Harvest Wreath

Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year. The outdoor temperatures become more comfortable, the insects diminish, and the colors of the landscape here in Missouri are exquisite as the fog rolling in on a cool autumn morning.

I feel peaceful and relaxed at the idea of hunkering down for the winter. Harvest season is less than a month away!

As I shared in this post last year, one of my favorite fall activities is seed collecting. Visiting parks, the woods, even walking around my neighborhood usually culminates in a rather large collection of seeds to stash away.


As I wrote in this post, another of my of my favorite things to do in the fall is to harvest my yard. Not only the edible parts, but the grasses and twigs for my fireplace, weeds and wild flowers to make centerpieces and arrangements, and my unruly, out of control wild grape vines to make wreathes and other decorations.

This prolific vine gets cut back every fall and regrows in the spring. I think it's rather pretty, even though it's a messy thing. It's worth it to me to keep it because I can make pretty wreathes out of it.

This year, I have not been enjoying the outdoors quite so much. I decided to make a new wreath, but rather than collect my decorations before hand, I have decided to hang the wreath bare with only a simple cotton print and denim bow.

This autumn, as the landscape changes, we will look for our decorations for it and collect them on our walks while we are gathering our seeds. Anytime we see something pretty or interesting, we will collect it and bring it home. I am hoping this will motivate me to get out more and enjoy the lovely temperate weather. I'll update pictures of it on my facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/TheyAreAllOfMe, as it begins to fill up!

Turn a T-shirt into Short Workout Pants

"I really am enjoying my new job. In my first training session, they said that they call us "industrial athletes." This is no joke! My job is to load packages into the back of a truck. The boxes are often heavy and they want you to move them as quickly as you can.

It's extremely physical. Squatting, lunging, lifting, reaching and placing heavy packages at a rapid (aerobic) pace for approximately three hours solid per shift, is quite an enviable workout and had a lot to do with why I chose to apply for this job.

My first night on the dock, I wore a tank top and a pair of jeans. I quickly wished I hadn't! The denim is too hot, too constricting and every time I squatted or lunged, I mooned everyone behind me. My second night on the dock, I wore a pair of running capris and was so thankful that I did. I decided to get a whole wardrobe of workout capris and T-shirts.

The thrift store had a few workout/yoga pants that were in my size, but I had to modify the length. Otherwise, I realized I could make new running capris out of large T-shirts!

Here's what you need:
T-shirt, at least a size large
Sewing machine (hand stitching won't cut it with this project).
Elastic (you can recycle from old clothing)
Thread
Pins
Scissors

To begin with, choose the appropriate sized shirt. The size of the shirt you'll need is determined by the size of your hips and backside. Consider the length. Consider what you want to do about a waste band.
My median size is a 10, and a mens size large is enough to make a basic pant for me. The red shirt pictured was a 2XL and there was enough leftover fabric on each side too make a waste band if I wanted. I'll describe that later.

Fold your T-shirt in half down the middle, with the sleeves together.

Take a fair amount of care to smooth it out with your hand as much as possible. Working with knit can be a little tricky, as it stretches and pulls out of shape easily. When we're talking about pre-worn T-shirts, it should be expected that there will be some wonkiness right off the bat. Just go with it and gently hand press it, moving the bulky places out of the way.

You can take your measurements and draw up a pattern if you like, but I just grabbed a pair of knit work out pants that fit me the way I like.

Lay your workout pants (or similar pattern) on top of the T-shirt as this picture shows. It is really important that the portion that is the outside of the legs lines up with the folded side of the T-shirt. That is because you are going to have only one inner seam on the leg of your pants. No need to waste time and thread by adding unnecessary seams! Besides, if you have a logo or design on the front of your shirt, this will simply be placed on the side of your pant and not look too weird. You may notice also as this picture shows, that the bottom of the pant lines up with the bottom of the T-shirt. This means your pants are pre-hemmed! Cool, right? I know!

When you cut, you want to account for your seam allowance. I only wanted a quarter inch seam, so I made sure I cut that far from the outside edge of my (pattern) pants.

You're cutting through four layers of T-shirt, and therefore you are cutting both pieces you need to make your pants. Sewing goes pretty quickly.

Each piece that you have is a pant leg. Fold each one in half vertically, with right sides together. Make sure you match the sides evenly. They should be symmetrical.

