, yesterday morning I started on some vegetable broth, using about-to-go-bad mushrooms, the innards of a celery bunch, a left over leek stalk, some about-to-go-bad onions, some carrots and some extra corn. I popped it all in my crock pot, filled it up to the top with water and proceeded to leech the nutrients and flavor out of the vegetables over a span of 24 hours.

The end product was a little spicy. Next time, I shant be putting in pepper with the broth.

This morning I was going to make a kale-wrapped-chicken thing that came to me in a dream, but Mr. H (God love him) pulled out an entire bag of chicken instead of just 2 breasts...

Crap.

So instead, I'm making chicken stew right now (using some of my homemade vegetable broth) and tomorrow I'm going to make double of the kale-wrapped-chicken.

Instead of posting a recipe for vegetable broth, I'm just going to post the link of the website I used when trying to figure out the best way to make a vegetable broth: Vegetable Broth

Enjoy!

Peace,
Mrs. H

Leek and Celery Soup

Dude, I missed a day on the whole blogging thing! My bad. Visiting people in Gainesville was EXHAUSTING. Fun, though!

To make up for it, last night I pulled my CrockPot out and dusted it off (poor unused Crockpot!) and made some YUMMY Leek and Celery Soup.

You all are going to hate me.

Because I didn't measure anything out. So this recipe is gonna suck a little...

And...

I didn't take any pictures of the process...

But it's still delicious and you can still try!!!

H'okay!

Leek and Celery Soup

Ingredients
8 cups vegetable broth
4 Tbsp butter, slice in 1/2 inch pats
2 Stalks of Leek
4 big stalks of celery (as in, the outermost stalks)
1/2 red onion
1 small yellow onion
1 heaping handful of sliced mushrooms
Italian herbs (just a couple of shakes)
1 Tbsp Spinach spepper (aka the dehydrated Spinach leaves that I salted too much and crumbled up for garnish)
Sea Salt

Directions
1. Cut the ends off the leeks. Slice them in half, then start pulling them apart and washing them. Do not skip this step; leeks are infamous for the gross mud they hide.
2. Start slicing them up, end to end, about 1/2 inch pieces.
3. Wash and slice up the celery the exact same way.
4. For both onions, slice them at about half an inch, then chopped the slices up.
5. If you have precut mushrooms, like I did, you can skip this step. If not, just slice up some mushrooms, slicing down towards the stem.
6. Put the vegetable broth into your crockpot, followed by the butter.
7. Throw all the vegetables in.
8. Add the Italian seasoning and Spinach spepper.
9. Cook on high for an hour, then lower the temperature and cook for another 7 hours.
10. When the soup is done (aka the vegetables are RIDICULOUSLY tender and delicious), add some sea salt to your liking and turn off the crockpot.

Now you can eat it all now, or you can freeze it and save for later. If you don't like the texture of the vegetables, but you do like the flavor of the soup, you can blend the entire thing together so that it's not a chunky soup! Enjoy!

Peace,
Mrs. H

Tree-Hugger

So, yesterday we decided to go out of town and visit some friends in Gainesville.

So I don't have anything to post about today.

So you get a picture (drawn by moi) of my friend Tyler hugging a tree.



Hippie.

Peace,
Mrs. H