Discoveries

It's amazing what having no ingredients will do for your creativity.  Last night after we finally went grocery shopping, we both just stood there, admiring our beautifully full fridge.  But before that point, we were running out of things.  And one of those things was milk.

Milk is one of those ingredients that lactose-avoiding people like myself seldom appreciate until it's gone.  I don't drink milk, and I don't put it on cereal, so I don't really think about its existence until I cook with it.  I do, however, eat mashed potatoes, so when my roommate showed up with a box of instant mashed potatoes for our shepherd's pie, I was torn between wild excitement, confusion, and disappointment.  The wild excitement was because I absolutely love mashed potatoes.  The confusion was due to the fact that my previous mashed potato experiences usually involved both potatoes and mashing.  My roommate's promise that this strange box of powdery flakes would transform into a mass of creamy goodness left me skeptical.  To top things off, the catalyst these flakes demanded was milk, which we were completely out of (hence the disappointment).

That's when I got to thinking.  Milk makes me sick, but so do many other things.  Perhaps we could substitute one sickening product for another (witness my logic at work).  We didn't have milk, but we did have a giant carton of heavy whipping cream I'd bought to make mousse with.  My roommate and I chuckled evilly as we poured a thick, calorie-laden cup of cream into the unsuspecting potato powder.  At this point, something miraculous occurred.  The cream not only did its job, it went above and beyond.  It transformed those potato flakes into the most amazing mashed potatoes I'd had in a long time.  I think this supports the theory that the more calories you pour into something, the better it's going to taste.

Just thought I'd torture you with a picture of the finished shepherd's pie.

My roommate has introduced me to other cool ideas besides instant potatoes.  One of these is drying flowers to save.  I'd done the whole freeze-your-prom-corsage thing back in high school, and it worked out alright, but my rose ended up really dried out and blackened.  She showed me how to clamp the end of the flower stem with a binder clip and hang it upside down for several days.  As she explained, this lets all the moisture go down to the petals, keeping them beautiful right up until the end.  I dried this rose a few weeks ago, and look how colorful it stayed!

My dried rose.

Shoebox Canvas Twist

In our quest to decorate all the walls, one of the many Pinterest ideas we decided to try was the idea of covering shoebox lids with fabric to make mock canvases.  Since my fabric scrap collection was running a little thin at that point, my only real choice was some more of the old quilting fabric I'd used on my desk drawer lining project.  A lot of the versions of this shoebox project we saw on Pinterest used glue, but we thought, hey, we're using shoeboxes anyway, let's be as lazy about this project as we can.  Therefore, we basically wrapped our shoebox lids like Christmas presents, duct taped them in the back (yes, duct tape), and hung them on nails on the wall.

Here's where the twist comes in.  My quilting fabric didn't really go with the rest of our bright decor.  Especially in our dim hallway, it was just dull.  That's when we had the idea of adding felt shapes.  Right now we have hearts, but we can always change them out!  The felt sticks to the fabric, but if you want, you can pull it right off.  We're thinking about cutting out snowflakes for winter, flowers for spring, clovers for St. Patrick's Day, etc.

The whole movable part is actually something several of our friends have discovered.  They've started a trend of moving one heart each time they come over.  Sometimes we find a heart on its side, sometimes we find one upside down, and depending on how many friends we've had over, sometimes they're all mixed up.  If we had been boring and glued our hearts down, think of all the fun we would have missed....

Homemade Gift Journal

One of the most frustrating things about living on a budget is feeling like you can't buy your friends the gifts they deserve.  This is where homemade gifts come in.  They show your friend/family member that you cared enough to spend a lot of time and creativity, even if you couldn't spend a lot of money.

Unfortunately, whenever I look up gift ideas online, so many of them require special skills (such as the ability to knit more than scarves and socks, or the ability to crochet without accidentally knitting) that it can be really discouraging.  That's why I'm here to offer an option that doesn't require any talent or artistic ability whatsoever.  All you have to do is a bunch of cutting and gluing...and finding cool pictures online.

Gift Journal - Front View

Back View

First, you start with a hardcover journal.  I usually find the big ones for around $10 at Walmart.

The next step is to find a bunch of pictures the intended recipient would like.  Since the journal above was a gift for my best friend, I printed off pictures of our favorite movies, books, characters, singer (Josh Groban), quotes, inside jokes, and pictures of fun times we had together.  On other friends' journals, I've used pictures of their hobbies, school spirit, quotes about funny memories, references to tv shows...the sky's the limit.

After you print off all the text and images, you can cut them out, either cutting exactly around the shape, tearing around the shape, or using decorative scissors.  I have some detail scissors that help, but they aren't a necessity.

For the next step, you can either cover the journal with a bigger sheet (I used sheet music in the one above) or, if you like the pattern that's already there, leave the background as is.  I like to use a glue stick at this point to stick everything down to the journal.  It makes the next step a whole lot easier.

Finally, open the decorated journal and lay it cover down on a piece of clear contact paper.  Cut the contact paper a few inches larger than the book on each side, then peel off the backing.  At this point, you'll want to be very careful as you lay the book back down on the sticky surface.  My contact paper always wants to curl up and stick to itself or wrinkle as you press it out.  Try to get it as smooth as you can.  Remember that you can pop any bubbles that occur with a pin.  When you get to the extra inches, curl them back over the edges of the cover to hold everything together.  You'll need to trim around the spine, since you can't really curl that part back over.

And finally, voila, finished gift.  Easy on your budget and fun to make.