Denim Decorated Organizing Boxes

Life has been a bit busy here lately. I had hoped to post a bunch of denim things that I had made today but I just haven't had time. Nor have I had time to get all the projects done that I had hoped so I have decided to extend my "Denim Days" for the month of February too. I had some other ideas of a fun theme but decided that looking at how much time I had available it would make more sense to continue to work on my denim projects for now (I also want to do some heavy cleaning this month) and then start on a new theme in March.

I do have  a project to share though (and perhaps I will get more blogged about today- we shall see)... It is some boxes that I like to use to store things liked scrap paper, coloring books, craft books and things like that. The ones that I just made with the denim decorations are for the boys. Their desks needed some organizational attention and they thought these would work well. Aaron is planning on using his for Paper things but it sounds like toy guns (that he made) are going in Jonathan's. I was told to label it "Firearms".

To make them I used:

~Empty dry milk boxes (cereal boxes would work too.)

~Denim strips and trim from an old pair of jeans

~ Old maps from an atlas

~A hot glue gun and scissors.

After cutting the box to shape I covered each big side with a map. I also cut out a square for the label in the front and glued it on.

Then I added jeans strips on the corners and around all the edges. I glued all of those in place. This adds a lot of stability to the box and they last for a surprisingly long time! 

 This is the finished product. We are all happy with how they turned out and the boys are busy putting them to work now.

Denim Days {Inspiration from others}

I haven't posted as much about denim projects as I had hoped I would. Maybe I will have to just keep it going for a while or maybe I can get more done yet this week!

Today I thought it would be fun to share some inspiration from other places. So many bloggers have lots of great ideas for using up old denim and I thought it would be fun to highlight some of those.

 I have enjoyed "getting to know" Melissa (a fellow Minnesotan) who blogs at Those Northern Skies in the last few months and she has done quite a lot of projects using old denim. She said that I could use some of her pictures and share some links so here you go...

A decorated tin from Those Northern Skies

Denim Raggy Flowers from Those Northern Skies

A Halter Top from Those Northern Skies

• Raggy Flowers
• Denim Trimmed Tin
• Denim Batik Pillow
• Funky Denim Skirt
• Denim pocket used on a felted bag.
• Denim and a Pillowcase turned into a pretty halter top
• Denim skirt refashion
• Very cute decorated denim pillow.

From Those Northern Skies

• A denim quilt
• A denim hat
• A denim bag

Here are some other fun ideas that I have found:

• A tutorial for cute denim "bins".
• A crocheted denim bag
• A pretty denim basket
• Denim Slippers (with instructions)
• Woven denim coasters
• A denim Beret with pattern
• An adorable kid's play pillow made from old jeans
• "Michele Made Me is a wonderfully creative blog and she has had a whole series on using denim. This link is to her denim posts.
• Sweet denim baby shoes (tutorial)
• A book cover

I would love to hear other ideas that you might have for using old jeans! If you have blogged about something you have made from jeans I would love it if you would leave a link!

I am linking this up to the Homestead Barn Hop at Homestead Revival

Praise is becoming

Do you strive to look nice each day? Do you spend time making sure you have the right outfit, your hair is done nicely and your face looks good?

 I have never been one to spend a lot of time working on my appearance but at the same time I do like the idea of "looking nice".

 When I read this verse in Psalms last week it made me smile with the thoughts that I had from it. Here is the verse:

 "Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones;

Praise is becoming to the upright."

Psalms 33:1

Now I did not go into a deep word study on this verse, looking back in the Hebrew or anything like that. I am simply taking it at face value. But what I see when I read this verse is God saying "When you praise Me - that makes you look very nice!"

 The One that I want to please most in life is God. I do also want to be pleasing to my husband and others that I am around but God is the most important One. What He desires most is not for us to have an elaborate hairstyle or an outfit that is just so- He wants our praise. When we praise Him we have our focus in the right place and you know what, I think we are going to look becoming not only to God but to most people that we are around as well.

Being Prepared

 I have always liked to be prepared. I guess I would make a good boy scout... well, if I were a boy. I guess I can tie it back to the way I was raised. First my parents taught me to be prepared in the most important way- that is having a relationship with Jesus Christ, the only One that can truly help us through each and every situation. We can try to be prepared for every possible situation here on earth but the truth is that there simply is no way that we can be prepared for every earthly problem but if we are right with God it doesn't really truly matter.

