Halloween Part 1 - Decorations

Here are two very inexpensive and fun looking Halloween decorations:

1. Silhouette paper bags

Materials: silhouette patterns*, brown lunch paper bags, pencil, permanent black marker, electric tea lights

Directions: Open paper bag; position silhouette pattern in the paper bag. Trace with a pencil. If you can't see the silhouette, hold the paper bad up against a window. Take out the pattern and fill in the pencil marks with black permanent marker. (If you're really confident, use the black marker from the get go.) Insert electric tea light (or two) and place along a walkway or on a porch or wherever.



2. Pumpkin Jars

Materials: Empty glass jars, tape and permanent markers, red and yellow (or orange) food coloring, water, flashlight

Directions: Using the black marker, Design a pumpkin type face on the outside of your glass jar (if you want the face to come off easily, put clear tape where the face is). Drop 3 drops yellow and 1 drop red food coloring in jar; fill with water and put lid on. Place a flashlight behind the jar. Or, if you have a set of them, white Christmas lights strung behind them would look cool, too.

Easy, fun to do with kids, inexpensive, and still festive.

Healthy, Frugal, Yummy Popsicles and Smoothies

In our house, popsicles are a major relief in the summer. But, I can't stand otterpops or other super sugary popsicles. My kids can, but I just can't even stand having them in the house. We've found a few healthy, yummy, non-sugar laden options at local stores. They're pretty expensive, though.

I also hate wasting those little bits of fruit that just barely don't get consumed or have a slight bruise, etc.

This is why I love, love, love home popsicle molds. (Though you don't actually need them, as shown in this blog - look at the "For a Popsicle" post). And ice cube trays. And my freezer. Here's how I make my favorite summer treat -

Pre-popsicle time:

Whenever cutting/preparing/throwing away fruit, keep a freezer safe container ready. Put in slightly bruised portions, all you can get from fruits that have begun to dehydrate, strawberry tops (leaves haven't poisoned us yet), etc. I even put in leftover bits of fruit that my kids don't finish, since it will be in the freezer and bacteria won't be able to grow. Just don't put anything super slimy or covered in mold... that stuff is good for compost.


Keep the freezer safe bowl with fruit in the freezer until you have enough for or are ready to make popsicles. And make sure you remember where it is, 'cause you don't want freezer burned fruit.


Day of Directions: (basically, making a fruit smoothie)

Frozen fruit bits
Juice/milk/soymilk
popsicle mold or cups/popsicle sticks
Blender
empty Ice Cube Tray (if you have extra)

Put frozen fruit in blender. Add sufficient liquid so the fruit blends. Pour into molds, and stick molds in freezer. If there is leftover, pour into ice cube tray to use for smoothies (sorry for the ugly pic... I had just used ours up, and this at least illustrates the point).


Just wait a few hours and there's yummy, fantastically healthy popsicles. I have yet to feel the need to add sugar to any of these; the variety of fruit seems to keep it from being too tart.


For smoothies - Well, either just use the popsicle mix as a smoothie (that's basically what it is). Or, for a creamy version, put the smoothie cubes from the ice tray in the blender and add juice and cream (I use soy cream, since I don't do much dairy), blend and enjoy. Super easy. And our popsicles and smoothies cost us almost nothing!

Sexy Pasta

Ok, so it's not really sexy, but Sophia Lauren is. And I read this little article on her. It talks about how she eats. Granted, genes and metabolism probably have something to do with her great looks as well, but I am of the opinion that eating small portions of food that tastes good is probably better than going on diet after diet to stay skinny. But, that's me.

Anyway, this is what I made based on reading about healthy Italian fare.

Roasted Veg and Pasta

Roasting Veggies: Heat oven to 500+ degrees F. Cut large pieces of:

different colored sweet peppers,
heirloom tomatoes in quarters or eights (whole if cherry type),
garlic (leave the skin on; they'll pop out after being cooked),
onions quartered,
thick slices of zucchini, eggplant, portobello mushroom, or summer squash.

In large bowl or plastic bag, toss all veg except tomatoes and garlic with 1-3T oil and 1 t salt. Place in one layer on a cookie sheet (2 if you have too much). Put in oven for 5-10 min.


