I’m sorry I’ve not posted much lately — just a busy momma!

I have made a few changes I wanted you to be aware of. After much prayer and deliberation, I’ve removed the store from this website.

Why?

Well, for the last month and a half, I’ve been selling my main three books on Amazon.com, primarily for Amazon Kindle, and to my surprise not only are they selling way better than they do on this website, but my stress level and work level have gone way down. I don’t have to fill orders, do tech support on ebooks, or otherwise spend my precious time on the tedium of sales and marketing stuff.

All I have to do is do what I do best: write.

It’s a huge load off of me.

Most of the books that are not yet on Amazon are currently going through some changes to polish them up, change a few things here and there, and update them. They’ll be up there soon.

In the mean while, I’m enjoying time with my family, and getting ready for gardening season here in Mid Michigan, while recovering from some health issues relating to liver problems.

Last summer, Starbucks got me addicted to the Coconut Mocha Frappuccino, then stopped selling it. Want to know how to make your own at home? Here’s how!

Last summer, a web design client very sweetly gave me a $50 gift card to Starbucks as a thanks.  I still had money on my card when the Barista told me they were out of Coconut syrup, and discontinuing my new favorite drink.  Though it’s not the most pressing problem in my life, I still have been working on figuring out how to make my own at home. I went to the store and found some “Coconut syrup” of another brand, but it wasn’t even close. (I repurposed that into my coconut ice cream).

But, I have learned how to clone a very similar Coconut Mocha Frappuccino at home for less than Starbucks.

Iced Coffee Base

Iced coffee is not just coffee with ice poured on it. That doesn’t taste really good.

No, iced coffee base needs to be made ahead of time, and is extremely strong. It has to be. You’re adding a lot of ice to the coffee, which will water it down. I’ve found this recipe all over the internet, especially at Pioneer Woman.

Simply put a 12 oz bag of coffee into a large container, and cover it with two gallons of water. Let this sit overnight. I used pre-ground decaf Italian roast that I found at the ding n dent store. For some reason ground decaf Italian roast is usually on the grocery clearance shelves of most stores. I was able to use coupons and get this Starbucks brand Italian roast for nearly free. I use 12 oz. because as of late, that’s the size most bags are.

The next morning, strain it using paper towel in a strainer. Refrigerate the liquid to use whenever you need an iced coffee. I have a few different containers I store this in.

Coconut Syrup

I read this recipe originally at Annie’s Eats. I’m impressed by how good this is. Perfection! I did change it a little bit to suit me. Her original post on iced coffee uses a similar technique, and off of this post are links to other DIY syrups for coffee.

• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1/4 cup of cream of coconut (this is found in the cocktail aisle, and is more commonly used for making pina coladas)
• 1 TBS of coconut extract (found in the spice aisle. Mine is imitation coconut).

Dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat, stirring frequently. This is a simple syrup and can be used for pretty much anything.

To make it a coconut syrup, add the 1/4 cup of cream of coconut, and stir until dissolved.

Remove from heat, and allow it to cool for about 5 minutes before adding the coconut extract.

Bottle it up (That’s what the pretty bottles at garage sales and thrift stores are for)

store in the fridge. Shake it up before you use it, if it’s separated.

Assembling a Coconut Mocha Frappuccino

In a blender, combine:

• 1 cup of coffee base
• 1 cup of milk, cream, or half and half
• 2 trays of ice
• 2 oz. of coconut syrup (see above)
• 1 oz of chocolate syrup (Hershey’s or one you make yourself, which Annie’s eats also has a recipe for)
• 1 tsp. of Xanthum Gum*

Pulse to crush the ice and make a taste drink.

Optionally, you can top this with whipped cream and toasted coconut to make it even more authentic and fancy.

*Xanthum Gum is available from Bob’s Red Mill brand natural foods and is found in many grocery stores, health food stores, and online at Amazon.com. It’s purpose is to keep the ice and the drink from separating. It’s optional, but it’s what Starbuck’s and McDonald’s allegedly uses to keep their frappe’s to hold together, according to a culinary school grad I know. It really works.

Coconut Mocha Popsicles

Mix all but the ice together, and pour into popsicle molds. Freeze. Enjoy. Repeat.

