A Sneak Peek at My Upcoming Ebook: Your Custom Homestead
Today Nourished Living Network continues the Valentine’s Day Progressive Dinner with Soup and Appetizer recipes! First up, Adrienne at Whole New Mom has an Almond Butter Fruit Dip that is wonderful with apples. KerryAnn at Cooking Traditional Foods offers Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip with Hidden Beans, one of the most viewed recipes on her blog. Lydia from Divine Health offers up Oysters Bienvielle, a rich and nutrient-dense recipe. Emma from Craving Fresh serves up a rich and cheesy Queso Dip into which I would love to dip some veggies. Finally Jessica from Delicious Obsessions offers up a scrumptious Thai Chicken Coconut Soup and Savory Baked Kale Chips that are healthy and crunchy.
Judging by a recent question I asked on the Prairie Homestead Facebook page, many of you are either brand new homesteaders, or wish that you were.
Let me tell you, that makes me SO excited!
I love hearing all of your stories about your current or future homesteads- you guys inspire me!
And that is exactly why I decided to write my very first eBook. You may have already heard me mention it on Facebook or Twitter, but the launch is rapidly approaching, so I wanted to give you a little sneak peek into the eBook beforehand.
Your Custom Homestead is a 79 page eBook that will be available in both .PDF and Kindle formats.
This digital book features a 21-day plan to jump start your homesteading dreams.
You’ll learn how to:
- Create a homesteading binder.
- Formulate a homestead mission statement and set goals.
- Navigate around restrictive homeowner’s associations.
- Embrace your current location, no matter how “unlikely” it may be.
- Expand your knowledge base and acquire new skills.
- Begin planning for homestead animals.
- And much, much more!
Each day in the eBook is divided into three parts:
• An Introduction to the Step: This ensures that we are on the same page and provides some helpful background information on the plan for the day.
• Home(stead)Work: The part where you get to take action and apply the principles to your life.
• A Peek into My Life: Personal ancedotes and stories explaining how I’ve implemented each step into my own life.
Regardless of whether you are a budding homesteading enthusiast, or seasoned veteran, Your Custom Homestead offers encouragement and organizational tips for homesteads of all shapes and sizes.
A little video introduction:
There are more details available on the Your Custom Homestead website.(For all of you bloggers out there- there WILL be an affiliate program!)
To stay up-to-date on launch news AND for exclusive discount codes, you can also ”like” the Your Custom Homestead Facebook page.
I am getting so incredibly excited to share this with you all! If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
Ideas for Decorating with Repurposed Items
Nourished Living Network’s Progressive Valentine’s Day Dinner continues today with breakfast! I’m sharing my Soaked Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy. KerryAnn at Cooking Traditional Foods has Chocolate Crepes and Chocolate Grain-Free Donuts and Jessica from Delicious Obsessions offers her Fruit and Nut Granola with Chia and Coconut. Adrienne at Whole New Mom has Baked Oatmeal and Lea from Nourishing Treasures has High-Protein Pancakes and Carrot Cake Muffins. Last but not least, Kelly from The Nourishing Home has Baked French Toast Casserole. Tomorrow the carnival will continue with appetizers and soups.
Our deck set: A repainted yard sale table and various mismatched chairs.
Ok, first things first.
I’m far from being one of those super-cool decorating bloggers.
I’m not good at “staging” my home, and my picture-taking skills leave a lot to be desired.
However, I had so much fun showing you the chicken wire frame I made, that I wanted to share a few more of my other simple homestead decorating ideas.
When I first got married, I was under the impression that “home decor” had to come from a “home decor store.”
Not true!
I’ve found some of my most favorite pieces in trash piles and thrift stores. Over the course of time, I’ve found myself gradually getting rid of my “home decor” items in favor of things I’ve repurposed, salvaged, and repainted.
Here are a few ideas to help you with brainstorming:
Old Headboards
One of my favorite items to grab at garage sales and thrift stores are old headboards. Lonely twin-sized headboards are a dime-a-dozen and the possibilites are endless.
Here is a 1970′s beauty *cough cough* that I nabbed at the thrift store for $8.
With a little bit of trimming, some chalkboard paint, knobs, and wooden embellishments, it turned into this:
I got this lonely little headboard at a yard sale for $1.
