It's not a party without good cake, pretty balloons and a nice venue

I know it has been a while since I've posted and I'm so sorry! Between slinging food and liquor, having a sick baby that was in the beginning stages of RSV (thankfully she's much better), and (just night before last) having a pipe bust, I have been an EXTREMELY busy mommy.  Shug bought me a BEAUTIFUL new laptop and I will now be coming to you more often and so much easier!

This is a new type of entry I have decided to do.  I want to not only teach easier ways of living, but I want to cast some light on some (maybe) unsung small businesses in town, too.  I figured what better way to start that than with a post about a lifelong friend and my favorite party supply place.

SO, the first weekend of February, Bug and I planned and hosted my nephew's first birthday party.  (I LOVE to plan parties and am quite good at it).  We had the party at "Get Your Party Started" in Farmington, Mo and my amazing friend Jamie, made us an ADORABLE Octonauts cake.

Let's start this review with "Get Your Party Started".  "GYPS" is located at 116 W Liberty St in beautiful, downtown, Farmington.  They not only have an awesome party supply store but they have a party room, too!
Their store literally has anything you could need for parties from balloons and table clothes, to punch bowls, tuxedos and a photo booth. I love the fact that you can purchase just about ANY character, design, and/or color of ANY piece of your party that you could need.



There are literally decorations and balloons for EVERY occasion.  The only character I have yet to find there is Octonauts.  (Who could blame them? I had never even HEARD of the Octonauts until my brother decided on my nephew's birthday theme.)
I've bought balloons from them on more than one occasion. When my little sister graduated high school, I bought a HUGE balloon bouquet to tie to her car.  (Unfortunately, I don't have  picture of it because it was a couple of years ago.) I bought the nephew some balloons for his party, though.

I also bought him a LARGE mylar (they are my absolute FAVORITE balloons) number one.  Somehow, I didn't get a SINGLE picture of it (definite failure on my part). 

I honestly think that the very best part of the party supply store is the fact that they are SO reasonably priced.  I (think) I paid 9.99 for a dozen latex balloons, aired up, of course. 

Before little man's birthday party, I had made several purchases from "GYPS".  I had never actually been in the party room.  It was also extremely reasonable.  It has it's own entrance, it seats about 70 people (I'm not so sure how comfortable it would be), and it only costs $60.00 for three hours.  We also opted to rent a bounce house for an extra $25.00 (the kids LOVED it). We even had the option to rent a photo booth, but decided against it. We had a GREAT time.

 

 

I must admit, though.  The very best part of the entire party was my life-long friend's, cake creating skills. This is the SECOND cake I have ordered from her and they both tasted great and looked great, too!

Bug's Baby Shower Cake

Ryder's First Birthday







Ryder's Smash Cake

 

Jamie Moser is a stay at home mom of two beautiful kids.  She's SUPER talented! Not only is she a stay at home mom, she makes beautiful cakes and takes some pretty awesome photographs, too.  I've already told her this, but she is definitely my go-to for cakes.  I love a good excuse to have a party and it's not a party without good cake, pretty balloons and a nice venue :)

 

Jamie has made cakes for all different occasions: birthday parties, baby showers, bridal showers, etc

 You can reach Jamie Moser on Facebook: Jamie Kennard Moser

Check out "GYPS" on Facebook: Get Your Party Started

 



Floors SO clean, you could eat off of them

Keeping the floors clean at my house is nearly IMPOSSIBLE. Between muddy paws, a puking baby, harvested game, etc there's probably not anything that HASN'T been on my floors. I HATED having laminate flooring until a couple of years ago, I came across this magic homemade floor cleaner. I don't remember the original source now (I've been doing this for about three years) but Nature's Nurture  hit the nail on the head.  This is probably my most favorite DIY and I know several of you have been waiting on this post. I like this floor cleaner because it cleans VERY well (with little elbow grease), it dries quickly, it's EXTREMELY cheap and STREAK FREE. YES, STREAK FREE.

All you need is white vinegar, rubbing alcohol, water and about two drops (literally) of Dawn dish soap. Oh, and of course, your mop :)
I buy the store brand of everything, except Dawn of course. My mop brand is Libman.  It's tough and I like the fact that I can put anything in it that I want.

Yes, I'm aware that I need to do a post on baseboards and closet doors. Those will be another day. ;)

Now, let's get down to business! The mixture is really simple. It's equal parts water, vinegar, alcohol and about two drops of dish soap. The container on my Libman mop, has markings on it so I know how much to put in of each.