Pin up the leg, stopping right when you get to the point that is the crotch.

These pants are meant to fit snuggly, and your seams will take a lot of pulling - especially if you're using them for working out.

The last thing you want is your seam to rip open while you're jogging down the street, in the middle of a yoga session or working the leg press at the gym. I know I don't want to have my co-workers laughing at me endlessly because my pants split open in front of everyone!

Each and every seam is doubled and tripled. Two straight seams, about a millimeter apart, and a zig-zag stitch that is evenly straddling the outside straight stitch. I then very carefully trimmed away the excess fabric, to within two millimeters of the seam.

Once you have your pant legs sewn and threads trimmed, you'll want to turn them right side out. This photo is an error, I started pinning with the pant legs inside out and realized that If I had sewn them that way, the seam that joins them would have been on the outside.

Once the pant legs are inside out, match up the seams at what will become the crotch (I hate that word!)

Pin the two pieces together and just as you did when you sewed the pant legs closed, sew a quarter inch seam using a straight stitch. Sew a second parallel stitch a millimeter apart and then zig-zag down the middle of the outer stitch. Trim off the excess fabric.

After you have the two halves of your pants joined, you want to try them on. If they are too loose, you can take them in. If they don't come up high enough, you can add an extra long waste band.

I recycled elastic from old clothing. On the gray pants that have the logo, I chose to do a waste band because they seemed to be to short and would pull down in the back during squatting. I could have used the scraps leftover from the red shirt, and this would have looked quite nice. However there was an ugly old gray sweatshirt that has been sitting in the recycle pile for a while and I chose to take the waste band off of it because it matched so well. I cut the elastic to the length that I needed, enfolded it into the waste band and sewed it together. I then pinned this band, with right sides together, to my pants and sewed it with a double straight stitch and a zig-zag. Trimming off the excess thread, these pants were done!

The red pants were plenty high in the waste, and I decided that I wouldn't bother with a waste band. I didn't care to have a hem, either. I know that having the elastic showing makes them look like ridiculously long underwear, but I don't mind. My shirt will cover the elastic.

I did want to make the point, however, that they may well function as long underwear! You can have them as leggings in the colder months, wear them under skirts, whatever you like.



These pants were so easy to make, I can see making many of them in the future! Whenever I find myself running short on work-out pants, I can just grab a few big T-shirts from the thrift store or my husbands dresser and whip a few up!

Easy DIY Clothespin Bag

 
 
This bag was made using materials I had on hand, and took less than 20 minutes.

Materials:

1 child's ruined T-shirt, size 5 or close to.

1 metal coat hanger, or arm length piece of wire of similar gauge and width.

Needle and thread or sewing machine.

Pair of pliers.

My daughter was so sad when she ruined this T-shirt. I was too, it was the first time she wore it. We don't throw away fabric if it is in decent condition, because we know that we can always make something from it.

I've been in need of a new clothes pin holder and decided to use the shirt for that.

You can use a child's T-shirt, trim down an old pillow case, or make yourself a pouch from scratch. Whatever works for you!

I have made a few of these over the years and prefer the child's T-shirt because we usually always have one around to serve the cause - and because they are the correct width so as not to need to sew the sides or hem the opening.

It may be difficult to tell in this picture, but I flipped the T-shirt inside out and then sewed alongside the seams of the sleeves and across the top, just beneath the collar.

I straight stitched it, and then zigzagged on what would be the outside edge to prevent fraying. If you cannot zigzag, I would at least double stitch it as the bulk of the clothespins will be hard on the seam.

Trim away the sleeves and neck opening after sewing.

Using a pair of pliers, open up your coat hanger and stretch it out. You want the length of wire to be approximately 2 to 3 feet - or an arms length.

Fold the wire in half and pinch it with the pliers.

Three and a half inches from the bend, begin twisting the two sides together as you see in the photo. Give it a couple of twists.

Now take your doubled over end and shape it into a hook. Make sure your hook comes down low, and nearly meets the twist. There may be times when your bag is swaying in the wind and you don't want it to fly off of your clothesline!

You now have a bag instead of a T-shirt. The opening of your bag is already hemmed for you! On the inside of this hem, pop two little holes, about half an inch apart to feed the ends of your wires through the hem.

Make sure that you feed both wires through the hem simultaneously, and pop them out of the other side of the bag.