A fresh coat of paint, a free sheet of galvanized metal, a little distressing, and some knobs?
And I have a magnetic message board for my mudroom.
I made the alphabet magnets from a few supplies from the craft store: scrapbooking stickers, small wooden disks, and magnets.
Sticks
What better way to decorate a homestead house than to bring a bit of nature inside?
I love the simple elegance that a few twigs or sticks can bring to a room.
I created this display with sticks from our backyard and a thrift store vase.
(The candle holders are from the ends of logs that I cut, sanded, and stained. Hubby drilled a shallow hole in the top to hold a tealight-sized candle.)
This arrangement sits on our bathroom vanity. The milk glass vase was 69 cents at a thrift store, and the sticks and rock were free.
Glass Bottles and Jars
I find something so captivating and timeless about glass.
These bottles might look antique, but they’re not. I chose them for their unique shapes, but they are modern glass. I printed off these free “vintage” labels, stained them with some coffee, and glued them to the bottles. Voila! Instant “antiques” that fit the apothecary theme of my bathroom.
These are more thrift store bottles, filled with medicinal-type herbs (not cooking herbs) and displayed in my “apothecary” bathroom.
The shelf was $2 at a thrift store and absolutely hideous when I bought it. A coat of white paint and a little distressing turned it into a piece I love to look at.
Think Outside of the Box
It doesn’t matter whether you are living in a small home, homesteading in a unusual location, or decorating on a dime. Being creative is THE key to success!
As you decorate your homestead, don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and even bend the rules a little bit.
I was wanting new curtains for my kitchen, but I didn’t want to pay a lot for them (drapery panels aren’t cheap!) and I don’t sew.
So, I headed to the fabric store and purchased a couple yards of burlap. A little glue-gunning at the top and some fraying at the bottom gave me this:
Fresh new curtains with a homespun look.
(Did I mention that I have an obsession with burlap? I can’t get enough of the stuff…)
Another design dilemma I had was an odd-shaped wall in our bathroom.
The bathroom is situated under the stairs, which results in a weird slanted wall/ceiling thing.
The solution came in the form of frames. Lots of them. I somehow had accumulated a pile of cheap-o frames that I wasn’t using. I took off the backs, removed the glass, and spray painted them with a hammered bronze spray paint.
I was able to arrange them on my odd-shaped wall, and they look like they totally belong there.
So how about you?
Did any of my ideas spark some inspiration for your own home? What kind of “trash” do you have laying around your homestead that you could turn into decorating treasures?
I find that decorating like this is not only frugal, but also just plain fun. I’ve completely lost interest in shopping in regular stores for home decorations and much prefer to scour yard sales and thrift shops for my latest project. It’s borderline addicting, so consider yourself warned!
How to you like to decorate your home? Have any ideas to share?
More Posts from the Homemaking on the Homestead series:
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Sight
- DIY Repurposed Chicken Wire Frame
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Smell
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Hearing
- DIY Screen Cleaner (for Laptops or TVs)
- DIY Rock Boot Tray- A Cute Solution to Mud Puddles
- Six Reasons I Love Living in a Small House
This post was shared at: Simple Lives Thursday, Homemaker’s Challenge, Hearts 4 Home, Proverbs 31 Linkup, Living Well Blog Hop
Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Touch
Before we get into today’s post, I have to tell you about a fun little event happening right now!
This week Nourished Living Network is having a Valentine’s Day Progressive Dinner Party! We kick off the party today with Valentine’s drinks. My contribution is my Peppermint Milkshake recipe. KerryAnn at Cooking Traditional Foods submits her Spicy Hot Chocolate and Jessica at Delicious Obsessions shares her Peppermint White Hot Chocolate. Adrienne at Whole New Mom shares her Sugar-Free Lemonade and Coffee Substitute. Tomorrow we’ll have dishes for a Valentine’s breakfast, so stay tuned!
Phiseksit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Guest post by Holly of Your Gardening Friend
As I was thinking through Jill’s Homemaking for the 5 Senses series, the Lord flooded my mind with ideas for the sense of touch. The sense of touch is not one we give a lot of thought to, but there are so many ways we can make our homes more inviting, more cozy, by maximizing the sense of touch.
