Saving Money by Decorating Your Own Cakes

Little Miss Sunshine just celebrated her fourth birthday, and like the previous few years I made her cake. I could have spent a lot of money buying one, but why? Now, I don't claim to be a professional at all, but I do enjoy it. I'm learning new things and saving money.

For LMS's second birthday, I made a Finding Nemo cake.  That was a lot of fun, but all the icing work made my hand cramp.

Last year I made a castle cake to go along with the Cinderella theme. This one got away from me a bit and didn't turn out quite how I originally planned, but it still turned out well. I was planning and preparing a birthday party and a graduation party at the same time, so I had to know when to say when. That's something I'm working on- trying to squash my perfectionist tendancies and not stressing when things aren't exactly how I planned.

We had a graduation party for Mr S the same day we had LMS's birthday party. I made a cake for that one also. We had a lot of cake after these parties....

I also made these little chocolate hats out of Reese's cups, Ghirardelli squares, mini Reese's Pieces, and a dab of frosting. So easy, and so yummy!

I really like how fondant-covered cakes look, so this year I decided to give it a go. I made a simple purple polka dot cake and was encouraged by the result. I made a marshmallow fondant, then colored it with different amounts of purple coloring. I really like how the cake turned out- the only thing I'd change is to buy a small round metal cookie cutter to cut the polka dots. I used a knife and traced around a pill bottle, which got the job done, but wasn't as precise as I'd like. I love the shades of purple- so pretty!

One draw back of the fondant is that it doesn't taste good. I keep seeing people say that marshmallow fondant tastes better than regular fondant, but I wasn't impressed with the flavor of the marshmallow fondant. LMS ate half the fondant on hers, Mr S and I peeled it off. If anyone knows of a fondant that actually tastes good, let me know! I think I'll try adding some flavoring to the fondant next time.

While I did spend money on the materials and supplies, they cost less than a store-bought sheet cake, and significantly less than a specialty cake like the ones I've made. Are my cakes perfect? No. But just because a professional makes them, doesn't mean they look professional. Don't believe me? Check out Cake Wrecks.

Since we're now gluten free, the cake I made was gluten free. While gluten free bakeries are popping up all over, their products aren't cheap. By making my own gluten free cakes I save even more. My birthday is coming up in June and I'll be able to do some more experimenting. I'll try some flavored fondant, more precise cake shaping, and cookie cutters for shapes. I love learning new things!

Green Smoothies

Between eating gluten free and being more frugal, we've been changing up our usual meal plans. This means minimal amounts of processed foods and more produce. We've been trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies into our diets, but not with the greatest success.

I've seen quite a few people blog about green smoothies, and thought it sounded interesting, though also slightly gross. Since I recently bought a bunch of kale, I thought I'd try some green smoothies. Since a key ingredient seems to be kale, why not?

The first day I made them I used some kale, some spinach, some frozen blueberries, some frozen bananas (peeled and frozen the night before), some frozen pineapple (chopped up frozen the night before), and some water.

I wasn't sure how all that would turn out, but our blender had no problem pureeing it all- even the stems on the kale. I love our blender- it's a Kitchenaid and sooo much better than the cheap blender we got when we were first married. The smoothie looked rather gross- greenish/purple, but was actually quite sweet. Ever had Odwalla's Green Super Food juice? It was similar to that.

LMS looked at it with suspicion, as did Mr S and I, but we told her it was a pineapple (her favorite!) smoothie (which it was, there was just other stuff in there too), and she dug right in. Once we tasted it, Mr S and I decided it was good and drank it all down.

The second day, I got a little over-zealous with the spinach and kale, while reducing the amount of fruit. I used a frozen banana, a few chunks of frozen pineapple, 8 or 9 fresh blueberries that were starting to get wrinkly, and half an apple (cored because I really didn't want to drink pureed apple seeds). The end result was a lot less sweet, and a lot thicker and pulpy-er than yesterday's smoothie. LMS and Mr S were not nearly as enthusiastic about drinking them today (and neither was I, truth be told, but I set a good example anyway).

The third day our smoothies consisted of kale, spinach, banana, pineapple, some strawberries that were on their way out, and some mini carrots. It was much better than day two's smoothies.