  With that said, my parents did teach me a lot about being prepared to the best of our abilities for all sorts of circumstances. My parents have learned how to make much of what they need and live to a large degree a self-sustainable lifestyle. They are not off the grid but if that happened they would still have heat, food and would be fairly comfortable. This is something that I would really like as well but we are not quite to that point yet. We have been discussing it however and this year I hope to make some steps to being better prepared for possible emergencies. Here are some of the things I am thinking about:

In the area of Food Storage:

Having plenty of food on hand is something that I really like to do. A lot of it happens naturally as I buy whole foods in bulk since it is cheaper and more convenient- whether it be driving to a nearby town once or twice a year to get several hundred pounds of grain (My parents and I tend to kind of take turns with this trip), buying 1/2 a beef once a year or just buying 25- 50 lb bags of things from Azure Standard.

I also do a lot of stocking up by getting large quantities when things go on sale. This makes it so we may not have everything we like stocked up at a time but we do have a lot of food of some sort anyway.

 With growing a garden, raising bees, collecting wild berries and herbs and helping my parents with butchering those things also help us to stock up on food.

Lately I have been trying to live of pretty much only what we have stocked up and it has been interesting to see what things we run out of, what from the store we seem to deem essential. With this little exercise I am learning that I want to have a larger supply of oil, butter, salt and cheese on hand at all times, I think it would make sense to buy it in larger quantities. So when I go to the store again I will stock up on those things. Meanwhile it has been a very interesting exercise to see how little of them we can use and still have a diet that we enjoy.

  This area is probably one of my strong points in being prepared but I still hope to work to improve on it this year.

In the area of Emergency Preparedness:

This is an area that has been the focus of my thoughts lately. We are blessed to live in an area that doesn't have a lot of natural disasters (no hurricanes, no earthquakes, tornadoes are rare, we don't live in a flood area, etc.) but we do have cold weather. My biggest concern is that we are very dependant on electricity. Our house is heated primarily by a propane furnace which requires electricity to run, we also have electric baseboards as an alternative heat source- either way we have to have electricity. We don't have any other back up.

 Ken and I were discussing this and the idea that he prefers is getting a generator preferably a propane generator as then it could use the fuel that we would already have on hand. I found this article with some information on Propane generators. These aren't cheap, I saw prices from around $400 up but I don't know if the smaller ones would work for what we need or not, so this is something we need to think on and work towards. I did also find a little stove that you can safely use indoors to heat the area and cook but it is a one time use that lasts for 4-6 hours and costs $20. That is obviously not cheap but I wonder if it might be a good idea to have for just in case. Here is an article that I found with more information on heating your home during a power outage. Do you have any suggestions or ideas?

  Another idea that I had is just having a very small wood stove (like the type that they use for ice houses) and stovepipe handy so in the case of emergency we could install it with a pipe going out a window. I don't know if that would work very well or not but I know even a little stove can give off a fair amount of heat and we do have wood available on our property. Of course our other solution is going over to my parents to enjoy the heat of their wood stove during a power outage. But what if it was a blizzard and we couldn't drive 7 miles? Another thought is to just install a small stove permanently. That isn't the way we currently prefer to heat our home but if there was an emergency it sure would be nice! We would eventually like to put in a fireplace but that is not at all top priority right now.

  Some things that we have been doing to prepare for emergencies are:

• Storing water. I have been doing some of this but I want to do more and I also want to check about the possibility of getting a hand pump that could be put on our well. I did also buy water purification tablets to keep on hand but would like to get a filter too.
• Learning! This past year the kids and I read through books on wilderness survival and identifying and eating wild plants. Lately we have been learning about first aid/ CPR and have also been reading about how people made it through the great depression.

In the Area of Sustainable Living:
I love this area. As time goes on we are learning more and more about how to use what we have and buy less from other places.

Somethings I have been doing lately in this area are:

• Getting my seed order figured out for this summer's garden.
• Signing Mara and I up for a beekeeping class next week.
• Working to figure out more ways to use things that I have on hand (like old jeans) to make something useful.