1. Comfortable Front Porch Seating. John and I spend a lot of time just sitting on our covered porch, enjoying the scenery of our woods, and all the wildlife. It’s so calming to sit outside, while sipping on a beverage, and listen to the wind, cicadas, and chirping of birds.
One of my favorite things to do is watch the hummingbirds hover, while they drink the homemade nectar. Not only are hummingbirds fascinating to watch because of their sheer beauty and amazing mechanics of flight, they’re also rather comical. All too often, a single bird will attempt to guard an entire feeder – consisting of 5 or more feeding ports – ALL for himself.
At dusk, we also enjoy catching a fleeting glimpse of garden-friendly, mosquito-eating bats.
We get a LOT of use out of our comfortable front porch seating.
2. Warmth of a Fireplace (or wood-burning stove). I can’t think of a more appropriate item for this homesteading list than a warm, nostalgic, crackling, wood-burning fireplace. If you have a hanging cast iron kettle, you could even cut up an onion from your garden, drop it into some water, and let it simmer. The savory aroma will permeate the rooms of your home.
(Photo Credit)
3. Flannel Sheets. This is a must in our house. As soon as cool weather arrives, we break out the flannel sheets. Cotton sheets are great in the summer because they’re cool. In the winter though, you DON’T want to climb into a cold bed.
4. Faux Mink Throws. We have a couple of these throws on our couch. We LOVE them! They’re warm, and incredibly soft. We use them when we’re watching television. (Purchased at Bed Bath & Beyond two years ago.)
5. Soft Slippers. Not only can YOU enjoy soft, plush slippers, but you can keep a couple spares for overnight guests. What a perfect way to make a guest feel pampered and at-home. It’s also a fun tradition for everyone to put on their soft slippers, and cozy up on the couch for family movie night.
© Vladimir Caplinskij | Dreamstime.com
6. Body Scrubs. Stacy, at A Delightful Home, has an eBook full of how-to recipes for body scrubs. You’ll want to check it out.
7. Homemade Rice Heating Packs. Michele, at Frugal Granola, shares how to make and use these rice heating packs. She likes to mix in some lavender for a relaxing scent.
8. DIY Hand Balm. If you’ve not already read Jill’s post on how to make hand balm (or udder balm), click here to check it out.
9. Lots of Hugs. Of all the ideas, these last two use the sense of touch in the most traditional way. Everyone needs to be hugged BUNCHES! Even if your kids pretend to not like it, they need it anyway.
10. Animals. I love animals – dogs, cows, goats, squirrels, deer, hummingbirds, you name it. I left no doubt of that with my recent post, Our Air-Conditioned & Heated Dog Houses.
Animals are not only fun to pet, but they also offer a psychological “healing” effect. I don’t mean that in a new age kind of way, but rather, they put a smile on your face, or make you laugh, which probably releases endorphins into the body.
What a wonderful way to make use of the sense of touch, by petting all the furry animals on your homestead.
What other ideas do you have for homesteading for the sense of touch?
Holly is a wife to her loving husband, John, and a “mother” of three canine “kids”. She loves sharing her faith; spending as much time as possible gardening and landscaping; sharing recipes you can make from your garden; and enjoying all the garden critters and wildlife at her country home, nestled in the woods. She blogs at Your Gardening Friend.
Other posts from the Homemaking on the Homestead Series:
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Sight
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Hearing
- Homemaking for the 5 Senses: Smell
- DIY Repurposed Chicken Wire Frame
- Homemade Laptop or TV Screen Cleaner
- A Cute Solution to Muddy Mudrooms
This post shared at: Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, Women Living Well, WFMW, Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Our Simple Farm
Homestead Barn Hop #48
“Cultivating the Homestead Community”
Welcome to the 48th edition of the Homestead Barn Hop!
I so enjoy visiting your homesteads each and every Monday. Thank you to everyone who has made it a success so far! Last week we had a spectacular turn-out with over 230 entries!
We finally got a decent snow storm here in Wyoming last week, so I’ve been enjoying a few cozy days inside. I’m feverishly working on the finishing touches to Your Custom Homestead, my very first eBook! It launches February 20th, so get ready! (And stay tuned for a sneak peek here on the blog later in the week.)
If you want to stay up-to-date on announcements, special giveaways, and coupon codes, “like” the Your Custom Homestead Facebook page. (An official website is also coming soon.)
Alrighty, now down to the business of this week’s hop.