I'm having fun throwing stuff in the blender and seeing how it turns out. I think I'll try some cabbage tomorrow... I also want to try adding flax seed, hemp protein and other healthy add-ins.

Does anyone else make green smoothies? Any ingredient suggestions?

Agave Nectar and a Giveaway

I've used agave nectar over the last year or so, after a dietician told me that it is low on the glycemic index and won't give me a sugar rush, but I've mostly used it to sweeten plain yogurt. On a couple occasions I've used it in chocolate peanut butter rice crispy treats with good results. I love chocolate and peanut butter, but that recipe calls for corn syrup, which always gives me a bad sugar rush. I don't remember having a reaction when I used agave nectar.

My most recent experiment was gluten free granola, sweetened with agave nectar (post to come).

Sheri over at Green & Crunchy is giving away a bottle of Xagave and a recipe book. I'd love to try the recipes and see the difference between Xagave and the brand of agave nectar I've bought in the past. Sure hope I win! Check out her post on Xagave nectar and all the ways she used it. They all sound yummy! Now I need to buy a dehydrator....

Kale Chips

We're trying to eat healthier and buy less junk and more produce. This is a process since we're not used to eating lots of produce and we do like our junk food.

I've read about kale chips on various blogs, but I thought they sounded rather gross. However, I tried some at the farmers' market last week, and they're actually quite good! We went back to the stand that had kale and bought some to flat leaf kale to experiment with.  I also bought some curly leaf kale at the grocery store.

The flat leaf that I bought at the farmer's market:

The curly leaf that I bought at the grocery store:

I washed and dried the kale using my salad spinner, then tore them into small pieces.

I then drizzled olive oil, salt and seasonings over the kale and massaged the oil and seasonings in.

I spread the kale on cookie sheets.

And baked at 350 for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes the flat leaf kale looked like this, so I think less time would have been better.

The curly leaf kale wasn't all crispy, so I left it in for a few more minutes. I'm not sure how much the different cookie sheets affected the outcomes, but I'm sure the stoneware slowed the cooking time on the curly leaf kale.

It's hard to tell, but these leaves are nice and crispy!

The verdict:
The flat leaf kale ended up super crispy and brown. I'm not sure if this was strictly because of the pan I used, or because of the variety of kale.

The curly leaf kale turned out better, but the larger pieces didn't crisp up as well- they took longer to cook. Next time I'll make sure all the pieces are smaller.

Less is more with the oil. I initially thought I didn't have enough oil, but went with what I'd seen others do and didn't add more. After cooking, the kale chips were a bit oily, so I definitely could have used less oil and still have had good results.

I'm going to make them again, but I'll do just one pan at a time, and I'll use less oil and more seasonings. One of the recipes I found said to mist the olive oil on- that's an idea to try, if I ever get an olive oil mister.

Have you tried kale chips? What did you think?

Boxes and Boxes of Stuff

I just noticed it's been more than a week since I last posted.

a fraction of our many boxes

I've been busy sorting and then listing stuff on craigslist, and getting ready to list other things on ebay. It's definitely a process, and one that's taking longer than I would like, but I'm getting rid of clutter and making money from it. I'm trying not to overwhelm myself by trying to do too much at one time, but it does slow things down. However, if I wasn't going this slow it would be much more difficult to decide what to get rid of and I'd end up keeping too much stuff.

As I unpacked, the stuff that didn't have an immediate use/place to go got dumped in the library/guest room. It ended up very full of stuff. I've worked my way through most of it now, and am looking forward to finishing it.

Once I get rid of the things I listed on craigslist (and that are currently sitting in the front room and the play/craft room and library/guest room) we'll have room for the furniture that we're building.

Once the furniture is built I can organize the stuff we kept.

Once I feel organized, I can think about actually decorating. I've never really decorated any of the places we've lived- they were all rentals and our budget was way too tight to buy extras like decorations. We're still in a rental and we still have a tight budget, but I do at least have some creative juices back. Being gluten free has made a huge difference in the state of my brain- not having a perma-fog brain makes a huge difference in so many areas of my life- more creativity, more able to handle stress, more able to get things done.

I've already started a list of things I want to do, but I'm making myself wait till I get the sorting and purging done: further incentive to get it done quickly. I can't wait to get started making our house look like a home.

Thinking and living frugally

Lately I've been searching for more frugal blogs to read and inspire me. Some of them are local ones that have the local grocery deals, others aren't local but have other useful information.

