frugal - SubEarthan Cottage

Posted on May 2, 2023April 28, 2023 by Charity — Leave a comment

Never Ending Upcycled Chaos Candle Making

I love candles and wax melts, but I hate it when there’s a little left in the bottom of a jar or the wax has lost it’s scent. I don’t want to just throw the wax away. If it’s a jar candle, I won’t throw it a way, so it ends up taking up space waiting for me to find a new use for it.

I’ve always been interested in candle making, but I honestly don’t know much about the correct way to do it. This is just my, for me, kind of chaotic, fun way of using up the leftover wax scraps and jars. If you try to join in my chaos, always take care with the melting, pouring and burning, make sure everything you use is safe for this usage and never leave anything burning or melting unattended.

My solution is to melt down the wax and make my own candles in the old jars. I bought this wick set for the wicks. I start by picking the jar I want to use and then putting in the same number of wicks that were originally in the jar.

Chaos layered perpetual never-ending upcycled candles candle making — My candles still need a haircut. 😀

For the candles in the above photo, the one on the left was originally a three wick candle, so it got three wicks. The one on the right was a yogurt jar, so I just guessed and went with one wick.

After the wicks are in place, I melt down any scrap wax I have and pour it in. Usually, I do this a little at a time as I finish other candles, rather than all at once. That gives it the cool sand art layered look.

With jar candles, to get the last bit of wax out, if I don’t pour it while it’s still melted from the last time I burned the candle, I set the jar on my coffee warmer (do not leave it unattended!). Wax melts just get melted as usual and poured into the jar.

I do try to keep the candles mostly the same type of wax. In the photo, the big candle on the left is made from candle wax ends. The yogurt jar candle is made of soy wax melts with a little of the tea light wax remnants added.

Tea light candle wax warmer — My one tea light warmer.

For scent, most of the candles I burn are in the same spicy or vanilla scent family. Since the leftover candle wax usually has a good bit of scent left, I don’t worry about adding my own. With the wax melts, I either just leave them as they are and have a mild to unscented candle, or I add a drop or two of an essential or fragrance oil to each layer as I pour it.

I don’t know if my chaos candle making method will help anyone else, but I have fun with it, and the resulting candles are pretty. It’s also a way to reduce waste and save money.

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Posted on April 25, 2023April 25, 2023 by Charity — 1 Comment

Six Tips for Going Gluten Free on a Budget

Many people eat gluten free (g-free, gf), either by choice or need. For those with celiac, eliminating gluten is an absolute necessity. Others find that, for one reason or another, they feel better when they avoid it. In my case, I kind of accidentally discovered that joint pain in my hands and feet go away and I’m less brain foggy when I avoid gluten. Other family members suffer from breakouts and rashes that flare whenever they eat something with gluten. I strongly believe that if you feel bad after eating something, you should probably stop eating it, so we do our best to avoid gluten all together.

Eliminating something that is such a big part of your diet is daunting at first, but there are a few things that can make the transition easier and less expensive. These tips focus on gluten, but many will also help if you need to eliminate other foods.

1. Start with real foods

Processed foods often have hidden fillers and ingredients, and specialty gluten free foods are expensive. In contrast, fruits, vegetables, meat, nuts, beans, eggs and dairy are naturally gluten free in their pure forms. Rice is a grain that does not contain gluten. Starting from scratch with real food ingredients that you know naturally don’t have gluten is often easier and definitely cheaper than scrutinizing food labels and buying special gluten free versions of normally wheat based foods.

2. Go simple with seasonings

For the most part, single herbs and spices are gluten free. Certain spice blends may have gluten, though. Making your own blends is the safest bet, but if you have a spice blend you love, most manufacturer websites list whether their products contain gluten.

While not technically an herb or spice, most soy sauce contains gluten. La Choy is a major brand that is made without gluten. Bragg’s liquid aminos are another form of g-free soy sauce.

Most vinegar is g-free. Malt vinegar is not. You’ll also want to check the label on flavored vinegar to be sure.

