Survival: Everything You Should Know, Just in Case!

So, I am not a “Prepper”, necessarily. My family does not own a tract of land in the middle of nowhere with a bunker stocked with an endless supply of food or ammo and guns. However, part of my blog is to get back to the basics, which is what survival essentially teaches you, too. I like to know a lot of these things simply because I want to know how to do it for myself, just in case I ever need to, or heck, want to! Sometimes, it’s just cheaper!

Here’s a short list of various things I have pinned, and learned!

• “The Best Way to Stop Bleeding”
• Edible Plants for Survival – Chickweed
• Pine Trees can be used for food!
• How to Build a Rain Collection System
• How to Make Continuous T-Shirt Yarn for possible Survival uses

So, if you want to learn all the things I am learning, you should follow my Survival board on Pinterest! I think of things I might need to know in case of something like Hurricane Katrina happens, and trade goods are how you get items you need. What if there are no emergency services? What if you had to deliver a baby yourself? I now know how. Just in case.

So follow my Survival board and learn things with me! Or heck, if you have skills or ideas for skills that could be helpful, leave me some comments! I’d love to hear them!

12 DIY Drinks for New Years

Yeah, I said it. DIY Drinks. I’m cheap. lol. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to the bar and having some fun, but when you’re a mom and dad and you don’t have 50$ to drop at said bar, you don’t have as much fun. So enters the “get together”.  You find someone to watch the baby and you get people to come over. I love entertaining so this is fun for me.

Since New Years is coming up, I thought this would be a great post.

12 DIY Drinks for New Year’s Eve (in no particular order)

1. White Russian – A classic cocktail made with coffee liqueur (Kahlua), vodka and either cream or milk. I generally make it in a “lowball” or 8 oz glass filled with ice, and poured with 1 oz vodka and 1 oz coffee liqueur, topped with milk. Of course, you can play with the amounts til you like it.
2. Wine Spritzer – wine (any wine, cheap, expensive, whatever) and sprite, or club soda or 7 up, if you prefer.
3. Mind Eraser – Lowball glass filled with ice. 1 1/4 oz coffee liqueur (Kahlua), 3/4 oz vodka, splash of club soda.
4. Rum and Coke – Lowball glass, filled with ice, 1 oz rum, top with coke.
   

   pictured White Russian and Rum and Coke

5. Jello Shots – Boil one cup of water and dissolve one box of jello (whatever flavor) in it. Then add one cup of ice cold vodka. Pour in small flexible cups (for easier release) and chill. Try “Jolly Rancher”; watermelon jello and green appleschnapps. Or try “Peach Pie”; rum and peach jello.
6. “Hot Apple Pie” shot – 3/4 oz green apple schnapps with 1/4 oz cinnamon schnapps floated on top. Best shot ever.
7. Jager and Red Bull – fill a glass with ice and pour 1 oz Jagermeister and topped with Red Bull.
8. Beachcomber -1 1/4 oz Vodka, 1/4 oz Coconut Rum, 1/2 oz pineapple juice, 1/4 oz orange juice, serve in a martini glass.. or whatever.
9. Death by Chocolate -1 oz vodka, 1 oz Creme De Coco, 1 1/2 oz cream, 3 scoops chocolate ice cream, blend with ice and pour in a glass.
10. Screwdriver - 1 oz vodka, top with orange juice. Another one that you can play with until you like it.
11. Black Russian – Nearly the same as a White Russian, only you leave out the cream or milk. 1 3/4 oz vodka, 3/4 oz Kahlua. Stir.
12. Mimosa – 3 parts champagne to 1 part orange juice. (Like 3/4 cup champagne to 1/4 cup orange juice.)

For those of you that aren’t sure, 1 oz is equal to one shot glass. I tried to keep this list down to a simple list of alcohol, because if you’re like us, you may not have the ability to actually go out and buy everything you need for all the “coolest” drinks.

I hope you all have responsible fun!

Happy New Years!

-Roxanne, LWMM

3 DIY Gifts for Christmas

DIY Gifts for Christmas

Well, I’ve been away for a while, what, with the holidays and family and craziness. So I thought to make up for the lost time, I would share 3 projects in one post!

1.) DIY Personalized Mugs – Porcelain paint pens (or sharpies), mugs, and oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Leave alone over night.

