CPP - Part 2

Always be prepared… Last week I prepared for our three day camping trip in the Camping Preparedness Program post. Here is what I did with that advice.

The Meal Plan:

Dinner 1:              Hot Dogs, Apple Sauce, coleslaw

                            Smores for desert

Breakfast:             Eggs, sausage

Lunch:                  PB and J or Egg salad sandwiches, fruit, chips

Dinner 2:              Hamburgers, Beans, Corn

Breakfast:           Bagels, fruit

Lunch:                BLT sandwiches, carrot sticks, and leftovers

Snacks:                

The Chef

Chips, salsa, bean dip, cottage cheese, pretzels, grapes, apples, granola bars, cheese sticks, graham crackers, popcorn

When I put together the meal plan, I went shopping in my pantry first and decided what I needed from there. Which was basically—hamburger buns, begals, fruit and smore fixin’s.

I wanted to bring just the right amount of food, but it’s better to have too much rather than not enough. We also invited some friends with kids to join us for a day or night, so I wanted to have enough snacks in case we had company.

What I made ahead:

-         Stuck fresh gapes, hot dogs, and hamburger patties in the freezer. They should be thawed in time to use them.

-          Hard boiled eggs and made egg salad

-          PB & J sandwiches

-          Lightly cook bacon

-          Make Coleslaw

-          Cut up carrot sticks

We are staying at a campsite that does not allow wood fires, so I packed some charcoal and durmaflame logs to cook our food and enjoy. It is a hot summer, so we would only have a fire at night.

Cooking/Dish washing station.
This camp did have a place to wash dishes by the bathroom, but I like my set up better.
Boil water and add it to tubs of water then put soap in 1 tub. 

For the kids I made sure to have bicycles and sand toys. I also bought them new flashlights (they love these things!) and light sticks to play with at night.

Because we weren’t going far or staying a long time our campsite was very simple. The more people the more complex, but not much. With more campers you basically, you need more chairs, food, and tent space. Which translates to the same amount of preparation. Ever notice that a party takes just as much work for 10 people as it does for 20?

We opted not to put up a shade since there were some nice trees. And our family of four fit nicely in one tent. We might need another in the future, but this works great for now—I might even splurge on one of those 10 man 2 room tents when the kids are older.  

Tired kids enjoying the outdoors before dinner time.
Not a great picture, but you can see the tent in the background and their little table.

What do you do when camping?

Camping Preparedness Program

We are going camping. (Way to state the obvious!) We have only gone camping one to two nights with the kids so far to try it out. They LOVE it! But luckily, my hubby and I are both seasoned campers and between the two of us had all the necessary gear before we were even married. I am guilt of being a long time Girl Scout and my hubby is an Eagle Scout. Since we don’t have a camper (on the wish list for the future) we set up a couple tents, a shade and a stove and call it a campsite.

This isn’t exactly a program. More like a checklist and my method of preparing for the great outdoors without pulling your hair out or missing essentials. There are several things you need regardless of whether you have kids or not, but I’ll list kid stuff separately. I began writing this just for myself because I didn’t want to forget anything. But I think other people could benefit from this too!

The thing about camping if you have never done it; there is dirt everywhere outside. Campsites are plotted parking spaces of dirt with a BBQ, fire pit and picnic table. Make sure you pick a site next to the bathroom; it will make the experience much nicer. Most bathroom houses also have showers.  Find out what the amenities are ahead of time. Basketball court? Swimming pool? So you can plan.

I am a list person. When preparing for any trip I use up several sheets of paper on lists. Maybe I should make a master to save me the trouble… 

I have a list for camping gear, clothing, shopping list for non-food items and food. First things first.  If you know about the trip there are a couple things you can do to prepare.

1.       Save your laundry lint. This stuff is great (and FREE!). My family of four creates a huge amount of laundry lint. When you take it with you camping, you can use it as a fire starter rather than kindling (or with it) to get your fire started quicker. I found it easy to create portions  by stuffing it in toilet paper rolls.

2.       Save stuff that will come in handy that you can toss before coming home. I save a couple empty gallons containers for dish water. Save soap pieces (you know the stubs left when you use a bar?); you can cut up an old pantyhose and stick the old soap in the foot for easy hand-washing—this can be tied to a gallon jug of water.

3.       Take inventory. What do you have? What do you think you need as far as a “camping gear”? Kettle? Sleeping Bag? Tent? Rope? Old pans? Outdoor chairs? Shade or big beach umbrella?  Also, if you want to use paper plates make sure you have them. You will want to either eat off of metal, paper or plastic (metal and plastic need to be washed). This is a good time to start a grocery list.

