Janna Wilson

Back to school essentials...and blessings

Things I'm loving lately...

Dave Barnes.  Oh my.  Funny thing Abby said the other day..."Mama, you're in LOVE with Dave Barnes!" 

Mama said, "No, Dave Barnes reminds me just how much I'm in LOVE with Daddy."  {heart♥swell}  I think YOU'll LOVE it too.  Check it out.  Rarely do I buy a whole album and I snatched this one after listening to 3 of the songs...I've got my eye on THIS one too...Brother, Bring The Sun

My cute little "back to school"  messenger bag...(free with a Staples Rebate :)-- click on the pic to shop other patterns and styles.  Very roomy, padded laptop sleeve inside and lots of pockets and storage with easy access.  Reminds me of my satchel when I was in grade school :)

Making ice coffee (with leftover perked coffee) in this fancy cup...(that I stole from my Mama) --can't believe how well it keeps cold!!!  With no sweating/condensation!  We're doing a similar version for IU designed by one of our fabulous assistants!  Check it out!  You can buy one here...

Easy peasy iced coffee: half and half + leftover cooled coffee + sweetener of choice (sugar :) + a dash of vanilla!  YUM!

My cute little BYO Rambler... taking my lunch is fun with this little cutie!  I take TWO water bottles and I freeze ONE so that it keeps my perishables (sandwich, chicken salad, fruit---) and the other water chilled!   PERFECT!   I wrap the bottles in a paper towel to prevent condensation from getting things moist.  Today I had a chicken and red pepper hummus with lettuce and pickles sandwich, grapes and a few potato chips.  YUMMY!  You can check these bags out on Amazon or pick up 2 at Sams Club for like $15 (that's where we got ours). 

My classes at UAFS.  Wow.  Very cool classes very cool teachers so far.  I'm lovin' it.  I was so nervous to do this.  And it feels SO right. Been super duper DE-DUPER busy...trying to get in the groove.  Watch out world!!!

Enjoying getting up super early with the chickens (no, we don't really have chickens-yet ;) and starting my day.

Love feeling a sense of purpose again.  

Love my church family.  We are so blessed each time we attend a service.  God is so good.  

Not much time...just wanted to drop in and share these favorites and blessing of late.  Have a wonderful week!

xoxo -jw

Free For ALL FRIDAY: Soap Labels (+ recipe)

Many of you know by now that I am a FRUGALISTA!  I clip coupons and save money where ever I can...especially these days!  Months ago, my Mother shared with me an idea she'd clipped out of our local electric coop magazine, Rural Arkansas.  It was a recipe for making your own laundry soap and it was a short list of ingredients.  She made a batch and raved about it.  I was in the throws of coupon clipping and picking up laundry soap for $2 or less a bottle at Walgreens so I filed the thought and figured I'd revisit later when my stash of ALL and Arm & Hammer ran out. 

Anyway...fast forward to a month ago, it was love at first SNIFF!!!  The Fels-Naptha soap bar used to make this stuff is HEAVENLY!!  Mother gave me a little sample batch of her soap and I was hooked!  And it is SUPER, DUPER cheap.  A few cents per load...yeah, cheap!!!  There are several different recipes out there and if you have hard water you may have to make some adjustments...so just google "homemade laundry soap" to find the variations.  I also found a recipe for making dishwasher detergent...so that's why I've included that on this printable.  Guess what --it also uses two of the same ingredients from the laundry soap. 

So I made a batch...or six :)  For one batch--

• You need one bar of Fels-Naptha soap
• 1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax
• 1 cup Arm & Hammer WASHING soda (NOT baking soda)

(find all three ingredients at local groceries in the laundry supplies, hardware shops, or visit the links below on Amazon).

(forgive my photos...took with the phone)

 

 

(to give you an idea of what the packages look like)

The process is so very simple it just takes a few minutes...and contrary to what the images may look like, there is NO CHEDDAR CHEESE involved :)

 

I grated the bar of soap with my food processor.  It looks like cheese at first.  Then I processed to a finer consistency with the blade.

 

To make sure the three ingredients combined well, I processed all three to mix well.  

I tend to keep (hoard) containers :)  so this oats box was PERFECT for storing the detergent in. 

 

And then I transformed it...

Just cover the box with a favorite scrapbook paper, use a strong adhesive to ensure it stays put and print the label on cardstock to match.  Voila! 

It looks so sweet perched on top of my washer :) 

Here's what I used to create this simple project:

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Download the FREE PDF file here:

Printable:   Soap Labels

PLEASE carefully read the Terms of Use when using my printable designs :)

Hope you enjoy! Happy Friday!

