Mini chocolate krispie bites

Very simple but just thought I'd share. I had a spare 100g block of dark chocolate and thought I'd use it to make some rice krispie cakes. I don't know how much rice krispies I used - I just kept adding until it was at a good consistency.  I only had 3 fairy cake cases left so used the petit fours (very small) cases for the remaining. I thought I may get around 15 or so of these cases but ended up with about 40.

They are good for small bites when you are running around and much less calories (and cost) than eating a chocolate bar.

Princess invitation (Shoe template)

For my daughter's birthday party we wanted to do special invitations to get her friends excited about the party. I looked on Ebay for personalised options and thought of printing on standard paper however found a pattern for a shoe template online so we decided to do "glass slippers" invitations.

I used the shoe template from www.ellenhutson.com however her template was quite fiddly with corners etc so I modified it for more straight lines. My modified design is as picture below.

With some stick-on jewels - hey presto a glass slipper

I printed out the invitations and added a clip-art crown.

The invitation was rolled up and secured by some spare ribbon I had.

Storing food

I get ever so frustrated when trying to use flour/cereals/sugar etc direct from the bag with spillages and split bags. We used to store them in various re-used plastic containers but found it was difficult to store a decent amount and as I am a bit anal about organisation it looked messy to me. We splashed out on some containers from good old Ikea & Sainsbury's a few months ago and we have been using them in combination with our storage larder.

Flours & sugars in jars. I used blackboard paint with the idea of writing on them in chalk but this has not worked well. The paint comes off with the chalk. We have just overwritten the chalk with pen.

Cereals and pasta in plastic containers

It is so much easier to pour/spoon ingredients this way. It also allows you to use own brand/basic product lines without guests (or picky husbands!) knowing.

And  I also have to say a pull out larder cupboard is fabulous in the kitchen (was here when we moved in so I cannot take credit for it!)

Dog hairs in washing machine

My mother's tip for removing hairs after you've washed dog bedding etc. was to wash towels afterwards. We've been using this for years with our dog until we had to start washing bedding each week (with daily blanket changes) for our dog's skin. One day when getting frustrated with removing the hairs with kitchen paper I tried the vacumn cleaner and of course it worked fabulously (Doh!). May have seemed obvious, but not to us (and now my mum is a convert too).

Hairs after washing dog bedding

Use vacumn cleaner to remove hairs (works in tumble drier also)

Loaf tin size

We have been making banana & choc-chip loaf for the past few weeks. The recipe calls for a 2lb loaf tin and as we only had a 1lb loaf tin we have been making two loafs each time. We decided to splash out on a 2lb loaf tin this week to try the recipe out properly and it turns out we have always had one (the one we thought was 1lb was in fact 2lb)

Many recipes just call for 1lb or 2lb tins without giving dimensions so for anyone else who may be as daft as we are;

2lb loaf tin = 24cm x 11cm 
1lb loaf tin = smaller (obviously) but around 15cm x 9cm

Nutella glasses

My husband has been moaning that we only have one "short" glass (the one you would use for whisky etc). We had a set but have broken them over the years. We use pint and wine glasses and cannot really justify the expensive of new glasses. On a cost-cutting website someone had pointed out that Nutella came in jars which could be used as glasses.

Well we ate up our Nutella and washed the glass and surprisingly it looked pretty good (almost like a crystal glass with the details).

It's been used for a number of weeks and been in the top drawer of the washing machine and has survived well. I cannot find any information that this should not be used as a glass but please let me know if there is.

So more of an excuse to eat more Nutella. I'll get a set of glasses for the husband in no time :)

Diluted juice stored in fridge for kids

My daughter loves diluting juice. We have been trying to wean her off by giving her gradually weaker juice until hopefully it's barely coloured water. To do this we have been making up large bottles of diluted juice in empty bottles and storing them in the fridge. Every time one bottle of the diluting juice is finished we have a new supply so it means we are only re-using the bottle for a short time.

Bonus 1 - Can control the strength of the drink (does not vary with each drink depending who prepares it).
Bonus 2 - Easier to get drink when required (My daughter always seems to ask when I'm in the middle of feeding her brother or cooking etc)

Family organisation - Noticeboard

In my kitchen I had an A3 sized pinboard and a flip calendar for us to organise our lives. The pinboard became so full that things kept falling off it (usually in the middle of the night!), so I decided to get a bigger pinboard. I could not, however, find a larger pinboard without going for a (very expensive) commercial one so decided to look at alternatives.

After inspiration from the web I decided to look at using various frames to provide information we needed but I didn't like the look of a lot of different items on the wall so decided to fix small frames to a much larger frame which hangs in the kitchen. It also means you only have to install one fixing to the wall.

 Noticeboard on wall

Calendar section 

I decided to have split the frames into monthly calendar, future calendar dates, to do list, useful telephone numbers, pinboard (for vouchers) and pinboard (for other general stuff). This could obviously be adapted to what items you wanted. We tend not to use the "to do list" for to do items but to record what items we run out of as it happens (which comes in very useful when doing the shopping list). 

All frames are from Ikea who have plastic screens rather than glass. This makes them lightweight and we use whiteboard markers to record information which can then be wiped off easily when required. The calendar section has paper behind the frame showing 5 weeks and depending on the month the dates are added to suit. 

I used some cheap pinboards from a DIY store and cut to size to fix the frames.

The larger frame has had the plastic screen removed and I used fabric to cover it. Tacks are nailed through to the backing wood which allows each of the frames to be removed and replaced as required. 

One thing I would have liked to include is a section to store the pens but there wasn't enough room once I laid everything out.