Fake-It Colored Sugar

I can't count how many times I have wanted colored sugar and when I've gone to the store they didn't have the color I wanted or it was $2-$3 for a small shaker of it. Well now you can make your own.

white sugar
liquid food coloring
air tight container

Put the sugar and 2-3 drops of the food coloring in the container and shake until well mixed. Keep adding 2-3 drops at a time until you get the desired color. If you add too much at once you will get a large clump in the center. If you need a lot to get the desired color use a cookie sheet and parchment paper/wax paper to lay the sugar out to dry, if you have some clumps, use the back of a spoon to mash them out and mix them in. Store back in the containers.




Fake-It Cost Breakdown:

Fake Colored Sugar ($0.15/cup of sugar and a couple drops of food coloring is like $0.005)

Total Fake-It Cost: $0.15

Compare to Colored Sugar $3.00/8 oz (8oz=1c.)

Total Fake-It Savings: $2.85 Each Color

Organizing Your Cup Cabinet

Since its Sunday I thought I would do a quick and easy fix that doesn't cost anything (well 3 cup hooks, but a package of 20 is $0.97). I don't use coffee cups much so figured up & out of the way was best (I even only own 3). The best option is use the most used cups at eye level and then increase height as the frequency decreases. :)

BEFORE


AFTER

Hope this helps and you have a wonderful Sunday.

*No worries, you're not getting gypped today, I will have a couple more posts later of some fun recipes I am testing out at the moment.

Homemade Mini Poptarts

FOR THE POPTARTS
~ Cherry/Strawberry pie filling (but only the gel, not the cherries/strawberries)
~ 1 pkg. prepared pie crusts

FOR THE GLAZE
~ 1 c. powdered sugar
~ 1 T. milk
~ 1/2 tsp. vanilla
~ food coloring and sugar sprinkles (optional)

 Unroll pie crusts and using a pizza cutter to slice them into 2 1/4″x 3″ rectangles (I used a piece of card stock cut to size).

Spoon some of the filling gel into the center of the pie square, taking care not to get it near the edges. Gently lay a second rectangle over the top of the filling. Press the edges of the rectangles together with a fork. Transfer to a baking sheet. Bake poptart pops in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or just until the edges begin to brown.

In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla to make glaze. Tint with food coloring, if desired. Spoon over cooled poptarts, sprinkle with colored sugar, and allow the glaze to harden slightly before serving. (I was too anxious and didn't let them cool all the way so the icing ran a bit.) I left some without icing as DH doesn't like iced poptarts.

Enjoy!

Note: You can also adapt this recipe to make home made poptarts. Just increase the size of the rectangles and for some more substance, blend/mash the strawberries/cherries to have little bits inside.

Organizing the Fridge Front

This is what my fridge front looked like as of 8 PM this evening. My lovely grocery list was just cut up white paper stuck in a magnet along with the recipes I'm making for the week. I had to write out a new chore list weekly (the one with hooks fell apart as it was too heavy for the magnet I had it on). There was random magnets all over, artwork, Dr reminder cards, recipes, and much more. It was all just a mottled eye sore.

And then, tada! Now it's all color-coordinated. And organized.

So I made this recipe pocket to hold the recipes I want to make. The big pocket is big enough to hold full size printed or magazine pages. And the smaller pocket holds my standard 4x6 cards. All it is, is a 12x12 sheet of paper folded in half and then the last 3” cut off to create the front pocket. I decorated it a little with some ribbon and a stamp that I had lying around, it’s something anyone could do.I made a matching cup holder out of another sheet of the same paper and a box from those single serve water flavorings. Both are held to the fridge by little round adhesive magnets that you can get at Walmart for about $0.97.

I printed a free calendar off the internet and put all of the important events on there using a different pen for each person in the house (and stored them in my new pen holder). I also put a pencil in there for my new to-do/to-buy list that I got at Walmart for $4.00.

