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Okay, maybe not magic, but certainly an exciting transformation! I found an embarrassing number of old snacks at the back of the cupboard and thought chex mix would be the perfect way to use them up.
In Scotland, we can only get the wheat type of “chex” (they’re variously called “malties” or “malted wheaties”) and bagel chips are out too. When following the original Chex Party Mix recipe, I found it too buttery so this is how I go about making mine:
Pre-heat oven to 250F or 100C. Melt just over a third of a 500g butter block in a pan on the stove (I just chopped off what looked like less than the original recipe). Add the following amounts of flavouring (twice the amount listed in the original recipe):
4 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1 & 1/2 ts garlic powder
1 ts onion powder
The recipe calls for seasoned salt but since the pretzels and nuts I use are already salted, I put in a few cranks of flavoured pepper.
I had around 6 cups of dried, mixed snacks (different types of nuts, stale-ish pretzels, broken corn chips, pumpkin seeds, wheat chex cereal and added in some bran flakes as well).
Once the sauce was all mixed, I slowly poured and hand-mixed it into the dried mixture for even coverage.
Place on a tray and bake for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
I made some earlier in the week with the standard recipe and found my trays too full to do any meaningful mixing. So this time, I tossed the contents of the tray back into the mixing bowl, mixed and then returned it to the tray. I got a much more even crisp and flavour this way. The pumpkin seeds are my favourite addition to the mix- they add a different sort of crunch and taste contrast. What is your favourite thing to include in chex/snack mix?
Edited to Add: Just as I finished posting this, a betty crocker recipe appeared in my contact’s flickr stream with this “italian” style chex mix recipe- the vinegar looks like a great addition!
Although hair-dos do not really have anything to do with crafting or refashioning, I am posting these here for future reference since we browsed old photos for hours searching for some of our past styles. I feel that even with the same old outfit, a new hair-do can make me feel like I’m wearing something brand-new for a fancy occasion and more likely to use what I have in the interest of frugality and controlled consumption.
I was planning on wearing this dress I refashioned for a wedding last summer but in the end I wore a different one. A week or so before the wedding I noticed a large smudgy stain on the stomach area- obviously a remnant of some delicious dish. I soaked it in borax and washed it to discover that the stain had shrunk but was as dark as ever. Having run out of borax, I decided to soak it again in Soda Ash, or Washing soda. A “strong” solution as advised on the pack eventually removed it! I soaked it for around 5 hours just to be sure. I already had all the matching jewelery for this dress but Partner suggested I wear a dress my sister offered for the borrowing. I am glad I did because now I’ve injected some variety into my dress-wear and am more likely to think of the dress with fresh eyes next time.
A few posts ago I wrote about how wearing the same size led us to compete for shirts but it also means that the dress she brought on her holiday fit me perfectly! You can see me in the red dress ceilidhing in the photo above. With white shoes and a shawl, there wasn’t much accessorizing to do so I kept with the floral theme and wore a silver Charles Rennie MacIntosh inspired bracelet with rectangles and rose buds and two rose bobby pins.
My little sister really is awesome and did our hair for us before the wedding. Here are the hair styles I hope to replicate in the future:
One of my teammates got married yesterday, on the 4th of July, and I wanted to make something special for the fantastic couple.
I made the table runner slowly over two weeks unsure about my skills. All the fabric was chosen from my stash and I opted for the pre-made bias binding since I was getting too tired to make some and also nervous about messing it all up at the final stage. The colour of the binding I had on hand tied in very well with the darker strips and as I finished sewing the last edge I excitedly realised it was a keeper!
* I originally had batting/ wadding inside to make it sort of puffy but it made the bottom side pucker so I took the batting out and cut several inches off, keeping it to two layers of fabric.
* As I finished sewing the top and bottom layers, I squared it off and thought about how useful a cutting board and rotary blade would be.
To complement the table runner, I re-potted the best looking aloe we had been growing and placed it in a bright blue pot. I searched the DIY stores for a week but did not find the right size or colour and was relieved when Partner’s mom handed me a perfect blue pot she had picked up only days before our conversation. Adding a clear glass candle holder and four candles in greens and blues, we completed the gift.
When I was still unsure whether or not the table runner would be successful, I asked the bride about types of stores they would be likely to shop if I needed to go the emergency route and buy a gift certificate. I said I had been working on making something but didn’t know if it would work out. Her response was an enthusiastic “Oh, make us something!” which was reassuring.
