Keto Sausage Balls - Success

As all of my close friends will tell you, I love making sausage balls for special occasions.   Truth is, I don't even need a special occasion to make them.  My children love them, family members love them, and I love them.

When I started this diet, I looked around on Pinterest for things I could make that would be "like carbs." I stumbled upon this sausage balls recipe from Keto Size Me.

I went out, bought Almond Flour, and decided to try the recipe -  and it works!  My son ate 5 of these the other day.  (Now I can tell you that they don't taste exactly like the Bisquick version- but they are a good substitute)

Here's what you should do:

Gather all of the ingredients.  For this recipe, you need a pound of sausage (we like the spicy sausage best), almond flour, butter, an egg, parmesan cheese, bag of sharp cheddar cheese, baking powder, and salt. 

What the recipe link above doesn't tell you is whether to brown the sausage before you add it to the mixture you make.  I always brown my sausage first - even with the Bisquick recipe.

Mix up your egg, butter, salt, and baking powder first.  Then add your almond flour, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, and sausage.  Mix well.  The pic below is what your mixture should look like before you turn it into balls.

Then use a large spoon and your fingers to make the sausage balls and put them on a butter lined baking sheet.  Cook at 350 for 16-20 minutes. 

Let me know if you try it and if you like it.  This is one recipe that I plan to repeat. 

The Keto Diet

I recently decided to go on a diet.  I haven't been on one since I was in high school, and I have been hearing good things about the Keto diet from friends (including my good friend Kelley -- more on that later).

For those who haven't heard of the Keto diet, it's like Adkins on crack.  There is a state of the body called Ketosis, where your body actually runs off fat instead of sugar.  To do a Keto diet, you have to cut all carbs and sugar from what you eat.  It is not for the faint of heart.

Now, those who know me well will tell you that I am a Mountain Dew-aholic, and I eat carbs all the time (I mean, who doesn't?).  I really think I can do this though, and it will hopefully make me feel a little better (more energy please...).  

I have now been on the diet exactly two weeks, and I have tried some very interesting Keto recipes from Pinterest.  My next few blog posts will be about those that worked well, and those you shouldn't waste your time on (if you are on this diet).

I told myself that I would do this diet for a month and then check my results.  I will post my results on May 19th.  If I haven't lost any weight, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be heading over to a donut shop.  If I have though, I plan to keep this up for a while.

I hope you enjoy the next few posts.  Let's hope I can keep this up ;)

School Supplies -- Should I Order a Coursepack or Buy Items Myself?

My little girl heads off to Kindergarten this year -- which means that it is the first time I have been faced with buying school supplies.  At our Kindergarten orientation, we were given a school supply list, as well as a note about how we could order from their in-house system called EPI Packs.  Here's what the Kindergarten list contained:

Elmer's Glue 4 oz (4)
No 2 Yellow Pencils (12)
Plastic School Box (1)
Crayola Crayons (4)
Facial Tissue (1)
Blunt Scissors (1)
12x18 Solid 50 CT Construction Paper (2)
12x18 Bright White 50CT Construction Paper (2)
Blue Plastic Pocket Folder
Red Plastic Pocket Folder
8x10 Ruled Spiral Notebook Red BL 36 CT (2)
Spiral Wide Ruled Notebook
Expo chisel Tim Dry Erase Markers 4-pack (2)
Elmer's Small Glue Stick (2)
12x18 Manila Paper 50 CT
Pink Bevel Eraser (2)

For those of you who have know me a long time, you have probably followed me in the past on my money saving blog, The Clearance Chick. When I found out that the price of these items was $46 from the school, I looked at the list and thought to myself "I know I can find this stuff cheaper than that."  In the past, I have helped numerous people find super cheap school supplies (like crayons for a quarter or erasers for a penny.  Surely those deals still exist, right?

