Gnats B Gone! please?

For some reason we were having a really bad gnat problem on our back patio.  After about 2 days, I was so tired of getting my daily amount of protein from accidentally eating bugs that I finally decided to look online and figure out how to kill these things.

After a Google, pretty much every website recommended that you use vinegar, sugar, water and cut the top of a plastic bottle and flip it to trap the gnats in.

The Goldfish were for me

I put in a 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup rice vinegar and 1/2 cup water into a plastic bottle where I cut the top off and put it back on up-side-down.  I put it outside on my patio table.

After two days, I checked it.  Nothing:

Okay, four, but that is nothing compared to the four million that were out there.

I tried it again thinking that maybe the rice vinegar was not good to use so I made the same thing but with normal vinegar and again, set it out on my patio table.

I was horrified.  This time it killed another four gnats and also a Gecko, which I DID NOT want to kill because they eat the gnats and other bugs that fly around. 

I gave up and called the bug guys.  We still don't know what caused all the gnats but next time, I will try it again.   It seems that dish soap is also an ingredient that people are recommending now.

I sure hope that I do not have this problem again, though.  YUK!

FAIL

Cake Bossette

I watch a lot of those food shows where people make those really cool cakes.  I decided that I wanted to have a really cool cake for my daughters birthday party.

As I have mentioned before, her theme was a honey bee so I wanted to have some kind of bee or beehive cake.

I have a friend who makes beautiful cakes so I asked her about it and she offered a cake to make for me but... for $85.  *Le Sigh*  This is actually a REALLY great price for the cuteness of the cake but I had a hard time willing to spend that much on a cake.

Now remember, I am not a baker.  I am an average Joette who has never done this before and seeing if this is something that a regular average person can do!

Where to start?  I started making a list of what I would need if I wanted to make it myself:

• Cake mold
• Cake mix (including the ingredients)
• Frosting
• Food coloring (optional)
• Sugar molds (optional)
• Fondant
• Powdered sugar
• Cake icing tip (mine was called star even though it wasn't five points)
• Cake icing bag (those triangle things you see bakers squeezing frosting out of)
• coupler; the plastic thing that holds the icing bag to the icing tip without frosting oozing everywhere.
• Tall cup/drinking glass/mug

Okay, so now that I have an idea of what I need, what do I do now?  Go to Amazon:

• The first thing I did was go to Amazon.com to see what kind of cake molds were out there.  I found one of a beehive.  $30 hmmm, kind of expensive but lucky me, I have a gift card from my family.  I think I still would have bought it even if I didn't have the gift card.  Now I can keep it for the rest of my life and possibly give it to my daughter for when she has kids!  Saves her money.

• Next, I looked for cute little bee decorations and found that you can buy sugar molds for cheap and in pretty much any kind of thing you want it.  The only problem I ran into was the packaging.  There was one company that claimed that you should be worried about good packaging.  They claimed that if you did not have good packaging that you would receive your sugar molds in pieces.  They were charging $7 for 12 bees.  Another company was charging $5 for 24 bees but did not mention anything about their packaging so I did get worried.  I ordered both.  Once I received the bees in the mail, the first company did an extremely good job packaging the bees.  None of them broke BUT the second company threw all the bees into a little plastic bag and none of them broke either.  So I am suspecting that as long as there are no easily breakable features on the moldings then don't worry about the packaging.   My bees were pretty much a circle with nothing sticking out so they were fine.

• Last, on Amazon, I bought black food dye.  $7 for a huge thing of it so I will never have to buy black dye food coloring again.  EVER.

Then I went to the store and bought 2 boxes of cake mix (classic yellow), 3 containers of frosting (2 white, 1 chocolate), eggs, veggie oil (following cake mix directions) and fondant.  $14.

Once I figured out what I needed (and got it) it was time to go and make my cake!

I used 2 boxs of cake mix.  1 for each side. 

