It ain't easy being green..safety/stuffing tutorial.

So just in case you missed my last post on my finger. It hurts still....

So I found out that a local consignment shop is taking baby clothes to sell on consignment (Cha-ching!) I mean, normally I would just donate them to good-will, but I'm pretty broke these days so I decided I would bring Annabella's nice clothes in to sell

So I went through the bag of clothes that I had saved up for other people and went through them, what to sell what to keep. I came up with some clothes that wouldn't sell because they had been altered by me into some sloppy t-shirts. Because the onsies stopped fitting over her cloth.

Anyways, I also took out the box of baby clothes, that I had been saving for a quilt, now there was all this fabric that I could do nothing with, you know that part of the fabric that you can't use for a quilt, there were all these little odds end ends that were too small, or to plain or stained to do anything with.

I was all out of stuffing so I figured, hey why not try to make my own

So first I cut off all the seams

The dogs at the farm have been requesting a dog bed, I think that these will work, I also saved the snaps and zippers for future projects.

So I had all this fabric! Thats a lot of stuff to just throw away!

DANGER

Please be careful and go slow!

Blades on rotary cutters are very sharp

Keep your free had off the cutting mat

GO SLOW

This is what can happen

don't let it happen to you, be careful

Alright, here we go

Lay your clothes out on the board in no more than 2 layers, this is a great way to use old rotary blades if you save them (I never have but I might now that I discovered this, I like to use a new one for each project but they are SO expensive)

Start cutting lines in your fabric. I like to make grids, don't worry about perfect, obviously this won't matter

GO SLOW

Just keep cutting, remember to keep your free hand off the mat, and go slow so you stay in control of the blade

HOORAY!

Now crumple it all up, if any pieces are too big, cut them now or just save them for the next layer

Here's my bag of stuffing, I'm going to make Annabella a stuffed animal with some of the smaller pieces of fabric and stuff it with these! I'll post pics

Ugh,

Incident with the rotary cutter last night...... don't worry, not much blood, finger should be up and running soon... me and my  'brilliant' ideas.

Chicken and Biscuits, a versatile recipe/tutorial

Mmmm.... Chicken and dumplings... I was recently informed that this is not chicken and dumplings but its chicken and biscuits. Due to the fact that I bake them and make them crispy, either way its a favorite in our house. I came up with this recipe because I wanted a quick and easy version of one of my favorites. In the recipe I will put substitutions for what you can use if you don't have what I did on hand.

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 5 peeled carrots (these don't have to be fresh, frozen will work fine
• about 4 cups of frozen veggies (I used peas, green beans, and corn any veggies that you like will work just fine)
• Spices (I recommend, savory, Bell's Seasoning, garlic powder, marjoram, thyme, celery salt, rosemary, parsley and bay leaves) a pinch of each, You can change this as you see fit
• Salt and Pepper

1.   Gather all your ingredients, Cut chicken into 1 inch pieces, season with spices and salt and pepper, mix so evenly coated

spices

Tip:  Bells seasoning comes in a box for some reason, I like to put it in an old spice jar so it keeps better for longer. Paint Markers work great for writing on glass

thats the seasoned chicken

2. Heat the Olive oil in a dutch oven or heavy saucepan, over medium heat (never put your dutch oven on high).

3.When it starts to sizzle add the chicken. Cook until golden on both sides or white all the way through

4. Meanwhile cut the carrots into half inch thick slices

5. When the chicken is all cooked 

Add the broth

And the carrots

6. Bring this to a boil

7. Now you can be creative, go into your freezer and pull out whatever frozen veggies you have

measure out 4 cups, make sure your chicken doesn't get into it!

now pour it into your soup. Turn it down to low and leave it to simmer

We are going to make BISCUITS!

My camera battery died halfway through my biscuit procedure, which is no good! But I promise to update this week with another biscuit tutorial so you can understand what everything looks like!

Recipe

• 2cups white flour (I like to replace1/2 c white flour  with 1/2 c whole wheat flour when I have it
• 4tsp baking powder
• 3/4tsp salt
• 4tbsp unsalted butter
• 1c buttermilk (If you don't have buttermilk don't worry, just add 1tbsp white vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit for five minutes before using, I do this often and it works every time)

Preheat the oven to 400

1. Whisk or sift together the flours, baking powder and salt

2. Add the butter and blend it together with your fingers, it will look like crumbs, you can use a pastry cutter if you don't want to use your hands, but they are gonna have to get dirty anyway

this is where my camera died

3. Make a well in the middle of the four mix, and pour the buttermilk into the middle

4. mix together until evenly wet, the mix will be VERY wet

5. Generously flour a surface, put the biscuit mix onto the surface and kneed until it is manageable

6. Cut the dough into 12-14 pieces and drop the balls on top of the soup, put it in the preheated oven with no top and bake for 15-20 min until golden brown

(this also coincidently is the same time it takes for my camera to charge

ooo crusty top

whats hiding under there?

Oh yea

Hello to all my new followers thank you so much for all the love! I have been very busy checking out blogs today! There are so many talented mommies out there!

Some Great Advice

We have been using cloth diapers since Annabella could fit into her Bummis Organic Diaper Kit: 

a kit that worked great for our little one and is now being passed onto BOBO!

Despite the interferences of other people, the process has gone great. But I have been doing lots of work to ensure that all of the diapers are cleaned and maintained. Besides that, I don't think I was ever too clear on exactly how to wash them! 

But all that changes as of my load... tomorrow (apparently you don't have to wash them Everyday, so long as you have enough!)

For more info and great tips you should check out this post, by Secret Mommy... 

I'm glad she's not keeping her diaper routine a secret anymore!

Also we got Photoshop!

Here is Ryan and I's first collaboration! 

I still want to do more to it but I had to show this one! I have so many ideas!

Frostbite prevention Plan B

The Farmers Almanac  is a site that I reference whenever I need information about my plants, the site is wonderful, you can enter your zip into thier best dates planting guide. Here you can enter your zip code and they will give you a chart of when to plant your seeds.

This year I decided that I didn't want to be late planting like I usually am. So when I looked last week at what to plant, I saw that there was a few plants that I could start!

You can see my pot garden here in case you missed that post.

But it still gets cold at night, and Ryan warned me that the plants still needed to be covered.

Last night, I opened a garbage bag and covered the plants and held it down with rocks. However this morning, my plants seemed squished by last nights rainfall.

So today I decided to try a new method

I'll let you know tomorrow how this works out. 

Bra Giveaway

Coupon Mommy sent me a note letting me know about her giveaway from Bella maternity. So I am letting all you bloggers know about it. (But hoping I win!) I went to the sight and found  a page full of non-underwire nursing bras. Including a Sports Bra that I would wear just about every day of my life!  And the french lace collection has a camisole that could be worn out! And the whole collection is so nice! Its pretty pricey, so I'm hoping to win the giveaway! You can enter too at her site along with entering lots of great giveaways

Bra Update

Well, I just called and the bamboo bravado was discontinued...... lame

But I found this one by La Leche League. Seems to be the same idea and its bamboo. 

SO 

We'll try that one.

If thats out, I'm just gonna start living in nursing tank tops.....