It wasn’t until I finished the runner with pride, however, and saw how well the plant and candles completed the theme with a caring simplicity, that I knew that I am getting better at expanding my crafting while still tuning the gift to the recipient.
Before you read this post, here’s a delicious muffin I made the other day. I used of a lot of random ingredients (freezer bananas, mixed seeds, an oatmeal-type concoction that I thought was oats until I realised it was museli, etc). I also made soup to knock through ingredients, all the while accompanied by NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me”, my favourite radio show!
And now for something completely different:
My PhD thesis is still under way so I have no illusion about being able to be less of a paper hoarder any time soon. I have 11 binders, two cardboard magazine ‘racks’ and 13 expandable cardboard folders full of documents and fieldnotes from my research, taking up one and a half shelves where I would otherwise have space for books. It’s not that I am going to get rid of these documents. In the future, all research tends to be cumulative in a way but I would tuck them away somewhere. I’ve come to suspect that most university staff only want to work in a department for the priviledge of an office to keep their academic collections separate from their living quarters! This week I filled our recycling bag of papers- thousands of scraps that had already been used on both sides, etc- just sitting around waiting to be classified. Most of the information was no longer useful, like some company phone number without a name- so out it went and I found my desk surface again.
One thing I can begin to whittle down, is my stash- of yarn and fabric. The plastic bins I brought home the other day have been great for that and now I need to really get started on going through what I don’t really need to keep.
I took a large bag of fabric strips (I had the intention of making those into another rug, but the off-white and black didn’t fit anywhere into our schemes or inspire me at all) to the textile recycling skip the other day, freeing up some under-bed space. I am also going to cull our socks – the funky novelty socks we receive as gifts are fun to wear, but not the easiest to darn once they wear so thin. The darning ends up being much thicker than the rest of the sock! Those pairs will be recycled too.
I am not going to have time in the next few years to use up all the half-balls of yarn that I’m not interested in. Many of the colours are going to make it into a de-stash blanket. It’s here if you’re on ravelry. I need to sort through the rest and find a Girl Guides troop to bring it to if there’s enough, or get it on Freecycle or a charity shop.
We have a charity shop bag open in our home at all times. We deliver a full donation bag every three weeks or so. I occasionally post on Freecycle but I need to start taking fuller advantage of it to hand out the things that are unsuitable for donating. I like that you can say “I have this ____ that needs fixing, or repairing, is anyone interested?” and they usually are. The same stuff just wastes the resources of charity shops.
Other ways we sometimes declutter that I would like to make more habitual: a) Selling unwanted books and strange electronics (we have a wireless router that we were sold as “mac compatable”, it wasn’t and then we lost the receipt) on Amazon. b) Finding even more recipes to stretch our fresh foods further with creative uses of the dry ones so my partner doesn’t rush out and buy food because we “don’t have any”. I would like to try a new recipe a week or, realistically, every two weeks.
I am trying to organise all this in my mind because it seems like we are headed towards a gradual change in the road. We are not yet financially comfortable, or even started out in life- parter is still looking for a full time job and I need to finish this PhD and apply for jobs as well. I’ve been keeping my eye open for non-academic positions and applying as I go along, but that must not be in the plan at the moment. Last week I talked to my old boss at the shop about coming back for a shift a week and once the fall semester starts I will have a bit more pocket money from tutoring but I am far from the power earner at this point.
That being said, we have begun to actively think about moving in order to save money. We have such a fantastic set-up right now and are so comfortable, it will be hard to let go of the easy walk to my sports club, the train and the job at the shop.
The question is, at what point does moving to save £100 a month not make sense? We have great landlords and have plenty of warmth and space in this flat. I have lived here for 4 years and it is home. But really, home isn’t a collection of things, home is with one’s partner.
The things just make it harder for us to consider moving. Both of our hobbies take up quite a lot of space, as you can at least gather from my stash descriptions. Moving from the centre of town will knock the prices lower but we still need to be near public transportation and there’s only a certain distance away that could make that move worthwhile. Another thing is that we barely have any furniture in this country. We have a bookshelf, a few chairs…no bed (we do have an air mattress we could use for a while!) etc. So we would need to rely heavily upon our network of fantastic people, freecycle, store vouchers from completed surveys, and finding a decent furniture charity shop somewhere. We also have discussed moving out of central Scotland if any jobs come up, so we really need to start preparing. This potential move may not happen, yet my brain is a-buzz.
