Make Your Own Onion Soup Mix

I am making Coca-cola pork roast in the crock pot tonight, and needed onion soup mix. I didn't have any of that, but thankfully this easy DIY recipe should do the trick.

Free Printable Paper Dolls

I love paper dolls, and even though my daughter is not yet two years old, I've been printing, coloring and pasting these on cardboard for her...okay, for me. I'll post some finished ones later.

Here's a few dolls from the Dear America collection. Great for historical unit studies, or what-have-you, and best of all they are free.

A few Victorian dolls from Karen's Whimsey.

U.S. Historical Society Paper Dolls. Very neat includes Grace Kelly, Anna Pavlova, Audrey Hepburn, Florence Nightingale and more.

A very interesting journey through fashion history, Past Patterns offers authentic clothing patterns from the past, including those for wedding gowns. My favorite wedding gown is the 1939 one. Which is your favorite? They also offer a free paper doll with outfits from the Jacksonian era.

Over 20 different free printable paper dolls.

Berenstain Bears Dress-Up Dolls, fun for preschoolers.

This site has many links to vintage paper dolls.

More Vintage paper dolls here.

Historical paper dolls, includes saints.

Victorian jointed doll

How To Make Your Own Yeast

HOME-MADE YEAST

Wash four potatoes and then cut in slices, without peeling, and place in saucepan, and add three pints of water.

Cook until the potatoes are soft and then add
One-half cupful of hops. Cook slowly for one-half hour.

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and then pour hot mixture on
One and one-half cupfuls of flour, One tablespoonful of salt,
One-quarter cupful of brown sugar.

Stir until well mixed, beating free from lumps. Cool to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Now add One yeast cake dissolved in one cupful of water, 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir well to mix and then let ferment in a warm place for ten hours. Now pour into jar or crock and store in a cool place.

TO USE
Use one and one-half cups of this mixture in place of the yeast cake. Always stir well before using and take care that the mixture does not freeze. This potato ferment must be made fresh every eighteen days in winter and every twelve days in summer.

~ Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions(1920) , download page.

Free Worksheet Generators and More

There are a good number of free worksheet sites online organized by topic and grade level, and some have worksheet generators where you can make your own custom sheets.

Kidszone - free worksheets by topic and by grade. Here is an example of their printable tracing worksheets.

Abc Teach: over 12,000 worksheets organized by grade and subject. Free tracing pages, including beginning penmanship. Here are some cute preschool/kindergarten level letter and shape tracing sheets.

Printfree.com: school printables like a teaching clock, custom graph paper, lined paper, and more.

A nice cumulative list of sources for free printables. I've used a few of these, DLTK and Enchanted Learning were my favorite when ds was younger. I'll be using them again when dd gets a little older.

Charlotte Mason manuscript copy work pages.

Worksheet generators, custom worksheets:

Personal Education Press: cards & signs, game boards, study sheets, quizzes, and flash games.

Penmanship worksheet generator(K-First)

Handwriting Worksheet Generator

Handwriting for Kids, includes left handed sheets

Free penmanship paper generator. Customize line spaces, color, paper size and line weight, very neat!


Math Fact Cafe(grade K-5), very nice worksheet generator and some premade worksheets.

Make your own penmanship worksheets by downloading fonts with and without dotted lines from Blue Vinyl. I use the Learning Curve and Print Clearly fonts. You can use these fonts in a word processor which allows you to use downloaded fonts, like your notepad or Microsoft Works. Unfortunately, Google Documents and free Jarte allow only their fonts. I've had limited success copying and pasting into these programs...still fiddling with it. I don't have Microsoft Office, and I'm still trying to download free Open Office(large download for dial up!) to see if their program is more flexible.

Discovery School's Worksheet Generator: These are great if you want to make your own multiple choice, matching, scrambles or word blank quizzes or worksheets. These can be used for anything - after a field trip, book reviews, vocabulary building, etc. There are also sheets for math, and some premade sheets. You can view samples before generating sheets.

Kitchen Tips Tuesday/Troubleshooting: Baking Bread

What happened to this bread? See this helpful troubleshooting chart for bread baking tips.

Attractive in a geode, but not in bread.

Make It From Scratch/ Homemade Hot Pockets

Meat filling:

1 pound of ground meat
1 chopped onion
A can of tomato sauce(or not)
A little garlic
Seasonings of your choice
Finely chopped cooked cabbage(optional)
A little Tabasco sauce

Cook all this in a skillet and set aside.

Crust:

2 c. warm water(not hot, or you'll kill the yeast)
2 tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 cup butter
6-61/2 cups flour

Mix together all ingredients, adding the flour a little at a time. During the last cup or two of flour, you'll have to mix by hand in the bowl, kneading the flour into the dough ball. When well mixed, take the dough out, and knead for a few minutes until dough is elastic.

To knead: Push the dough out with the heels of your hands, and roll back toward you by folding the dough over. Repeat this step over and over.