Cooking oils don’t have gluten unless seasoned with something containing gluten.

3. Find your current gluten free staples

Look at the foods that currently stock your pantry. What things that you buy are already gluten free? For us, we usually keep a box or two of cereal around for snacking or a quick breakfast. Most cereals are made with wheat and therefore have gluten, but some that we already bought, like Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Rice Chex are gluten free. Knowing that, I can continue to keep a box or two of cereal we already liked on hand.

Likewise, we keep tortilla chips on hand for snacking or nachos. Most tortilla chips don’t have gluten and inexpensive. Since gluten free crackers are both hard to find and usually expensive, tortilla chips are an easy cracker substitute as well.

4. Look for the easy substitute

Like substituting tortilla chips for crackers, there are other easy swaps. Corn tortillas usually don’t have gluten and can be substituted for flour tortillas. Rice is often a good substitute for pasta, or substitute rice noodles. If you have an Asian grocery nearby, you can usually find rice noodles there for cheaper than a mainstream supermarket, as well as leafy greens and spices for cheap.

5. Make it yourself

It’s fairly easy to find gluten-free flour now, so making your own gluten free cookies, pizza crusts, pancakes, breads, etc. is a good option. I love Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour. With it, I can continue to make my favorite deserts just by substituting it for wheat flour. There are other good gluten free flours on the market, too. The most important thing is to know if it is blended to be an exact 1 to 1 substitute or if you need to add something like xanthan gum to give it the stretchiness and rise that you usually get from gluten. For example, Bob’s Red Mill has an All Purpose Gluten Free Flour that is not the 1 to 1 blend. It is a little denser and does not have xanthan gum already blended. I like blending it with tapioca flour, which adds some stretchiness. That works well for things like gluten free flour tortillas. For things that need to rise, though, like cakes or breads, I also add xanthan gum if I’m using the all purpose and not the 1 to 1 blend.

6. When buying gluten free, shop around

Sometimes you really just want to get some gluten free penne pasta or a g-free bagel. More and more grocery stores regularly stock g-free pastas, breads and desserts, but they can be pricey. If you find them on sale, stock up and freeze the extras. Alternative grocery stores sometimes offer better prices, too. Aldi has a decent selection of g-free breads, pastas, and baking mixes at a lower price than most other stores. I even found some gluten free donuts there recently.

Locally, we have a surplus/discount/closeout grocery store called Town Talk. They frequently have udi’s bread in the range of two loaves for $3.00. I periodically stop in and stock up when I can.

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Posted on January 20, 2021January 19, 2021 by Charity — Leave a comment

Easy, Flexible Meal Planning Lists for Stress-free Meals

Meal planning takes away the daily stress of deciding what’s for dinner. I’ve never done well with creating weekly menus by day, though. With a set schedule, I sometimes felt like I had to make what’s on the menu, rather than finish up the leftovers first. Silly, I know. Then there were the days that ended up busier than expected and I either didn’t have time to make the planned meal or I was too tired by the time dinner rolled around and needed something simpler.

The solution I’ve found to traditional menu-style meal planning is making meal lists. Not only does it offer day by day flexibility, it makes it easier to work in sale items, saving money at the grocery store.

For us, breakfast and lunch are usually either made from the same basic staples or leftovers, so I only use my lists for dinner. You can easily use the same method for all meals, if you like.

Meal Planning Lists

Step 1: Make a Master List

Start by writing down all your favorite meals to make. This isn’t the time to pull out cookbooks or look for recipes online. You want this to be a brain dump of your go-to meals. I would aim for at least 10-14, but a bigger list gives you more variety. If you don’t have that many to start, don’t worry. You can always add to this list later.

You can leave your master list as-is, or sort it into categories such as grouping it by the type of protein, ease of prep, cook time or type of appliance used if you have lots of Instant Pot or slow cooker meals. My list is just one big list.

You could also make note of what sides you like to serve with each dish, but I usually add them later.