4.       Meal Plan. Think easy to make on a fire (kids love holding a hot dog on a stick), things you can make ahead of time (like coleslaw, salsa & chex mix), and things don’t require a lot of time. I don’t usually buy individual servings of apple sauce or juice boxes but they come in handy here. Take another inventory of what you have and then another grocery list of what you need. I separate my lists into stores Walmart, Trader Joes, Costco and Farmer’s Market.

On to the Lists.

Basic necessities to bring:

Toilet paper (not fun when they run out)

Bug spray

Dish soap

Food and Water (bathing suit if you are going to be by a lake/stream/ocean)

Sunscreen

Lighter

Charcoal and/or firewood

First aid kit

Towels

Cards or other games

Camping Gear:

Tent, tarp and mat (set the tarp under the tent and the mat for the ground outside of the tent to catch dirty shoes)

Shade - if necessary

Kitchen items—Propane stove, kettle, pan, utensils, ziplock bags, foil

Fire sticks (really long wire hangers to cook hot dogs or marshmallows)

2 tubs (for washing dishes—one for washing, one for rinsing)

Clothesline for towels—use towels to dry hands and dishes also if you are taking showers or swimming

Table cloth 
Folding table - it helps to have one table for eating and one for food & dishes

Sleeping bags & pillows

Gas or solar lanterns and flashlights

For the kids (and you):

Clothes

Extra clothes

Sweatshirt (not a nice jacket. The smoke from the fire gets makes everything smell)

Diaper wipes (great for dirty hands before snacks and dirty feet before bed)

Outdoor toys (trucks, sand toys)

Food:

Snacks

Meals

Condiments

Water and other drinks

Next in Part 2 I will post about how we set up the campsite.
Did I miss anything?

This post can also be found at Cheerios and Lattes, frugally Sustainable , One Creative Mommy and tatertotsandjello . 

A Dandelion a Day

After watching Cooking with Clara on youtube, I was curious about these plants. I also came across a really good information site on the plants.

I thought that if I was going to try it for the first time, I wasn’t going to go picking them in public. I felt a little odd picking weeds with the intention to eat them. It goes a little against the grain... I had some growing between the cracks in my patio. Perfect for this experiment!

 I gathered some up with my two year old helper.

Washed them. Soaked them. Rinsed them. 

There was a little separating involved because I didn't want any icky-looking ones in my salad.

Chopped them up into a salad mixed with Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, feta cheese, sunflower seeds and vinaigrette. 

I didn't tell the hubby and he ate it just fine. 

Took a bite and … yep tastes like salad to me!

Now I know. Don’t let those weeds go to waste! I actually have found myself nurturing my weeds and have added them to numerous salads since I first tried this.
It is a great way to get your salad lettuce to go even further.

Linked to lifeasmom.com/

Cooking without a Microwave

After my post about the demise of my microwave, I was asked to write a guest post about how to get along without the microwave to cook with.

Check out my guest post today on Random Recycling regarding Cooking without a Microwave!

Tomatoes and Laundry

I have been busy doing stuff and various projects. I have actually taken some pictures for some blog posts, so eventually I might just post some of them. Like the freezer jam and teacher cards.

Saturday I was able to take some items off my procrastination list. I was able to:

1. Reinforce the tomato plants.

I am jumping for joy. Take a look at these tomatoes!

I am the person who can kill any plant… and I have managed to grow some beautiful tomatoes and onions that are going strong.

I had some bamboo and decided to use them with some twine rather than buy tomato cages. Mostly because they look for rustic and neat, but it helped to save a couple dollars too.

 2. Laundry Detergent

There are several versions of the same ingredient recipes all over blogland. I first made this recipe a couple months ago, which made 3 gallons. Awesome! I really like this soap. It has no chemicals in it and it is super cheap. My cousin has the recipe on her blog you can check out. I prefer the liquid detergent.

Last time I made it, my brother and sister made fun of me. So I gave them a gallon of the stuff. Fast forward a month or so, my sis said to me, “Steph! I thought you were going overboard making your own laundry soap, but I was so surprised. My clothes are so soft and clean!” I thought that was pretty funny. She wants to pay me a couple dollars to keep her well stocked.

I got my son to shred a bar of Castile soap. Then I took over from there. Boiling water, borax and washing soda and another 3 gallons are made. This should last me about 3 to 4 months (I didn’t really keep track last time I made it).  I am glad that I finally got around to making this again because it is a little difficult to clean clothing without it.

3. Canned Tomatoes

I got a great deal from the tomato lady at the farmer’s market, a bag of Tomatoes for $4. I think I will be getting a couple more bags next week to can more sliced tomatoes, and also some salsa and marinara sauce.

This is my first go round with canning tomatoes (although I have canned marinara sauce before. Yummm!). I have decided to try this for a couple reasons, mainly because of the acidic quality of tomatoes. Did you know that they react with the metal in the cans if the cans aren’t coated, but the can coating contains BPA AND they also react with the epoxy resin that lines the cans. Yuck. I love using canned tomatoes so this is disappointing.