2.) DIY Skull T-shirt – Two old shirts, one stenciled and cut out, then sewn together.

3.) DIY Coffee Creamer Sample Gift – Small glass bottles, a little of your favorite coffee creamer, then freeze. Do this with 3-6 creamers and leave in freezer until you are ready to give away.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think, or if you have any ideas that use these projects! I’d love to hear about them, or maybe even feature them!

-Roxanne, LWMM

DIY Personalized Mugs

Here’s a fun one. My mother has drank coffee since I can remember. In fact, I remember making her coffee when I was young, and carefully trying to walk with the cup back to her bedroom without spilling it, to wake her up in the morning. My brother and I both did this all the time. So now, I’m older, and I, too, appreciate coffee. So when my mother asked for coffee mugs this year for Christmas, you know that I had to make something, and it had to work with my non-existent budget.

So here we go!

What You’ll Need:

• Mugs from a thrift store, white or light colored
• Sharpies or Porcelain Pen
• Oven

So this is super simple. Get some mugs from a thrift store. Our local Salvation Army has plenty of houseware items like this, and I scored a set of four matching mugs for less than 2$. My husband and I have somehow managed to accumulate what seems to be hundreds of Sharpie markers, so I had no problem there. (BUT I did end up buying paint pens, and I’ll explain why later).

Clean your mugs and remove any stickers from the store. I ran mine through the dishwasher and sanitize cycle. Find some quirky sayings, or your favorite quotes, or anything you want to write or draw on your mugs. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Now, go ahead and draw or write on your mugs.

Once your oven is heated up, use a shallow pan or cookie sheet to place your mugs on. Then pop them in the oven and wait. I heated mine up for 30 minutes. The first time. I say the first time because after I pulled out the first mug and let it cool for an hour or two, the sharpie scratched right off when I used my fingernail. This freaked me out a little, so I bought those paint pens. HOWEVER, after I did the other 3 mugs with the paint pens, and I was ready to clean the first mug off and try again, the sharpie wouldn’t come off! I scrubbed it, and ran it through the dishwasher and it wasn’t coming off. EVENTUALLY, using LOTS of elbow grease and a “scratchless” scrubby sponge, all of the sharpie came off and I redid the mug with the paint pens to match the others. (But it was apparent to me, that the sharpie method was just fine!)

On the other three mugs, I did use 350 degrees for one hour and I recommend leaving your mugs overnight before throwing them into the dishwasher. They ARE dishwasher safe! (Especially if you use the paint pens)

Have fun! These are really fun, and if you have older kids, they can make some, too, for the perfect permanent artwork.

-Roxanne, LWMM

DIY Coffee Creamer Sampler Gift

In my post, DIY Personalized Mugs, I talked about my mother’s love for coffee. Well, since she asked for coffee mugs, I wanted to add something to make it even cuter. So, since I recently bought myself some International Delight York Peppermint liquid coffee creamer, it gave me an idea. I could put a few “samples” of coffee creamers into her mugs. I don’t know if she has tried the ones I plan to give her, but I know my mom’s tastes, and I figure she’ll either like them or she’ll have tried them already!

What You’ll Need:

• Small Bottles or Jars
• Coffee Creamers

So, anyway, I had an empty sample bottle from a company that sent me a sample syrup, and decided it would be perfect. You can collect a few from Cracker Barrel, with their glass maple syrups, or you can find them all over the place. Find something cute and go with it. You just want to make sure they are small and not too big. Its supposed to be a “Sample Pack”.

I cleaned my bottles and took off the stickers. If you need to, use a razor to get off anything particularly stuck. Alcohol, q-tips/cotton balls, and a razor work well for this.

After the bottles were clean, I poured in my creamers as I opened them. Since I don’t regularly have two or three open at once, I did this over a period of time. Since I knew it was going to be a Christmas gift, I began this in November, freezing the creamers until I am ready to give them to her. I wrote what each one was on the bottle. (And that isn’t so pretty, but you can make it prettier using your own stickers and a printer, or prettier handwriting! :p.)

Once you have as many creamer samples as you want to make, freezing as you go, if you did it like me, then you will want to package them up! I plan to simply place them into the DIY mugs that I have made and wrap them up with little gift bags or tissue paper and ribbon.

