Organizing Seeds

We are in a spacious house with lots of storage… unfortunately, we have a lot of STUFF. It is useful stuff, but very occasion-specific. As wonderful as giant plastic tubs are for storage (or small plastic tubs for that matter), they are not particularly aesthetically pleasing.

Enter… The hat box.

They are vintage, pretty, and spacious. I keep crafts, sewing supplies, and my newest endeavor, seeds, in them.

Here is the sewing box, not yet well organized…

And for the seeds, I put the different varieties into paper envelopes, labeled them, and then placed them in the box in alphabetical order.

Attractive and functional. And sentimental, as they were my grandmother’s.

Love,

Bess

Cleaners!

One of our resolutions after we are married and live together is to be healthier and frugal. After reading several blog posts about homemade cleaners on one of my favorite blogs, frugallysustainable.com, I decided to attempt to make my own. As soon as we move to our new house, I hope to be able to use these!! Not only are they so much better on our bodies, they are also affordable! It makes me wonder how we even started using commercial products. It has been this simple all along, and people have used these basic ingredients for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.

I have been collecting various containers from around my house.

The only oils I have are peppermint, lavender, tea tree, and jojoba. But I think I can make these with only those 4. We will see!

Here are my ingredients:

First I decided to make the dishwashing soap. For the recipe, visit frugallysustainable.com.

So I first put all the ingredients into a big bowl (that I just got at a shower!). They are: super washing powder, castile soap, white vinegar, tea tree oil, and vinegar. I also put a little lavender oil in it.

Honestly, it was a little clumpy. I was supposed to mix in the hot water to make it all blend in a little better, and I don’t think it was quite hot enough. But, most of the super washing soda dissolved, and it smells delicious! It is definitely watery in texture, not thick and jelly, like store bought soap. Best thing? It was literally pennies to make. I put it in my soap bottle that had just run empty.

Next on the list! Soft Scrub.

This is made of baking soda, castile soap, and tea tree oil. Super easy.

It starts out as a powder.

And then turns into a paste.

and the finished product!

I put the soft scrub in an old shampoo bottle.

I am not sure how long either of these will last, nor have I tested them yet. They smell good, were inexpensive, and I know what is in them!

I have a long list of cleaning products that I want to make, so stay tuned. It is one thing to read about it on someone else’s blog and then to make it myself! Trial and error, my friends.

Only weeks to go till we move into our new house, and I will put these to good use.

Travel Time

From now until our wedding, we will be out of town almost every weekend. And lets be honest—I am not a very organized person, but my brain is wired so that when things aren’t organized… I am a little cray-cray. We went out of town last weekend, and it was a nightmare. I was packing things into a suitcase at 5 a.m. in the dark so as not to wake my roommate, and slugging random bags full of random things into the trunk and backseat of my messy two-door car at 6 am in the torrential downpour that happened to be occurring at 6 a.m., while the flippy-seats were hitting me in the face and my puppy wouldn’t leave the porch because of the rain and my hair was getting soaked… Yep… it was horrible. And the rest of the trip felt like a continuation of that moment.

Where is my other shoe?! I forgot tweezers! Blerg! It is raining! Where is my mind!?

Ha.

And so… while on that trip, I steeled my mind on one resolution: ORGANIZATION. It may indeed save my future marriage from failure. About $40 later, peace of mind: found.

How?

I made… a travel bag.

Purchased from Target for $25 (a little pricey, but worth it in the end) this adorable bag.

It has two big pockets and two small pockets, all zippered.

My idea with this is that I will have two of EVERYTHING I use or would need in the bathroom, so that I can literally walk in, pick up my bag, and head out the door. Packing accomplished. And it won’t matter if I am headed to a wedding or the beach, I have it all

Supplies:

The bag came with 3 small plastic bottles

I had 4 small bottles from a hotel—these are perfect for oils and things that you don’t need a lot of liquid…

And then I bought a couple more, just for extra liquid storage

Items in travel bag:

Shampoo

Conditioner

Aveeno lotion

Castile soap (for face, body, hair… it is amazing and a little goes a long way)

Face wash

Jojoba oil

Contact solution

Pain reliever

Hair brush (a tiny travel size one)

A soft bristle brush for dry brushing/exfoliating skin

Sunscreen

toothpaste

soap

deodorant

Razor

Headband

Bobby pins

q-tips

contact case

tweezers

nail polish

travel size hairspray

floss

And the finished product:

And I will be making a man-version for my fiancé in the next couple of weeks. I feel like it will be much less intricate, but maybe still helpful to anyone who hasn’t ever thought to do this.