Thanksgiving Leftover Challenge

I know this blog originates from frugal craft ideas, however, I am taking a slight detour to share a small semi success. This year, I felt challenged to use up (by that I mean, EAT) all the leftovers this year. Now each year, we have a couple nights of the whole enchilada... Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, cranberry, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and a roll. Then it starts to thin out, and ends up with just some turkey (Dear hubby usually finishes his dark mean first), and stuffing or mashed potatoes. Then just a side or two, then  it gets tossed.

When the pickins' dwindled down to just mashed potatoes and stuffing (no gravy). I got creative. Potatoes easy... made a potato soup in the crockpot. CHECK!

Stuffing? Hmmm, to Pinterest I go...Came across this delicious looking recipe:

Stuffin' Muffins

Challenge accepted. Made a breakfast date with hubby. He agreed to make some of his wonderful waffles and I would create this yummyness.

Results:

The recipe says to bake for 25-30 minutes. At 25 minutes we looked through the oven window and saw glistening white, so added another 5 minutes. At 30 minutes, we saw shiny clear bubbles, so added another 5 minutes. At this point I pulled them out, and realized. it "looked" uncooked, but they had probably been done 10 minutes ago. They were for sure DONE now. Not much in my house is ever "undercooked" :-)

A bit leary, I cut into them, and sadly they were overdone. Edible... but overdone. They were now hard-cooked eggs in crunchy stuffing shell. Still went very nicely with sweet waffles.

Conclusion... definitely stick with the 25-30 minute window. It is right on.

I DID IT!

And Then There Was Light!

Because of the large beautiful trees along our street, at night it sometimes can be hard to find our driveway, even to us, the owners- HAH! There is a light post just past the property line, however a huge tree hangs down and blocks most of the light. Our front porch has a light that is motion detected, so it does not go on unless you walk by it, or pull INTO the driveway. I have always wanted to put a lampost on the corner of the front yard, but too frugal to do electrical work to get it out there. I was excited when I discovered up-cycled solar light projects on Pinterest. This was my inspiration: http://goo.gl/4OGI8W

I went to the thrift store looking for a cheap ugly chandelier, and discovered this fun little candle holder. It was silver metal, not too pretty, but I saw hope.

I spray painted it black... 

 Found some old PVC in hubby's stash, spray painted it black and hubby cut down to the height I wanted

Decapitated solar lights I purchased at the $1 store

Cut the base off the candle holder and put through a washer, using gorilla glue, I secured it inside of the washer and then the washer onto the pole. Then put clear silicone inside of the hole to seal it from water.

Starting to look like what I have pictured in my head. After this, I glued each light to the holder(forgot to get picture after this)

Hubby helped dig a hole

Filled the hole with Quickrete about 3/4 full, set in a rebar for strength and stability...

Slid the post over the rebar, then added water

Hubby put dirt back in hole, and we left for a Labor Day date :-)

That night, I tried to take pictures. Although the lights are not bright, it is enough to see and guide to our home

 Hubby left to visit a friend for a bit, and when he arrived home, he said the light was bright enough to be able to point out "This is OUR house!" YAH! Project complete!

Cost:

Candle holder - $1.50

PVC - Free

Washer - Free

Gorrilla Glue - $4

Spray paint - Free (from previous project)

Lights - $5

Silicone - $3

Quickrete - $3

Rebar $3

Project Total: $19.50

Hubby's help - PRICELESS!

File Cabinet Redo

I inherited my mother-in-love's older mdf-laminated file cabinets. They did the job for over 6 years, but I started seeing some cool idea's about making up a metal cabinet, nice and pretty. Just as I started to watch for a deal on a used cabinet, a friend told me she had one that I could have for FREE!! FREE? That is talking my language! So I grabbed it, then sat with it for over a month, feeling intimidated to start.

When my husband gently reminded me that it did not match our patio furniture (where it was stored) I felt the push to finally get going on the project. 

Here are my lazy steps:

1. Take off all the hardware (Mine were pretty easy)

2. Take out drawers and set aside.

3. Using 220 grit sandpaper, I sanded the sides and top lightly. Then cleaned it off real good.

 4. Spray paint with your color of choice. (There were many suggestions on this, from Primering, to what type of paint to use. I just used Rust-Oleum Semi-Gloss Ultra Cover 2x from Walmart, for less than $4) It took 1 1/2 cans to paint the entire shell. Looked great.   

 5. Spray paint the hardware. In the past, I have screwed the hardware to a styrofoam plate, and them sprayed it... that way I can pick up the plate and turn it as I spray. This time, my hubby had some recycle metal in the yard, so I screwed to that, and sprayed away. No harm to junk :-)

 5. I cheated a bit on the drawers. When I first saw all the Pinterest Ideas, I wanted to use up my pretty scrapbook paper. Unfortunatly, my drawers were 13 x 11 1/2. UGH. Too big for 12x12 paper. Lucky for me, I work in a print department, and my super cool boss let me use our stock of 12 x 18 full sheet labels. Now my choice of design was unlimited, as I was able to print whatever I wanted. So I just cut the label down (after it was printed), then pulled the backing off, and applied it directly to the drawer, wrapping the little overage around the edges. (Other posts suggested scrapbook paper, contact paper, wall paper, or a different paint design- the sky is the limit!) 

6. Put hardware back on. The holes were pretty small, so I was able to just push the hardware screws back in to the paper. When needed I used an exacto knife to cut into the slot. 

 7. Stand back and admire your creation! So pretty. I was anxous to get it into my office and transfer all my files.

I had a step 8--- Sell the old cabinet. And yes, I made a little money. Makes this Frugal Gal happy!!