Ironing - frugal ways

some of my son's dress shirts before ironing

I iron most every week.  

My son would rather not iron, but since his job requires him to wear dress shirts every day 

and his big law school debt,  he is currently ironing his own dress shirts.

He brought over 11 dress shirts to iron after Sunday lunch.  

He has taken them to the cleaners several times but it expensive.  I don't like the idea of my clothes being put in big tub of chemicals with many other people's clothes - ick!  So I never use the dry cleaners, even if it was  really cheap.  

Liquid starch - mix with water in a spray bottle
1 part starch to 2 parts water

A while back he tried adding the liquid starch to the rinse water in the washing machine.  He was not crazy about those results ( I am not sure why,  just that he did not want to do it that way again)

Since I was out of aerosol spray starch,  I mixed up some Sta-Flo in a washed out spray bottle.  

ironing in progress

some of his finished shirts -
and, Yes, he does only wear white or light blue dress shirts 

I thought his ironed shirts looked really nice.  So I tried the mixed up starch on my blouses too.  

My ironed blouses

I like this new to us way to iron.  I think it is cheaper than aerosol  cans but I have not done the math because I don't know many uses you get from aerosol compared to the liquid spray.  I do know that not using the aerosol cans is better for the environment.  

I've also read that mixing up, maybe it involved cooking?, corn starch with water can also be put in a spray bottle to use instead of liquid or aerosol spray starch.  Anyone tried this?  

For now,  I think I will keep using the StaFlo starch mixed with water for my ironing.  

any other ironing tips for us?

Friday night sewing

My grandtoddlers wear bibs at our house pretty much anytime they eat anything, I don't like them wearing dirty clothes and bibs are  much easier to take off than to change into a clean outfit.  

Their other batch of bibs were getting rather worn so I sewed up a new batch.  

the bird print is my favorite

For the pattern,  I traced around a bib we already had,  then since my tracing was not as straight as it could be,  I just cut it out about 1/2 inch away from the tracing line.

pattern drawn on wax paper

I used a couple yards of a retro fabric bought at a thrift store a few years ago.  

Blogs are like diaries,  I just did a search and found exactly when it was purchased from an old blog post of mine. 

If you are curious,  you can read it on this link.  

when I bought that funny animal fabric at a thrift store in 2009

I fussy cut each bib so I could center these fun animals on each one.
And I ended up with 9 nice size bibs.

I've used velcro for closures but it seems to get full of lint in the laundry and  velcro bibs are a little to easy for toddlers to take off.
Ties get tangled and knotted.
So,  I put button closures on this batch,  so far,  I like this method  a lot.  

My toddlers never did smile for the camera but they really liked their new bibs.
Gavin picked out the seal one and Elizabeth chose the cat and mouse one.


And just in case  because I said I don't like for them to be dirty, that they don't have fun,
 well,  I should of said I  don't like for them to run around in food-dirty clothes.
It is very warm today and we had rain over the weekend that left their sandbox full of water.
So for play time,  they played in the water in sandbox.  It kept them happy for 2 hours.
We came in at noon and put on clean dry clothes,  had lunch, story time and naps.  

Use your gadgets Part 3

Another gadget I found in my decluttering is this potato ricer.
I think Jeff bought it about 7 or so years ago and I think he saw the Barefoot Contessa or Alton Brown or one of those tv chefs use one.
The first time I used it was for a big Thanksgiving meal and  I cooked at least 5 pounds of potatoes.
Jimmy helped me that day and we were both tired from squeezing that many spuds.  

this Sunday,  I only cooked 6 small potatoes.
Ricing just a few potatoes goes really quick and easy.  

See how fine they are?
I just added a little half and half cream to them until they creamy
and a little salt and pepper.
They were really good mashed potates - very light, and smooth

If you like really smooth potatoes,  then you should try a ricer.

Cook your potatoes all the way tender so your won't have to work up a sweat while you press them  through.

But if you cook mashed potatoes for a crowd,  I would not recommend ricing unless you have some helpers with  muscles.  

about the Pampered Chef 4 loaf baking pan- I looked on the Pampered Chef sight and they do still sell it. 

 I think it is $34.  

I've got one more gadget to show you later,  as soon as I work up my nerve to use it anyway. 

Any guesses on what it might be?  

Bloggers are the best! Many thanks to Jilly

Blogging friend Jilly over at Sunnyville Cottage    just moved to a smaller town and smaller home.  She downsized her craft and sewing supplies as she says she really prefers to cross stitch and crochet.  

So Lucky Duck me,  I was the recipient of  her quilting strips.  

These pictures don't do justice to just how much fabric and how nice this fabric is.  

Jilly packed this box with precision and I think she had to of sat on it to get it close.    

 This box was much heavier than it looks, and my Marine husband dropped it when he got it out of the mailbox,  .  Jilly's Sailor husband will probably think that is funny.  

I tried to spread them out to take a better picture of them,  but there are just so many and I am not a good photographer.  

You will just have to believe me that this was a wonderful gift and I will have so much fun sewing up some strip quilts.  

Thank you Jilly!  I think you are the best.  

Sweet Baby Andie

 We had the best time Saturday,  we spent the whole afternoon with tiny Andie and her parents.  

Andie was 10 days old yesterday and is doing just fine.  

She gave us such a scare coming into this world so early and then taking a helicopter ride to the big hospital when she was just 1 day old.

Except for still being tiny and sleepy,  you would never know any of that.  

Sheena, Bobby and baby Andie

This proud Grandma Rhonda holding precious Andie.

Isn't her little cap so sweet?
Sheena pinned it on Pinterest and my mom crocheted it for them.