Been gone awhile

               So after being gone awhile, it's time to get back into my routine! For 2 weeks I was with my son's kindergarten class while they took their Water Safety class at a local pool. It was great to get to do that with him! It was exhausting though! My days would start at 6:45am and end at 2am. And in the midst of all that we also had an egg hunt with over 800 eggs that the other mom's and I had filled. So blogging went on the back burner for a bit.
               Now that I'm back I'll be getting some new tutorials up, maybe doing a little writing, and starting a new challenge. Angel over at Heart, Hands, Home is committed to feeding her family (of 5) for $300 a month. This was amazing to me! I was a stay at home mom when I had my son and for his first 2 years. But at one point finances didn't permit it. For about 2 years I had to work, through my pregnancy with my daughter and for almost 2 years after. Since August I have been blessed enough to get to return to running my home full time. But for some reason I've had a hard time finding my inner Homemaker again. Mostly I've been having a hard time getting back on track with my grocery budget. We are a single income family as well. Right now we usually spend about $100 to $125 a week and this is a great stresser for me. I know I can do so much better, I used to be able to, and I know I can get it back again. I mean, just look at Angel! If she can feed a growing family with teens for under $300 a month I know I can too! So I'm joining this challenge starting Friday. Here goes nothing!

An easy bread recipe, no lie!

        Okay, so I don't know about you but if I look at a recipe and it seems long, complicated, or not worth the trouble I lose interest quickly. This is why it took me so long to jump into making my own bread. All of the recipes I found put me off of the idea of making my own bread. But I finally got over it and found one to try. Then another. And so now I'm to the point where I put my own recipe together. And it's easy, no frills, not complicated! It really only takes a little measuring, a little elbow grease, and a couple of hours of patience! No need for a big clunky bread maker taking up precious space, this is an old fashion oven baked recipe. It's only 13 steps, and three of those are pretty much just waiting for it to do something on it's own. Plus for two others you get to hit something! So really it's more like 8 steps!


Ingredients:

1 package of active dry yeast (or 2-1/4 teaspoons if you buy it in a container or "brick")

1/3 cup warm water

1 cup warm milk

1-1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted, melted butter

½ tablespoon salt

2 cups wheat flour

2 cups bread flour (can also be done with all wheat or all bread flour if you prefer)

Extra flour and melted unsalted butter

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl.
   
2. Stir in milk, sugar, butter and salt until the mixture is well incorporated.
   
3. Add flour(s). Mixture may be slightly sticky, if so add a little extra flour until a nice ball starts to form.
   
4. Flour your hands and grab your dough ball.
   
5. Knead, squish, twist, turn, and pull dough for about 10 minutes.
   
6. Making dough into a ball place it in a large greased bowl, turn ball over so it get a complete greasing.
   
7. Let sit in warm place, covered with a dish towel for an hour. Dough should rise and (approximately) double.
   
8. Once dough has risen, punch it down, a few little punches should do!
   
9. Shape dough into a loaf shape and place into greased loaf pan.
   
10. Let sit in warm place, covered, for another hour.
    
11. Again, loaf should have risen to approximately double.
    
12. Brush melted butter over the top and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes. I slice a line down the center for a nice split top loaf. When done loaf should be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped.
    
13. Remove baked loaf from pan immediately to cool on a wire rack. Again brush melted butter on top of loaf.
    

A few tips:

-Wait until bread is completely cool to slice into it. Remember baking is science and everything has a reason. If you slice it when it's hot it will not turn out the same as if you wait.

-Make sure you let it cool on a wire rack, if it cools on or in a pan moisture will collect on the bottom and can contribute to molding.

-Store bread in a tight fitting container. The less air the better. I've found using a store bought bread bag actually does work best!

-Homemade bread has a shorter shelf life than store bought. It should be used up in 3 days. But if it does dry out it makes fabulous bread crumbs!

   

Name Plate Tutorial

       I recently wrote up a tutorial for Embrace Bed Rest, a blog dedicated to making life easier and more manageable for mommies-to-be who have been put on bed rest. Here is a copy of that tutorial, remember it is geared for someone who has to do only a little physical activity.
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        To get started you'll need to acquire your supplies. Where possible I'll site online resources where you can get the supplies. Where I couldn't find the proper item online I'll site the store(s) at which I found them. I'll give a detailed enough supply list that you can send hubby, parent, or friend after!

So let's get started!

You'll need:

A wood plaque, mine was 7x2 and 3/4 inches thick, you can use any size you'd like though- Bought at Michael's in a bundle of 20 for about $5 but couldn't find it online.

Acrylic paints- Can be found online at Michael's Arts and Crafts

Paint brush assortment- Can be found online at Joann' Fabric and Crafts (it states online only actually!)

