I completed my bandanna wreath project today.  It's not exactly as I saw it on a Facebook post scrolling through my newsfeed, but I like it anyway.

​To start out, the original post I found called for six red, six white, and six blue bandannas.  You can find them at most dollar stores, or at Walmart.  If you buy them from the craft section at Walmart they are 97-cents, but if you buy them from the accessories isle (purses, scarves, handbags, etc) at Walmart, they're $1 each.  In this project I only used 3 blue, 3 white, and 4 red (with half left over.  You will also need one wreath ring.  I've seen people use metal wreath rings with three bars, and I've seen people suggest the floral foam rings.  I guess you could use something store bought, but I happened to have this metal ring that once held a pine bough wreath, so that's what I used.

You will need to cut your bandannas in half.  Most designs have a pretty clear line, and if yours doesn't, just cut along the center fold line.  My advice is not to cut all of them at once.  Cut them as you'll be using them so you don't ruin/waste them if you don't need as many.

Take one half of a red and fold it in half lengthwise, and then again (now folded into quarters so it's long and thin).  Now fold it in half the other way.  Place it under the wreath wire with the folded end pointed out.  Pull the ends over the wire, through the folded end, and pull tight.  You may need to wiggle it and mess with it to get it on as tight at you can.

Mine weren't tight against the wire, but it wasn't loose either.  It looked rather relaxed, but tight enough that it wasn't going to slip or fall off.  Some of the knots remind me of the top of a tie.

Once you have your first red piece tied on, add a white one to the right of it.

Continue this red/white pattern.  The original project I saw continued it to 2/3 of the wreath wire.  I noticed however,, that the US flag has seven red and six white stripes with both the top and bottom stripe being red.  It also just happened to work perfectly to 2/3 of the wreath to keep this pattern.  This means I did end up with one half of a red bandanna left over.

Repeat the process with your blue bandanna pieces for the remaining 1/3 of the wreath wire.  Add a wire to the top (between the last blue and the first red piece) for hanging.  Lastly, take all of the bandanna pieces and unfold (fluff out) the ends.  Each knot will have two strips sticking out.  This will give a fuller look and prevent the knots from coming undone as easily.

​Most guides I found suggested adding stars to the blue area, but the bandana design I used (darker edges around lighter middle) seems to make this wreath look complete without any additional stars.

My wonderful little #5 managed to spill his cup on the blue bandannas before I even started this project.  I had to throw the blue ones through the washer and dryer.  I'm not sure if it's the washing/drying or the fact that the blue bandannas came from the accessory isle while the red and white bandanas came from the craft isle, but the blue ones are much floppier than the red and white ones.  I'm not sure how it's going to stand up to hanging up for any length of time.  It looks great on the table though.  You never know, maybe it would make an awesome table centerpiece with a dish in the middle or something.

​Total expenses for this project:  $9.79 plus tax ($10.57).  Retail value estimated at $20-$30.  This project took under an hour, but the most time consuming part (aside from washing and drying the blue ones) was pulling the staples out of the bandanas from the packaging.

Let me start by saying that I found a recipe online and had every intention of making it per the recipe.  However, stranded at home I realized I was missing an ingredient (oregano) so I substituted Rosemary instead and then tweaked the recipe a bit here and there.  It turned out wonderfully, so here is my version of the recipe.

3 pounds of skinless chicken breasts (I used certified humanely farmed, 3-pounds was 9 breasts)
2-3 teaspoons rosemary
1 teaspoon salt (I used Himalayan salt)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup water
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley

• Mix Rosemary, Salt and Pepper in a bowl.  Rub it into the chicken.
• Melt the butter in a skillet on medium heat.  Brown chicken in the melted butter for 3-5 minutes.  (I used 2 tablespoons at a time and cooked three breasts at a time for 5 minutes each side as they were pretty thick)
• Put browned chicken into crock pot
• In the same skillet, add the Water, Lemon Juice, Garlic, and Bouillon.  Bring to a boil, then pour it over the chicken in the crock pot.
• Cover and cook on High for 3 hours or on Low for 6 hours (we did Low).
• Add the Parsley 15-20 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

This was enough for our entire family of seven for dinner, plus two breasts for the home-schooled kids to have for lunch the next day.  The recipe said it could be served with rice or pasta.  The only complaint on this meal was how bland the pasta was.  I wish there had been more "sauce" with the chicken.  It was delicious and moist.  We will definitely be making this recipe again!

I couldn't sleep the other night so I stayed up looking up information on homesteading.  While we are just beginning to dip our toes in, it seems there's all kinds of people along the way doing homesteading in various ways and to various degrees.  I don't think we'll be setting off to live as hermits on the side of a mountain completely "off the grid," but I do aim to be a little more self-sufficient.  I'd like to know where my food comes from, know that it's not GMO, no pesticides, no herbicides, no added chemicals - completely organic, and in the case of meat, raised and dispatched humanely.  And the pride that comes with growing your own food, having experienced it this year - is fantastic.