Step One:  Make the cakes.  I  realized that the cake mold I bought was kinda small.  Very small in fact and would only feed probably about 20 people when I was going to have about 50 people at the house.  How do I solve this.... hmmmm...  I KNOW!  I pulled out my 9 inch round cake pans (happen to have them from making homemade pizzas).  It actually didn't really matter to me if they were round, square, 9 inches, 10 inches or whatever.  Just something that would look okay and feed more people.  I obviously had to buy more cake mix and frosting.

Then I removed the excess.

Step Two:  Remove any excess cake.  You can see the picture of what I mean above but when it came to the round cakes it was a little more difficult.  You want your cakes to be flat so if you pull your cake out of the oven and there is a huge dome then you have to cut it off as best as you can so that they are flat and level.

Step Three:  Put the pieces together.  I have a total of 4 cake pieces; 2 round ones and 2 halves of a bee hive.  

• I take one of the round ones and frost the top with icing (I used the white frosting).  
• Then I add the second round one to the top (with the cut part facing down).  
• I then frosted those two pieces like normal.   
• Now for the bee hive.  Before putting the pieces on the round cake I frosted the middle parts and put them together before putting them on top of the cake.  
• They didn't really want to stay together so I had to frost the whole thing real quick and then put them in the fridge to chill and that seemed to work with keeping everything together.

Step Four:  Roll out the fondant and make black frosting.  

• RULE:  DO NOT ROLL OUT THE FONDANT UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO PUT IT ON THE CAKE.  I did not do this and let it sit so it dried out and was unusable.  Super sad that I had to buy more.  
• To make black frosting, you need the chocolate frosting and only a few drops of the black dye.   I am an idiot and used white frosting the first go around and couldn't figure out why my frosting was turning out purple.  My cake friend told me to use chocolate.  Duh... I should have figured that one out but I didn't.
• NOTE: if your frosting is too runny then add powdered sugar to thicken it up.
• Now roll out your fondant.  Mine came in a square and I had to put powdered sugar on the counter to roll it out.  

Step five:  Put the fondant on.

• At first I rolled it out too thin and it tore to pieces so I had to ball it up and try again.  Once I got it big enough to where it might fit, but not see through, I knew it was good to go.
• Next I pulled the cake out from the fridge and put dots of new frosting on (since the frosting on it was now chilled therefore a little hard) to act as glue for the fondant.
• Wrap the fondant around the cake like a blanket.  This was a pain in the @##!  I am not sure if it was because my cake was round but after a little bit of time, I managed to cover, cut off the extra and tried to work the seams so that you couldn't tell they were there.  It was not perfect but I figured I would cover them with bees.
• Pat the fondant so that it takes the shape of the mold.

Step six: Add frosting and sugar molds

• Take the cake icing bag and cut the tip off (bottom of the V)
• unscrew the coupler so that there are two pieces
• Take the larger part of the coupler and put together with the frosting tip and insert into bag so that the frosting tip is sticking out of the hole
• Screw the second piece of the coupler onto the first part (over the plastic)
• Put frosting into the frosting bag.  The best way to do this is to get a large cup, insert the bag (with the tip at the bottom of the cup) and fold over the top plastic part so that it is easy to get the frosting down to the bottom without creating too many air pockets
• Once you have enough frosting in it, twist the top and start making little stars.
• I put a little star in a spot where I wanted a bee and found that the frosting was perfect to glue the sugar moulds onto the cake.

I would give it a few practice squirts so that you can get the look that you want

So here is the cake that I made:

Anyone who saw it in person thought it was amazing.  

How much did I spend?  er...   well, lets find out:

Cake mix: 4 boxes @ .99 ea = ~$4

Frosting: 3 containers @ .99 ea = $3

Dye = $7

Bees = $12

Fondant = $7

Total:  $33

Not bad but if I hadn't had the gift card or most of the mentioned items, it would have been:

Same as above = $33

Cake mold = $30

Icing bag, coupler and star = ~$10

Powdered Sugar = $2

Veggie oil = $3

Eggs = $1.50

I hope this is okay but I am going to assume that everyone has a cup.

