Links to Other's Ideas are moving to my Pinterest Board

With the advent of Pinterest, I believe that little slice of social media is much more useful for the quick links I've been putting up when I see someone put up a project that fits the Making Do with the Not so New theme.

I'm now posting them on my Pinterest Board named Making Do Stuff.

You do not have to have a Pinterest account to see it. So you could bookmark it and take a look every now and then.

Of course, having a Pinterest account means you could follow all of my boards and find other like minded "pinners" to follow as well.

I will of course, continue posting here on projects that are my own original ideas though they are few and far between at this time in my life.

Simple Puppet Theater

And you thought I was gone....nope, but two kiddos and all the thrifty things I do makes it rather difficult to come up with more thrifty projects, especially when you add in extra jobs.....BUT

My girl wanted a puppet show - and I'm not adding another thing to have to walk around in my house. So I decided to make one that I could easily make and store.

You'll need:
big pieces of scrap fabric -- my daughter chose from my stash hence it may not be the most pleasant combo
3 curtain tension rods.

I hope most frugal people can make simple curtains. (Fold over the top of the fabric roughly two inches and sew along the edge leaving a sleeve for the rods to go through), so make your fabric into curtains and slide them onto the rods, then set them up in a doorway or hallway.

Viola! Puppet Theater.

Make Your Own Cajun Seasoning

2 parts Paprika, salt and garlic powder
1part white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, onion powder,oregano, thyme

Mess with the amounts to fit your tastes for hot!

Make Your Own Pumpkin Pie Spice

1 tsp of Pumpkin Pie spice equals

1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Make a T-shirt into comfy short yoga pants

If you've searched around my blog you know that I think t-shirts are the most versatile making-do item there is. Here's a tutorial for turning one into a pair of pants!

Hot Out There? Bake Cookies in the Car!!!

114 degrees today, and a friend of mine decided to use the car as an oven for cookies! How cool is that. (Obviously, if little kids are around, be aware that this may entice them into a hot car and that would be bad!)

Directions : Have a 100 degree day, Start Early, Be around several hours later (friend said 4), Make sure you're in full sun!

Here are directions I posted earlier on using your car as a dehydrator.

And if you just think my friend is the coolest, visit her blog at The Treasures of My Heart

Preparing for a Winter Storm - Emergency Water

There is a blizzard forecasted for my area, and I am seeing a lot of my friends stocking up on bottled water from the store. I'm sure the bottled water companies love the revenue created by a storm, but to save money, if your tap water is fine to drink, fill up pitchers and ice cream buckets full of water before the storm hits in case your pipes freeze, you're really not going to care if you are drinking brand name water in an emergency.

You can also have everyone take their baths the night before and fill up the tub with water to flush your toilet.

Make a Coyote Call out of PVC and plastic trash

Today, my hubby has been kind enough to give me some blog content! Yeah. Most likely though, most of my readers won't have a use for an animal call, but the men in your life might. He does his coyote-call-making just like my sewing, everything is eyeballing it.

This call will make a rabbit-in-distress call, coyote barks and coyote howls. Video at the end of the post will demo.

Gather materials: Scissors, 3 inches of 1/2" PVC pipe, rubber band and that heavy plastic trash containers you take off of toys, electronics etc. by screaming and yelling and ripping and jabbing and pulling, yeah that annoying stuff. Unless you get the nice ones that have the pop apart tabs.

Then mark 2" from one end. Then in a vise, make your cut diagonal length-wise from that mark to the tip with a hacksaw. See these two images for direction.

It will look like this when done.

Then perpendicular to the previous cut, cut 1/4 to 1/2 the thickness of your PVC. You're making a shelf for the reed to sit on.

Then take a file to make the cut part smooth and slightly rounded and to take out saw marks. Then sand with a 400 grit sandpaper to knock off burrs.

Take your plastic trash and find a flat piece. Cut out a rectangle about the width of the cut out area on your PVC.

Then set it on your reed shelf and cut it to the length of the end of your PVC and shape it to the end.

Wrap a rubber band around it to hold it in place on the reed shelf. The rubber band is siting on the reed shelf.

Then using a file or sand paper, sand the excess off the edges of the reed to match the sounding board. You don't want the reed to overhang the sounding board. It should look like this, click on the picture to see the nearly invisible reed.

Give it a test blow. If it doesn't make a sound, you may have to shorten the reed a little or change the angle of the reed shelf with a file to where the reed comes further away from the sounding board. And this is what you can do with it:

Not bad for making it out of trash.

Here's an audio track teaching how to blow on a coyote call. I'm sure typing into YouTube "How to use a coyote call" will get you plenty to look through.

How to get Recall Notifications

I had a reader inform me of a possible recall on a product I used on the blog. When buying thrift store items or picking up free stuff it's advisable to check out if its been recalled.

I have been for more than a year now signed up to receive daily notices of product recalls. Takes a few seconds to glance through the list to make sure I don't have anything I need to check on.

Here's the CPSC website on recalls where you can look up products. If you want to sign up for the daily recall list, scroll down to the bottom and find "Join our recall notification list."

Personalized Santa Video

If you think your child would enjoy having Santa talk to them on a video, try the Portable North Pole

Give "Santa" some information and photos and he'll talk to your child and encourage them to be good at something you've asked them to do this year. It can be sent via email to whoever you like: your child, niece, etc.

It's free unless you want to purchase the video for download.