Projects Archives - Kim At Home

Glittering Jack-o-lantern Jars

October 28, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

My kids were begging to carve pumpkins for Halloween, but we’re doing a no spending challenge this month. I was so tempted to go out and buy pumpkins since I had to say no to a few other things this month. After all, they’re only young for a little while and we only have so long to make these memories.

Then I thought back to last year’s pumpkin carving. I cleaned out the pumpkin myself since none of the kids would touch the “yucky” guts. Then, my husband carved an awesome jack-o-lantern while everyone else watched. Yes, priceless memories there!

So, I decided to improvise for my zero budget and hopefully end up with a better experience that the kids could participate in this time. The inspiration came from these Starry Night Luminaries that I did with the twins for our at home preschool a few weeks ago.

Here’s the very simple directions for making your own Glittering Jack-o-lantern Jars:

Gather your clean jars. Recycled jars, like pickle jars, jam jars, etc work great! Just make sure they have a lid.
Spray hairspray on the inside surfaces of the jar.
Immediately, add some orange glitter, put on the lid and start shaking so that the glitter will stick to all the jar sides.
Turn the jar upside down, with the lid as the BOTTOM. Then, use a sharpie to draw a jack-o-lantern face on your jar.
Open the jar and set a battery operated tea light on the lid before screwing the jar on top again. With the lid being the bottom it makes it easy to unscrew the lid and turn the light on and off as desired.
If placing on an elevated surface, like ours on our wood porch railing, use a small nail to nail the lid to the surface (if possible) so the jars won’t fall over and break.

More Homemade Halloween Costumes

October 25, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

When we started the No Spending Challenge for the month of October, part of the process was determining if there were things that would be an exception to the no spending rule. I chose to spend on medical bills, $50 a week on groceries, and Halloween costumes, which I would make as inexpensively as I could since I had already promised the kids they could be certain things & I knew I didn’t have everything I would need for their costumes.

A funny thing happened, though, because as the days of no spending went by, I found myself not wanting to spend anything on costumes, even though I had told myself it would be okay. So, I pulled out the costume box from past years and the twins both found something that they LOVED that they could use in the box – score! The other costumes I was able to pull together for only $6 plus tax — not too shabby, right? The key is to get creative – dig through closets, check out thrift stores and dollar stores, and see what you can get for free or cheap (I use local facebook groups).

Strawberry Shortcake: I had the hardest time coming up with an idea for this little girl’s costume. So, I asked the kids what we should do and one of them had the idea of Strawberry Shortcake – of course, that was BEFORE I had decided to try to not spend anything on costumes, so it was amazing how it all came together. We got the cute red dress as a hand me down and it was in the closet with the winter dresses she hadn’t started wearing yet. I belong to a facebook group for our town where people offer free things and one day saw someone was giving away some costumes, including this wig. I was amazed someone hadn’t snatched it up yet and even more amazed that it fit! I spent $1 on a pair of Christmas socks at the dollar store; I just cut off the Christmasy owl on the top and cut off the bottoms to make a pair of green striped “tights” that go on like leg warmers over a pair of white socks and white leggings that we already had.

Darth Maul: We had the robe already that I made for last year’s Darth Sidious costume. We also already owned the light saber. We used some leftover fabric to make a belt and spent $3 on face paint.

Ladybug: We dug through some hand me downs that she hasn’t grown into yet and found a pair of black pants and a red shirt. The tutu/skirt was in the girls’ dress up box. I cut up an old pair of black shorts into circles and sewed them onto the shirt. We spent $2 on the antennae – I found them at the dollar store but they had skulls on the ends so we took those off and bought black fuzzy balls to glue on the ends instead.

Homemade Halloween Costumes

October 25, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

In the spirit of the No Spending Challenge we’ve been doing and because homemade Halloween costumes are one of my favorite things — okay, really I stress big time about costumes but I do love the way they always turn out — here’s a few of our favorites from past years. These costumes are NOT from a store bought kit, NOT big sewing projects (since I can pretty much just do the basics with sewing), and mostly cheap or free with items being bought at thrift stores or from garage sales and a few accessories picked up at regular stores. So, if you’re in a bind for a last minute costume or trying to come up with something inexpensive, I hope these ideas will give you a little inspiration to look through the closets, grab a piece of fabric or check out the thrift stores to see what you can create.

Flapper costume using a hand me down dress over a long sleeve tshirt, beaded necklace, and purchased sequin headband and feather.