So, I decided to try my luck at buying these items myself and seeing how much money I could save. I didn't really go to lots of stores -- only two (Office Depot and Walmart). Here were my prices:

Elmer's Glue 4 oz (4) - $.50 each
No 2 Yellow Pencils (12) - $1
Plastic School Box (1) - $0.47
Crayola Crayons (4) - $0.25 *Office Depot Special*
Facial Tissue (1) - Free
Blunt Scissors (1) - $2.47
12x18 Solid 50 CT Construction Paper (2) - $3.95 each
12x18 Bright White 50CT Construction Paper (2) - $3.95 each
Blue Plastic Pocket Folder - $.41
Red Plastic Pocket Folder - $.41
8x10 Ruled Spiral Notebook Red BL 36 CT (2) - $3.29 each
Spiral Wide Ruled Notebook - $.17
Expo chisel Tim Dry Erase Markers 4-pack (2) - $5
Elmer's Small Glue Stick (2) - Free
12x18 Manila Paper 50 CT - $.97
Pink Bevel Eraser (2) - $1

Total price: $37.28
*note: the glue sticks were free, as were the facial tissue -- simply because we already had them at our house -- but you could get these for an additional $2 (with no sale) - meaning that the total would be $39.28

This means that saved about $9 by buying these items myself.  I can then use that money on school fundraisers. 

My Advice
So -- if your child likes shopping for their own school supplies, I'd suggest buying them on your own -- even at Walmart (it will be cheaper).  If you do even more comparison shopping, you can get these items even cheaper.  But if you don't have a lot of spare time and don't want to deal with trying to find deals on school supplies, I'd suggest buying the school pack.

Tie-Dye Pinterest Inspired T-shirts (Mickey Mouse)

I'm betting that I'm not the only hippy at heart that sees tie-dye projects on Pinterest and geeks out about it.  Recently I was scrolling through some "recommended posts" and came across a cool idea -- Mickey Mouse tie-dye shirts.  Awesome! 

The blogger over at Mouse and the Monorail suggested it was easy -- so I decided to give it a whirl. 


Since I was already tie-dying some Mickey shirts -- why not dye a few more?  I also decided to try my hand at a patriotic shirt and a sunburst shirt.




Now not everything I did was up to the standards on the Mouse and the Monorail, or any of the other Pinterst pages.  For instance -- I didn't soak our shirts in ash before dying them.  I actually didn't soak them in anything at all. Ok... here's what I did -- and how they turned out.




First -- I bought some white t-shirts at Michaels.  I also bought some Tulip tie-dye paints. These come in various colors -- and various sizes.  I have one package that I didn't use for this post that has two bottles, and one other set that has 6.  For this project, I used one that had three bottles. 

Inside the Tulip container -- you will find plastic gloves and some rubber bands.




Pinocchio Alert -- I'd like to give 4 Pinocchio's to Tulip.  First, there's no way there was enough dye in the four bottles to do 9 projects.  Second, there's not enough rubber bands in the kits to do 9 projects.  More on that in a bit.




Ok - to do the Mouse shirt, first you need to print off a template.  I used the one I found here.

Cut out the template.

Put the template on your shirt and outline it.  I used a pencil for this part.  *my daughter wanted to take pictures of this whole process*

Then grab dental floss and a needle.  You need to thread the dental floss through the needle (trust me here) and then sew the outline of the Mickey design. 

Now -- here's something they might don't tell you on Pinterest -- dental floss can have knots in it! See the picture above. The first time I tried to do this, I had a piece of floss that had a knot -- and there was no way it was going to work for this project.  I had to start again.

Once you are finished outlining the Mouse -- pull it tight and pucker the Mouse piece upwards. this is the piece that you will dye whatever color you want your Mouse to be.  Put a rubber band around it. 

The blogger at the Mouse and the Monorail dyed hers in a circle design.  We decided to do a spiral design.  To do so, lay the shirt flat -- then take the middle piece that is sticking up (your Mouse) and start twirling it around and around until you have something that looks like a cinnamon bun.


Take three of the rubber bands and put them around your cinnamon bun

Another "fabulous" pic of me dying our shirts.  My daughter was adamant on taking these pics - although I look like a hot mess.

Then the dying begins...... follow the instructions (it only takes water), and have fun.  We bagged up our shirts when we were finished and left them for about 18 hours.

Then we took off the rubber bands, pulled out the dental floss, ran them under water until the water ran clear, and washed them in the washing machine with hot water, detergent, and a color catcher.


Our finished product:

Here are a few others we dyed as well:


 

Patriotic

Sunburst

Letting them all dry on our stairs

And here we are modeling our new Mickey shirts!  I hope you have enjoyed this project -- and that my tips are useful.  Happy tie-dying!

