27 and Frugal » DIY

Learn to Pack and Save Money! Pt 1. Travels (with video!)

leslie — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:30:30 +0000

Airlines have always been fee-happy when it comes to checked luggage. Weight restriction and contents were the biggest charge-causing items. Then airlines started charging for more than one checked luggage. Now it’s for all checked luggage period. And Southwest is even charging for carry-on’s. This means the more efficiently you pack, the more money you save!

Roll With It

I took a 10 day trip in the summer, with 10+ days worth of clothes, including running clothes and shoes all in one carry on and one large purse. Everything fit because I rolled all my clothing. I stuffed socks inside my shoes. I used every nook and cranny in that piece of luggage to comfortably pack my clothes into. However, I did not overstuff anything.

Rolling your clothes makes a better use of the space within your luggage. It takes up less room and leaves less wrinkles in your clothing. You can even roll up outfits together to make unpacking easier.

This is my first video and I know it’s a bit rough, so please bear with me. Here is how I roll-up my clothes to pack. I have no idea if this is the “right” way or not, but it works for me!

Do you need it?

It is not about cramming everything you own into a small bag. The important part of packing is to figure out what to bring with you!

It is okay to overpack a little so you are prepared for those unexpected events or turns of the weather. However, this extra packing can still be addressed efficiently. For example, if you are traveling by plane and bringing a coat with you, carry it. Even if it is 90 degrees out right now, do not pack your coat. You usually (don’t quote me on this) can carry a coat along with you on the plane without it being counted as a carry-on. This way it is not taking up luggage real estate.

There are some excellent online travel checklists that will provide specific lists depending on where you are going. One Bag & The Universal Packing List are both great packing resources.

Plan!

Knowing exactly what you will be doing there will be a big help. Will you be walking around a lot (bring sneakers) or just lounging on the beach (bring flip flops). Will you be going out to clubs (bring heels & band-aids). Is the weather humid (skip the straightener).

Travel Size

Put your beauty products into smaller bottles. Even if you are checking your luggage, this will save space and you should not need an entire bottle of shampoo in even a two week period of time.

Moving

Packing to move is a whoooooole other animal. This can save you money as well! As the girl who moved twice a year for 5 years, I know my way around an empty cardboard box. Look for Pt 2. Moving soon, for details in how packing to move the right way can save you money.

Readers: Leave your traveling tips below!

Homemade Wheatables!

leslie — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:30:34 +0000

These home-made wheat crackers are not only absolutely amazingly delicious but they are also easypeasy! I promise!

Lots of thanks to Cooking For Seven for the awesome recipe!

What You Need

1C Whole Wheat Flour
1C White Flour
1/4C White Sugar
1/2t Salt
4T butter, cut
1/2C Milk
Salt/Seasonings

What You Do

Mix together the flours, sugar & salt. Add the butter. Gradually add milk until dough comes together. (Just a few minutes in a stand mixer)
On a floured surface, roll out 1/3 of the dough as thin as you can get it. Sprinkle with salt, seasonings, etc. Cut into shapes. Transfer to a stone or any baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

Bake at 325 for 20-25 minutes

Original recipe

My Thoughts

I had some trouble getting the crackers as thin as they should have been. The ideal method would be to use a pasta roller. However, all I had was a rolling pin so I just got them as thin as I could. I thought some of the crackers were a little thicker than they should have been but no one complained!

For the circle shape, I improvised and used the top of a cocktail shaker! That process was pretty tedious and next time I make these I will just use a pizza cutter to cut easy squares.

You definitely can experiment with seasonings on these crackers. I put table salt on most of them. I shredded Parmesan cheese on some others. They both turned out yummy but I liked them without the cheese a little bit better.

Readers: I would love to hear your success stories and seasoning experiments with these crackers!

Easypeasy Home-made Placemats

leslie — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:09:30 +0000

With the price of fabric, it’s not always cheaper to make your own items but if you can find good fabric on sale, this is a cheap and relatively quick project. Oh and it’s easy! As you can see by my crooked stitches, I’m far from a talented sew-er.

1. Lay out your fabric

2. Figure out what size you want each placemat. Mine are 18×12 which conveniently is the size of this cutting board. You can just cut a rectangle out of newspaper as well.

3. Cut out each rectangle. (Hopefully you’ll have a better sewing space than my make-shift one.)

4. Pin right sides of fabric together, making sure everything is even

5. Stitch with a 1/4″ seam allowance all the way around leaving an opening at the end large enough to fit a few fingers through.