The flapper’s twin got to go as a crooner with a borrowed tie, thrift store vest, older brother’s Sunday shirt, his own Sunday pants, and the most expensive item being a hat bought at an actual costume shop.

This one was so much fun! Just a onesie and tights and then I cut up a pair of leg warmers to make the leg warmers and head and wrist bands.

Our Olaf won the costume contest at the church trunk or treat. All we did was print out an Olaf face and then trace and fill in with fabric paint.

Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine was made using a cloak pattern that I found. The face paint was done by my awesome husband.

Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine was made using a simple Jedi robe pattern that I found. The face paint was done by my awesome husband. Honestly, my robe is not nearly as good as hers, but it has worked for us and was a pretty easy pattern to follow. And I promise that he loved it – he just refused to smile for the picture because he wanted to really look like Darth Sidious.

So, not many people “got” this one, but my daughter did and she was thrilled and isn’t that all that really matters? I found this cute dress at a thrift store and thought it would make a great Hello Kitty costume. My husband made these awesome ears (I loved to see him sitting there sewing by hand and really getting into this!) using felt, a little stuffing, and a headband, and then the face paint to complete it.

I love to make costumes that are more “inspired by”, which is what you get when you don’t buy a costume at the store. Someone was selling this cute dance costume and I knew it would make a cute Minnie Mouse costume. I cut off some extra fringe, layered a white shirt underneath, and bought the mouse ears.

The chef hat, mustache, neckerchief, and apron all came from a class project at school so you know they didn’t cost much.

Witch costume was made from her own leggings and black top paired with a tulle tutu I made from different colors (given to me by a friend), purchased witch’s hat that I added some coordinating tulle to.

This one is super simple because all you need for a cowboy is a plaid shirt from the closet (hopefully), then tie a bandanna around the neck. Voila!

This pirate costume just needed some cheap, black, non fraying, leather type fabric – it sounds complicated but it was easy to find. I used one of his shirts to make a vest pattern (it turned out a little small but it was fine) and used a length of the same fabric for a belt. Add in the store bought hat, eye patch, and sword and you’re all set.

No Spending Challenge: Day 5 & No Soliciting Sign

October 5, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Saving Tip: How about using a fun No Soliciting sign on the door? Let those solicitors know right up front that you’re not allowed to spend any money with them. I usually don’t buy from solicitors anyway, but it might save me some trips to the door (especially at the busy dinner hour when they always seem to show up). Here’s a free printable of my no soliciting sign if you’d like one for yourself!

How I saved today:

I found that our bed sheet had worn clear through in one spot, yep, a hole! My normal response would’ve been that I needed to go buy new sheets. Instead, I remembered that when we got this sheet set we only used the fitted sheet and put the other sheet away. So, we’re going to see how this goes and try to make do with the sheet just tucked in. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a mess to make the bed every day. Savings: $20ish
I found 3 caprisuns in the pantry that I’ll be sending along with my son’s sack lunch so my doesn’t have to use our lunch money account to buy milk on those days. Savings: $2.25

Yesterday’s challenge was to get a group to do a meal exchange. It sounds like a fun idea but since I don’t have a huge amount of pantry items I’ll be cooking from this month, I don’t think it would save me much money.

Today’s challenge was to seek out copycat recipes to take th place of eating out. One that we already use and love is this copycat recipe for Texas Roadhouse Rolls and Cinnamon Butter. In fact, I have half a batch of rolls I the freezer saved to go with a future dinner.

No Spending Challenge: Day 3

October 4, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Saving Tip: Don’t even look at the email ads/coupons that you get from stores – too much temptation! In fact, I’m using this as a time to unsubscribe from all but a few email lists.

On Saturday, I had a couple of things I would’ve gone out and bought if it wasn’t for this challenge:

I usually do my grocery shopping on Tuesday but I’m almost out of milk. I have just enough for my 1 year old to drink during the day and not a whole lot for cooking with. I was worried about what I would be able to make for breakfast. When I decided to make do until grocery shopping day, I realized I still have some yogurt and can make some granola to go with it and I can make up a batch of banana muffins. Savings: $3
My iPad charging cord broke the other day so I’ve been using my husband’s. When my husband went out of town for a couple of days he was worried I would need it while he was gone. I was strong and said we didn’t need to buy one because I just wouldn’t use my iPad much. Our church has a special televised conference this weekend that we were planning to watch on tv but we were having technical difficulties and only able to pull it up on my iPad. I thought I was going to have to break down and get a new charger to get us through the sessions but I kept working and figured out another way to watch it on tv. Savings: $10
My daughter needed a haircut and it’s really not my area of expertise. I decided to cut it myself. It didn’t turn out fantastic but she loves it and my mistakes will eventually grow out ;). Savings: $20ish

Saturday’s challenge was to make menus out of the extra food we found in the pantry and freezer yesterday. I didn’t think my small amount of food would amount to much, but when I planned it out, I found that those items can feed us for 6 meals and 1 dessert! That will be a huge savings for us this month!

