Spice shelf - make do and mend project

BEFORE

My spice shelves just looked so messy to me.

I had some of the Starbucks bottles left from Nina's party so I started with those.

I painted the lids cherry red with a can of spray paint in the cabinet.

Then I printed off some free labels from

http://eatinginisin.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/round-labels-for-spice-jars/

I just printed them on regular paper, cut them out with scissors and glued them on with glue sticks. You could certainly use a cutter, sticker paper, pre-made labels - all kinds of ways to be more high-tech. There are also many free printable labels on line, just look around until you find ones than suit you.

AFTER

I also had a dozen tiny 4 ounce canning jars. I used them and the labels in their package to hold the smaller spices.

labels on top - easy to read

a few of the spices needed to be shaker jars so I re-used some of the original plastic containers with shaker tops. I covered them with red paper and added labels.

to see more Make and Do Mend Projects or to join in with Heidi with your own Make do and Mend

go to The Cranberry Chronicle

Now if only all of my house was as neat and tidy as the spices

Monday nights storm

July was the hottest month ever in Oklahoma since records have been kept sometime in the 1800's. It has also been dry. So we were really happy to see a storm that moved into our area last night. We got 1/2 inch or so of rain that was very welcome.

But we also had some straight line winds.

The only damage to us was all the toys in the backyard blew around and we had a lot of leaves and mulch blown around in the front.

Many of our neighbors had more damage.

Our neighbors on the west side lost their backfence.

Our 2 neighbors on the east side lost the fence that divides their yards and that big Bradford pear tree split.

this house about 200 yards behind us lost a good size section of shingles.

On our walk this morning, we saw more fences blown over, garage doors blown in, debris all over the place.

The worst part of the storm was our power went off about 7 p.m. and was off until 1:38 a.m. Half our town was without power and we are very appreciative that our electric workers were able to get the problems repaired, even with more rain and lightening that continued through as they worked through the night.

Storms are scary but aren't the rainbows, God's promise, beautiful?

Boudreaux's Butt Paste winner

Thank you all so much for reading about and entering the giveaway for Boudreaux's.

The contest is now closed and the winner is Anne Marie.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste Product Review and Giveaway

The very nice Boudreaux company sent all these products for us to try.

We have used the original Butt Paste in the past and

it cleared up my diaper rash really quick.

We like the mild scent too.

Boudreauxs sent us

1- Boudreaux's Butt Paste

1- All Natural Boudreaux's Butt Paste

1- ALL NEW Maximum Strength Boudreaux's Butt Paste

1- Boudreaux's Baby Kisses Lip Balm

1- Boudreaux's Body Wash & Shampoo

1- Boudreaux's Rash Protector

Elizabeth says she hopes you will enter, this is good stuff!

One winner will get this same package of 6 full size products.

There are 3 ways to enter.

1 - just leave us a comment on my blog

2 - "like" Boudreaux's on Facebook

3 - follow the Boudreaux's blog

let me know in the comments which of these you do so I know how many entries you have.

and if you don't have a blog, leave me your email so I will be able to contact you if you win.

this is how clean Elizabeth was after her first bath in Boudreaux's Body Wash & Shampoo. It rinses off easy, has a very pleasant and light scent and is no-tear.

The Baby Kisses is for those red cheeks that babies get in cold weather. Although it has been so hot for so long in Oklahoma, and cold weather is hard to imagine, Elizabeth's face did get very red last winter and now we have a product that will help, if and when winter ever comes again.

Elizabeth will pick the winner at noon on Friday August 5th.

We hope you will enter and that you will look at Boudreaux's pages if you want to know more.

No Cost Chest Freezer Organization

We have a medium size chest freezer. Chest freezers cost less to buy and power than upright freezers but they do take some tricks to organize.

Most of the meat we have is bought in bulk and then I repackage it, so they are usually irregular sized and don't stack well.

Finding anything in this freezer was really taking effort.

Then, I spotted these fabric shopping bags that my daughter gave me, she hosted a Velveeta House Party and had extra bags.

I got 3 of the bags and sorted the meat - beef into one, pork into the 2nd one and chicken into the 3rd one.

I put them into the bottom of the freezer and all 3 fit perfectly!

Does anyone else have an abundance of these shopping bags? We bought some big ones at Aldi when they first came out and since then, Jeff and I have both got them from different companies and we have way more than we will ever need for shopping.

Anyone else have any good uses for these bags?

I fear that so many of them are being produced, that in a few years, there will be complaints that the reusable bags are filling up the landfills.