Extra Shower Curtain Rod

We were tearing down a house and took the extra curtain rod. Or maybe you moved from a house with two baths to one. But keep the shower curtain rods, they come in handy as regular curtain rods in recessed windows or as an extra rod in a closet. (I haven't tested its weight limit to its fullest extent, but in a child's closet I would bet it would be just fine.)

Chicken Plucker

May not help too many of you, but if you have your own chickens for eggs and meat and you pluck them (we just skin them whole, I buy skinless chicken when I buy at the grocery store, so what's the point of keeping them with skin), look at this guy's cheap chicken plucker. Now, if you are like a friend of mine and kill a hundred at a time, you might want to invest in something much better, but if you are like us and only kill a handful at a time to put in the freezer and want to pluck them, check this out:

Forum Thread and Video

Snow Paint

I am sure some of my readers have had or about to have snow. When I was a kid, we loved building elaborate snow men. But they needed color. So, in a spray bottle, we mixed up some Kool-aid and sprayed it on our snow man when we were finished. It kind of melts it and makes a glossy colored ice sheen. Here's one we did of Elmo probably when I was about 14 (I'm on the right).

Whole Bunches of recycling T-shirt Tutorials

If you've read my blog very long, you know that one of my favorite things to reuse is t-shirts. Anything from adjustable diapers to cushioned rag curlers, to grocery sacks.

But checking on some links to this blog, I found this great post that gives tons of links to tutorials for how to recycle or upcycle t-shirts. (This is only the first page of the post, he's got 5 pages to scroll through, scroll to the bottom to go to the next page.)

These two transforming t-shirt projects I think I may do in the future, I liked them the best:

Costume Extension

This may not be helpful to all, but it's a way I made do a few weeks ago. My little girl's grandma sent her some Disney costumes. My little one has never watched Snow White, but she knows who she is and was excited for the Snow White costume, but unlike her other costumes, it is two pieces.

I won't post a picture, but she insisted that the skirt's elastic waist sat below her bum. So she was running around in it with her little pink britches poking out the middle. So, grandma wondered if it was because the skirt wasn't floor length that she was attempting a fashion no-no.

So, during her nap, I stole her costume and rifled through my old clothes stash and decided upon this t-shirt material shirt.

Then I laid the skirt on top and eyeballed how long it needed to be on my girl to make it floor length, if she were to leave the elastic on her waist. Then cut straight across.

Then I lined up the side seams and then pinned in haphazard pleats. Then sewed across.

That seems to have been the problem. Now she has a "real princess" length skirt that she willingly wears above her rear.

Crayon off of Furniture

My child just drew on her grandmother's table. What to do? I consulted a book in my library and chose the cheapest method first, and it worked easily.

To get crayon off of furniture and walls without destroying paint, wet a washcloth and dab it in baking soda, scrub off.

Fabric Gift Covers

I like to use towels, blankets, dishcloths, tablecloths, etc. to wrap up gifts when possible. You could also just use scrap fabric. Here is a link to Furoshiki, the art of wrapping gifts in fabric that you can print out. It gives you many different patterns based on what you are wrapping.

Furoshiki

Reader Help - Baby Wipes Containers

Jill wrote in asking what to do with her extensive stash of baby wipe containers.

Here are some of my ideas:
If they are the boxier kind, building blocks for kids
Barbie Clothes Trunk
Snow or Sand Fort Brick Molds
Car First Aid Kit, fill one for each vehicle with bandaids, alcohol wipes, etc.
Car Kleenex Holder - Kleenex boxes always get smooshed in my car, so take the kleenex out of the paper box and put them in baby wipe box for durability in the car
Drawer Organizers
Craft Item Organizers
Ribbon Holder - Get a small dowel rod slightly longer than the baby wipe box, cut two holes in the opposite sides of box for the dowel rod to fit through, thread spools of ribbon onto the dowel rod and then insert it in the holes and now you have a box of ribbons where you can just pull the ribbon off the spool without getting tangled messes
Planters, using 2, Cut one in half (cut off top half) and the other one cut some holes in the bottom. Nestle the holey one in the cut one and fill it with a plant or herb garden for kitchen window.
There were a few things I already wrote on the blog in the past about how to use them.

Do you have any ideas on how to use a lot of baby wipe containers besides the above? Leave them in the comment area.

Milk Carton Reusable Lunch Box Holders

If you haven't checked out the magazine, FamilyFun, you really should. Seriously, I am not fond of paying for magazines, but I do pay for this one. I got this idea from them. My hubby takes lunch to work, (You didn't think our cheap selves would eat out for lunch now did you?).

So, FamilyFun suggested this instead of lunch baggies, plus it is tons more durable so it will keep your items from getting smashed.

Take a gallon milk jug and mark off three of the sides small like in the picture and one tall side up to the top. (FamilyFun shows a milk jug without the divets, if yours don't have them, even better, you have to fiddle with it if you do.)

Cut it out. If you have divets, cut the interior flaps down until they don't touch it when folded, otherwise it doesn't close securely, lets in too much air although this will never be well sealed. Place a piece of sticky velcro on the top long interior flap and on the corresponding bottom flap.

Place in your bread.

And fold in the flaps and velcro it closed. No more squished sandwiches. Wash with the dishes when yucky.

P.S. My poor hubby's coworkers shake their heads in pity that I send the man to work with lunch containers made from trash, but I promise there is a reason behind my madness! Tupperware would do the same thing, look prettier and clean up easier, but my hubby's lunch pail is too small to accommodate a bulky sandwich container. That's why we use this, it fits.

Tshirt Laminate Floor Underlayment

We took out a fireplace downstairs and it left us with hole in our floor. One day, I want to redo the entire downstairs flooring, but that time is not now. So what to do with the floor?

I went to our local cheap house fixtures and flooring place and asked if they had any mismatched laminate flooring in the back. There was a pallet of left over laminate flooring. I found one that was super close to the piece I had brought in and so instead of paying $1.78 sq. ft for the closest match up front, I paid 50 cents a square foot for last 3 boxes that was enough to cover my hole. (Now they don't totally match, but my plan is for it to make it just a few years until I decide what I want to do with the floor and save the money to do so.)

But, you don't get the underlayment cushion when you buy out of the scrap pile. I thought we could just do without, but it made a crunchy sandy like noise when you stepped on it. So, instead of going out and buying a big roll of it on special order since I didn't need flooring with it, I cut up t-shirts and an ugly flowery t-shirt material scrap to fill the hole. Just cut to cover the majority of it, gaps were fine.

Perfect, no more crunchy noises.