No Spending Challenge: Day 2

October 2, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Saving Tip: Don’t know what to make for dinner? When in a pinch, like I was tonight, instead of turning to fast food, you can turn to your own cupboards. I almost always have things on hand to make breakfast for dinner. We had pancakes and fruit salad and unlike most nights when at least one child is picky about dinner, everyone ate a full meal tonight 🙂

I thought this no spending challenge was going to be a piece of cake with how much we’ve already cut back on our spending this year. Little did I know that Day 2 would bring one temptation after another. I decided to write down every time I had a thought of buying something. Here’s what it looked like:

I found that a few pairs of my socks had holes in them. My immediate thought was that I needed new ones. Then I remembered that I had stashed a couple of pairs in a separate drawer the last time I bought socks. Viola! New socks right from my own drawer. Savings: $3-$5
A friend posted that she is doing a weight loss bet/challenge this month. You put in $35 and then if you lose the set weight %, you share the pot at the end of the month. I went back and forth on this one, rationalizing that it would be good to help me towards my weight loss goals and I would probably end up winning back at least the amount I put in, maybe more. In the end, I decided to stick to my no spending commitment and just rededicate myself to my weight loss goals on my own this month. Savings: $35
When we were out and about I saw a sign for $1 slurpees and thought that would be a fun treat for the kids. Instead, I figured I could use our snow cone machine at home for just as good of a treat. Savings: $5
The kids’ school had some uniforms donated that they were allowing people to take in exchange for a charitable donation. I reasoned that I could get a really good deal if I could find several items and donate just $20. In the end, I decided that we really have enough uniforms right now (not extras, but enough) and I didn’t even walk inside the school where they had it all set up (too much temptation!). Savings: $20

For someone that doesn’t spend much, there were sure a lot of times that I had to talk myself out of spending!

So, today’s challenge included going through your pantry and freezer and making meal plans for the month using what you already have on hand. This was a little bit of a problem for me. We have a food storage area where we store food in case of emergencies. I know I would have no problems feeding us for the month on what we have on hand but then I would need to restock all that food after the end of the challenge (meaning a LARGE grocery bill next month) so that kind of defeats the purpose.

Instead, what I did was to pull the items that were close to expiring or weren’t really part of the regular food that we store for emergencies. I ended up with a nice little pile that will help reduce our grocery expenses this month. I was able to plan meals for: tostadas, soup, tamales, pumpkin bars, and more using just what we already have on hand and haven’t been using.

Looking at this pile of food, what meals would YOU make? Got any great recipes to share that would help me use these items up?

No Spending Challenge

October 2, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Because life isn’t busy enough (sarcasm!) but really because I’m always looking for ways to improve and I love a good challenge, I’m starting out another one from Living Well, Spending Less. The challenge this month is to go 31 days with no spending. We had some major medical and other unexpected expenses come up this year and have worked really hard at reducing our spending. I feel like we’ve done great but as the financial stress has decreased a bit, I can feel our attitudes on spending starting to lighten up. So this challenge sounded like a good plan to get those spending habits in check again, especially coming into the holidays when I tend to blow the budget a bit 🙂

It will be interesting to see how it goes since we’ve already greatly reduced our spending, but any little bit of additional savings will still be helpful. And it won’t be absolutely ZERO spending. Of course, we’ll still pay our bills and buy necessities and a few things we’ve already committed to: a book for each kid at the school book fair (they gave up something last month with the promise of a book from the book fair instead), Halloween costumes, groceries, medical bills, and toiletries. But we’re going to look for ways to save, substantially, in those areas too. So, its not actually spending ZERO, but its eliminating any unnecessary spending.

Follow our journey here where I’ll post each (okay, let’s be honest: most or whenever I get a chance to) days about how it’s going, what we’re doing, and tips for saving that we’re learning along the way. And if you want to join the challenge too, you can do that at the Living Well, Spending Less website.

Wish us luck & let me know if you’ll be participating too. I’d love to follow along with your journey or hear any tips if you’ve done this before.