Cook Pasta: Cook enough portions for the number of people, about 1/2 C - 3/4 C per person.

Once cooked, place pasta on plates and then cover with an assortment of roasted veg. You might want some pieces cut a bit before putting it on. Garnish with fresh oregano if possible. Otherwise sprinkle with dried basil or oregano.


Roasted Veg can be saved in the fridge and added to tacos, enchiladas, pureed into pasta sauce, soups, or put in sandwiches (especially panini style or hot sandwiches). Super yum and lots of options. Sorry for no pics - everything gets eaten before I remember to take a pic.

Yarrow Does Stop Bleeding

So, this is a bugger of a wound. It's called shredding your knuckle instead of the cheese. 'Causes a fairly messy, bloody wound. After I ran to rinse it off, I thought I'd go get a band-aid, when I remembered yarrow.



What exactly is yarrow? It's the leafy type plant pictured above. I can't remember if I'd heard of it before, but it's definitely talked about in my favorite home remedy/cleaning/etc. literature (also above). Apparently Achilles is said to have used it for his soldiers' wound in battle.

All I know is that it's supposed to stop bleeding. So, I bought some seeds last year and threw it around. I used it for a wound my husband had a while back (cut off the edge of his thumb... major bleeding), but I couldn't tell if it really helped or not.

This time I used it on a wound-type I've had before. And it really worked. I crushed the plant as much as I could in my hand, put it on, applied a little pressure, lifted it to check after like 10 seconds.... no bleeding. Kept it on for another 10 seconds just to be sure. Went and rinsed it off. Didn't start bleeding again. I've never had that kind of bleeding stop that fast.

Where/how do I grow it? Well, I ordered the seeds online. And I strewed the seeds around my lawn. As long as you don't use herbicides on your lawn (I don't use anything on mine), it should grow a little here and there. It's not picky about soil or anything. You can mow it like grass, too. It can even make pretty flowers. Though I've heard it's a bugger to get rid of once you have it.

And if you don't want to grow it, I'm sure there are places you can order dried leaves online.

Oh, and I tried using cayenne pepper on a small wound the other day (also mentioned in my little book). It's supposed to help clotting. I used dried stuff and just dabbed a bunch on. The wound stung a bit, and did take a while to stop bleeding. But, it healed so friggin' quick. I wonder how the two would do in conjunction?

Harvesting from Compost

This is a picture of potatoes I harvested from my compost...

...yet, I just ran through all my old posts and was amazed that I've never written about composting. Craaaazy! I love compost. I couldn't garden for nothin' if it wasn't for compost. I've been composting since I was in an apartment and it made the difference between a dead plant and a living one sooooo many times.

This year I built "raised beds." Basically glorified wood squares. Not hard; all you need is wood (they can even cut the boards for you at a hardware store if you need it), an electric screwdriver/drill, drill bits, and screws. I didn't even square things off 'cause we're renting and I don't care if these last forever.

The raised bed on the right is one I composted in.

Anyway, point is, I didn't have enough dirt to fill the raised beds. So, for 3 of them I put in veg kitchen scraps/dry material with the occasional layer of peat moss or vermiculite. (I typically - not always - use the square foot gardening soil recipe.) Imagine my surprise when stuff started growing. I expected a green onion or two, but I had leeks, cabbage, potatoes and garlic all going strong. Also, I now have volunteer squash of some kind and some volunteer tomatoes.

I just let it go. And today, about 4 or 5 months later, my girls and I harvested potatoes. A lot? Nope. But, I just got food from... nothing. And I've already picked green onions and leeks from it when I needed to. All just from throwing my kitchen scraps in a heap and covering it with enough brown material (dry stuff like old leaves, untreated sawdust, shredded newspaper, non-glossy junk mail etc.) so it didn't reek.

Here's the girls holding the "baby" ones; they really liked playing with the tiny ones for some reason. Oh, and there's a carrot, but that's not from the compost.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, if you're not composting and you have an apartment, land, any kind of space... if you have any plants or want to plant things: compost. Do it. It has an awesome payout in natural fertilizer and possibly food, and costs almost nil.

(And also, composting on top of dry dead soil helps it retain water better and encourages earthworms; just make sure the scraps are totally covered or else you get fruit flies. Takes 3-6 months before you can plant in the soil.)