Enjoy,

This morning, a friend on Facebook shared an article at the London Daily Mail about how a university study shows that parenting guides by “experts” make new mother’s feel inadequate by setting standards too high. (I’d like a high paying job studying the blatantly obvious…lol).

This got me thinking about my own mothering journey.  I was thinking about my first baby (Who is turning 19 in May!), and how I was a fanatic about well baby check ups, sterilizing everything, and following “the book” (written by a Dr. Know-it-All who probably didn’t even have kids) word for word….Making any family member that wanted to spend time with the baby take Infant and Child CPR….and getting testy whenever someone older and wiser told me it’s okay to chill out a little…

I couldn’t relax. The fate of my baby depended on me doing everything right!

Maybe that’s just the way the good Lord wired me. Eventually I did learn to relax and enjoy the journey, while doing the best I could by God’s grace, and letting Him lead me step by step, instead of looking to various parenting magazines and their ever changing and contradictory studies.

Over the years I’ve also seen hundreds of parenting studies that all contradict each other….breastfeeding is best. No wait, it’s not. Actually it is. But this study says it isn’t…or “lay your baby on their side or they will die in their sleep”…no, wait, we changed our minds. lay them on their backs….scratch that, lay them on their tummies….sorry, my bad, we back to laying them on their backs again…the findings of the “experts” changes every 6 months or so.

I also spent a lot of time fretting about mistakes that were made. A lot of moms do.

You know what I mean, right? Those times when we lay in bed at night and wonder if we’ve completely screwed up our kids by not having absolutely perfect circumstances in our lives…be it financial, emotional, medical, spiritual, or educational. Or all of the above.

Seeking out Older and Wiser Moms

Freedom came the day I stopped reading what the so-called “experts” were writing (especially those of the “my way is the one and only right way to…” variety) and found a handful of women around me who had raised some pretty awesome kids. I would ask them, “Hey, how would you deal with this?” or “How did you get your kids to…?”

Listen to the real experts — other moms who have gone on before you and raised great kids!

It weirds me out a little now, that I have older kids, that people now ask me those questions, since I still need advice in this new phase of life. That’s what prompted my book Beyond the Chore Chart, in fact. I get asked the “how did you get your kids to be so helpful?” question a lot. (the physical copy of that book will be available soon. For now it’s a Kindle exclusive in the Amazon Kindle store).

It’s more than just the stress though. Because of these “experts”, many times we, as new moms, alienate ourselves or separate ourselves from other moms  or go off the deep end about different issues. We reject the wisdom of those close by who could help us figure out this motherhood thing, in favor of “the parenting guide of the week” or whatever new thing the parenting magazine of the month is advising.

Does older automatically mean wiser? No, of course not. But, if you’re looking at someone’s family and you can see that their kids have turned out the way you’d hope yours one day might…then they’d probably be a good source of advice and encouragement. We have no idea how Dr. Know-It-All’s kids turned out.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been out-of-doors, enjoying the gorgeous weather! Pussywillows are blooming, and bulbs are coming up. We nearly have some spring lettuce. It sure feels good to take care of those springtime chores together with my kids.

In the mean while, my new book, Beyond the Chore Chart: Chores, Kids, and the Secret to a Happy Mom is available for FREE until Friday, March 16th, 2012 via Amazon Kindle.

I apologize that as of yet, it’s not available any other way. The print version is nearly done, though.

In the mean while, if you have a kindle, or you have Kindle software (Which lets you read kindle ebooks on your computer), you can download this book for free and enjoy!

Go here.

Or simply search “Beyond the Chore Chart” in your Kindle Store on your Kindle!

If this helps you with Household Chores, can you do me a favor?

If you get my book, can you do me a Big Favor? Could you please write a review at Amazon.com for me, telling other Amazon Readers exactly what you think?

This helps others decide if the book is right for them, and it tells Amazon my book is worth promoting . Thanks!

Happy Reading,

When we, as moms, try to “save money” or shave some extra dollars off of our household budgets, we usually do so in one primary category: the grocery budget, with toiletries and cleaners thrown in there.

I get that. I save money that way too, and even wrote a book about it (Shopping and Cooking Frugally).

But even bigger savings can occur if we periodically look over our household budget, from biggest item to smallest, and hunt for ways to save money on each of those areas.