Total:  $79.50

BAM!!!  Still cheaper 

Remember:  This took me a bit of time and let me tell you it would have been nice to have the extra time for something else AND to have someone else worry about it. At least I have left over bees, dye, cake mold and a better knowledge of fondant for a future cake!

Tutu For You Too

No Sew Tutus that I found on YouTube loaded by Wowzzydotcom.

This is awesome!! 

Let me give you a little background information as to why I wanted to learn how to make a tutu for my baby girl.

I have a friend who is trying to adopt.  She is about to get her kiddos and I am so happy for her BUT the process was hard and there was a lot of money to be spent.

How do you raise money?  But a fundraiser of course!!  They had a few fundraisers and one of those fundraisers was a raffle!  Who doesn't love a raffle?  So I put in a little to help out.

Well...  I actually won something!  I couldn't believe it.  I never win anything!!  I was so excited, I won a $20 gift certificate to a super cute little business that makes tutu's.  I thought it was a great win until I looked at the prices.  

Please don't get me wrong.  I support mom and pop businesses because I grew up on the income of a self employed parent that relied solely on those who support those kinds of stores.  So, instead of buying from this store, I supported the mom and pop store in my area that supplies the items needed to make a tutu.  As for the gift certificate, I let someone else win it.

The first thing I did was google 'How to make a tutu'.  The first thing that came up was the video on YouTube I mentioned above.  "Julie Figueroa shows you how to make a tutu for a little girl. This method can also be used to make an adult tutu." Wowzzydotcom.  It's great!  Super easy instructions and it's not hard to do.  It does take time though.

My daughters birthday was coming up when I was making this.  Her theme since she was born has been honey bees.  So, for her birthday I made a tutu that was white black and yellow.  I then made a headband that had two antennas and used the scrap black and yellow pieces of tulle for between the antennas. 

Just to reiterate the instructions that are on the video:

1. You need the following items:

• Ribbon
• Tulle
• Scissors
• Ruler (if you want to get that technical which I did not)
2. Measure out the length of ribbon needed to go around the little girls waist.
3. Tie a knot at each end of the waist measurement and add 20 inches to each side.
4. Cut your tulle.  You may have to work a little bit differently than Julie shows you so, let me give you some tips:



You can see the spool there on the left.  10 pieces that are each 10 inches long and in as even pile as can be.






Roll the tulle starting at the short end so it looks like this.






I did not make my pieces 3" wide but 2 inches.  Worked just fine.

• Cut out 10 pieces that are 10 inches long unless you want them longer (If you want the tutu to be 6 inches long then you will want to cut out 12 inch pieces)
• Evenly stacked them
• Rolled it up (short side not long ways)
• Cut off the edges
• Cut the middle.  This will give you 20 pieces of tulle to put on your ribbon
5. Next you will attach each piece of tulle to the ribbon.  You do this by:
• Folding the piece of tulle in half
• Tie it to the ribbon by making the folded part a loop and putting the two end pieces through the loop
6. Do that with all the tulle pieces till you have a tutu!
7. I also trimmed the edges to make sure that all were even.

The tutus are really cute and when my daughter wore hers to her birthday party, she got a million compliments.  I am sorry but I was so busy at the party that I never got a moment to take any pictures. Boo.

This is how I used the scrap pieces:

Butt Wipes

My daughter is not one yet so I have been trying to save money on all sorts of things that she requires.  I want to focus on one item that I see quite frequently on Pinterest.  Homemade Baby Wipes.  

I found the pin on Pinterest back in March and have been working on perfecting this particular baby wipe.  It is from Homemade Mamas.  You should check out their site.  It is full of awesome ideas.

So, according to Homemade Mamas all you need is:

1. A round plastic container with tight-fitting lid
2. Thick strong roll of paper towels (Viva is the best)
3. Sharp, Serrated knife to cut paper towel roll in half
4. 2 cups water, boiled and cooled to room temp
5. 2 Tbs. baby shampoo or wash
6. 1 Tbs. baby oil

Well that sounds easy enough.  So I tried it.

I did not know that I was going to be doing this blog so I didn't take pictures when I made them for the first time.  I just made mental notes of what I liked and didn't like.