Grease a bowl, place the dough in, turning once. Place towel over the top and place it somewhere warm until it doubles in size, then punch down, knead and separate into dough balls. Roll out the balls into circles, and place meat sauce in the middle, fold over and pinch sides closed. Cook for 15 minutes on a greased sheet at 350 degrees.

The crust on these was light and a little salty. It's very good crust, in fact I plan to use this crust recipe for pizza.

I didn't make this meat filling, I used leftover spaghetti sauce with meat, and threw in some leftover green beans and leftover braised cabbage. Good way to use up leftovers!

Happy Hearts Homeschooling Library

I just added a link on my sidebar to my public domain(free) homeschooling books blog. I'm just getting started, but I'll be adding free books by grade and subject.

I'll also be adding any information I gather about the logistics of using online books for homeschooling.

Free Online Homeschooling Books

Tea Party with Friends
Originally uploaded by KAlexaLott.

Kim of In Beauty And In Grace has done the legwork researching the internet for some really wonderful free online books for literature and homeschooling. She has many of the links listed on the left sidebar under A Living Education, as well in blog posts. I spent a long time there the other night looking through her beautiful and informative blog - a wonderful thrifty resource for Charlotte Mason style homeschoolers or other wise.

HT to Like Merchant's Ships


I'm going to contact her to find out how she teaches with the free online books; whether she uses an ebook reader, a laptop, or whether she prints the book out.

I'd like to start another blog with free online homeschooling literature which I can link here on my sidebar. The search engines are easy to find for free online books, but knowing which titles are useful for homeschooling is another matter. I haven't found any free online book resources which are searchable by subject, or at least if they were searchable, the categories were poorly organized.

Kim was kind enough to share these links for some free online Catholic readers:

Standard Catholic Readers – Third Year

The Ideal Catholic Readers – Fifth Year

Standard Catholic Readers – Fifth Year

Homemade Insecticidal Soap

I've had some problems with keeping down the cabbage worm population on my collard greens this year. I pick them off when I see them, but I still see carnage the next day, so I've been using a homemade insecticidal soap.










Homemade Insecticidal Soap:

1 TB. of Murphy's Oil Soap
1 gallon of water

Mix well and spray on plants when you are sure it will not rain.

It seems to have been working. I've not seen but one worm for over a week. I only sprayed once, and had to spray again today.

Janet over at Janet's Garden also uses this recipe with the addition of baking soda and mouth wash for mildew and fungus. See her before and after pictures of a sickly anemone which becomes healthy again with this spray. She also mentioned that it repelled male cats from spraying against her home. Apparently Murphy's Oil soap is a good critter repellent as well.

Gabrielle's Garden has a very helpful list of homemade garden recipes from natural gardening expert, Jerry Baker.

Kashi Pilaf Dinner Recipe

I picked up a box of Kashi Seven Whole Grain all natural pilaf at Big Lots for $1.99. Each box has three packages of pilaf. Tonight I was feeling a bit tired, so I made up a quick new dinner dish.

Pilaf Dinner

Cook a cup(or in this case one package) of pilaf in 2 cups of vegetable water(or just water)for about 35 minutes, or until tender. Add a chicken bouillon cube, a little olive oil, hot pepper flakes, garlic, seasoning salt(I use Adobo), and herbs(I used Italian).

Cook ground meat, season well, add chopped onions and frozen green beans. I seasoned with Adobo and Italian.

Mix all together and serve. Yum!

Mushrooms and other veggies would have been good as well.

I also made some yams for a little more nutritional balance with the veggies.

(picture shows unbaked casserole)

Sweet Potato Bake

A can of sweet potato, or three baked sweet potatoes with skins off. Spread sweet potato in greased casserole dish, add pumpkin pie seasoning, sprinkle with brown sugar, and pour about 1/3 cup orange juice on top. Mix a little. Add a can of pumpkin and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, mix a little and top with bananas and wheat germ. Cook for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Reusing Old Dresser Drawers

A while back I mentioned that my neighbor had put out a chest of dresser drawers for trash day. The chest was in very bad shape, but the drawers where salvageable and sturdy with dovetailed joints.

She told me to go ahead and take them, so they've been in the garage waiting for transformation.

Yesterday I finally got a little time to work on them:









I turned these drawers into planter boxes for the top of our rustic book/storage shelves in the playroom. HT to Nikki (who, BTW just a had a little boy). They are not done yet. I still need to line them with some plastic, and add soil and more plants. I just placed these in temporarily to get an idea of which plants I want in the box. I'll be taking them out of their current containers(maybe). I'm still deciding whether to keep the plants in pots, or replant them directly into the drawer.

My neighbor, who is moving next month gave me all his indoor plants. The smaller ones which trail will be replanted into the boxes.






Another idea to recycle old drawers is to add wheels, and use them as under the bed storage.





These drawers could be made even nicer with stenciling, or hot gluing items to the front. I just needed something plain, so I made them shabby looking with a light coat of creme paint.

More on recycling old dresser drawers:

HGTV: Dressing Up Drawers

HGTV: Recycled Drawers

Funky Chest Of Drawers

I'm still searching for more uses as I've got quite a few drawers left over.