Zoe's new chore list is something I threw together in excel and then laminated with self sealing laminating sheets that I had left over from some previous projects. It is also held to the fridge by the adhesive magnets. Since its laminated I saved one of the magnetic dry erase markers that I had on the fridge and she can reuse that every week, just wipe and go.

The only magnet I left on my fridge is my flylady magnet to remind myself to begin each day FLYing... (if you want to know what that means check out www.flylady.net, she will forever change your life as she has mine).

Hope this helps and I would love to see the transformations of your fridge front. Feel free to share here or on my facebook page.

Side note: My fridge may have looked clean, and I would wipe it down weekly with a Clorox wipe, but I discovered just how dirty it was when I switched to a Mr Clean Magic Eraser today. I'm a little embarrassed to show this, but just had to share as it amazed me. The first is a new one, the 2nd was new before I cleaned my fridge front & sides.

Re-Purposing Empty Veggie Cans

This is more of a reuse than an organizing entry, but in the end reusing means purchasing less which means you're more likely to be organized. :)



I have a ton of different pens/writing utensils for scrapping and have always kept them in a big bin (as you can see), but didn't want to pay the big $$ for a special organizer so I decided to make my own. It was very simple to make.


Items Needed:
6 vegetable cans (rinsed & dried)
2 sheets 8 1/2x11 paper (any color or design you want)
Any stickers or decorations you want
Hot glue gun
Double sided tape

Once you have all the items gathered & prepared, just wrap each can with paper (you can also spray paint the cans for a more industrial look) then decorate and stack together with hot glue.

If you only need a single a pen cup, don't spend $4 on one at walmart, make your own for essentially free. You can always just take a white sheet of paper and have your little one decorate it and use that to wrap the can.

Here is a single one that I made for my glitter pens:


Some other ideas for your cans:

1. Starter pots for plants before transplanting outdoors
2. Grow herbs in your window sill in your kitchen, then you're saving even more money as you won't need to buy spices anymore
3. Spare change jar/container on your dresser so your loose change isn't floating around
4. Hold straws so they're easily accessible
5. Hold silverware for a party so it's not all lying out, you can even decorate it to match the theme of the closest holiday or the these of your party
6. When your candles get low or the wick is gone and you still have wax, heat it up in some boiling water/in the microwave and fill the can with it and add a new wick (you can get wicks on amazon.com for $3.99/100ft or 96 low smoke with base for $6.99)




I found this one on-line.

There are many many more things you can do with your aluminum cans rather than just throw them out. What ideas do you have?

Drawer Organization

I hate a messy drawer and to demonstrate how I organize my drawers cheaply and effectively I had to mess them up, lol. You can get a 3-pack of these baskets at Walmart for about $1 and they come in 3 different sizes which makes for great custom drawer organizers. Here is the stack that came out of 2 of the drawers that I will show you. I reorganized as I went so actually didn't need them all anymore so I was able to organize a 3rd drawer without buying anything. The steps are simple:

1. Locate the drawer you want to organize.
2. Empty it out of EVERYTHING
3. Go through and put things where they belong (if needed)
4. Separate the items into 'like' items
5. Fill baskets and then fit into the drawer
6. If you're worried about the moving you can use small wire ties to hook them together.









Here is Gwen's top drawer with socks, tights, hats, bibs, etc BEFORE.

AFTER $2.00

Here is the top drawer in my bathroom where we keep the medicines, first aid items, etc BEFORE

AFTER $2.00

Here is my end table drawer (this one was not organized before I began), most of the items belonged in the bathroom so this one was really easy.

AFTER $0.66

So for less than $5.00 (a previous investment on my part) I was able to organize 3 of my biggest problem drawers in the house.

Hope this helps. If you have a drawer that you would like to share please feel free to link a picture in the comments.

Walt Disney Recipes

Apparently if you eat at a Walt Disney restaurant and ask for the recipe they will give it to you. :) I stumbled on a site where people have come together to compile all the recipes they've received from the Disney restaurants.

Disney Recipes