Things I liked:

• Paper towel rolls have lots of squares.  That times 2?  Awesome!
• Baby wash or shampoo sounds good to me since you have to put it on your baby anyway.
• My friend Lisa and Christie gave me a bottle of Burt's Bees honey baby oil for my shower so my babies bum smelled so sweet after using my homemade wipes.

Things I had to change:

• The paper towel roll!  When you cut it, it makes a huge mess.  Also, all the towels are connected so it can be a huge pain to get them to come apart but you will find this for ALL baby wipes.  I mean all of them (I have found anyway).
• Less water cause when the towels sit in the water for too long they disintegrate and then you have a mess and it gets pretty gross.
• Again the paper towel role.  It was not easy to just pull out a piece.  They started ripping constantly when they sat in too much water and the roll started sagging.

After several sessions tinkering with my baby wipes, I feel that I have finally come up with something that is still not perfect but better.  I will always keep trying to make them inexpensive and easy to use.

Here is a list of items that I use:

• Baby shampoo ($2)
• Baby oil (regular baby oil is about 70 cents for a bottle about the same size as shown)
• Kleenex 2 ply dinner napkins ($1 for one package of 50)
• Scissors 
• 1 Tbs and 1/2 Tbs
• Container (shown is Ziplock)
• Baby wipe container (not needed but not bad to have)
• 1 and 1/3 cup water boiled and cooled (I don't know why but I think it has something to do with purifying)

This is what I do:

1. 1 Tbs of baby wash and 1/2 Tbs of baby oil into container with 1 and 1/3 cup water- MIX
2. take about half the package of Kleenex table napkins and cut in half
3. fold napkins into each other (pictures below)
4. lightly dunk each side into mixture.  There should be JUST enough mix to get everything wet enough to use but no extra water for it to sit in
5. Put into container

$3.70 for 50 wipes does not sound very good BUT you have enough baby wash and baby oil to get you through at least another 5 rounds.  So let me break it down mathematically:

• $1 per Kleenex.  That means you need to buy 3 packages for 6 rounds = $3
• .70 cents for small baby oil = .70 cents
• $2 bottle of baby wash = $2
• hopefully you already have a container

Total is $5.70 for 300 wipes AND you still have enough baby wash/shampoo to get you through even more wipes without having to buy a new bottle.

THINGS I WANT TO POINT OUT:

• if you are a military ID card holder with privileges to the BX, NEX and so on... then you can go to the Navy Exchange website and get a box of 432 wipes for $4.50.  
• If you do NOT hold a military ID card and have to buy at the store then a store brand may be just as inexpensive.
• I have had no problems with diaper rash since using these homemade wipes.
• Having the baby wipe container helps pull the pieces apart better than the ziplock container.
• Add a little food coloring to the mix and you can have your wipes match the room!

After several tries I feel that I have NAILED it!

Nifty Nails

I was looking at my nails last week and thought to myself 'It's time you fix these, Bri'.  I always see those awesome nail pictures that are on Pinterest where they are holding a little jar of finger nail polish or something to show off their super pretty nails.  Nails that you don't think that you could ever possibly have BUT you CAN!

Check it out:

Now it's not as beautiful as the pics that you will see on Pinterest but gosh darn it, it's pretty darn close and the best part of it is that I only paid $4.50 for this and people thought that it was professional!

Usually I am not a fake nail kind of girl nor do I ever mess with the press on nails because they obviously look retarded BUT I was going through my BX (Base Exchange.  My hubbs is in the military) and found these Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips.  Basically it's like a sticker but it's a nail polish sticker.

I have a basket full of different colored nail polishes and I'm sure that you probably have one too since that stuff kind of accumulates over time.  I just happen to also have a white and black bottle of polish which is awesome cause they will go with pretty much ANY of the designs that the Salon Effects offers.

This is what is inside of the small box for $8.95:

You can see that there are two containers with nail strips.  Once you open the container, you have to use them!