After you've popped the wires out of the other side of the hem, use the pliers to loop them around each other as shown.

Bend the wires as needed to form a hoop at the opening of your bag.

You may now fill the bag with clothespins and hang it on your clothesline. There, it can slide along the line with you and you won't have to bend over to pick them up!

So... you wanna make a clothesline?

I pretty much always use a clothesline in the summer. It helps me out for many reasons, and nothing as romantic as sheets that smell like honeysuckle or a fresh outdoor breeze, though.

The truth is, I quite enjoy hanging out the laundry and I can't explain to you why. It's time consuming and monotonous, but makes me feel... peaceful. I like that I can dry clothes in batches, and the laundry gets done much more quickly when I don't have to wait on the dryer. I like that I can dry larger things that won't fit in the dryer. I also like that the energy required doesn't cost me a penny.

My first clothesline at this house was made from repurposed lumber which we had leftover from an outdoor staircase we removed. I built it myself when my husband was at work and it worked really well. But I decided that the spot it was in needed a vegetable garden, so I took it down.


My second clothesline was this thing. It opens like and umbrella. We found it at a yard sale for $15. It lasted us 3 years, I believe, but this year it was done-for. The metal rods had rusted through and we couldn't repair it. It went to the scrapyard.

I have seen in my neighborhood some houses that have a long line reaching from the house itself to a tree or a post near the outside of the yard. The line is retractable and can be unhooked and coiled up to get it out of the way. I decided to make one of these. We just took the line out of the old umbrella hanger, but otherwise the cost would have only been $7 for the line and the hooks.







A couple durable steal hooks screwed into the utility post at the very edge of the back yard, and then a third bolted to the wooden brace on the corner of the house was all the installation it required.

If you don't have a utility pole, perhaps you have a shed, or a tree?

 

 

 The reason Joe staggered them was so it would be easier to wind the line around the two of them and prevent it from slipping off. We can adjust the slack as we need to.

When the line isn't being used, it can be coiled up and hung on the corner of the house, out of the way. This isn't a very tidy picture, but it can look neater than this.

 

 

For tips on properly hanging laundry, hop on over to Our Mindful Life! Kellie's got some great advice!

So... Do You Want to Make Your Own Coconut Oil?

Welcome to the Festival of Food Carnival. In celebration of Spring, we're sharing real raw recipe ideas.  Hosted by Diary of a First Child and Hybrid Rasta Mama, you're welcome to join us next time, or if you have a previously published recipe you'd like to share, add it to the linky below.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a coconut. I love coconut meat, they taste similar to Brazil nuts, which are my favorites.

After a friend of mine shared an article on homemade coconut milk, I began playing around with my coconut. And then I bought another one, and another one. I started experimenting and researching.

I decided I wanted to make three things with coconuts: Coconut Milk, Coconut Flour, and Coconut oil. All of which can be very expensive and as my regular readers know, expensive ain't my thing!

One thing I discovered however, was that no website, blog article or Youtube video (that I was able to find) showed how to process coconuts in all three ways, simultaneously. So here you go! I will post the links to the pages and videos that I saw at the end of this article. I am not an expert on coconuts, but I am something of an expert on cheap!

Real quick, I'm going to bore you with some math.
Here, I bought five coconuts. They were 1.38$ each, and I picked up the largest ones out of the bin.
My yields from these 5 coconuts are thus:
1.5 cups of coconut oil
220 oz. of coconut milk
8 cups of coconut flour

All for less than 7$.
It's important here to note that had I chosen either the coconut milk OR the coconut oil, I would have gotten quite a lot more of each. But because I wanted both, the totals for each were less.

So let's get started!
Shopping for coconuts, you want to pick heavy ones. Shake them to see if they have plenty of liquid inside. Low liquid content likely means there is a hole or a crack and the coconut inside has been compromised.
Hold the coconut over a bowl and whack it hard with the back edge of a heavy knife. It splits in half magically! Sometimes the first blow does it, sometimes you need to hit it a few times.

I had all five coconuts split in just a couple of minutes.

You can save the liquid and strain it as it likely has bits of the hull floating around in it.

Some people add a bit of sugar to this and drink it up. I just processed it back into the coconut milk.

Another trick I read online. Put the coconut halves into a 350F oven for 15 minutes. This won't hurt them a bit!

When you take them out, you will find that they are a lot easier to remove from their shells, as heating them causes them to pull away a little from the outer hulls.

