Colander Planter

I swear, colander has got to be one of the weirdest words to spell.

ANYhow.

I ran out of pots the other day when doing some indoor gardening, so I recruited a small colander that was starting to chip. I suspended it from the kitchen ceiling with a few cup hooks and yarn (conveniently located over the trash can for any drips). It looks super cute!

Friday Flashback

Here's a popular set of posts!

• How to ReCover a Couch - After
• How to ReCover a Couch – Step 3
• How to ReCover a Couch – Step 2
• How to ReCover a Couch – Step 1
• How to ReCover a Couch – Before

Initial Cookies

My cousin's son, T, turned 3 recently. I asked what he wanted for his birthday, but she requested no more toys, and he has plenty of clothes, and mostly he plays with the vacuum... So cash it was! But, cash is so boring when you're 3, so I made some T cookies to go with his card. :) The cookies are regular sugar cookies with some blue sugar crystals on top. Then I made simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled to liquid, and cooled), added blue food coloring, then painted the letters on with a paintbrush. Easy and tasty!

Frugal Luxuries: Door Draft Stopper

A quick fix for your drafty doors - roll an old towel up from either end, tie some string around it, and slide under the door. Done - and you can use the towel again in the summer since you didn't cut it!

Ground Beef Made Easy

You can totally cook ground beef in the crock pot. Yup.

Go ahead and buy that giant thing of ground beef, plop it in your crock pot, and turn it on low for 6-8 hours or until cooked medium well in the center (you'll finish browning it when you go to use it in your meal). The grease and moisture will mostly cook out, surrounding the ground beef in liquid that you can drain off, leaving you with more or less a roast of lean ground beef. Break it up or slice it and put it in baggies or freezer-friendly containers and freeze.

My shepherd's pie took all of 15 minutes tonight! I browned up the thawed ground beef in a big pan (and didn't have to drain it!), tossed some frozen corn on top right in the pan, covered it with creamed corn and instant mashed potatoes, heated it through, and - DONE!

Friday Flashback

• Frugal Luxuries: Storing Old Paint
• Painted Table
• Kitchen Nook

DIY Tinted Sunscreen w/ Moisturizer

I admit: conventional sunscreen kinda freaks me out. All of those chemicals... so I stopped using it, and switched to zinc based natural sunscreen. And by switched, I mean I tried several, hated that they turn my already pale skin paler and chalky, and gave up wearing sunscreen.

The other day I was wishing that I could just make a tinted moisturizer/sunscreen like I used to in high school. Then I smacked myself in the forehead for being an idiot, grabbed some supplies out of the bathroom, and made myself some.

Ingredients:
Sunscreen (preferrably a natural one that absorbs well)
Lotion (a fairly thin one that you like to use on your face)
Powdered or liquid foundation slightly darker than your skin tone (bonus points if you use a natural mineral foundation)

Put your sunscreen in a bowl and mix in lotion until it gets to the consistency that you want. Generally the natural sunscreen is pretty thick, hence why I suggested a thinner lotion. Then start adding foundation and mixing until when you rub the concoction on your face it disappears.

This may not work on all skin tones, I'm pretty pale so it worked well on me - I put it on half of my hand, and you can barely tell!