This is how I only paid $4.50:

1. Open only one container
2. There are 8 strips inside.  Pick one strip that will fit over the nail of your choice on your hand.  That one will hopefully work for the finger of your choice on both hands.  If not then that is fine, just use another strip.
3. Place the strip on your nail so that any extra you don't need is sticking up from the top.
4. With pressure on the strip over the nail, pull the extra down and off so that you have another piece to use on another nail.
5. By doing this I was able to do my toes too:

When I took the picture, the pinkie toes were drying from a first coat of polish.  They were just as white when I finished as all the other white nails.

     6.  Then save the other half the package for another time!

Other things to consider:

• The strips last longer than the nail polish
• The strips are super hard to get off.  It took a while to wipe them off with nail polish remover.
• If you do not use the strip, it will dry out!  I waisted half a package not realizing that.  Duh, right?

Vinegar Craziness

I felt a little guilty that my master bathroom had gotten soooo gross that I finally decided to try and clean it yesterday.  I got out my normal Windex, paper towels and a can of scrubbing bubbles.  After spraying down the shower with scrubbing bubbles, I let it sit and tried to clean my glass shower door.

Even after two sprays and rub downs, my glass door still looked like this:

I guess it's because of the flash but the soap scum goes all the way down to the bottom.  I would also like to point out that we DO have a water softener and I have come to learn that whether you have hard or soft water, you are always going to have issues.

ALSO, please notice the black line on the left side of the picture.  It is forming in the corner of the wall and floor.  I never thought to take a pic of it but was glad to find that you can see it even through the soap scum.

I gave up cleaning the door and went straight to the shower.  That will at least be clean cause, HEY!  The bubbles scrub it for you, Right? 

WRONG!

THEY DID NOT.

Here are some more pics (please note the pics were taken after the scrubbing bubbles were washed off and became dry):

The first picture is of the shower behind the glass door and then the second picture is the knobs for the shower that is right next to it.  Why we have two showers in one stall.  Doesn't make sense buuuut that is how it is.

Okay.  Okay.  You may be thinking 'well, if you would just clean it at least once a week, you wouldn't be having this problem now would you?'  and you are right.  I am making a face at you though.  I should be cleaning it at least once a week but I really want to do OTHER things in my life.  Like...  ANYTHING!  I hate cleaning. 

Anyway, I remembered seeing some vinegar thingy on Pinterest and looked it up.  You can find the website HERE where they tell you to:

1. Microwave 4 oz of vinegar till it's warm 


2. Pour into spray bottle with 4 oz of blue Dawn dish soap


3. Spray onto soap scum, wherever it may be


4. The thicker the soap scum the longer you should let it sit.  Even all night works.

Luckily, I do have both vinegar AND Dawn dish soap, which is really weird because I usually have Palmolive.  Palmolive is cheaper than Dawn, has a nice orange citrusy smell and (IMHO) works just as well BUT I bought the Dawn Pure Essentials because it is hypoallergenic AND has been made with 25% post consumer recycled material (Please click HERE to find out more about why that makes me happy to spend more money).  It isn't that much more money though.  The Dawn PE was $2.18 and the Palmolive is $1.69 (neither one on sale).  I am switching to Dawn.

My first thought was that I was going to fail this because they were pretty specific that I use the BLUE Dawn detergent and the Dawn PE is NOT blue.  It's clear. I figured I would try it anyway because then we would know FOR SURE that you do, in-fact, have to have the blue dawn.

This is how my shower turned out:

I sprayed it on, waited 20 min and used the yellow part of the sponge to wipe everything while using the shower head to spray everything down and drain.  You can see in the second to last pic that there was a spot of soap scum on the end of the knob but honestly that too came right off... I didn't even see it till I took the pic and then forgot to take another one.  *sigh*

Remember that black line from the very first picture?  It use to be in the crack of the last picture.  I wish I had taken more pictures but like I said, I thought I was going to fail this assignment.

OH, BTW...  one cup vinegar (heat up for 1 min) and one cup Dawn mixed was perfect for the size to spray all of my shower.  Even with the fan on, I had a hard time with the smell of it.  Once I washed it all off it took about an hour for the smell to be gone.  Dawn is 24 oz big divide by 4 oz gives you 6 cleanings which for me is a years worth of cleaning.  Gross, I know but hey!  *shrug*

NAILED IT!!   Thank you Bobbin from Food.com!!