Update: I added my gift plants which are a little bedraggled, but should perk up with some TLC. I lined the boxes with a heavy duty garbage bag, and tucked in the sides. A super large bag of soil filled up both boxes.









See more Make-It-From-Scratch carnival entries at Stephanie's.

Make-It-From-Scratch/Pillow Case Dress

I made this pillowcase dress for my toddler using these instructions. I used one of the vintage pillow cases from my collection. It was very easy, and took just two nights to complete. I hand stitched it because most of it included very small areas.

See more creative entries!

Free Temperament Personality Test

Just for fun...this test is a long one, over 100 questions. It's based upon the four temperaments: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholy and Phlegmatic.

Not surprisingly, I tested Melancholy Phlegmatic, although I'm not as Eeyore as the temperament suggests...and I'm not fond of thistles.

HT to Lifeasmama

Vintage Baby Book Pages For Girls

I'm a Girl 8.jpeg
Originally uploaded by Temeculamom.

I saw these adorable scans of a vintage 1956 baby girl book on one of my flickr groups. There are more scanned pictures of this vintage baby book, great for scrap booking or collecting. Click on the image and browse the photostream to see more .

Natural Hair Detangler Recipe

Click on title

Frugal Fridays/Homemade Sausage Biscuits

We had been buying boxes of frozen sausage biscuits for my nine year old son who loves to heat these by himself in the microwave in the morning. They were easy and convenient, but a little expensive, and the ingredients where unwholesome - lots of preservatives, nitrites, etc.

So I made my own sausage biscuits from scratch to freeze, and my son likes them*.

Sausage Biscuits

Mix together into patties:

3 pounds ground pork

2 cups grits or polenta(moistened with 1 cup hot water)

1 chopped and sauteed onion

2 t. sage

1 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. fennel

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp. pepper

a dash of ground cloves and nutmeg

Add a tsp. or two of milk if dry and/or an egg

Fry in oil until no pink is inside, or fry both sides and then bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees just to make sure. Freeze, and when you are ready to eat - microwave for 2 minutes with the biscuits.

Biscuits

Stir together in a bowl:

2 c. flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. shortening, butter or oil

3/4 c. milk

Knead lightly on floured surface for 20 minutes. Roll out dough to 1/2 inch thickness, cup with floured biscuit cutter, or opening of a floured glass.

Bake on ungreased pan for 10-12 minutes. Makes about 16-18. Freeze and microwave.

* The sausage was just a very little bit dry. I'd recommend adding an egg and/or milk if you like a moister sausage. We will be trying this next time.

Click on Frugal Friday image to see more frugal tips.

Homemade Chocolate Cupcake Soap - Easy

Yesterday I made soap by rebatching Ivory soap. Although I could have made my own soap with lye, I thought I'd try working with Ivory soap first. Commercial soap is very drying because glycerin is removed to make lotions. Rebatching soap lets you add moisture back, and it's fun to add your own ingredients and shapes. I used this link for the soap recipe, but ended up combining recipes and making my own.

Chocolate Cupcake Soap:

Three bars of Ivory Soap
3/4 Cup water
5 Tablespoons olive oil
3 Tablespoons glycerin
3 Tablespoon cocoa powder
3 Tablespoon honey
1/2 cup powdered milk
3 Tablespoon cinnamon

Cut soap up into smaller pieces, place in a glass Pyrex measuring bowl, add water and cook in microwave for about 2 minutes at a time, watch closely for puffing up, stop when it does this and stir, repeat until it is creamy. Add more water and a little of the oil if too dry*.

Once it's nice and creamy, add oil and remaining ingredients, stir well, adding more water and oil if too dry. I heat it up more if it's still chunky, and stir.




Grease cupcake tins with olive oil, fill and allow to dry overnight. If they don't pop out, try to push them out by hand, or freeze them for a little bit. Mine popped out well after I spun them around in the muffin tin with my finger.

For Icing:

Cook one bar of cut up Ivory soap in a clean glass bowl in the microwave with about 1/4 cup water and 1 tablespoon of glycerin. Repeat muffin cooking instructions above. When it gets nice and creamy it's ready to frost. The frosting dries pretty quickly. I waited a few hours and it was ready for use.

I sprinked sugar on a few of the cupcakes before adding the frosting. I'm experimenting with a garden soap. The sugar adds a little abrasive for extra cleaning.

I used thrift store purchased older tins and other items for this project. I won't be cooking food with them, and I'd suggest the same.

I added the frosting today. I have the cupcake soap next to the kitchen sink, and it cleans well, but is A LOT easier on my hands than regular soap. There was no greasy residue. I like it!

Next project: liquid soap. I may get brave enough to make bar soap from scratch with lye, not just rebatch Ivory soap.

*If the soap is too dry, add more water, oil or glycerin than is stated in the recipe.

Update: Some of the natural ingredients did mold after a few months in storage. I'd not store this soap for long periods of time.