-
Homemade Laundry Detergent: A one Year’s Supply
Due to the mounting costs of remodeling, I am always on the look-out for ways to cut spending on products we use regularly. This spring as I was scrolling through my facebook feed, I came across a post that caught my eye. In the article, the author shared her experiences saving money by making her own laundry detergent at home. Now, I’m no stranger to DIY and making things from scratch. I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to DIY household products, but what intrigued me was that this “recipe” was actually supposed to make enough laundry soap to last an entire year. One less item to have buy at…
-
Adding Decorative Details Without Breaking the Bank
For years (maybe even decades) I have drooled over kitchen magazines. The designs that really made my heart sing were were the ones that featured lots and lots of finishing details. I love classical Roman architecture, so anything with pillars, corbels, detailed molding and carved trims make me very happy. I’m the opposite of a minimalist. I like details and lots of them…but guess what? Details are really expensive, especially in the kitchen. For instance, the corbels offered by the company that made our cabinets were going to cost $300…each. Well, you can’t have just one corbel holding up a counter, so we were looking at $600 just for one…
-
Ernst Family, Tear Down Those Walls
Extreme Home Makeover: Ernstopia Edition Who hasn’t watched “Extreme Home Makeover” and wanted to just throw a sledge hammer through a wall? I know I have and although we didn’t have a sledge hammer the crowbar is equally gratifying!We saw no need to pay a bunch of construction workers to come over and tear out the kitchen when we had three willing and able kids who would do it for free! I might venture to say they would even pay us to rip out more walls! As you can guess, they loved every minute of it! Not wanting to be left out of the fun, I hopped up on the…
-
How to Make LEGO Minifig Crayons
When both boys said they wanted a LEGO birthday, I was excited to get started planning everything. There really wasn’t any pre-made LEGO party supplies, so I knew I would be making most of my own party gear. I began searching on-line for ideas for the LEGO party when I saw this cute LEGO minifig shaped ice cube tray made of silicone. It was perfect, but to be honest, I didn’t think the payoff for all the time spent making shaped ice cubes would be all that great! Then I remembered as a kid we used to make crazy crayons by mixing different colors of crayon and melting them into…