I had a conversation with my husband when I showed him my handy-work about why I decided to can chopped tomatoes. I don’t see how I can completely avoid using canned tomatoes unless I spend a week of non-stop canning and manage to fill a storage closet with the jars. But I figure that my family is better off if I can replace the cans for even a few meals.

When I looked up the process of canning tomatoes, I was happy to discover that it is a really simple process. But… Warning: canning is not for the faint of heart. It time consuming. This project took a couple hours.  It is also very messy.

The process:

Sanitize the jars.

I had 3 pots on the stove and a giant bowl of ice water in the sink.

Boil water in a little pot (for lids) and in a BIG pot.

To get the skins off the tomatoes, toss them into the big pot of boiling water, then (almost immediately) take them out with tongs and toss them in the ice so the skins shrivel and beg you to peel them off.

Peel  and dice tomatoes.

Stuff in jars.

I added Very Vegi Tomato Juice (from Sprouts this is a very tasty juice and comes in a glass jar) in the 3^rd pot to heat up. Added a tablespoon of fresh Lemon juice from my freezer to each jar rather than using citric acid and then filled the rest with warm tomato juice.

Stick the end of a spoon into the jar to get all the air out.

Add more tomatoes and/or juice until there is only ½ inch to the top.

Add lid from boiling water. Screw top. Add to hot water bath.

I let the jars stay submerged for about 40 minutes.

I did each bag of tomatoes in shifts. While the first four jars were in the boiling bath, the last batch was being peeled and stuffed in jars.

You will notice from my lovely pictures that I do not have a proper canning pot. I use a pasta pot. When I put the jars in the hot water bath, I put a hand towel at the bottom of the pot for the jars to sit on so they don’t clank or sit on the metal. Works great. The only investment in my canning supplies besides the jars and lids is the $3 I spent on the magnet to get the lids out of the boiling water (worth it!) and the jar tong lifter thing (without it you will stare at the jars in the boiling water wondering how in the world they are coming out).  

I was very happy to find that all my jars sealed well.

One $4 bag of tomatoes fit in 4 pint jars. Twice as much fit in a jar than a can. So I figure that if a box of 8 canned tomatoes at Costco costs $11, I can save a bit of money by canning the real thing (not to mention the health benefits!). 

My First Quilt

Since getting a sewing machine during the holidays, I have been creating little projects for myself. Now I wasn't absolutely new to sewing when I got it, but I have never done anything complex like clothing (well except for a few costumes, but those don't count.) or anything like that. So one of my resolutions this year is to get up close and personal with my machine and grow beyond my novice level.

I have used it several times by the time I started this project, so I felt like I was ready to take it up a notch. I have been contemplating for about six months what to do with my daughter’s room since she is ready for a big girl bed. I knew that I wanted a trundle bed just for the added benefit of an extra mattress in the house for guests or future sleepovers. (yes, I am thinking way ahead!) And I also wanted a little something that she could have forever like a quilt.

I signed up for a free quilting block on craftsy which I have looked at all of 3 times (I know, bad me). I just realized after watching the assignment how-to videos that the repetition of cutting up my hard work would probably drive me nuts at this point in my sewing journey.

I have noticed a lot of attention has been given to rag quilts lately on the internet. I looked at several tutorials like the one on The CompleteGuide to Imperfect Homemaking (thank you pinterest!) and decided that even I could handle this one! So I have been working on this for 2 months (husbandless nights when he is up late working and occasional naptimes) and I am very happy with the results!

I don’t think it would be necessary to go into a tutorial with you since there really are several good ones online already. But I thought I would share with you some simple embellishments I added and how I organized the layout - which seemed a little overwhelming once I had 120 squares sewn. 

The Fabric I wanted on the outside was sandwiched between batting and a slightly larger square
from an old King sheet. I added the extra fabric for added warmth in the finished product.
Then I sewed them together with a simple X to save time.

So what I started out with is a piece of paper and a grid. I separated all the squares to figure out how many of each fabric, so I could allocate them in a balanced way across the finished blanket. Then I just started laying down squares on the ground and messed around with them. I sewed… and sewed… I worked my way in from the outside. Once I had all the pieces sewn in strips, I went about the task of bringing the strips together… This actually got more and more challenging as more pieces got sewn together because it was LONG and HEAVY.

Backing up a bit, you will notice in some of the squares there is extra fabric. I decided to add a little heart embellishments to a couple squares. This is something I dreamed up since I didn't see anything like this in any tutorial. It was very simple and looks great in the finished product!

These squares were sewn before all the squares were put together.