This hop is hosted by The Prairie Homestead, along with three other fantastic homesteading gals:
Amy from Homestead Revival, Kendra from New Life on a Homestead, and Kelly from The Morris Tribe.
We encourage you to stop by every Monday and share your latest homesteading posts with us. From cooking to animals to gardening, we want to hear what’s been happening at your homestead this week!
Some Simple Guidelines:
1. Remember to provide a link back to the Homestead Barn Hop in the post that you share. Feel free to grab the banner at the top of this post, if you would like, and use it to link back to us!
2. Please link to a specific post, not your blog’s main page.
3. If you don’t have a blog, share your latest homestead updates in a comment on this post!
4. We, the hosts of the Barn Hop, reserve the right to remove any link that we deem inappropriate or offensive. We will err on the side of caution.
Click here to view all the past editions of the Barn Hop
Have fun, get to know some new homesteading friends, and be sure to join us every Monday!
(If you are reading this post via email, click through to see all of this week’s links!)
DIY Computer and TV Screen Cleaner
Exhibit A: Toddler Finger Smudges
I struggle with having clean screens.
Not the window-kind. (I struggle with simply HAVING those… Thanks to a dog who is petrified of thunderstorms…)
But rather the computer and TV variety.
My house is dusty. I think it’s a side affect of living in a windy climate. (And also probably from pretty much NEVER dusting.)
And, living on a “farm” equals lots of flies in the summer. Which equals flies in my house, no matter how many hours I spend with a swatter in my hand.
The worst part about flies? They poop. Oh yes they do. And fly poop annoys me (much more than dust does).
So this is a very round-about way to say my laptop and TV screens are generally filthy and covered in dust and fly poop. Sorry to be so blunt.
I know you can buy the fancy screen cleaners at the store, but who wants to do that when a DIY solution is so incredibly easy (not to mention cheap!)? Here ya go:
Homemade Computer/TV Screen Cleaner
- 1 part plain white vinegar
- 1 part distilled water (make sure you use distilled only!)
- A clean, lint-free cloth. (I like using old, worn-out t-shirts from my rag collection)
Mix the vinegar and water. Store in a labeled container (I use an small canning jar). A spray bottle would also work.
When you are ready to clean your screens, spray a soft, lint-free cloth with the solution, OR dip the cloth into the jar.
DO NOT spray the solution directly on your screen, as it can drip down into places it shouldn’t go.
Gently, wipe the screen with the damp cloth. It may take more than one application, depending on how dirty things are.
Enjoy your shiny clean screen for as long as you can before the flies land on it again or the kiddos attempt more finger art.
Homemade Laptop Cleaner
A Few Notes:
- A 1/2 cup of vinegar and a 1/2 cup of distilled water is a good amount to start with.
- You can store this as long as you need to.
- Why distilled water? Distilled water is free from minerals which leave smudgy water spots on your screens. If you wash your screens with tap water, you’ll probably end up with a dirtier screen than what you started with.
- I use this on our flat screen TV and my laptop. I’ve had no trouble with it. However, please use it at your own risk with your own equipment.
- If you have a black kitchen appliances (like me), this solution is a great way to shine them up. (Because of our hard water, wiping things down with regular soapy water leaves lots of spots).
Enjoy those sparkly screens!
This post was shared at: Frugal Friday, Better Mom Monday, Anti-Procrastination Tuesday, Handmade Tuesdays, Teach Me Tuesdays, Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, Women Living Well, WFMW, Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Our Simple Farm, Simple Lives Thursday, Homemaker’s Challenge, Hearts 4 Home, Proverbs 31 Linkup
Six Reasons I Love Living in a Little House
I’ll be honest.
When we first moved into our little house, I would often let people’s “comments” cause me to second-guess our decision to purchase our home.
Things like “Oh. This living room is, er, cozy…” or “Those upstairs bedrooms are tiny…” tended to leave question marks in my mind as to whether we had made a mistake in buying our 1200 square foot farmhouse.
But, after living here for 3 1/2 years, I’ve come to terms with it. And, I’ve learned to not only tolerate it, but guess what?
I actually LIKE it.
Yep, that’s right. I’m proud to live in a little house.
And I’m over at The Better Mom today telling you exactly why I’m not ashamed.
So, come visit me over there and share your own little-house experiences!