{Waste Not} Vegetable Broth

Two weeks ago I made my first homemade chicken broth. I am totally hooked! So when I read this post from Simply Frugal on making your own vegetable broth I knew I had to try it. I think that what I love most about this is that it is frugalness at it's best...not only do you save money by making your own broth versus buying it, but it doesn't cost you anything to begin with because it simply contains all the scraps from the vegetables you are already using! I am so smitten with any thing that lets us pinch that penny a little further {my husband works HARD for those pennies and the more I pinch them, the more I have him home to pinch as well} so I knew this would be right up my alley. Plus, anything homemade is just better.

Have I lost some of you already? Those of you who hear homemade stock and imagine slaving over a stove for hours and doing 20 different steps...have you tuned out? Don't! Trust me when I say this is easy. Don't believe me? I dare you to keep reading. Don't make me bust out the double dog dare!

First step: Save all of your veggie scraps. Really, anything goes just make sure it is clean and not rotting. Throw said scraps into a resealable bag and keep in freezer until full. Here is my first full bag from the last week or two - celery stalks, cucumber and mexican squash peels, onion and garlic skins, cauliflower bits, bok choy stems, pepper tops and some other random stuff.

Second step: Once you have a bag full of scraps you are ready to make your stock. Dump the bag in a stock pot and top with water (don't even have to bother defrosting!).

Third step: Put it on the stove, add black pepper and a bay leaf and put it on high until boiling. Then turn it down and let simmer for an hour {this is where all you busy folks walk away and get an hours worth of stuff marked off your to-do list}:

Fourth step: Let the broth cool down, strain out the veggies and store in a sealed container in the refrigerator or in the freezer. I am saving large yogurt containers for keeping this in my fridge. For freezer storage try putting the broth first in ice cube trays and then into a ziploc bag will allow you to grab the amount you need without defrosting an entire batch. Want to keep those veggie scraps working for you? Add them to your compost!

So...did I keep my promise? That was easy, huh? Let me know if you try it and for those of you who are light years ahead of my homemaking and already do this, feel free to share how you do it and what you use it for. I am planning to use part of this first batch in cooking some dried garbanzo beans for homemade hummus. I think it is going to be great in some veggie chili as well!

Tackle Box Jewelry Organizer

My mom is brilliant...truly, she is. She is always amazing me with her ideas and never ceases to surprise me with her creativity. Recently she had an idea that I just knew I had to share with you all.

My parents are currently visiting from Arizona and were with us on the road trip we took a few weeks back. We got up on the morning of our family reunion and I realized I hadn't packed any jewelry. Luckily my mom was in the hotel room next to me so I took advantage and traipsed over to see if she had any fun earrings for me to borrow. She did not disappoint! Out came this brilliant travel jewelry organizer that she had made from a tackle box that she scored at Walmart for $4.00. Not only did I get some stylin' earrings to wear for the day but I got a great idea to use myself and share with you all. Score!

This particular tackle box is two sided. She uses the side with the small slots for earrings and the reverse side for bracelets and necklaces. 

This is a handy way to keep your jewelry organized at home and makes it easy to bring your accessories with you when you travel. I am sure you can find these in different colors or even decorate them for a little more flare. I told you my mom was brilliant!

Gardening From Kitchen Scraps - Green Onions

Oh, the never-ending wealth of knowledge I receive from Pinterest! I totally have dreams of growing my own garden one day but in this season of life the idea of tending to it seems a little overwhelming. But I am thrilled to learn that there are some pretty easy ways to grow veggies from what I already have in my kitchen with very little time or effort involved. Just my kind of project!

This week I decided to try to grow some green onions. Seemed easy enough. Take a bunch of green onions, cut of the bottoms, place in a jar of water in the window and done. No really, that's it. Too good to be true? Maybe. Let's see how it worked for me.

This is what my green onions looked like the first day when I started this little experiment:

And this is what they looked like exactly one week later:

Pretty awesome, huh? I can just start trimming them off and using them whenever I need and they will continue to grow over and over again. The only upkeep involves changing out the water and rinsing off the roots every once in awhile. I can handle that!

~Thank you Homemade Serenity for the idea~

***Update - Wanted to come back real quick and update you on this. We got 2 great re-growths out of this bunch and then nothing worth using after that. I still think it is worthwhile and a good way to stretch each bunch:) 

Clothespin Dolls

One of my nieces just turned 4 and I have almost always made something homemade for her birthday and Christmas gifts. This year I went completely homemade with Magnetic Paper Dolls (watch for a post soon with a girl version and a boy version) and Clothespin Dolls. I got the inspiration from these Disney Princess Dolls I saw on Pinterest. I was originally going to do those but I wanted to use what I had on hand and painting something to look exactly like something else isn't really my specialty. So I dug through my supplies and found clothespins, yarn, scraps of fabric and a wooden box. And Clothespin dolls were born! Here's what they look like:

I think they are pretty cute if I do say so myself! And they were pretty darn easy too. I don't have a true step-by-step for you because I just kind of winged it. But I will share the basics with you. First I started with some clothespins and I painted the face a neutral color and some different colored "tops" that would match the fabric scraps I had.

Then I added the dress or skirt. This really was as simple as cutting and wrapping the fabric and using a hot glue gun to secure it to the clothespin. No sewing involved! You can go very basic or as complicated as you desire. Here's the first one I came up with (kind of looks like a mermaid:)

Finally, I added hair. Again this step just involved choosing a length and a style and hot-gluing it into place. I started pretty basic but as I went on I was able to do some more creative styles:

At the last minute I decided to glue pieces of craft sticks onto the bottom so that they would be able to stand. And there you have it, 6 unique dolls using supplies I already had on hand:

I happened to have a cute wooden box on hand so I tucked them all inside so that she would have a nice place to store them all.

Want some more homemade gift ideas? Be on the lookout for my next post, Magnetic Paper Dolls for both boys and girls.

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