Turning the halves upside down on the counter and giving them another good whack with the back of a heavy knife will now cause them to pop out of their shells, most of the time. Otherwise, use a butter knife to pop it out.

I had a bowlful of large chunks of meat.

I chopped them up into pieces that my blender could handle.

Don't throw away the shells, they can be very useful!

Coconut shells make excellent mulch, they can be composted or burned. Because they are highly flammable, they are terrific fire starters for your summertime bar-b-q or weenie roast. You can also crunch them up and use them in your fish tank filter, water filter or other application instead of activated charcoal. Ground to dust, they are very absorbent and a great way to handle those pesky oil stains in your driveway. You can even use the dust as a facial exfoliant. So keep them!

Next step, into the blender.

Before adding liquid, use the crush setting and get the pieces as small as you can.

Obviously, this is not five coconuts. Only blend about a half a coconut at a time, unless your blender is a mean machine and can handle more.

I was using a cheap Sunbeam blender that I bought at a thrift store without a lid.

 Now add the liquid that you extracted from the coconuts. You will run out, so just use fresh water afterward.

Blend, blend, blend.

Because I was making flour with the solids, I took care to get my pieces as miniscule as possible. If I had a Blendtec, this would have been an easy thing. But my cheap little Sunbeam just went and went.

This is maybe one coconut. By the time I was finished blending, the bowl was filled to the brim. Looks like oatmeal and it smelled delicious!

It confuses me when people talk about keeping things on hand like cheesecloth.
Bandanas can be used for so many things! I always have plenty lying around.

Dampen the bandana and place it (or strainer, or cheesecloths over the mouth of a pitcher and scoop one or two cupfuls of the pulp into it.

Squeeze, and squeeze and wring and wring. You can be as forceful as you need to be with the bandana, you won't tear it, wear as cheesecloth would after a bit.

I was able to squeeze out enough super concentrated coconut milk to fill up six 24 oz. jars.

If you're only making coconut milk, good job, you all done! This is, as I said, very concentrated so you would want to dilute it quite a bit.

If you want to make the coconut oil and flour, read on.

After getting as much liquid out of the pulp as possible, dump the coconut grounds out onto a cookie sheet.

I had to use two of them.

Spread it out as evenly as you can, then place it in a 200F oven for a few hours to dry out.

Once the coconut flour has fully dried, run it back through the blender or a food processor to break it up further.

I placed my jars into the refrigerator and let them rest for several hours. The fat separated to the top.

If I was only making coconut oil, I would have wanted to put my milk into a bowl or some container that would allow me to scoop the cream out easily. But making the milk as well, I didn't want to remove all of the cream.

I ladled approximately
1/2 to 2/3's of the cream into a heavy bottomed pot.

I placed the pot on medium heat and went on with my day. There is nothing you need to do here, just check on it every so often.

After a while, you will see the oil begin to come to the top.

Continue to cook until you are unable to get any more oil out of the sludge. I would estimate that this took me about an hour.

You can see that I got about a cup and a half of pure virgin coconut oil. If I had taken all of the cream from the milk, I would easily have gotten over two cups.













I can't say that it was a blast to make all of this, as you can see it was a ton of work! Was it worth it? Oh yes! Especially the coconut milk. And as I said in the beginning of this post, all of these products are fair bit pricey, and making your own makes them affordable for just about anyone. In fact, going to a regular grocery store and purchasing cooking oil (corn, canola, vegetable) plus a sack of wheat flour, plus two gallons of cow milk would cost you at least double what I spent here for much, MUCH healthier products.

Stay tuned to this blog for recipes using coconut milk, coconut oil and coconut flour, as I can see this being something that I do on a regular basis!

Research Links:
Hybrid Rasta Mama; 333 Uses for Coconut Oil
WikiHow; 8 Ways to Open a Coconut
Homemade Desert Recipes; How to Open a Coconut
Wellness Mama; Homemade Coconut Milk
Whole New Mom; Easiest Coconut Milk Recipe - Improved!
Youtube: Raw Pleasure Australia; How to make coconut milk. (obnoxious music, but good video).
Ehow; How To Make Homemade Coconut Oil
Youtube: Christopher Silverton-Thong; Coconut Oil - Homemade
Trini Style; Homemade Coconut Oil

*********** Please take a moment to visit the blogs of our other Festival of Food participants. The links in this list will be live by the end of the day, as participants are all in different time zones.