For example:

Saving Money on Insurance

Recently, as we are preparing for the added expense of our 18 year old daughter driving, we had to call up our insurance company. The lady on the phone was very helpful in helping me find additional discounts for our car and homeowner’s insurance that I had not been taking, to make sure we got the maximum discount. Every few years, I’ve learned to phone up the insurance company to search for discounts like that. Let’s just say they don’t call existing customers when they come up with new discounts. They only give those savings if we call them and ask.

I love Progressive, by the way. They’ve been wonderful to us, even when we had a nasty deer-meets-car accident.

If you raise your deductible, which will save you on your premiums, make sure you have the amount of your deductible in a separate account somewhere (so that you don’t spend it!), that way you have enough money to pay the deductible if needed. As I also wrote in Shopping and Cooking Frugally, our family has a few accounts all over town that we use to save for bigger items. This helps us to not spend the money that is earmarked for something specific. We usually don’t think about a deductible until we’re already in a crisis of some sort. Having it safely tucked away somewhere is peace of mind, and keeps you from going into debt.

Saving Money on Electricity

I think it’s easy to think of our electric bill as a sort of standard expense that we have no control over. This is not necessarily so. Obviously, we can’t all go out and drop a few thousand for brand new appliances that are more energy efficient. But we can try to shut off the other leaks in our electricity usage. It’s good stewardship, folks.

Where do you start? I used to think it was by looking at the wattage of an appliance, but that’s not entirely accurate. It’s like saying my 20 year old van gets the same 22 mpg it was supposed to get when someone drove it off the lot brand new. A new appliance gets that kind of wattage (probably). An older one that has been used, probably not. When an appliance starts to use a crazy amount of electricity, usually that’s a sign that it’s dying.

Instead, if you have one of those spinning things on your electric meter (help me someone…what are those called?) then you can gauge your electric issues using that. This takes two or or more people to check your electric usage. For more details on how to check (and reduce) your household electrical usage, read this post here.

Saving Money on Your Phone and Internet Bill

With the advent of widely used affordable cell phones and many people using their cell exclusively, there are ever changing deals with our phone bills. In our area, our cell does not work at home, except for texting, so we do have a land line for now.

Our local phone company was super generous with a special deal that included high speed internet, unlimited long distance, DishTV (hubby was happy about that), and a few other things, all for one low price. Again, I had to call and ask about deals available. They didn’t come calling me to offer me the deal .

Saving Money with Pay as You Go Cell Phones

While I’m on the topic of cell phones, I want to mention my earlier post about pay as you go cell phones. Because of our precarious position with work and the family budget, we didn’t want to be locked into a contract for cell phones. I hated the fact that, when we lost our job a few years back, Verizon was quite unbending about the contract, but I suppose that is what makes it a contract. Lesson Learned.  Again, because cell phones do not work in our house (except for texting), they aren’t used much anyway, but they are necessary because of how rural we live. I’ve broken down in the middle of nowhere before, without anyone stopping to help for several hours, so I need a mobile.  The impressive little phone with the QWERTY keyboard that I found at the Dollar Store (yes, really) works great, is cheap, and during tight months, I just don’t auto renew my minutes (I use the rollover minutes instead, which are good for 120 days). Love it. You can find out more about pay as you go phones here.

Saving Money on Heating

We went pretty redneck this year. Yes, we have plastic on the windows. The saving was huge. Our house is very old, with mostly old windows. Replacing the windows would cost into the thousands because they are all odd sizes. The plastic has helped keep the cold out and the hot in.

When I was young and still naive about home ownership issues, I was happy that our house never had snow on the roof like other houses. Later I found out that was because we didn’t have a well insulated attic, and the heat was escaping through the roof, melting the snow. Anyway, in the summer, when insulation went on sale, we bought several rolls and insulated the attic. Again, the saving this action gave us was huge. We cut our heat bill by over $100 a month in winter.

We also keep the heat pretty low (around 60 F), and simply dress in layers. This has also been a savings.

Saving Money on Cars, Gas, and Driving Expenses

My husband drives a 1982 Ford that gets 45 miles to the gallon (and plays 8 tracks. LOL), while looking rather like the car Mr. Incredible is seen driving in The Incredibles. It’s hideous. It humbles you to drive down the road in it. People snicker when they see it. But, it gets 45 miles to the gallon, cost under $1000 cash, and it’s paid for (the savings trifecta!).