Have fun with it. You can even make DIY syrups instead, and use those! Happy Holidays!

-Roxanne, LWMM

DIY Boys T-shirt

So I was on Twitter and happened to see this project for a DIY skull tshirt for boys, that had actually been adapted from this project.

However, I didn’t like the results of the first project and was worried my son would end up ripping the fabric with the second, adapted tshirt project. So, I adapted that one into my own!

Needless to say, kids grow fast. Super fast. Ridiculously and super-humanly fast. Their clothes don’t last long. So this tshirt project sounded great, because it was reusing old shirts. However, when I thought about it, I realized if I used old shirts, my son would, maybe, get to wear this thing once. So I used two old shirts of mine. They were just old unisex shirts that I had used for yard work. Nothing special and I was getting rid of them anyway.

So here’s what I did;

What You’ll Need:

• Two T-shirts
• Needle
• Thread
• Stencil or design
• Washable marker or chalk
• Sharp scissors

First things first; if you’re using a shirt with any graphics, turn it inside out. I had a red shirt and a white shirt. I liked the idea of white showing under the red, so I had to flip the red one inside out because it had a logo on the front.

After flipping the shirts to their desired side, I sewed my shirts together. I hand sewed along the seams down the arms, around the arms, along the bottom seam, and along the back of the collar. I didn’t want to fuss with one cut up, holey shirt in my washer, so I sewed them together.

Stitch along the seams of both shirts to keep them attached. I sewed them using black thread to have it stand out.

Now came the fun part; you’ve got to draw a design, or else use a simple one from the internet. A friend of mine suggested using pumpkin carving templates, and that sounds marvelous. I free-handed a skull face onto some blank paper.

Create a stencil by drawing out your design on paper, then cutting out the pieces you want to use as your stencil. Use chalk or a marker to trace this image onto your shirt.

Once you’ve got your drawing or template, you need to transfer it to your shirt. I did this by cutting out my drawing and using it as a stencil. I just happened to have chalk, so I used that to draw the stencil on the shirt.

Once you have traced the image onto your shirt, then you just have to cut out the image out of the top shirt. If you cut both shirts, you’ll end up with just a bunch of holes! After I made mine, I realized it might have been easier to cut out my image BEFORE sewing the shirts, but oh well.

Once everything has been cut out, I sewed along the image. Not only did this look cool (to me), but it will help keep the shirts from being torn up as easy. Use your own judgement, but this is what I did.

Sew along the image to help keep it from tearing up.. if you want.

Now you’ve made a skull t-shirt! You can use any image, but after this one, I suggest using something with big holes, like the eyes in my skull face. Those teeth were HELL to cut out and worse to trace! It WAS worth it, but I will be making two more shirts, and I am avoiding intricate designs!

These would be great for Christmas gifts, and totally personalizable. If you use a sewing machine, these would be super quick and easy. They look a lot like some shirts I’ve seen at a major retail store. I loved the look.

Have fun!

-Roxanne, LWMM

How to Make a Paracord Dog Collar (Double King Cobra Knot)

In my house, my husband, 13 year old son, 9 month old son, and I practice survival skills. For fun. Yes. We do this. No, we are not “preppers”. We don’t have an underground bunker or a pool turned into a pond. We DO have a stocked fridge, and pantry staples, but I couldn’t tell you that it’s anything like 6 months worth.

What I mean when I say that we practice survival for fun is that we practice camping in tents, by the lake. We make fires, and eat wild plants (although out of all of us, I’m the only one that could tell you about plants that are edible. And its only because I am very interested in gardening). My husband takes my 13 year old hunting on occasion and I have been as well. So when I say that we practice survival, I mean that we know the basics of how to survive outdoors for at least a few days, if we ever had to. You just never know.

So, onto why we are making paracord dog collars. Paracord is great for “cordage”. It can be used to get down steep hills, or up them. It can help you carry items on your back. It can become a hammock to keep you off the ground. It can help you make a shelter. So, having as much as you can is a good idea. If our dogs got stuck with us (say, after a tornado that oklahoma is famous for), we would be able to use the cordage for a variety of things, if we needed to.

Now, that you know why, here is how we (read: I) did it.