1. Be ruthless with worthless (to me) stash fillers that someone else may be able to use- yarn, cds, look into getting a crafty things box together for the guides or other group that appreciates craft supplies.
2. Keep Amazon active and list more.
3. Get the plants under control. Re-pot more babies and give away to friends and freecycle. Pare down to just the main parent plants and keep them happy. Then, freecycle the extra pots.
4. Work on wardrobe. Recycle non-reparable socks, fix the things I plan to fix, get rid of extra bags, wet suits and other strange things that we never use.
5. Crafting priorities- finish sewing the wedding gift, use of the acrylics for the destash blanket, use the large partial-sheets in stash for appliance covers. Go for the biggest impact- use the most materials for the most useful items first!
This post has mostly been to organise my own thoughts, so here are a list of some of the blogs and posts that inspire me when attempting to de-clutter. I may have posted some before but they’re relevant again!
I am inspired by Smallnotebook in general and this new post is particularly relevant. Prioritizing life- well said. That is exactly what we are trying to do here and it seems that it is all around at the moment. One friend of mine has decided to completely disconnect with all non-essentials. She’s keeping her email, but unplugging facebook, her blog and everything else that she feels has cluttered her life. I also really like this post about moving at smallnotebook- it will come in handy some day. Livingsmall is also inspirational for getting rid of ’stuff’. Zen habits has a good approach to stuff. While I don’t keep a wardrobe as basic as this, I am working towards a streamlined and compatible system [and another] of only clothing that I love and that mean something to me.
I’ve avoided blogging this for a while, building up the idea that I needed to say a lot about it.
I started sewing this when it was very warm, finished when it was cold, waited until 9 days of continual rain passed and then photographed it!
This material was once a kitchen curtain at my mom and dad’s. The light weight, almost gauze-y texture spoke to me and said it wanted to be something for warm weather.
This – VERY comfortable- shirt was sketched out and then made entirely by holding pieces of fabric up to myself, changing sizes and sewing it together. I lined the top half, used the factory hem as my bottom hem, and cut out the curtain’s accent stripe as mine.
I’m so crooked in the photos because I’m running back and forth for the self-timer! Click on the image to see it large on flickr.
These jeans debuted last weekend on a road trip down to Richmond and Kirby Stephen, England.
They were originally a pair of mens “fashion” jeans, as evidenced by all the neatly arranged holes. A few weeks ago, two holes near the knee joined forces and i knew I had to patch these up before all the holes followed suit!
I trimmed the threads holding each hole ‘together’ so that the fabric would show through. Then, I took two large rectangles of fabric from my stash (we call it the Time Lord fabric since I think it looks like space and time travel…I used it to line a Tardis bag I crocheted a few years ago) and sewed them into the thigh areas, leaving several inches around the holes. I then turned them right side out to stitch boxes around each individual hole with a few zig-zag lines over top both fabric layers. Last, I made (what is supposed to be) a lotus flower applique and added it to the outside. I LOVE them! I am so proud of this refashion and know that they’re once more my party-jeans!
After trying the reach the boxes near the knees, I think I finally understand the idea of a free-arm sewing machine. It would have given me much more maneuverability!
Another completed project- which I handed in yesterday- is my first rough draft of my thesis! Still plenty of work to do on it but now, all my ideas are on paper in a structure that I think works!
We celebrated our V-day early this year, on Thursday. Partner made a delicious chef’s salad and I made chocolate cake! After eating we spent the evening playing Monopoly and Scrabble- a very nice date night! We enjoyed not worrying about gifts or cards- and created online photo collages for each other instead. How’s that for no waste? With my thesis taking up most of my time, it was fantastic to just spend so much uninterrupted time relaxing and re-connecting.
This is my go-to recipe whenever I want to make choc. cupcakes or cake (scroll down for the recipe). Since my partner couldn’t find any conversation hearts or anything sort of Valentine’s-ey, I used some swedish fish we received in a package. In the second photo, you can see my scrabble hand, our holiday table cloth and a necklace my mom made me when I was in elementary school. I still wear it every year!
Chocolate Cake Recipe – I got this from some company’s packaging at some point…I think
1 & 3/4 C flour
2C sugar3/4C cocoa
1 & 1/2 ts baking powder
1 & 1/2 ts baking soda
1 ts salt
2 eggs
1C milk
1/2C oil
2 ts vanilla
1C boiling water
Combine dry ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat. (I just do this step by hand). Stir in boiling water. Pour thin batter into greased and floured pan. It specifies 13 by 9 by 2 inch or two 9 inch rounds. I just used a 10 inch or so spring form. Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then remove to cool completely.