6. Using the opening, turn the fabric inside out.

7. Your fabric will now look like this. Don’t worry, we’ll make it unpoofy in just a minute.

8. Fold the edges of the opening inside and pin so they are secure and even

9. Iron flat (You can iron right over the pins)

10. Topstitch as close to the edge as possible all the way around.

11. Stitch about 1/2″ from the fabric edge (or at the edge of the inside seam) all the way around.

12. Set the table! (Okay, these are a little bit too big for this size table but they are still cute.)

As you can see, I basically used the pillow method to make these. Another method is to skip steps 4-6 and instead just fold the right side edges over to the wrong side, press, then topstitch. This involves more pressing and less sewing. Just do whichever works best for you.

Quick Food Tip: DIY Breadcrumbs

leslie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:15:35 +0000

Don’t ever throw that stale bread out! Making your own breadcrumbs is so easy and I bet you already have the ingredient on hand (bread!).

There’s a variety of ways to make your crumbs:

Throw a piece of stale/toasted bread or two in a food processor
Rip a few pieces of stale/toasted bread in half and chop with a manual food chopper
Put a few pieces of stale/toasted bread in a sandwich bag and roll over it with a rolling pin

You can also make breadcrumbs out of crackers, nuts, or cornflakes.

Just store your breadcrumbs in a container in the cupboard for two weeks or the freezer for months.

Easy Recipe: Chicken Noodle Soup

leslie — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:46:52 +0000

This recipe is so ridiculously easy, you’ll never buy canned soup again!

Cook 1/2C chopped onion and 1C chopped celery in a pot with 1T melted butter for 5 minutes until veggies are tender.

Stir in 60oz of chicken broth (4 cans), 14.5oz of vegetable broth, 1/2lb uncooked bite-sized chicken pieces, 1C chopped carrots, 1/4t basil, 1/4t oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then simmer 10 mins.

While all that is simmering cook the egg noodles in a separate pot then add to soup and simmer another 10 mins.

Eat and enjoy!

Dessert Recipe: Strawberry Cheesecake

leslie — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:30:05 +0000

This is a fabulous cheesecake that is much easier to make than it appears. This recipe is very flexible, even for a cheesecake, and the end result is definitely worth it (and boyfriend approved!).

Crust: Press 2C cinnamon graham cracker crumbs, 1/8C sugar & 1/3C softened butter into a spring-form pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Strawberry Sauce: Blend 20oz. strawberries with 1T cornstarch until smooth then boil in a pot for 2 minutes and refrigerate to cool.

Cake: Beat 2pkgs cream cheese until fluffy then beat in 1C sweetened condensed milk, 1/8C lemon juice and 3 eggs.

Preparation: Pour half of the cake batter into the springform pan (over the crust). Using a teaspoon, drop about 3/4 of the strawberry sauce over the batter then simply pour the rest of the cake batter into the pan. So you’ll have a middle layer of strawberry yumminess.

Bake in a hot water bath at 300F degrees for 1 hour then turn off the oven but leave the cake in there for another hour. Refrigerate the cake for a few hours or overnight.

Serve the cake with chopped strawberries on top. Heat the reserved sauce to pour on top of each slice.

You can decorate the cake in a variety of different ways; I just used chopped strawberries to keep it simple.

Quick Recipe: Home-made Chocolate Syrup

leslie — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:00:46 +0000

I was tired of dishing out $3 for sugary syrup at the store, so I decided to just make my own. Don’t worry! This isn’t a huge project at all; In fact, it’s easier than making a pot of rice.

Mix 2/3C cocoa powder with 1C sugar in a pot on the stove.

Stir in 1C of water and boil everything for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool. Stir in 1t of vanilla then pour the syrup into a glass jar and store in the fridge.

Easy easy easy!

The syrup will thicken upon cooling and the end result will be the consistency of bottled syrup. If you’d like a thicker syrup, just add a couple more tablespoons of cocoa powder. This is much cheaper than the bottled stuff, tastes better and is sooooo quick.

Quick Recipe: Home-made Honey Mustard

leslie — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:11:34 +0000

This is as easy as you can get and you should already have all the ingredients in your pantry.

Mix 1/3C of dijon mustard, 1/3C honey, 2T mayo, and 1t steak/worcestershire sauce.

That’s it! Mix it all up and it’s good to use right away or refrigerate it for later.

Some meal suggestions: dip for spicy chicken/wings, dip for french fries, dressing in a chicken wrap, mix with tunafish, mix with mashed potatoes or just as a chicken marinade.

This mustard is extremely flexible and you can adjust the ratio of ingredients to fit your taste-buds.