Once it was all sewn together I made the "rag" look by cutting all the extra fabric around the seams. This too a LONG TIME. After about 10 minutes of this, I put it away for the night and the next day headed to Joann's Fabric Store to buy me a nice pair of fabric scissors. Much better!

I did not cut up the outside of the quilt. Instead I chose to cut off the excess fabric and add some finishing fabric to it. I noticed that the other tutorials online finished it up by ragging it out like the rest of the pieces that are put together. My reasoning behind spending the extra time: 

1. I want it to wear well with my little one. And be usable in 10 years.
2. If it was my blanket, I wouldn't like the fringe against my face when I sleep.

Finished Quilted Heart

At the fabric store I would have had to purchase about 6 packages of seam binding to the tune of $5 each. Now, I don't think it is an unreasonable price because of the folds. But I wasn't about to pay that much when I just spent about $45 on the quilt fabric & batting (the batting alone was $20 on sale with a coupon). In my crazy mind, I thought to myself, "I have plenty of extra fabric, I'll just sew it together and press it. No problem! Won't take any time at all." 

Well in the end, it took a very little time to sew pieces together and a lot of time to iron the creases. But sewing it on around the perimeter wasn't a difficult task. I am very happy with it. I do hope it holds up the way I envision it to.

 

After all this, it was time to wash it. The fabric was not pre-washed because I wanted the edges to fray. I was so excited to see it finished! Once the wash is done, you will have to scrape all the thread out of the wash basin. Then in the dryer, I stopped it two times to empty the lint. (You would not believe the giant pile of lint I acquired!) When it was finally finished it looked great and linty.

I went through it and cut any long strings. Then I went over it with a lint roller, after about 15 sheets it was done! The night before Sarah's 2nd birthday. I felt that it was necessary to wrap it since this was (and her bed) her birthday present from Mommy and Daddy.

Here is the finished bed from the Bed Project. Looks Good!

To be honest, she wasn't very excited to find a blanket under the bright wrapping paper. And I didn't get a very good picture out of this memory--so sad.

But she really likes it on her bed! -- You might not be able to tell by this picture...

Find this post at the Blog hop on FrugallySustainable, Tatertots&jello, and Make it Pretty!

Life Cycle of Kid's Clothing

The clothing in my house goes through a lot of stages and I couldn’t help thinking about the life cycle of my kids clothing while I was doing laundry. and more laundry... and more... you get the idea.

I have some friends who pass down their clothes from sibling to sibling and others who buy new clothes and the give it away when their kids grow out of it. I consider this to be the normal life of kid’s clothes. In my effort to recycle and be cheap thrifty frugal I have come up with a system for kids clothes that seems to work for us.

1. “New” – I think half of my kids clothing is new and the other half are hand-me-downs (love them!)
2. Wear, wear, wear – hopefully they don’t get paint stains prematurely… Some days the kids change clothes more than once and that makes for a lot of laundry. Any pants that were only warn a couple hours while not doing heavy playing or messy eating gets warn the next day since I consider those clean.
3. Next there are a couple of choose-your-own-adventure variables

                Stained – If I cannot get a stain out, these get demoted to pajama/play clothes status

                Destroyed – Bummer! Holes and too much wear & tare from laundry with cheap fabric make for either retirement, recycle or pajama status. (My kids wear a lot of shirts and sweats to sleep in.  It’s not like anyone sees their night clothing other than family!)

                Too small – If they last to this point that’s great then there are other options for them.


     4.   Pajama or play (you know… the messy kind with paint and mud) – any closes that make it in the stained or destroyed category above gets demoted to this category.
     5.  Kids grow fast! What happens when clothes are out grown:

Retirement – make its way out of the closet and into the recycle or trash bag

Hand Down – I save a couple pieces of special clothing or ones that look like they are new. Boy stuff I hand down to my cousin, who gives it back when her boys grow out of it. Girl stuff I just save since I don’t have anyone to share it with. The idea is that I can help out my siblings when they have kids or you never know.

Recycle – Here is a pile of fabric I can use for silly projects and house rags.
            Re-purpose – This is a fun one if the option is available. If the top of a onsie fits but the bottom doesn’t snap (even with a onsie extender) you can cut the bottom half off, hem and then you have a pajama shirt. Or a pair of pants that fit their waist still but look like they are anticipating a flood, can be cut and made into shorts.

Sell – Anything that isn’t sentimental to save or too trashed to trash gets sold. It is really nice that there are resources like craigslist to do this. I take a picture of a bunch of stuff, put it in a giant box and call the lot $20. Or if I am able to have a yard sell, I try to sell things for $1 an item or bundled for a little less. This gives me a little more money to buy more clothes or shoes that I need to buy.

I think that about covers it. If there are any other ideas out there on how to stretch the clothing dollar for kid’s clothes, love to hear them!

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This was shared on Frugally Sustainable and Cheerios and Lattes!