Make Your Own Art

So, I have finally decided my walls are too bare. I just can't stand it. And I love art. I think I picked it up from talking to my sister, who used to work at the Smithsonian in the Asian art section. About a year ago my hubby and I started looking into what makes an art piece that we actually like. Ok, it's mostly me. But, he gladly participates when I ask.

I would love love love love love to just throw down several k on etsy, supporting actual artists. But, my hubby won't go for that (the amount of money... he is totally for supporting small shops). So, in the meantime, we're looking at making art from the pictures we take or just from things at home. It's the "fake it 'til you make it" kind of idea. (In this case, making it is having several k to throw down on art.)

Here are my two current favorite ideas:

1. On a blog called Deliah Creates, I found her distressed canvas idea. (Also check out her current post on chore dice... I love it!) So far, my attempts haven't looked nearly as nice as hers, but they're still in the works. The great part about this: It costs only a few dollars (depending on the size of the piece) and really not a ton of time per canvas. I also found this site that has interesting transfer ideas.

I'm going to show pictures of my current attempts, but if you want to feel inspired, please check hers out. Like I said, I'm still figuring this out.





2. Magazine art. There was a piece of art I really liked created by the person who wrote this blog. She made a magazine collage thing. While I didn't like it nearly as much as the piece of art that originally brought me to her site, I did like the idea. This is what I've done with it (it's not finished):


I sketched a really basic picture of poppies on a thin canvas. I cut out magazine pages that had the colors I wanted to use. And then I put decoupage medium (the thin stuff) on a small section, cut out pieces and got to layering. It looks way cool from far away.


Anyway. It's been fun. The kids kind of enjoy it, too. And I must add, my other favorite source for art has been the goodwill near us. Some goodwill stores have a nicer goodwill section or store next to the regular store. I found some pretty nice stuff there. Also, the American Cancer Society has thrift stores that often carry nice things, as well as other local thrift shops. You just shouldn't take kids to these kind of stores... I found that out the hard way.

Funny Caterpillar Story

I am, in general, quite in favor of insects in the garden. After all, bees and moths and butterflies are my pollinators so that I don't have to bend over all day and try qtip my way into plant reproduction. I've found that most of the insects I see are actually eating the little buggers I can't see that would kill my plants. For example, even though I dumped out at least 8 earwigs from a lettuce plant last night, I'm not going to go hog wild and start dumping pesticides or try to kill the entire earwig population. The fact is, I'm pretty sure they're just eating aphids and during the day happen to hide from the sunlight in the nooks of my lettuce plants. I will admit, though... I had the creepy crawlies all over my skin for a good 10 min. And the earwigs did die a garbage disposal death.

I have had three exceptions to insect coexistence in two years of gardening. This year I found ants farming aphids on my fava bean plants. I just clipped off the tips of the infested branches, squashed 'em and haven't seen a problem since. (I actually keep the squashed bugs near or on the plant; I've heard a dead bug often gives off a chemical signal that tell other bugs to stay away. The exception to this is bees. Do NOT kill a bee and stick around... other bees come and will sting you.)

Earlier this year I also found cabbage caterpillars. Squashed 'em and moved on. No significant damage.

Last year, though, it was tomato caterpillars. I got most of them when they were young, but at the end of the year when I was cutting down the plants, I found the huge guy above. He was a monster of a caterpillar, and I knew if I didn't get him he would come back in butterfly form next year to wreak havoc on my tomatoes.

The kids were enthralled. They just wanted to sit and watch the poor bugger. I didn't want them to watch it die, but I couldn't get them to stay out front. So, I made them stand a good 4 feet off to my left. I placed the unfortunate on his brick execution table, raised the spade, and slammed it down. Then came the screams.

No, my kids are not so sensitive as to scream for a caterpillar's death. Somehow, I'd angled the spade just right so that green caterpillar guts squirted all four feet over to my four year old. She screamed for her now goopy clothes. My two year old just stood there, also covered in green guts, wondering what all the ruckus was about.


P.S. No, I don't know how to identify insect gender. Is there some psychology to the fact that I identified the executionee as a he? :P I am so totally kidding!