There are so many things that I want to work on in all of these areas. I will try to join Homestead Revival's Preparedness Challenge every month and keep you updated on what I am doing in these areas.

I don't buy.... refried beans

I really enjoy Mexican food and have long loved refried beans. When I was in college I often purchased refried beans to make burritos with, eat with corn chips, etc. While that was pretty cheap fair for a college student I have worked hard to make our food budget for our family even cheaper and healthier. This has caused me to make my own refried beans.

  To make refried beans the first step is to cook the dry beans (you could use canned beans but that would add to your cost and make it less healthy).  For refried beans I generally use pinto beans or dried field peas (not green split peas- these are brown). I think you could probably use about any bean you have on hand.

To cook the beans I wash them and then cover them with plenty of water and I usually do the quick soak method where I bring them to a boil and then turn them off and let them sit for an hour. Otherwise you could soak them overnight (without the bringing to a boil). After soaking I drain off the water and put fresh water on and then cook on a medium heat until the beans are soft.

 To make the refried beans I like to fry a bit of chopped garlic (and onion sometimes) in a little oil (bacon grease or any cooking oil) and meanwhile I use my hand held blender to puree the cooked beans with some of the water still in it. If you don't have a handheld blender then you could also mash them by hand with a potato masher or stick them in your regular blender. Add your mashed beans (with some liquid and possibly some taco sauce) in the pan with the garlic. Also add salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and any other seasoning that you would like and cook and stir.

  That's all it takes! You can make a big batch and freeze it for later if you like. Adjust it to suit your tastes however you like.  Here are a bunch of different recipes you can look at for ideas. This is extremely cheap food and yummy too.

We enjoyed it in burritos yesterday, they are also good in tacos and many casseroles and just served plain with cheese and salsa and rice.

Enjoy!

 I would love to hear if you make refried beans! Please share your tips and ideas.
I am linking this to Frugal Friday at Life as MOM.

Learning about teeth

 This month for our homeschool get-together our topic was Our bodies. When we learn more about our bodies I always find it so amazing the detail that God put into them! I had asked our chiropractor to come and speak for part of the morning which we all really enjoyed as he told about our spine and the nervous system and introduced us to an easy stretching routine which he called your spinal hygiene which is promoted by "Straighten up America". Here is a link to the instructions which he gave us. The kids and I have been doing it on school morning ever sense then and I like it.

 Each of the kids were also supposed to present something about a body part that they had studied. In our family Mara studied the Spleen, Jonathan the Ears, Aaron the Nose and Megan wanted to do the teeth. I decided I would tell you about Megan's presentation as I had fun helping her with it.

 We decided to make a puppet with teeth to help us with the presentation and then after we made a little puppet with baby teeth then Megan thought we had better have a big puppet with adult teeth too. We printed off this teeth diagram to help us make the puppets correctly and to learn more about the teeth.

 We made sock puppets so the supplies we needed were: A sock, a couple of thin cardboard pieces cut in an oval to give shape to the mouth (basically the jaws). I used an old cereal or cracker box for this. Red paper to coat the mouth with and make the tongue from. Some stuffing (I used some old bits of a sweater) for the top of the head, "spit" balls made from white paper to use for teeth. (Lay them on the diagram to make sure you have them correct.) Yarn for hair, buttons for eyes, red yarn for lips and a glue gun with glue.

 The head of the puppet will be at the toe of the sock. You put one piece of cardboard inside and the other work to squish the mouth in at the right place on the outside and then glue them together (with the sock in between). Glue the red paper in and the tongue and then start gluing in the teeth. I felt like quite a dentist at this point!

Add the hair and eyes and strips of red yarn for lips. Gluing everything in place. Add any more details that you desire. Have fun with your toothy puppets!

Megan and I told about the layers of the teeth, the fact that they had roots, when you got teeth and then when you lost them again and how many teeth people generally have.

She also brought quite a few items such as a toothbrush, floss, candy, pop, water, etc which she asked the audience whether it was good for your teeth or not.

 We had fun working together on this.

 Do you have any fun ideas to share about teaching your kids about the body? Something you have done either as a child or an adult? I always love to hear your ideas!