Step 2: Decide what types of meals you need for the week

For this step, consider things like what you have on hand that you need to use up, what’s on sale and how busy you’ll be during the week. If you know you’ll be eating out any days, make note of that, too. I don’t usually make a list for this step, but if it’s a busy week you might want to make some notes.

Step 3: Make your meal list for the week

Consider the things from step 2 and pick 5-7 meals for the week from your master list. I like to cook things like big pots of soup or chili at least once a week, so I know leftovers will take care of one or two days, so I usually make a list of five. If your meals won’t include leftovers, you’ll want to list seven, or as many days as you’ll be eating at home.

This is where I consider sides and make note of them alongside the meals I plan to make.

If you’re looking to expand your master list or just want to try something new, you can add a new recipe as one of your meals and make note of the cookbook or other source. Once you’ve tried it, if you like it, add it to your master list.

While I don’t add these to my list, I like to keep staples for one or two really quick backup meals on hand at all times. You can read more about this here. If this is new to you, you’ll want to consider picking a backup meal or two before moving on to the next step.

Step 4: Make your shopping list

Make a shopping list from your weekly meal list, including sides and staples for your backup meal, if you don’t already have one. From your list, shop your pantry then grocery shop for everything else you need.

Step 5: Using your list

If one meal relies on lots of fresh produce or other time-sensitive food, you’ll want to make it early in the week. Likewise, if one day is busy and you have one slow cooker or really simple meal on the list, you’ll want to save it for that day. Otherwise, you know you have everything to make all the meals on your weekly list, so pick whichever one you like for now and one for next. Picking your “next” gives you time to thaw out or presoak anything needed for that meal. Every day, think about what meal you want to be next and do the necessary prep. If that day’s meal has lots of leftovers, you can use them as your “next” and push the rest of the week’s meals down.

Each meal you make gets checked off the list. At the end of the week, if there’s anything not checked off, add that meal to next week’s list.

Customize Your Meal Planning Lists

Planning one week at a time works best for me because that’s about the longest we can go without needing to restock staples. If two weeks at a time works for you, make your list 10-14 meals instead of 5-7. Repeats are fine if you want or need.

If you want to be super organized, turn your master list into index cards with one meal and all the ingredients listed on each card. You can even make them full blown recipe cards, which is helpful if someone else does some of the meal prep or it’s a new recipe. Sort them into whatever categories work best for you, then pick out your 5-7 meal cards for the week. Now your grocery list is as simple as copying the ingredients from the cards.

Background image by Goumbik from Pixabay

Posted on September 14, 2013 by

T-Shirt to TV Pants

I went on a little Pinterest binge a couple days ago looking for ideas to help clear my refashion stash. Saturday night I decided to make a pair of yoga pants out of a t-shirt using this tutorial. I wear a size eight on average, and used an XL adult t-shirt.

I did make a few changes to the design. First, instead of cutting the shirt down the middle, I cut it down the sides from the middle of the underarm to the hem. This also means you’ll have an inseam and no side seams. That keeps any design on the front or back intact and moves them to the hips. For the waistband, I cut the underarm seam from the sleeves and squared them up to be two equal rectangles, leaving the hem intact. I sewed the short sides together making a big, short tube from the sleeves. I then put the tube inside the waist of the pants with the pants right side out and the right side of the tube facing the inside of the pants. The raw edge of the tube lines up with the raw edge of the pants. I serged the top together like that. This made it so when the tube is folded down to the outside, the seam is covered.

Sorry for the awkward pictures. No one was around to take the pictures and Doctor Who was about to start.

I sewed it all on my serger and it took less than ten minutes. I probably should have added two minutes and switched from white to black thread. Or not.

They are a little loose at the waist. If I were planning to actually do yoga or wear them in public I should probably add some elastic at the seam. Since they will probably be used mainly for watching Doctor Who while sitting on the sofa, I probably won’t bother.

T-Shirt to TV Pants was originally published on SubEarthan Cottage

Category: frugal