If you do stuff, stuff gets done

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Cooking, bargains, and my husbands big project

This is almost a week and half of what's been going on here.

I did some baking last week because my in-laws were in town

Pecan pie from my mom's recipe- and the pecans were picked by us in the fall. Yes, it tastes as good as it looks!

Lemon pound cake muffins- an old Taste of Home magazine recipe

Bread baked in our Zojirushi machine- that machine has truly been a work horse.

My son has been doing meal prep- this is a bunch of chicken breasts and fajita beef he grilled. He bags and freezes it, then eats it during the month for lunch and supper.

He has also been making jar salads that he really likes.

Super Bowl snacks

I just used food we already had - sliced cheese and smoked sausage with crackers

2 kinds of oranges

A bag of microwave popcorn with a few white chcolate chips sprinkled on while still hot - Yum!

Cheese dip and tortilla chips

I used some of my Pyrex collection to serve it in.

Funny grandchild of the week

Braeden is watching PBSKids on an iPod.

I usually sit in this chair but I don't pose like Braeden.

I don't go to Walmart very often but I went this week needing 3 things I could only get there.

At the front of the store, there were 2 buggies full of Star Wars merchandise from the newest movie and EVERYTHING was 25 cents each. Lots of shoppers were digging in the baskets and I ended up with

9 sets of little boy pajamas - I still can't believe they were a quarter!

3 water bottles

2 Darth Vader soft balls

And a bunch of glow stick toys.

CVS -but this is too late for any of you to do these deals though

I won't spell it all out but after sales and coupons and ECBs, this was about $10 and I got back $15 ECB.

Children's School Valentines

Our daughter in law did these cute Valentines for Gavin in first grade. She got the book lights at Dollar Tree. They say - Valentine You brighten my day.m

These are some the Valentines that JJ got at his church preschool party. He wanted to eat the dinosaur gummies first and he made dinosaur sounds through the whole bag.

Can you guess what my husband and father in law are doing?

They were staining the wood on this giant bookshelf

Ta-da!

There is this nook in the hall and after living here for 13 years, it dawned on me that a floor to ceiling bookcase would be great in that spot.

So now that husband is retired, he has time and energy to work on things like this.

It is attached to the walls and holds so many books!

It's 8 feet tall.

Children books are on the bottom 3 shelves

Cookbooks are on the 4th

Bibles and adult fiction are on the top 4.

That's what's been on going at the If You Do Stuff home. We've been doing lots of stuff and I'll have more pictures for you all soon.

Happy Valentines Day everyone.

Friday, February 5, 2016

Friday already........

Good morning everyone. This week flew by for us, I can hardly believe it's already Friday

I changed out the snowballs and snowflakes on the winter tree to hearts for Valentines.

Nothing is new. My mom made the crocheted hearts and I stitched the felt and sequins hearts years ago.

I like the twinkling lights, especially in the early morning and evening.

My grands haven't seen the Valentine tree yet but I know they will like it.

I don't think this photo shows how big this new table is. We put in both leaves and it's 115 inches long, 48 inches wide and fits just right in our diagonal shaped dining room after we moved out the hutch.

I plan to sew some placemats but we bought these at Dollar Tree to protect the top for now.

CVS (of course)

3 boxes of Liptons tea $3 a box, used $1 coupon on each and got back $3 ECB

Pizzas $5.50 each, used 2 coupons Buy 2 get 1 free, and got back $10 ECB

Candy 99 cents, got back .75 ECB

Toothpaste was free after .50 coupon and $2.50 red machine coupon

Deodorants - used B1g1f coupons and got back $2.50 coupon

Have a good weekend everyone!

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Another jumbled up post

Hello everyone

I did a little planning this evening and wrote out a new to do list for the coming week.

I also clipped today's coupons and got a CVS list and matching coupons ready for when I can make a trip there.

Below is the winter mantle my daughter decorated in their home- she was inspired by an expensive grouping she saw somewhere online. She put everything together with things she already had except she bought the battery-powered candles and she made the sign using her Cameo cutting device.

I think it's all really pretty together.

I saw this dining set on a Facebook buy and sell group. My husband and stepson went to check it out and they knew it was a great deal so they bought it and brought it home.

It is very sturdy heavy all-real-wood. The table is 48 inches wide and 75 inches long and can be extended with 2 leaves that are 18 inches.

It looks so pretty in our dining room and I am so thankful to now own a beautiful dining set at a very low price. (Below is the seller's photo)

Grand daughters with lots of hair.

This is Andie and she is almost 4 but she has more hair than many adults.

Sister Charlie is 6 months and she has the longest, thickest baby hair I've ever seen.

It's a blessing for them that their momma is a hair stylist and she will keep their hair looking pretty.

The granddaughters spent a good deal of the weekend with us. Andie just loves to "cut and glue" so that's what she did. My dad enjoyed his sweet great granddaughters too.

I hope you all had a good weekend and get a good nights sleep tonight, ready to face the new week.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Sewing, baking, CVS and a cousin sleepover

Hello everyone!

This a jumbled up, multi topic post- a little something for everyone I guess.

I have a very stocked sewing room and in 2016, I hope to make useful items with this stockpile

First, I used a pile of fleece and fur scraps. Some were given to me and some were leftover from the Frozen costume I sewed in the fall. I used that tunic as inspiration for 2 more Nordic-ish tunics. Then working with the size of the scraps, there was enough to sew make 2 Western style vests.
previous tunic

the first Kristoff tunic sewn by me

actual tutorial for a Kristoff tunic If you need to sew a similar costume, I highly recommend this tutorial

I cut fleece into strips of fringe to decorate the tunic fronts and vests backs.

I think the grandsons will have great fun having dress up pretend play in them.

Now, I need to make some costumes for the girls.

My son requested some shoe bags.

I made some for his dad 30 or so years ago to store and pack his Marine dress shoes in.

Jimmy uses those bags and picked out this navy babywale corduroy for new ones.

The ties are made with boot laces.

My husband is an expert shoe polisher from his Marine days.

He tried out a new technique to shine up this pair- but that is not how he learned back to spit shine in boot camp.

My daughter asked me change this pair of mens size 2X pajama pants into 2 tiny pair of pajama pants for her sons. The adult pair had plenty of fabric.

I tried out a Pinterest method to use pants that fit the child as the pattern, instead of using paper patterns. It was quick but I'm not sure the shapes are exactly like I would preferred.

They did turn out cute and I am not going to stress over toddler pajama pants, right?

The last project was covering a few more wire hangers with fabric strips. One is just wrapped and the others are loosely crocheted.

We have been eating 3 meals a day but I guess it hasn't been too interesting as this is the only photo i took from the last week - a batch of our tried and true sour cream chcolate chip muffins - big ones for adults and mini ones for grands.

I posted this recipe years ago on my first blog chocolate chip muffins recipe

I made 1 trip to CVS

2 16 roll packs of Charmin bathroom tissue

2 hair color for my daughter

2 cans of cinnamon almonds

1 gallon milk

And 12 Gold Emblem nut bars- they are really good! Not really a granola bar as they are mostly nuts and very satisfying

I used coupons and ExtraCareBucks and a MyPoints gift card.

The balance ended up $19.76 and j got back $11 ExtraCareBucks

The receipt says I saved $62.95 = 76%

Below is why you need the CVS app to maximize deals.

This is a printout of all the deals I had this week.

I didn't do all of them but I did use the

$6 off any $30 purchase

$2 off Charmin and

$1.50 off nuts

Friday night, 4 of the cousins had a sleepover here. We have beds they could sleep in but they prefer to sleep in the living room on a very big pallet of quilts.