My before picture is TERRIBLE. Remember, the whole point of this blog is that I'm a BUSY, WORKING mom and wife. This floor needed mopped terribly. It is also the highest trafficked area in our house.

This floor was DIRTY. I ended up having to put a little more "oomph" behind my mop this time. Obviously, that was to be expected.
I mopped the whole floor and let it dry (Pepper & Bones both thought they were being tortured because I wouldn't let them out of the livingroom).

15 or 20 minutes later, the floor was CLEAN, DRY and STREAK FREE.

Here's the scoop behind this floor cleaner:
*White vinegar is a natural disinfectant

*Alcohol obviously is a disinfectant but also evaporates quickly and dries streak free

I will say this about this handy floor cleaner:

It does NOT smell good. It's basically alcohol mixed with vinegar watered down. I have never used essential oils before. You CAN add essential oils to this to make it smell a little better. It cleans so well, I don't care what it smells like.


I had never used this "recipe" on real tile and grout until today and it works JUST as well. I mopped the kitchen with nearly zero effort.

I hope you all love this as much as I do. Try it, let me know how it works for you!

Homemade Lysol "Wipes"

I don't know about you, but I would appreciate an endless amount of cleaning wipes. Having dogs, a child AND a HUSBAND around, make things a little messy. Even for those that don't live the active family lifestyle, there are still germs everywhere.

I woke up a few days ago with the urge to clean the house. Everyone has had some sort of bug in the past couple of weeks, so the house was due for a good scrub down. I didn't have any Lysol wipes and didn't want to buy any, considering the cost. (Especially, since I can go through a whole can in one good deep clean session.) At this point, I decided to make my own. I did some reading and found that most people use paper towels and/or toilet paper. Toilet paper?? REALLY?? Using either of these would've been just as expensive as I was afraid, so I had to come up with something else.

Shug (my amazing husband and best friend)(by the way, his name did NOT come from Honey Boo Boo. I had a Shug before Honey Boo Boo was born, I'm pretty sure) took me to the store and we decided what to buy. I came up with an empty wipe container, that I already had (obviously), a bottle of Lysol and an 18 pack of thin generic washcloths. I spent about $7.00 between the Lysol and washcloths.

Keep, in mind, this is the first time I've made these. With that being said, as we go along, I am going to tell you what I did; but, I'm ALSO going to tell you what I would do different, next time.


SO, after I got home, I got my washcloths, Lysol, wipe box and I got a measuring cup (next time, i'll add a bowl to this step).

I used about a half of a cup of Lysol and filled the rest of the measuring cup with water.

This is where the "next time, I'm going to...." points really begin.

I ended up using about 2 and a half cups of water with the half cup of Lysol. Next time, I plan on mixing the Lysol with the 2 and a half cups in a bowl (MAYBE, even a little less Lysol).

I put that to the side and started working on my washcloths and wipe box. I wanted to fold my cloths like Bug's (our daughter) wipes, but quickly figured out that my cloths were to big. I tried to fold the ends in to make them fit, but then I couldn't fit near enough in the box. Shug even offered a hand in helping, on this step. In the end I just put them in there. I ended up with six cloths in my box. 
Shug decided that the next time I do this, we need to put a little bit of the Lysol/water in the bottom in the box, before putting the cloths in. This time, I just put my cloths in and evenly poured the mixture over the top. After saturating them, I closed the lid and shook the box good and hard. 

After that, it was time to test them out! I had a microwave that we don't use and it needed cleaned. I figured there was no better test subject than a dirty microwave. 

Before (this is embarrassing)

Pretty dirty, right?? After only ONE cloth, I came up with this nice after picture.

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed and couldn't wait to get to the rest of the house. The first room I headed to was the upstairs bathroom. THAT would be the real test. Still, I was impressed. Generally, I use SEVERAL wipes on JUST the toilet, alone. With the washcloths I used ONE. I wiped the WHOLE toilet (not the inside, obviously) with ONE cloth. I couldn't believe it. I used another ONE on the sink. I wiped it from top to bottom, also. I didn't use them on the bathtub. That's a different post, for a different day.
 I only had one complaint, after cleaning the bathroom: my washcloths left fuzzies.  So, I'm going to fix that by washing ALL of my washcloths before doing this again.

This was a good cleaning project. It was quick, cost effective and simple. The washcloths were thicker than wipes. They lasted longer and gave me more scrubbing power when I needed it. I also used fewer cloths than I do wipes. 



I forgot to add the VERY. BEST. PART. 



You can put them in the washing machine and start over when you're finished! :)


Was this project effective?: you bet!
Will I do this again?: Absolutely!