Pencil

Paper

Scissors

Tape

Two containers to hold water, one to wash paint off of brush one to rinse it off

Paper towels or dry rag

Computer and Printer, optional

Now, before you begin, send your plaque with hubby or someone to sand down the corners and edges. They just need to be smooth and flat, nothing fancy, unless you want it to be!

 

While your plaque is being sanded, go ahead and find a font you like! I use Microsoft Word for this step. Once you find a font you like type out (twice) what you want on your plaque. Resize it to fit the plaque and print out a copy. For my plaque a 72 point Brush455 BT fit wonderfully because I added some design element. If you just want it to be a name make the font bigger to take up the plaque. (PS after using this font I had thought I might want to use a less detailed one next time!)

 

Take your pencil and cover the back of the paper behind your print. Make it pretty dark, you're pretty much making it into a carbon paper wannabe! But make sure you don't rip it, this was the reason for two prints!

If you don't have a printer available you can carefully draw your wording on by hand.

 

Once you get your plaque back cut out your print and tape it into position.

 

Outline around the outside of all of your letters, transferring them onto the plaque.

Remove one side of your print and peek under to make sure it's transferred well. If not place it back into place and go over the spots that are lacking. Go ahead and take the print off of your plaque.

If you're adding a design element, draw it on now. Don't press to hard, just enough to make a light outline. You can do little flowers, cars, fish, animals, shapes, letters numbers, whatever goes with your personality or room.

Now it's time to start painting. Start with your lightest color. Be careful to stay in your lines but don't fret if you have a boo boo! Paint is easy to deal with as long as it's wet, just blot it with the corner of a dry paint brush until it's gone or very light. If you went onto a color put a little more of the right color so it looks right again.

 

Continue with the next color.

 

And so on, until you're done!

 

Now it can be set up on top of a dresser, you can put a hole in the back to hang it from a nail, you can get a picture hanger to put on the back. Whichever you want to do for where it is going!

Birthday Cake!!!!

               As you probably already know, Saturday is Doodle Bug's 6th birthday. For some reason or another I've always had an inward struggle with myself about buying birthday cakes. Be it a money factor or contents or hassle, I've always hated buying sheet cakes! I've only bought 3 out of 7 for my kids birthdays. As of Saturday though it'll be 3 out of 8! Even better, right?
               My goal is to not buy a sheet cake ever again. One thing that will make that hard is the fact that our school has a strict "no homemade baked goods to be destributed" rule. Not only does that mean my dreams of a school bake sale are dashed but that I can't make my kids birthday treats for the class. This was a huge blow to me when Doodle Bug started school because to me being "that mom" was a right of passage that I would have to do without. I found other ways though to be "that mom". I sew, make, and June Cleaver my way into as much as possible! I may not be able to bake but at least I can still sew, craft, read, chaperone, and plain just be there and that's a great deal in my book!
               Anyway, back on track! Doodle Bug gets 2 days of birthday celebration. One at school in which we did have to get something store bought. We chose cupcakes. For his birthday at home with the family he wanted his standard vanilla cake, but when we pulled out the cook books he ended up picking a coconut sponge cake! He had also wanted pizza from a pizza place but he and I decided over dinner Wednesday night that we wanted to make our own instead. How awesome is this boy? He is really taking well to my transitioning us to a healthier life! I know your probably saying, "What's healthy about pizza and cake?" Well, it's better because there are no preservatives, I know EXACTLY wants in it, no strangers have touched it, and I save money which is a great stress reliever and stress is not good for your health!

 Here is a list of the cakes from birthday's past!
DB's 1st: Fish themed Carrot cake-homemade
DB's 2nd: Blues Clues- store bought
DB's 3rd: Pixar's Cars cupcake cake-store bought
DB's 4th: Fire trucks, vanilla cake-homemade
P's 1st: My Little Pony-bought
DB's 5th: Hot Wheels, vanilla cake-homemade
P's 2nd: Big Cupcake, rainbow cake-homemade

Treat pouches- mini tutorial

               This Friday I'm doing a class party for Doodle Bug's birthday. Seeing as Doodle Bug wants his class party to be Transformers, my mom and I got everything Transformers for the treat "bags"! Bags would probably be the wrong word because instead of buying the plastic treat bags with the Transformers theme printed on them I made pouches! I based them on this tutorial from Skip to my Lou. I made them jumbo sized and didn't have a crimper so I used a ruler and just pressed nice and hard. I then filled them with 3 fruit puff candies, a jaw breaker, a roll of Smarties, 2 stickers, a pencil, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, and a mini sketch pad. I wanted them to be easily handed out and not easily spilled so I stapled them closed and placed a Transformer sticker over the staple. Then just to add to the theme I put an Autobots symbol sticker on one side and a Decepticons sticker on the other.

               I seem to like doing mini-tutorials as of late so if you need more detailed instruction drop me a line and I'd be happy to help you!