Deep Discounts on Scrapbook supplies here...

Scenic Route Store

Uh, wow!!!  Lots of paper for just .15 cents and tons of amazing deals!  Free shipping on orders of $75 or over.  Great place to stock up and Scenic Route is still one of my all time favorites.  

Now lets go shopping!!!

Scrapbooks etc...good deal!

 

Spending too much time on Amazon lately (mostly just shopping for my college textbooks) --but thought I'd share something I found -->  a subscription to Scrapbooks etc. magazine for just under $20 for the year!  Great deal-- I usually get a free issue each month as a contributor but I always buy at least one or two extras to keep or give to my Mother and keep for the kids.   At nearly $6 a piece of the rack...this is a huge savings!!   Plus, if you're an Amazon customer you might have a $5 off coupon code for magazine subscriptions in your inbox (found mine in my spam).  This is a super sweet deal!  $15 bucks!  

I also love these titles:

Did you notice the Parents mag is ONLY $4 bucks!!!??  It's worth that for the diaper coupons!

Free for ALL Friday: teacher notecards

Abby had her open house tonight...Scott and I kind of tag team on these from year to year so he took her this time.  I can't believe school starts in one week.  :(  Abby is excited and Cash is wishing he could go to school too!!!   She wanted to take her new teachers something and I revamped the "thank you teacher" card I did for the end of last year for a more general occasion type of note card.  She has two teachers so this worked out perfectly-- the printable has two cards on one page.  

 

I just printed, trimmed along the lines and used a corner punch to round the corners.  Easy peasy!  Abby wrote a sweet note inside and set off to meet her new teachers!  Check out some other FREE, awesome, easy back to school printables here on Living Locurto.

Download the FREE PDF file here:

Printable  Teacher Note Cards

 NOTE:  You'll have to set your printer settings to "BORDERLESS" in order to print these as is on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.  These look FANTASTIC printed on bright white presentation paper like this Epson Ultra Premium Matte Presentation Paper--

(My paper and printer)

PLEASE carefully read the Terms of Use when using my printable designs :)

Hope you enjoy! Happy Friday!

Today in Pictures...tales from the kitchen

 

The girls were baking cookies and decided they would film it with the Flip Camera and play "cooking show."  LOL!  Can I tell you how many times I did this as a kid!?  A LOT.  Except I totally DID NOT have the Flip!  Totally took me back and I grabbed the camera, of course...

 

So here is some behind the scenes...Sara is the "star" of the show and I believe Abby is something like "director" or "clean up crew?"  LOL!  Obviously, you can see who's the camera man!

 

CUT!!! 

...and ACTION!!!

{more from the kitchen}

Even the boys like to get into the action of the kitchen...Scott's specialty is breakfast foods (greasy ones, of course ;) and he makes a mean pan of gravy in his iron skillet.  This day he was making fried eggs. 

Cash likes to make his own pizzas...we like to do homemade pizza once a week...so good on the Old Stone and totally easy with the Kitchen Aid dough hook!  Can you tell he likes black olives?

Our kitchen is definitely the heart of the home...and the messiest part too!

(Strong) Coffee Memories

I think for lots of us...the memory of coffee is "strong" -- pun intended!  LOL!   My Dad is a 2-3 pot a day-er...and the coffee is almost ALWAYS on at "home" no matter the time of day.  This may be weird...but when we were kids, we just loved dipping buttered toast in Dad's creamed coffee-- soggy, crunch...mmmm!  I don't do that anymore, but sure did love it back then.  

I love to get up with Scott (not that I always do especially this summer) and we have quiet time over a fresh perked pot of coffee.  (We love our Farberware Percolator...reminds me of cooking coffee on an open fire --camping :)   Or if I miss the early session with Scott,  the coffees still hot (and a little stronger the way I like it) and I still get up before the kids are up and percolate over my to do list, check email and just soak up the silence.  Good stuff.

I see a coffee themed scrapbook page coming tomorrow...

And now coffee is a big business isn't it?!?  Its not just Folgers and Maxwell House anymore.  LOL!  Loved those old Maxwell House commercials, I think --when someone came home on Christmas morning (from college), was getting engaged, etc...  Don't I wish I had some stock in Starbucks!?!? $4 bucks for a cup of brew...wow!