Next time I will try it with Palmolive and see if that works just as well (I have a feeling its all about the vinegar)



Glass Brownies

Today my husband and I were watching TV and saw a commercial for brownies that are low calorie.  My husband says 'mmmmmmm... brownies' in a Homer J. Simpson kind of way.  I on the other hand had a baby 10 months ago and am trying to watch everything I eat so that I can loose weight but I want a brownie too.  I remember seeing a post on Pinterest about Dt. Coke and Brownie mix.  I go on line, find that recipe and figure, heck, this should be easy especially since I have brownie mix and Dt. Pepsi!  I prefer Pepsi over Coke anyway.

• I pull out my brownie mix.  Crap.  It has walnuts in it, I hope that doesn't mess it up.  


• I pull out a can of Dt. Pepsi.  I hope there isn't some kind of magic ingredient in Coke that isn't in Pepsi.  


• I read the directions that are given on the website: http://auntpegsrecipebox.blogspot.com/2011/02/diet-coke-brownies.html


• I pull out a glass casserole dish and measure it.  Yup 9x13, SWEEEEET


• I turn on the oven to 350 degrees and start making it.

After I stir it, I realise that all the walnuts are sinking to the bottom.  OK... so I'll have walnuts at the bottom instead of randomly... whatever.

I put it into my casserole dish and happily throw it in the oven.  30 min later I check it.  Not done.

I put it back in for another 10 min.  Not done.  Another 10 min...  Seems kind of done, I will cut it.  ICK!!!  Mushy on the bottom.  NOT DONE.

Hmmm...  My husband points out that its a glass dish and not an actual pan.  Does that make a diff?  So I lower the temp to 340 and put a pan under the casserole dish.  Another 15 min.  NOT DONE.

I give up.

Did I get compliments?  Uhhh... no.

Will I make it again?      Not in a friggin glass casserole dish!!

Was it really because it was glass and not metal?  

This is why I don't bake!

FAILED!!!

Update Sep. 18th

I tried this again but used a regular brownie pan and not a glass dish.  It was a little better but it was still really mushy.  I would not recommend following the Dt. soda and brownie mix for low calorie brownies.  They tasted okay but they ended up being thrown away.

Still a fail.

Colored Eggs R Us

 

OK so, last April I saw, on Pinterest, these beautiful eggs that were multicolored for Easter:

Aren't those beautiful?  You can find the how to's on http://realmomkitchen.com/10823/easter-deviled-eggs/   

So... I figured, what the h-e-double toothpicks?  Why not try it?  Doesn't look too hard.

When you go to the website you can print out the directions.  I pretty much did what it said but instead of using neon colors I used the ordinary colors.   I don't want to have to go out and buy more dye and I don't want to spend money.

The hardest part of this project is that you need some counter space because if you let the eggs touch each other when they come out of the dye, they could stain each other.  The shells are kind of annoying to get off AND spooning out the yolk was a pain.  I don't know if that's because I am an amateur or if it really is normally hard to get yolks out.  This is only the second time I have ever made deviled eggs.  Let me know.

These are the 4 BEST ones:

These are the 4 WORST ones:

Purple didn't work out so well but overall, I feel like I NAILED IT!!!  

Grant it they are not Easter pastel and I tried to be all artsie fartsie with a cake decorating application of the filling but still fun!  I took them to a party and all were gone when it was time to come home.  

Did I get compliments?  YES

Am I going to do it again?  YES  

I will post pics for when I do it again.

For those who have never boiled eggs:

1. Get a large pot to hold however many eggs you have
2. Fill it 3/4 full and let it come to a boil
3. Get a big spoon to set eggs in boiling water gently
4. Let them cook for 17 min
5. Using your big spoon again, scoop them out (after turning off burner) and place each one back into the egg carton to cool off.

So what do you think?  Did I Fail or Nail?