Leslie’s 2009 Gift Guide!

leslie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:47:51 +0000

Home-made

There are plenty of in-a-jar gifts that you can find online. For this type of thing, I’ve done something different. Last year, I made my own hot cocoa mix based off of an Alton Brown recipe. However, instead of layering it in a jar, I made individual servings. I made the mix in bulk, then spooned out 1 serving size onto some saran wrap, wrapped up the mix and tied a ribbon around it. I then gave several of these little cocoa bags to my friends. This makes it easy for someone to bring the mix to work and to easily prepare without worrying about measuring. It worked out great and the entire process took me under a week to do. Also, not having to buy jars or other packaging really kept the costs down.
Similar to the jar gifts, you can prepare your own spice mixes and put them into a shaker container to give as gifts. This way you can even personalize the mix to the person. If you know someone prefers spicy and someone doesn’t, you can just adjust the recipe or add a little more spice to one. This is also a pretty unique gift that the person will use over time. Although, I don’t recommend it to someone who doesn’t like to cook.
Bath salts are very easy to make just by mixing epsom salt, an essential oil and some food coloring. Simply fill a jar or small bag with the salts and you have an instant gift.

If you don’t mind sewing, you can stitch up a simple locker organizer for anyone in middle/high school. I made this for my niece quite a few years ago (she’s all graduated now) by just using scrap material that I already had then gluing heavy duty magnets to the back that I purchased at Michael’s.
If you’re a really ambitious craftster and know a wordie, you can make a Scrabble Bulletin Board as I did several years ago for a literary friend. I bought some old scrabble games for cheap at a thrift store, sanded the backs of the tiles, epoxied thumb tacks to them, recreated a scrabble board in photoshop, glued the printed out board to poster board with adhesive spray, glued the poster board to a square piece of cork, sewed a little bag to store the tiles in. It took me a few days to do everything but my friend loved it, so it definitely was worth it.
If you’re only a mildly ambitious craftster and know a wordie, you can simply make Scrabble Magnets by gluing magnets to the back of the tiles and give them as a gift as your own home-made version of magnetic poetry.
Know a music lover? Make them Record Bowl Coasters out of old 45″ vinyl. This is cheap and fun! You should be able to find $1 records at any used music store. At home, put an oven-safe bowl on a baking sheet, upside down; So the bottom of the bowl is up like a dome. Place the record on top of the (bottom of the) bowl, then put inside a 200 degree. After just a few minutes, you will see the vinyl start to melt and fold downwards over the shape of the bowl. Using oven mitts, take everything out of the oven, put the record on the counter with the bottom side down and mold the vinyl into any shape you’d like. To fill in the hole, just put some clear tape over it on both sides. These hold up incredibly held. I am still currently using mine today that I made waaaaay back in 2001. These are really unique gifts, especially for a college student and come out really great if you happen to find some cheap colored vinyl.

Home-made & Store Bought

I love love love love “in-a-box” gifts. As long as you know one hobby of the person, you can put together a little kit of a few small, but useful items that on their own seem silly, but together make a great gift. Here are some examples:

Car Washing Kit: This kit contains everything a car lover need to take care of their beautiful vehicle. You can include a wash mitt ($3), car wash soap ($5), wheel cleaner ($5), wax ($6), microfiber towels ($8) or armor all ($5). Then just put all of that into a bucket ($1). You can pick and choose what to include in the kit to keep it affordable for you. The car lover you know will definitely appreciate this.
Puzzle Kit: Know anyone who can’t get enough of crosswords or soduku or any brain games? Simply find a cute puzzle totebag and fill it with puzzle books of any kind (cryptograms, crossword, word search, soduku, brain teasers), a jigsaw puzzle, or a wooden puzzle. You can personalize the gift with a jigsaw puzzle by buying one with a picture or theme that the person will especially enjoy.
Craft Kit: For children, take a Caboodles case (you can probably find one in good condition in a thrift store or freecycle, just clean it up) and fill it with markers/crayons, scrap paper, a glue stick, scotch tape, glitter, pipe cleaners, beads, post-its, decorative scissors, stamps & stamp pad, or stickers. You can get the case, paper, stamps and stickers in colors/patterns that the child particularly likes.
Fit Kit: You can copy LL Bean’s Fitness in a Bottle and put together something similar for the fit person in your life. You could include sunscreen, first aid kit, shoe pouch, reflective tape, sunglasses, wicking socks, Nike+, or hair ties.
You could also buy some work out clothes and a yoga/pilates mat, roll out the mat and put the clothes laid out flat on the mat, then roll up the mat with the clothes inside. I haven’t tried this one, but it should work.
Spa Kit: Fill a jar or bag with home-made bath salts (mentioned above), a pumice stone, nail file and buffer, home-made neck wrap (fill a sock or fabric-sewed-in-a-tube with rice and a few drops of an essential oil), scented candles (with the person’s favorite scent), small jar of home-made exfoliator (brown sugar & olive oil), small jar of home-made toner (apple cider vinegar & water). You could even buy a robe and stuff some of this stuff in the pockets.
Traveling Kit: If someone you know is traveling somewhere next year you can get them some travel-related items. In a small piece of luggage or backpack, include a Moleskine City book, Not For Tourists guide, stamped envelopes, notepad and pens, travel pillow, phone cards, universal adapter, travel-size products (toothpaste, toothbrush), small empty bottles for liquids, water bottle, umbrella, TravelMate or first-aid kit.