What You’ll Need:

• Measurement of your dog’s neck. (I did this by wrapping a string around the neck as tightly as it should be, and putting that length of string next to a tape measure to find the amount of inches.)
• 550 pound strength paracord (we get ours from our local army surplus store), read on for amount needed
• Plastic or Metal buckle appropriate in size to your dog

We have two 50-lb pit bulls, so we wanted the collars to be decently wide. We chose the Double Cobra, or King Cobra, or Double King Cobra knot (it has a few names) for this, since it comes out wide, and also allows for quite a bit of paracord (about 40 feet, total, per collar). When I measured the dogs’ necks, I came up with 20 inches for both dogs. So this let me know I needed about 40 feet of paracord; 20 feet of each color.

To begin, you’ll need to take the ends of your two colors and burn them with a lighter, to stick them together. Just hold the lighter to the ends of both colors and then stick them together while they are still hot. They will stick together, and once they are cool, make a good bond. Once you have accomplished this, you will take the loop and put it through the end of the buckle. String the OTHER ends (the ones that have not been burned together) through the loop you just made with the burned ends. [Sorry I didn't take a picture of this!]

Now, take those ends and loop them through the other end of the buckle. (Note: there are many ways to do this, but I prefer to keep my buckle clipped together and make my knots)

At this point, I put the “collar” around my dog’s neck and tightened it where I wanted it, then held it tight on the end where the cords are loose. The first knot is difficult, but this is how I do it! YouTube has LOTS of videos. (Maybe I should have made one? hehe) Below is a slideshow of what I did.

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There you have it! It can be confusing.. and don’t get discouraged. I restarted the black and red collar 3 times!! And I had almost finished it ALL THREE TIMES! That one took me about 2 weeks to finish because I had to just stop for a few days.

If you have any paracord projects you’ve made, PLEASE share them with me! I would love to pin them, and/or try them, too!
Have Fun!

-Roxanne, LWMM

5 Childhood Dishes You Should Never Forget

I was looking through my cabinets the other day, realizing I had nothing really to make for lunch. Admittedly, I had bread and sandwich

Beanie Weenies. Image from mommyskitchen.net

makings. I had Ramen noodles. I had peanut butter. Jelly. But nothing sounded good. None of it was appetizing. I was going through the fridge and found some hot dogs that had been opened, sitting in a Tupperware. Then it hit me, “Beanie Weenies!”
As I was eating, I thought this would make a great blog post. I started thinking of a conversation I had with some friends not long ago about the various crazy things you put together as a kid just to eat. Especially when you’re poor. :/
Mac and Cheese, Hot Dogs, Corn Dogs, Fish Sticks. These are all things you ate as a kid. Now here are some things you most likely ate as well, and should never forget about, just in case you wind up in the kitchen trying to figure out something to eat, like me.

5 Childhood Dishes

1. “Beanie Weenies” – Good ol’ pork and beans, brown sugar, and hot dogs, cut up. YUMMY. Just a little sweet and filling! And CHEAP.
2. Bologna and Cheese Roll-ups – I don’t know about you, but I ate these all the time. Sliced cheese and slices of bologna rolled up together and eaten. Another Cheap thing to eat, especially on the go! And to make it grown up, trade the bologna for turkey or ham!
3. Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese! – Pretty straight forward! Sometimes, I eat my soup with what my husband calls a “hot sandwich”. I use miracle whip, cheese, and those .50 cent packages of honey ham, turkey, or chicken. Then cook it like a grilled cheese! YUM! This is my favorite meal.
4. Ramen Noodles! – Oh, this never goes away (especially when you’re broke.. or too lazy to make something better!). We keep the house stocked with Ramen noodles because they really are so versatile. I use the spicy chicken and creamy chicken flavors together (splitting them with someone most of the time!), add 1-2TBSP peanut butter, 1TBSP soy sauce, 1TBSP minced garlic, a little lime juice (like 1tsp) and voila! You have a makeshift pad thai! (stir together sauce ingredients beforehand to make it easy. The PB likes to stick to noodles.)
5. Malt-O-Meal – Okay, I’m not sure who else eats this, but I still do. I grew up with chocolate malt-o-meal for breakfast. We added a little milk and sugar and it was super yummy, especially when it was cold. I still eat this on occasion, and still love it.

There you have it. I love just thinking about these dishes because they bring back memories. I hope you guys enjoy some of your own and share them with me! I’ve got kids now and would love the ideas!

