A City Life For Me

It’s been cold here.  Really cold.  Usually we bundle up and persevere in our walks and outings – through rain, cold, or whatever.  But not the last two weeks.  It’s been in the 20s and windy.  And since it takes a lot of effort for me to get out these days anyways…and since our new house is a little farther from any of our stops…we’ve been stuck. Inside.  Going crazy. I’ve been trying to do activities with the kids to break up the monotony of princess dress-ups and train tracks.  I printed off a snow man tot pack and we’ve been doing crafts and such around the winter/snowman theme.  Here’s a peek into our efforts to bust the winter blues. :: Snow Man Tot Pack – I downloaded two different ones ( 3Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo ).  Elaine is doing pre-writing practice and cutting practice, as well as matching games, coloring sheets, and puzzles. :: Baking – We made a new kind of cookie with ingredients we had on hand – Peanut Butter Oatmeal...

I have finally been getting around to making some things I have pinned on Pinterest.  Here are a few things that turned out well: :: Homemade Floor Cleaner I really like my Pine Sol lemon for mopping the floor…but this is a great and frugal alternative!  Once my bottle of Pine Sol is gone I probably won’t replace it.  I always have Borax & Washing Soda on hand.  I cut this recipe in half so my bucket isn’t quite so full. :: Downy Wrinkle Releaser I love this stuff!  But it costs a pretty penny…so I was excited to try a homemade version.  I finally finished off my Downy and made my own wrinkle releaser with fabric softener and water.  So easy, and just as effective!  I can pick the scent this way, too! :: Homemade Laundry Detergent   This is something I’ve been making for a while, but I found a better recipe.  This one includes oxi-clean for more stain fighting power, uses a whole box of Borax & Washing Soda {mak...

For a while now I haven’t purchased replacement dusters for my Swiffer Duster.  I love how they work, but I’ve been trying to cut costs.  I have been using old microfiber diaper inserts to trap the dust in my house…on those rare occasions when I actually dust…which is usually when we are having company.  When I saw a tutorial on Pinterest for DIY Swiffer Dusters from Sew Much Ado , I immediately pulled out the sewing machine & fabric scraps to get started.  Well, not quite immediately , but as soon as breakfast was almost over. They were very easy to make, and I just used old receiving blankets that had been placed into the “upcycle” fabric bag.  I wasn’t very exact in my measurements or neat in my cutting…they are just dusters!  I sewed up 3 of them during a small portion of the kids’ naptime {like after I made cream of chicken soup, washed the dishes from all day, and made a pot of tea}.  The clipping took me longer than the actual sewing...

I used one of my Pinterest inspirations to make a hair-bow holder for Elaine .  I used a 25 cent frame from the thrift store.  I gave it a facelift with some white spray paint.  Later I gave it a second facelift after Nolan disturbed it while the paint was drying.   When the frame was dry we glued strips of ribbon down the backside.  The bows will clip onto the ribbons.  I think I should have spaced my ribbons further apart, but it still works well.  And besides…Elaine has a lot of hair bows! This is how it looks sans hair bows. Voila!  See…I told you she had a lot of bows! Elaine definitely likes choosing which hair bow to wear each day…even more than she liked it before!  We even had to hang the bow holder out of reach to keep it in tact!