As I read these blogs, I've been thinking more about couponing. I've been printing out some coupons, but the vast majority are for things I can't eat or for overly processed foods, or for toiletries or cleaners that I can't use because of the chemicals. The sales ads seem to be for a lot of the same things.

I find this a bit discouraging because I'd like to be able to coupon and buy on sale and get great deals. On the other hand, I'm not buying cheaply-made, full-of-preservatives food. We're spending our money on food with fewer ingredients, that's fresher, and tastes better. I haven't yet got our food budget where I want it to be, but I'm getting there. I still have to figure out who has the best prices on what (especially dairy and meats) and once I've done that I can work towards staying in our food budget.

I've been stressing a bit about budgeting and doing the grocery shopping and all, but I've decided I'll just do the best I can until I get eveything unpacked and feel less stressed (clutter, i.e. lots of boxes, makes me stressed). Once I've finished unpacking and sorting and feel that I can at least find everything again, then I'll focus on shopping lists, sales, coupons, and all that.

In the meantime, I'm going to the store as infrequently as possible, and trying to keep things as inexpensive as possible. I've discovered that for our family of 3, one crockpot dish can be used for 3 or 4 meals, which drastically reduces the cost of dinners. I did some barbecue chicken a couple weeks ago, the first night we served it with mashed potatoes, the second night we served it with cheese on a baked potato, the third night we used it in quesadillas, and the fourth night we used it in burritos. This week I cooked a roast in the crockpot and are doing similar things for dinner. This is a win-win for me: I stretch the meat out over 4 meals, which spreads out the cost as well, and I have minimal meal prep each day.

One of my recent  blog finds is Keeping Life Creative. The author has committed to using beans or rice every day for a year in order to remind herself about living frugally. Some of the meals she's prepared are normal, beans and rice, burritos, etc, but she's also snuck beans into mac & cheese and lentils into cake. I find this intriguing, and once I'm feeling more settled I plan on giving some of her recipes a try. I'll have to alter them to make them gluten free, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.

I've also been thinking about stopping my Melaleuca shipments- I like their products (they have really nice soy candles that don't bother me), but some of the cleaning products have started to bother me. I'm not convinced that it's worth the financial commitment to keep ordering from them (you're supposed to order a min. # of product points each month; with shipping this usually ends up being around $75 for me). It's a chunk of money I could be using for other things. I've found several coupons for Seventh Generation products, so I think I'll give them a try (they even go on sale, so I could get some pretty good deals), and if those give me problems I'll have to venture into making my own cleaners. I don't want to, since it seems like it would be a hassle, but if I can make cleaners that won't bother me, it would be worth it. And I'd be saving even more money.

Free entrance to National Parks

Did you know that April 17 through 25 you can get into more than 100 national parks for free?

We decided to take advantage of this, so after soccer this morning, we drove to Shenandoah NP and drove part of Skyline drive. The Appalachian Trail (the AT) crosses it many times, so we got to see the trail markers

and tree blazes.

We saw lots of beautiful trees and hills. I know they're called mountains out here, but after living near the Rockies and the Wasatch mountains, it's hard to call these mountains. And yes, I know they're older and more worn down, and all that, but it's still not the same. They're beautiful, and I love all the trees, but they feel like the foothills just before you get to the mountains. Mr. S thought that too.

It was a beautiful day, we got to see more of the area we now live in, and we got to scope out whether it's worth getting an annual pass and coming back. An annual Shenandoah NP pass would be paid for in two trips, but I think we're going to get the interagency annual park pass so we can get into all national parks as well as national forests and sites managed by the BLM and other agencies. It's not that much more expensive, and we'll get our money's worth.

We're definitely going back and doing some hiking- I'd like to hike part of the AT. I have no desire to do the whole thing, but a day hike, and possibly an overnight trip, would be fun. There's many trails, so we could go every weekend and still not hit them all. Not that we will- we have too many other commitments. LMS was quite upset when we said we weren't going hiking today- she was all ready to go!

I also want to go back in the fall when the leaves change- it should be beautiful then- all those tree-covered hills changing colors.

Since we didn't have to pay the entrance fee, we only had the cost of the gas for the trip, and since it's not actually that far away it's something we can do again.