Thanks to friend Linda, I've found a new LOVE...this Starbucks VIA® Iced Coffee!  (oh no!)  I'm thinking this will be a lifesaver and easy to tote on the go this fall.  And it is YUMMY!  No creamer required...and I love me some french vanilla creamer!  I see its cheaper here on Amazon ($4.95 per box) than in the stores so if you have Amazon Prime of course you get free shipping!  Deal!!!  Can you tell I'm loving Amazon lately.  It's just way too easy!

Or I found a coupon here on the Starbucks site if you wanna pick up a box at your local Starbucks store.

Now I think I'm going to steal back this AWESOME cup I gave my Mama for her birthday since she prefers Sonic styrofoam!  LOL!  And I'll be all set up for portable iced coffee consumption! 

Back to School breakfast ideas...

School starts in little more than a week.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

(sorry bout that...can you tell I'm just not ready :)

So, I'm trying to wrap my brain around the fact and get in gear stocking up some breakfast and lunch things for the kids...and thinking it needs to be nutritious for everybody, healthy and satisfying for me and Scott too.

My kids love breakfast burritos!  Tasty, portable and a great source of protein for them!  And I'm thinking I can make a batch of these up anytime and freeze them for the coming weeks.  So I did this morning.

 

• I scrambled 5 eggs in some super duper lo-cal butter type substance (Best Life). LOL!  Used approximately 1/2 egg (which is maybe a couple tbsp) per tortilla.

• Cooked/browned 1 lb. of turkey sausage (this stuff is pretty good!  I'm trying to stay away from pork and its calories and fat --I bought Honeysuckle White turkey sausage).  Add about 1/4 c. per tortilla.

• Pulled out some cheddar cheese (1 tbsp.) and tortillas.  You could use low carb, high fiber tortillas to lower the calories but I just used what I had on hand.  I don't do fat free cheese :)  --you could if you wanna.

This amount of stuff will make 10 (maybe 11) breakfast burritos and I calculated them to be around 260 calories with 13 g protein and 13 g fat.  Kind of high in fat...might have to rethink the ff cheese :) and pick up low fat tortillas to cut that down.   Five burritos fit snugly in a quart size ziplock which is great for us since that would cover everybody for breakfast.  YUMMY!

But at any rate...these little dudes are super tasty with a dollop of salsa, are edible driving down the road or even while you're putting your face on in the a.m.  And your kiddies can even fix them by their selves!  About 30-45 seconds in the microwave.

I'm going to keep thinking on breakfast ideas...I have a great banana chocolate chip muffin recipe to share, pancakes freeze great and we also love boiled/poached eggs on english muffins or toast for a quickie.  Add some cheese and turkey sausage--wowee!

Bon Appetit!!

Custom sneaks...love my Converse

So I got this pair of Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers a few weeks ago...Vivid Blue...and well, they were a little bit too much electric blue for my taste and I really LOVE them I just didn't have anything to go with them. 

  

So...since I got a great deal on them...I thought I might try to customize them a bit...

1.  Filled the sink with water (to cover the shoes) and added oh, a couple of cups or three? of bleach :)

2.  Forgot about them for a few hours :)

3.  Came back to empty sink and these cuties--

4.  Washed through with a load of whites to rinse the bleach out really good.

Now that's what I'm talking about...sweet blue sneakers.  LOVE em!!!  Go with EVERYTHING!!!  Stitching is still darker, and it looks super duper cute!  Sara has the sames ones and she's like "DO MINE!!!!" 

The girls are obsessed with these and both think they need 2-3 pairs for school...there are some good deals to be had on Amazon if you check around. Love hearing Scott's tales of wearing his green Cons until all that was left of the soles (one of those "up hills both ways" stories LOL!)

Happy shoe shopping :)

Bottle cap necklaces...(more Bella Blvd. craftiness)

These two cuties are sure proud of their new bottle cap necklaces!  Sara picked up some bottle caps last night at Mim's and the girls went to town making bottle caps with super cute scrappy goodness like patterned paper and stickers! 

 

Gracie picked this adorable little panda from the Sunny Happy Skies collection by Bella Blvd.  (It was my fave too!!)  It's so easy...just punch your image with a 1" circle punch and add to the inside of the cap with Glossy Accents or an epoxy glaze/glue. Glaze the image generously to seal and let it dry completely.  Add a gem if you want after it sets up a little bit.  We punched holes for the jump rings after it dried.

 

Abby picked a glittery epoxy sticker with some fishies that we cut to size...turned out sweet!  We just strung them on silver chains but we are thinking how cute they would be with some colorful beads added?  Hmmm?!! 

Check out this link for lots of CHEAP stuff to make your own-->bottle cap supplies

Fun crafty stuff going on today!  Out for now...back to the glue gun!