In looking up homesteading, I came across a simple recipe to make laundry detergent (check out the original recipe here).  It just so happens that I'm on the last few drops of our regular liquid detergent and won't be able to buy it any more.  It's from one of those club things and we're discontinuing our membership.  Anyway, it sounded pretty simple, so today I went ahead and bought the supplies.

First you measure out one cup of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda.  Make sure it's not baking soda.  Add in one cup of 20 Mule Team Borax.  Mix together.

Then comes the fun part.  You'll need to use a cheese grater to grate one full bar of Ivory soap.  The original recipe called for Fels-Naptha soap, but someone mentioned that it was full of bad chemicals, and sure enough at the store there's actually a warning right on it that you shouldn't have it touch your skin.  Not something I want to be washing #5's diapers in!  The recipe said that Ivory soap could be substituted as it's easier to find.  I had no problem finding all of the ingredients (including the Fels-Naptha) at our local Menards.

I did end up buying a cheese grater too, which cost me $4.97.  So far the total investment is $16.74, including a tool I can use indefinitely, and enough bars of soap to make ten batches (I will need to buy more Borax and Washing Soda to use up all the Ivory soap).

The last step is to mix all of the ingredients together and make sure they're equally distributed.  So you've now got

1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1 (grated) bar of Ivory soap

Supposedly just two tablespoons per load will wash your clothes and leave them smelling fresh.  There are 16 tablespoons in a cup, so each "batch" will do roughly 32 loads of laundry.  To start I made up an entire plastic bin of this mix - 4 batches.  That should equal 128 loads of laundry, and I still have 6 bars of soap, half a container of Borax and about 1/3 box of the washing soda!  If it works like they suggest, this could save us a lot of money.  We do so much laundry that it adds up fast.  Once we use it a few times, I will write up a post about how well it works (or doesn't work).  Of course the best part perhaps is that when we finished, the grater needed only to be rinsed in hot water and it was clean and ready for next time!  No scrubbing or soaking required.

The Hengel truck came by right at 9am and delivered our precious garden soil (happy dance).  Tony was out chaperoning a field trip with the four oldest kids, so I had to wait for them to come home before digging in (little #5 and the new puppy take up all of my attention).

Once Tony and the kids got home, we set to work getting the larger of the two planned raised beds set up.  Here's a photo of the lawn before we started to set up.  What a waste of space if you ask me.  Grass that needs to be mowed regularly... not pretty to look at and definitely not productive for a hungry family!

We started by laying out cardboard, and then putting the blocks along the edge.  the cardboard is a barrier between the good garden soil and the grass and weeds beneath.  It is meant to keep the grass and weeds from just coming up in the raised garden.  Using cardboard also assures that in a year or two it will compost itself, further helping the garden (or at least that's the idea).

This garden is four bricks by six bricks, each being 16-inches long by 8-inches tall by 8-inches wide.  All four corners are 8-inch square blocks.  Total dimensions inside are 64 inches by 96 inches by 8 inches deep.  The holes in the bricks will also be used to plant in, which adds that much more space to the garden.

After the first wheelbarrow full of dirt, I realized that it was going to be a lot more work that I anticipated to fill this garden with soil.  The soil was delivered in the back yard, and this garden is in the front.  The shoveling isn't bad, but pushing/pulling that heavy wheelbarrow all the way from behind the garage to the front yard is back breaking.  I have a new-found respect for professional landscapers!

We didn't quite finish this project today.  It started to sprinkle and we needed to stop to make/eat dinner, but it looks pretty good anyway.  I need to finalize my planting design so we can get stuff in there as soon as possible.  I was considering doing some corn, peas, beans, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons in this one.  I just need to set up a trellis along that back side.

We dyed our Easter eggs today. For most of them we did the standard Paas dye kit that we've done every year. For a select few (18) we tried something new. A rice method!

Get some small containers (we used sour cream and frosting containers), and add just enough dry rice to cover the bottom. Add a few drops of food-safe coloring. Close the containers and shake to spread the dye through the rice. Once it is thoroughly colored, add a hard-boiled egg. Close the container and gently shake.

The eggs turn out brightly colored with interesting designs.

The kids enjoyed this project, but I did find it a little wasteful of the food coloring. You really need to add more dye for each egg or there isn't enough to color the second one. In the photo above you can see one purple and one orange. After the kids lost interest, I added some red dye to the yellow container (orange) and some blue dye to the red container (purple). Just so we wouldn't waste the rice, I cooked it after our project.

Unfortunately, cooking it took out most of the dye. It ended up looking about the same shade as fried rice, which is really deceiving since it still tastes like plain white rice.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook asking for tips on how to cut a squash after breaking her knife (having used a hammer to try to slam through the vegetable).   I admit, we're fairly new to the world of squash eating, but we've become big fans of spaghetti and acorn squash.  We don't use a hammer to pound the knife through the squash, so I thought it might be fun to make a "how to" video on how to cut a spaghetti squash.  Here's Tony, cutting a spaghetti squash with a knife without using a hammer.  Please feel free to share this video if it helps you.

And don't mind Mocha in the background.  She made a guest appearance in this video.