DIY Glitter Toes

A few weeks ago my sister sent me an email with a link to a YouTube video about doing DIY glitter nails. Last fall I had gone and had glitter toes done at a salon and loved the look, but not the price. I decided to give it a try on my 7 year olds toes (and my own) to see if it really worked.

Start with clean unpainted toes:

I used a generic brand of clear polish. Nothing fancy.

Don't be shy about pouring the glitter on, you'll be able to pour what you don't use back in your bottle.

I used a q-tip and toothpick to help get the excess glitter off.

Here they are all done but before the washing

And here are mine after 5 days:

It took a while for each coat to dry, but once it was done we washed our feet and were good to go. We're now on day 5 and my daughters toes are starting to chip, but I think she's been messing with them. My are still pretty good. We've even been swimming since doing them.

I think this is a great DIY and you could get some pretty fun toes with all of the different colors of glitter out there.

Recipe Review: Monster Magic Cookie Bars

Another Pinterest find today that I wanted to try. I have a meeting this evening and I thought this would be a good opportunity to not have the whole pan for us! The original recipe was found at Something Swanky!It was super easy and I only made 1 adjustment (peanut butter chips, in addition to chocolate chips!).

Monster Magic Cookie Bars

• 1 sleeve graham crackers crushed in a quart size ziploc baggie


• 4 TBSP butter


• 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk


• 3/4 C Oats


• 3/4 C M&Ms


• 1/2 C Chocolate Chips


• 1/2 C Peanut Butter Chips

Place crushed graham crackers and butter in ziploc and microwave 30 seconds. Mix graham cracker and butter mixture until all of the butter is incorporated. Press into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the crackers and carefully spread out evenly. Sprinkle oats then M&Ms, Chocolate and PB chips over oats. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or edges are turning brown.

Before Baking:

Mine are not as pretty as the ones I found on Pinterest, but they're still pretty tasty and it was super easy to put together.

After Baking:


I think this would be a good bar to take to a potluck and it would be fun to use seasonal M&Ms.

Recipe: PB & Honey Granola

We ran out of granola! My hubby eats it with his plain yogurt and frozen berries for breakfast and I eat it like cereal with milk for breakfast. We've found that you can beat the price from the bulk bins at Winco Grocery store for granola. The problem- Winco is 90 miles away! So I searched on Pinterest and came across this blog" The Granola Chronicles. This isn't a blog dedicated to granola, but rather a "granola" lifestyle-simple, healthy and outdoors.  Her recipe for Peanut butter honey granola sounded right up my alley, I love peanut butter and honey!

I made a minor modification to suit our needs (and pantry) here you go:

PB & Honey Granola:

• 4 cups Oats


• 1/2 C Honey


• 1/2 C Peanut butter (I used creamy, but I think crunchy would work fine)


• 1/2 tsp Vanilla


• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a microwave safe dish place everything but the oats and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir until smooth. In a large bowl place oats and pour PB mixture over and mix. Pour onto a prepared baking sheet and put into the oven. Turn oven on to 300 degrees for 25 minutes (do not preheat). Stir every 10 minutes or so. At 25 minutes turn oven off and leave granola in for 15 more minutes. (That's a total of 35 minutes in the oven and about 3 stirs). Pull out of the oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

It's pretty darn tasty and now I'm going to have to try some other granola recipes! A great way to use the oats we have in our food storage!

Homemade Dishwasher Soap

I made my own dishwasher soap and it works!! I saw this on Pinterest and thought I would give it a try.

Source: crazycraftbugs.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I followed the recipe exactly (well actually I doubled it) and have been using it for 2 weeks. Now we luckily do not have hard water, or soft water for that matter so I have not used the suggested vinegar in the rinse aid portion of my dishwasher.

Advantages:

• Cost savings, All of the ingrediants were less that $10 at least 100 or more uses out of my double batch. Plus I still have Borax and Washing Soda left for the next time.


• No smell, it is totally scentless.


• Cleaning, so far it seems to be doing as good or better than what I was using before!