Do you have a topic you would like me to do a post on? Leave me a comment and let me know!

My scalp is as dry as my humor...

It's wintertime.  For me, that means dry, itchy skin and scalp. My scalp was TERRIBLE. Terrible, to the point that I KNOW people were looking at me thinking, "This girl's dandruff is disgusting." SO, as soon as I could, I got in with my hair stylist for an emergency pick-me-up. My stylist and I have been very close friends for YEARS. She, of course, acted like my scalp issue wasn't THAT bad. (We all know she was just trying to keep from hurting my feelings.) She worked her magic and I was flake free........... 

.....

...

..

.

for a few days.

So, me being me, I headed straight to Pinterest and the internet. I knew that there had to be something I could do. I have naturally dry coarse hair, anyway. I came across something about Coconut Oil and had heard of it before. I figured, what the heck. It's not like things can get any worse. So, off to Walmart, I went. 

I came home with a 14 oz jar of Coconut Oil and a package of three shower caps (three, just in case I decided to do this again). I got a bowl and a spoon out of the kitchen and headed for the bathroom.

I put a couple of spoon-fulls of coconut oil in the bowl and added just a few drops of water (LITERALLY, a few drops) to make the oil a little more manageable. Coconut oil nearly has the consistency of Crisco, so without the water it would've been a little difficult to work with. After mixing it in good, I got down to business. 

I parted my hair in sections and smeared the oil into my scalp. My itchy, burning scalp INSTANTLY had some relief. I have shoulder-length relatively thick hair and used about half of the 14 oz jar. I paid extra special attention to my hair line and my crown where the itching was the worst. After I had my whole scalp covered, I pinned all of my hair up and put a shower cap on. 

At first, I guess, from the heat that was trapped under the cap, my head starting leaking. Yes, I said leaking. I dripped oil. It got pretty messy (and gross) so I wrapped toilet paper around the elastic on my shower cap and a put plastic sack over my cap. It pretty much controlled the dripping and running. I left my cap on for about three hours. When my three hours was over, I shampooed and conditioned my hair one time. Most of the internet research I did, said to shampoo twice. My hair is naturally extremely dry. If you have normal hair, I would DEFINITELY shampoo twice. 

Because my hair is so dry, I don't wash it every day. I wash it two or three times a week. It is NOT manageable. I ALWAYS have frizz and flyaways. I can honestly say, after this treatment, I was FLAKE AND ITCH FREE and my hair was more manageable.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Of course, she was flake and frizzy free immediately after, she put grease on her head!"

 I am two weeks into this experiment (with still only having done the ONE, ORIGINAL treatment) and still have ZERO flakes and my hair is STILL actually soft and manageable. 

Do I find this treatment effective? : Absolutely

Will I do this again? : Absolutely

Try this and let me know what YOU think!

The picture below is TWO WEEKS after my original treatment.

Hello!?! Is this thing on!?!

Hi, there! My name is Alicia. I'm a 25 year old hard working, Batman loving, coffee drinking, table serving God fearing wife and mother. The husband and I have been married nearly seven fantastic years and just had our first baby. She's almost four months old. I enjoy playing with my beautiful baby girl, drinking coffee, crocheting, raising our two Pit Bulls and being outside. I enjoy all of these things, but I enjoy doing these things as cheap as I possibly can.

 Life is expensive,  especially when you throw a baby into the mix. I make every attempt possible to do things as frugally as possible. That could mean: reusing/recycling, making products at home, clipping coupons, etc. I mostly like to make things at home. When I make things at home, I know EXACTLY what is in the product I'm using. If I know exactly what is in the product, I know exactly what my family is being exposed to. 

I was raised by women that made the greatest attempt at saving money. Let's be honest, my Granny had five children and my own mom had four. They didn't have a lot of choice. Now, that I have my own family, I am SO grateful that their money saving practices were passed down to me. They taught me the TRUE value of a dollar and I make every attempt to stretch it.

I've always stretched my dollar. Recently, I've had SEVERAL people ask me the outcome of this homemade project, or how did I do that, or can I make this... I figured, why not put all of my projects into ONE, easy to find, ORGANIZED place. By creating a blog, ANYONE can look for ideas and I don't have to repeat my outcome 47,779,087 times. I'll be sharing husband/wife projects, recipes, crochet patterns, homemakes etc. I enjoy helping people. Let me help you, help your family! If you have ANY blog entry ideas, Facebook message or email me (aliciakeads@gmail.com) . I would love to hear them! 

I hope my family and I entertain and help you out. Happy crafting! :)