Store Bought

Magnetic Measuring Spoons – Crate & Barrel – $7.95: I know, these are a little bit pricey but they are the best measuring spoons I’ve used! There are two ends to each spoon so you can use one end for dry ingredients and the other for wet. Each one has a magnet in the middle so you know longer have to deal with that annoying ring or worry about losing them. I use these every time I bake! Dishwasher safe, only come in white.
Cheese Grater & Storage Containers – Ikea – $5.99 (2 pack): These are one of the most useful unitaskers I own. You just shred the cheese directly into the container! And if you end up shredding too much, each container comes with a lid you simply put on then can store in the fridge. Since I don’t buy package shredded cheese, both these containers really are a life saver. I use them several times a week! Dishwasher safe.
Pizza Cutter – Pampered Chef – $5.25: You don’t necessarily need a PC one, but I do love mine. However, a pizza cutter in general is very handy for cutting quesadilla’s, calzones, brownies, and a bunch of other stuff. I’ve had this one for several years now and it has definitely held up. I use it at least twice a month. Dishwasher safe.
Chef’s Knife – Victorinox – $29.99: This is absolutely the best value of a chef’s knife for under a hundred bucks. I was given one for my birthday and fell in love with it! Chopping up vegetables is sooo easy now. No idea how I managed without it. I use it several times a week. Not dishwasher safe.
Tool Kit – Ikea – $7.99: I bought this cute and cheap tool kit over four years ago, brought it with me to four different apartments and still have all the pieces! It comes in a cute case that is great for storage. It easily fits on a shelf or in a drawer. I can’t count the number of times roomates have asked to borrow a screwdriver or hammer from me. This holds all the basics you’ll need and hasn’t failed me yet.
Roku Player – Roku – $80-130: This was my Christmas gift last year and I have gotten more use out of it than I had expected! I mainly use the Roku player to watch Netflix Instant Watch movies on the living room tv. I can watch the hd streams and all this is to no extra monthly cost. The Roku is invaluable when I have friends over or when my roomates want to watch a movie, because there are thousands of movies to choose from. I have over 200 in my queue alone. Makes for a much better selection than just trying to choose from 30 or so dvd’s that you’ve seen a bunch. If you know someone who has Netflix and does not have any of the three gaming consoles, I highly recommend this gadget.
Books: Vagina Monologues, Ishmael, I’m Just Here For The Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking, From Panic to Power, Push, On The Road, Airframe, Jurassic Park, The Hobbit, Timeline, and The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing.
Video Games: Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure (Wii), Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (Wii), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC, Xbox Arcade), LittleBigPlanet (PS3), Flower (PS3), Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3), and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3).
Movies: Slumdog Millionaire

Recipe: Home-made spice mixes

leslie — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:00:05 +0000

There are three spice mixes that I like to always have on hand. I make all these ahead of time and store them in old spice containers (with the built-in shaker top). That way it is really convenient to use them when I want to make a good dinner but am crunched for time.

Seasoning Salt

This isn’t like the normal seasoning salt you buy in the store. This is a little bit salty/sweet and tastes great for baked potato wedges or to coat the skin on a baked potato.

Ingredients
3/4t salt
1/2t sugar
1/2t paprika
1/4t ground mustard
1/4t garlic powder
Spicy Cajun Seasoning

I found this on a blackened chicken recipe but it works great on everything that you want a little kick to it without a Mexican flavor. You can cut out the cayenne if it’s too spicy for your taste.

Ingredients
1/2t paprika
1/8t salt
1/4t cayenne pepper
1/4t cumin
1/4t thyme
1/8t black pepper
1/8t onion powder
Fajita/Taco Seasoning

This seasoning tastes exactly like the kind you find in the packets in the store but without all the sodium and cost.

Ingredients
1T chilipowder
2t cumin
1t black pepper
1t salt
1/2t paprika
1/2t oregano
1/4t garlic powder
1/4t onion powder
1/4t cayenne pepper

Once you have all the spices, it only takes about 5 minutes to make each of these.