Clutter Free Challenge: days 22-25

July 29, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Days 22-25 of the Clutter Free Challenge go together well for a single post. And since half of them were done previously and half of them were digital, there’s not too much to report on.

Day 22: Home Office Day 23: Bills/Paperwork

I already reports on this on the Master Bedroom day since my new home office resides in a corner of the bedroom and the setup is still working great for me. You’ll notice that underneath the little table is a file box. I keep all my paperwork in files inside and bill paying supplies right there. When new bills come in, they go all together and are easily pulled out to be paid once a week.

This is my new home office, tucked away in a corner.

Day 24: Digital Data Day 25: Photos

There is still much to do here but I consider these days accomplished since I spent several hours and have things in much better shape than they were before. I removed a ton of old files from my computer that I used in my old business and no longer need and cleared the computer desktop of so many icons that when I looked at it later I had a momentary panic that all my stuff was gone 😉 My husband, as a computer guy, is always frustrated at the messiness of that desktop so I had to show off to him and he said he’s never seen it so clean. We’ve backed up all photos onto an external drive and I’m in the process of sorting and getting them saved over to Dropbox. While I was at it, I also did some cleanup of my email inboxes and went from over 1500 unread messages to under 900; it’s amazing how good that lower number makes me feel.

Clutter Free Challenge: days 19-21

July 27, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Here’s days 19-21 of the Clutter Free Challenge!

Day 19: Children’s Paperwork/Artwork

My older kids are the only ones concerned with keeping their artwork so far. But even with just 2, I found it getting overwhelming! I gave each of them a binder to keep their favorite artwork pages in. It’s worked pretty well and every time that they pile something onto the counters I remind them that if they want to keep it, it needs to go into their binder. Today was a good day to clean through the binders a little bit and get the things hole punched that were in the pockets.

Day 20: Kids’ Bathroom Day & 21: Laundry & Linen Closet

The way our house is set up, the linen closet is a small closet in the kids’ bathroom. There wasn’t much clutter around the bathroom itself – just a potty training seat that was still out that’s not being used anymore and needed a good scrubbing and to be stored away under the sink plus a few items in the medicine cabinet to toss out. My big area of clutter is that linen closet. It was “mostly” well organized but had one shelf that needed to be completely emptied and reconfigured.

There was a basket I had used for the twins’ diapers and since they’re now potty trained I was able to re-purpose it to hold the swimming suits.
I use one of those plastic storage container with holes in it for the bath toys – got rid of a few of those that were looking moldy inside.
I keep a basket on the floor under the shelves for our dirty towels.
I used hospital tubs (free containers!) to organize my girls’ headbands & another one for small items like petroleum jelly, sunscreen, etc – I threw out a bunch of things. Why did I have so many little bottles of baby oil when I never use the stuff?
All shampoos and lotions were lined up on the side of a shelf so I can easily see what I have and when I’m running low.
Cleaning products that are used in the bathroom were put on the top shelf.
My sister in law made the awesome bow holder that hangs on the back of the door and is a great way to keep those organized and easy to see.

The rest of day 21: Laundry & Linen Closet

When we moved in, the previous owners left this great laundry setup. They have two white cubby shelves sitting on top of the standard over the laundry shelf. I keep a lot of my cleaning products here and have containers for cleaning cloths, etc. But the top of my washer and dryer had become a catch-all so I put all of those things away, wiped down surfaces, and got rid of a few cleaning products that I won’t use and we’re just taking up space. Don’t you just love my chevron boxes? I got those at Lowes a couple of years ago; some pretty containers always help a space!

Clutter Free Challenge: Day 18

July 23, 2015 by kim.milius@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Kids’ closets – day 18 of the Clutter Free Challenge. My kids’ closets are basically for clothing storage. Having more than one child of each gender and not being done having kids means lots and lots of clothes to store for hand-me-downs. The constant juggling of pulling out new clothes and putting away clothes that are too small or out of season for 5 kids just about drives me batty sometimes! Getting down boxes to put away one article of clothing at a time would just never happen, so I would toss them onto the closet shelf in a big mess. So, I still have my diaper boxes full of clothes that the younger kids need to grow in to but now I use open bins on the closet shelf to keep up with the piece by piece items that need to be removed from the closet when they get too small and for keeping the out of season items put away until we get back to that season again. I did the girls’ closet a couple of months ago and it has worked great. Now, I got to do the boys’ closet and I’m pretty happy with the improvement over how it functioned before. It wasn’t in the budget to get cute bins for the boys closet shelf so I used what I had on hand – some extra boxes from another area that was organized earlier in the month.