We found that 22 minutes for cupcakes is perfect in our fan assisted oven and somewhere in the upper 20s was perfect for the cake.
I made this key fob for a friend’s 30th birthday. She’s a big fan of “Napoleon Dynamite” and that was her party’s theme, so I whipped this up. When I say “whipped”, I mean it almost whipped me. The letters were harder to embroider (using the machine’s button hole function) than I had expected and I had to rip several tricky letters out a few times (the Os and the Rs!), though I got better as I went along.
I made it to the same specifications as the frog key fob.
We’ve been continuing to de-clutter, including larger items. Our old cordless now only holds a charge for around 45 minutes which wasn’t good enough considering my family lives across the ocean and we catch up using longer blab sessions. It lived in the closet for about a month. While it was on our list of things to get rid of, charity shops here tend to be wary of electronics and I wasn’t sure about posting something with a half-life on freecycle. Luckily, a WANTED email came through and I was able to specify the charge it holds and a man happily took it off our hands. We also gladly gave away a learner’s aucoustic guitar requested on freecycle, and sent a disused (and in need of repair) bike back to recyke-a-bike. If you have a bike you no longer use, look for a local bike re-use scheme. It somehow feels better to donate a bike to a place that will fix it up in order to sell, than to a charity shop which will probably struggle to sell it.
I tried another batch of homemade laundry detergent using this tutorial/recipe. After the dry detergent didn’t work for our clothing/machine/regular cycle, I took a break from trying for a while. Around two weeks ago, I decided to whip up a batch of the liquid detergent and it works perfectly! Apparently, the type of water you have in your area, the individual machine cycles and some other things (can’t remember what!) can affect the outcome, so if one doesn’t work very well, try another. We have been using it constantly since then and the clothes come out of the machine smelling like fresh air! I only made about 1/6 of the amount when I made it due to space issues, but I am going to find a large tub very soon because we’re definitely switching.
I’ve been sewing a lot on my rare free time and am beginning to miss crocheting. I’ve been drawn to sewing tiny things for the quick results they yield, but definitely will be getting back to the good old yarn and hook very soon.
Here are a few interesting articles on the subject of material scavengers, the editorial responses on poverty and factory work, and a brief business article on what retailers will be doing to deal with decreased spending. The last article suggests that stores will be carrying less stock- including less colour or style variety in clothing. Perhaps after a few (“fashion”) seasons the monotony of being a cookie-cutter consumer will wear on shoppers and thrifting and creating clothing will become standard style protocol.
I just came across this article about a long-running Sewing and Crafts program in NYC. It is generally a heartwarming story of dedication…But I see it as a call to continue to teach people crafting and frugal skills.
Just before the winter holidays, some friends and I gathered for a craft day- to help one friend sew curtains, while we crocheted, knit socks, or hemmed jeans. For some reason, seeing my friends ‘bust out’ skills that I didn’t know they had made me incredibly proud. It reminded me to continue to teach whatever skills I can share, to whoever will learn.
I hope that in this time when everyone is fretting about the economy and seemingly endless articles run in the newspapers and magazines about revitalising what we already own, that we can shift our consumption culture back to appreciating quality and repair over disposable thrills.
“Highlights Of (the) Week”, or “HOW I remind myself that life is good!”
It’s 12:45am and I’m waiting for the opening game of the World Series to start. Being 5 hours ahead, I’ve stayed up studying and drinking jasmine tea. Apparently, in large quantities Jasmine is a stimulant- although I can’t tell if it’s the tea or my excitement at seeing baseball (and my wonderful home team!) on tv here in Scotland that’s making me slightly shakey.
Anyway, thinking through the past week, I decided to post a few of my Frugal/Creative highlights.
1. Receiving two new (free) crochet books, as blogged about previously.
2. Finding perfectly ripe bananas at the grocer’s for 25p a Lb. I spend 99p and left with 13 delicious bananas which are now all chopped up in the freezer waiting for smoothies and baking!
3. Receiving a large roll of Batting/Wadding for quilting from freecycle and enjoying the walk to unexplored parts of my city as I went to collect it.
4. When my partner managed to find a very nice pair of work trousers at the charity shop.
5. Partner’s aunt stopped by with a large tray of eggs she had received from a friend and shared with us.
6. Not really frugal or creative, but seeing mention of my baseball team in the local metro newspaper!
GO PHILLIES!