-Roxanne, LWMM

How to Make Chalk Paints

How To Make Chalk Paint – Easy to do!

Well, everyone, sorry I’ve been gone for a little bit! I had a weekend in Arizona with some friends (a tweetup, actually), and I’ve been working extra hard on trying to some work. Unfortunately, my non-existent budget is back in action! That could be a good thing, I guess. Lol.

Anyway, I have been trying to come up with things for the kids for Christmas. Now, when I say kids, I mean my 3 year old niece, and a 3 year old little girl named Elizabeth. My 9 month old son, Luther, is a little young for hand made items like these, and I’ll write about what I’m doing for my 13 year old, later.

Now, I love pinterest, and someone I follow is an addict. Haha. She always has such cool things to pin and I found this idea while looking through her boards. I changed it a little because I didn’t have any leftover bits of chalk, like that person did, and I wanted real colors, not mixed ones. Since summer came to a close in the retail stores, I managed to pick up a set of 20 pieces of chalk for .50¢. Sweet deal!

What You’ll Need:

• Water
• Containers (I used baby food jars)
• Chalk
• Ziplock baggie
• Something to crush the chalk with (I used the bottom of a measuring cup, and then later, the baby food jars)

Place two pieces of chalk in the baggie and smash it with whatever tool you decided to use. When crushing my chalk, I found out why it was so cheap; it had gotten wet at some point. This made it easy for me to mash up. When all of your chalk is pretty much powder, pour it into your container. I had four of each color and two little girls, so I used two pieces of each color in each jar to end up with ten.

After you have poured your crushed chalk into the container, add just enough water to give it that “paint” consistency. I filled my baby food jars about 3/4 full, and that seemed to work out pretty good. Shake up the contents. That’s it!

Now, you will also need a paint brush to actually use the “paints”, but you can pick those up at a local hobby store. Also, DO NOT USE FOAM BRUSHES! They tear up on the sidewalk and concrete, so there really is no point in wasting your money on them. A thin, 1 inch paintbrush used for trim and molding it just about perfect!

The paints won’t show up great while they are still wet, but after they dry, they look great! Just be sure to shake up your containers before using them, to make sure everything is good and mixed!

Have fun!

-Roxanne, LWMM

“Easiest Corndogs Ever”

So, a lazy day I was searching on Pinterest and happened across a pin that I thought would be A-w-e-s-o-m-e. It was a pin for the “easiest corndogs ever”. Essentially, jiffy cornbread in a muffin tin with hot dogs cut into bite sizes, shoved in the middle, and baked.

When I looked at the source site for this pin, I was sad to see it was only an image, with no real recipe or blog attached to it. So I figured I would try it. It couldn’t be that hard. So I got to it:

My two boxes of jiffy, corresponding quantity of eggs, milk, hot dogs, and muffin paper cups.

I filled the tin with paper cups, preheated my oven at 400 and added my jiffy ingredients to a bowl. I whisked it up and filled my paper cups (12 muffin tin cups,about 3/4 full).

I cut three hot dogs into thirds, to fit in the middle of each muffin, then just pushed them into the middle of the raw mix.

I baked them for about 15 minutes (they were just starting to brown a little bit on the edges.)

Now, to my delight, they turned out looking pretty perfect. Not exactly like my pin, but close enough. I was super excited to try them. My husband, whom hates “Yankee cornbread” (the yellow, sweet kind.. Which to my knowledge is considered “southern”, and “Yankees” were the northern statespeople.. But I love my dear husband, so I try not to think about it too much. ), tried them first. He said there was too much “muffin”.

When I ate one, unfortunately, I agreed. I love jiffy, but for this particular experience, I was expecting something a little different. My husband suggested slicing the hot dogs up next time, although he was skeptical about eating them again (he’s oh-so-picky about food).

Once you actually get to the meat, the combination is really close to a corndog, and exactly what I had expected to taste, but there’s just SO much muffin!

I aim to try these again, and take hubby’s suggestion. They definitely need more hot dog.

If you try these, let me know! Or if you have any suggestions, I’m always looking for kid/teen friendly, car-friendly or crock pot-able, easy meals for our trips to Oklahoma City twice a month or so!

-Roxanne, LWMM