• Gone are the days where dairy-free, gluten-free deserts mean a fruit platter! This "raw" cheesecake from Luschka at Diary of a First Child is a wonderful introduction to raw food, and is pretty simple to make too! You can also find Luschka on Facebook.
• Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama shares Tropical Twist Kale Chips, a recipe guaranteed to take your taste buds to the tropics! Kid love these tangy treats too!  You can also find Jennifer on Facebook.
• Sarah at Why Food Works discusses the importance of fat and enzymes - and offers up a recipe for a raw, 5-minute blender gazpacho that's perfect for warmer weather. You can also find Sarah on Facebook.
• Abbie at Farmer's Daughter shares tips for introducing Raw First Foods based on her experiences following baby-led weaning with her older son. You can also find Farmer's Daughter on Facebook.
• Destany at They Are All of Me shows to how she made coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut flour in her own kitchen, using whole coconuts. You can also fine They Are All of Me on Facebook.

Stay connected! Be sure to "Like" the Festival of Food Carnival Facebook page.

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Make Your Own "Opoly"

I first made Futuropoly years ago for my kids Christmas gift. At the time I decided I was going to do a board game, space and the future were running themes in our household.

Futuropoly is also not the first board game I have made with Monopoly as the basis. I once did Footballopoly back when our oldest boys were wee little babes. That of course, was for my husband, and used pro football teams as property.

Whatever Opoly you choose to go with, you can have a lot of fun adapting the theme to fit the game. Most of this can also be created with items around your house, making it thrifty and eco-friendly.

To make a game, you need to put together the following components:

• The board - I used a half inch square piece of nice plywood. You want it to be furniture grade wood because it's going to last for years. This board is 2' x 2'.
  Use a straight edge and ruler to partition off the property slots. You'll have a large square in each corner, and nine slots in between each one. I painted mine with inexpensive watercolor paints, acting as stain. I used a sharpie marker to draw the straight lines, and then I applied polyurethane over the top to seal it all in. The gold paint went on last, because polyurethane causes the gold to smear.
  
  Create the property names with the theme of your game. Some of ours are "Omega 1 System" and "Alpha Center." Regions of outer space, in other words. I looked up names of star systems and galaxies. Where the colors coordinate, the names also coordinate. For instance, the red properties are "Delphius Scape," "Dorado Lat," and "Draco Region."
  
  Instead of railroads, we have teleports, and Jail is "Suspension Chamber." Utilities are "Fusion Company," and "Fission Company," and instead of Income Tax, we have "Robot Maintenance" and "Alien Housing Tax."
  
  You get the gist!

• Cards - There are two sets of cards in any Opoly game. Ours are Question Mark and Time Capsule. The Time Capsule cards refer to things in todays era. I had a ton of fun making up crazy things that could happen to either fine players or reward them. "The shifty Robot you purchased at the Hydrus Sector Swap Meet stole your space pup and fled the galaxy. Pay 700k's for Unrestrained Droid Violation."
  There are 30 cards for each stack, and were made out of poster board. I also made property cards out of poster board. Because it's Futuropoly, I accounted for massive inflation and everything costs a ridiculous amount of money.

• Money! - This unfortunately isn't easily customizable. You can buy Monopoly Money from online sources like Ebay and Amazon. We used Play Money that we bought from the Dollar Store, but it too can be purchased from Amazon. The play money comes in higher bills than Monopoly does (usually) and this jived well with our ridiculous inflation.

• Houses and Hotels - When I first made the game, I used Polymer Clay from the craft store and shaped little futuristic buildings with it. In the image of my board game above, you can see the way these looked, painted with purple and gold enamel.
  But that was years ago and they have been lost. Lego's work well though!

• Characters and Dice - Dice can be bought at the store, usually with a pack of cards. Not expensive at all! And characters should not be purchased, but each person playing the game should search for their own piece, which makes it more personal and fun.

• Box - I just chuck all of my pieces in a little non-descript box to be kept beside the game board. Except when I had Footballopoly, it was all a part of a large game set built out of MDF. I hope to make one of those again soon!

That should take care of it all! You should know the basics of playing Monopoly, and your Opoly game will go in the same manor. If you do make your own Opoly game, come back here and tell me all about it!