How to get rid of fruit flies

Yes... I'm posting about a really gross topic: fruit flies.

Last week we were having new flooring installed on the first floor of our home -- but that meant that all of our furniture was pushed into our kitchen, breakfast nook, and patio.  This also meant that we really couldn't use our kitchen for a few days.

Before this project happened, we had purchased a bunch of fruit.  After the flooring was finished and things started to be put back where they belong, we were left with a bunch of fruit flies in our kitchen.  Yuck!

My daughter really wanted rid of them quickly (she's got this thing about flying insects -- and to be honest, I don't blame her), and so I did what I usually do and that's turn to Pinterest to see if I could come up with a way to trap them/kill them.

There were some cool ideas.

A few people said to use vinegar and dish soap.  I thought that sounded like a great idea -- but I didn't have any vinegar (darn!).

Instead, my daughter and I did the following -- and it worked!

Take a mason jar.  We used one that a friend of mine gave me a few years ago that she had decorated for a project.
Put a piece of fruit in the bottom.  The nastier the fruit -- the better (or so I believe).  We had some ruined bananas -- perfect!
Take a piece of paper and make a cone out of it. Place it in the jar.
Then tape around the jar opening and the paper (making it seal together).
Voila!

Immediately my daughter noticed flies swarming around our jar.

We left it overnight and in the morning had a nice little jar of fruit flies.  We then took them outside, where they belong.

I'm putting this Pinterest project in the "it works!" file.

Valentine's Day Printables

I love free printables for the following reasons:
1.  They are free.
2.  They are easy.
3.  Did I mention, they are free?


For Valentine's Day over the past few years, I have tried to do something a little non-traditional for the kids at the school where my children attend.  Here are some of my favorites.

For 1 year olds: Apple-Sauce Packets! 
Yes.... kids that age love the little squeezables.  I came across this idea on Pinterest and HAD to do it for my son's friends last year.


Here's the printable.  All you need are the packets, the printables, a hole punch, and some ribbon.  Voila!

For 3-4 year olds: Bubbles!!
A friend of mine got married last year and had a ton of bottles of bubbles left over.  She gave me some and I knew I had to reuse them for this cool Valentine's Day project.


Here's the printable!  We printed these on pink paper to make it more festive.  Then we tied small bottles of bubbles to each card.  Don't forget the hole punch and ribbon :)

Final project: EOS lip balm valentines!

We did these for the teachers.

Here's the printable.  All you need to do is print these and then cut out the center ball.  Take the lip balm apart and carefully attach it to the card. 



Christmas Card Bunting

Those who know me personally will tell you that I like to collect things, especially things that are sentimental.  Well, Christmas cards are one of those things.  I've collected Christmas cards for the past 10 years, and the stack kept getting larger and larger.  So.... I checked on Pinterest for things to do with them.  I came across a Christmas card wreath and turning the cards into gift tags, but neither of those projects made me that excited.

I decided to come up with my own way to reuse them, and here's what I did.

Presenting: Christmas Card Bunting!

I keep all of my Christmas cards together in one of our Christmas decoration boxes.  This year, when I got to that box, I put them aside so I could do something with them.  I've seen lots of birthday bunting ideas on Pinterest, so I decided to try my own little project.

First, my daughter and I split up our cards into piles that were the same size.

I couldn't turn off my "social scientist" during this exercise, and so during this part, I noticed a few things about the cards I've received.  First, people seem to be drawn to the same size cards each year.  Those who send small cards tend to send small cards the next year.  Also, people tend to be creatures of habit when it comes to the type of cards they send.  For instance, there are people who have sent me cards that say "Peace" on them each year.  Others send sparkly cards each year.

After you split your cards into piles, find the biggest pile.  Cut a triangle out of your card using one end as the top of the future bunting.  Next, take that piece and use it as a guide in terms of cutting out all of the other cards.  I also wrote the name of the person who sent the card on the back of each triangle.

After you have all your cards cut out in the same shape -- get a hole puncher and punch holes at the top corners of each card piece.

Grab some ribbon (I got mine at Michaels in the Christmas section and it was 60% off).  Since I already know that I plan to add to this craft each year, I bought a few rolls, you might want to do that as well.

Next - cut a 3-inch section of ribbon, and tie the two cards together.

Repeat until you use up all of your cards.

 

I hope you enjoyed this project!