Obviously, plan your trips to town wisely. Find someone at work to carpool with, if possible. Walk when possible (we live rural, so that’s completely out for us). Drive sensibly — anything over 55 mph and anything too aggressive, and you’ll reduce your gas mileage. keep your car tuned up, checking the fluids yourself, and making sure everything is running as well as possible. This will keep an older car working well for a long time, as well as save on gas mileage.

In Closing

These are just a few of the “big areas” that we work on regularly to save on, in addition to saving in the smaller areas of groceries and toiletries. By chipping away at the big items regularly, you can potentially be saving a lot more than you would just from working from the bottom of your budget.

You may have other “big items” at the top of your budget. Go through each one, one at a time, and search for ways you could be saving on each item. Google “Saving on…” and read up on tips that have worked for others.

Happy savings,

I don’t know about you, but electric bills always seem to be a bit esoteric in a way. It hard to wrap my head around ways to start saving on something that I can’t really see or tangibly feel. But that’s the point, I guess. We often don’t realize the electricity we are using, but once we start to notice, we can start saving — big time!

For us, turning off lights, unplugging what we’re not using, and so forth, are all common sense things we know to do, but it’s too easy to flake out about these things. We have been super diligent the last month or so to keep on top of these simple changes.

The price of everything keeps going up, but our wages have not, so as a family we have to regularly look for new ways of saving money. We recently did an energy audit of our home, and after acting accordingly, we found ourselves saving nearly 20% off of our regular light bill. I think with more diligence, I might be able to save further.

Most of the articles I found, when I googled the phrase “lower my electric bill” advised “buying newer appliances.”. I’m sure that will saving you some cash on the electric bill, but back here in the real world, I have some alternates for you if you’re looking to save money precisely because you don’t have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket…

The Do-It-Yourself Energy Saving Audit

First of all, most of your electric companies do have a sort of energy audit program that will help you figure out how to save money on your electric bill. In our case, they recommended new appliances with the energy star rating (our appliances all were free or cheap via Freecycle, craigslist, or auctions).

This time around, when I decided to take a fresh look at our energy usage, I did a do-it-yourself version that I heard from another blog (I can’t find the article to link to it! Sorry!!).

Most people would say to look at the wattage on your various electronic devices. This is not entirely correct. The wattage listed on those is showing you the wattage that it should perform at, not necessarily what it actually does. If you’re like us and have older stuff, then those may not be a true reflection.

The best way, I’ve found, is to find a friend to help (or older responsible child, in this case, teenagers). You can’t really do this on your own as easily as with two or three people.

Have one person shut off all of the switches at the fuse box. The other person, standing outside watching the little spinning thing-a-ma-bob in the electric meter, should note when everything stops spinning. You’re now at zero.

Person number one now should turn on each switch, one at a time, to see which one makes the thingy spin faster (yes, we’re really technical here). If you have a third person, have them turn on each appliance or electronic item one at a time. Make sure things are all plugged in (phone chargers, laptops, radios, etc.).

This will give you a fairly good idea of what makes the wheel spin faster, which in turn drains money from your bank account to Edison’s.

Armed with what I saw via my spinning wheel, we started doing some practical things:

1. Unplugging anything not in use means saving money

I was a little shocked to realize that leaving anything plugged in, even if it’s turned off, still makes the wheel spin. It spins slower, of course, but it’s still drawing some power. This, I discovered, is called “Standby Usage.” If you aren’t using it, unplug it.

Alternately, a serge protector power strip (we bought a box of them at auction for $10 — I’ve also seen them at garage sales and thrift stores, and of course, new) will allow you to more easily switch things on or off. All but one of our power strips ceased to draw power when turned off.

Some examples of this include the computer, as well as our TV, DVD player, X-box and satellite receiver box. I think turning off the master switch for these items was one of the biggest savings.

2. Charge Items that Need Charging when They Need a Charge

Three years ago, I needed a new alternator in my car, around the same time dear husband needed one in his. The mechanic told me that the common denominator in most of the bad alternators he sees lately is a cell phone charger plugged in all the time. (I know the car’s electrical system is different from home electric, but I thought I’d throw that in). Since only using the car charger when absolutely necessary, we’ve not needed an alternator, whereas it had been an annual purchase.

which brings me to my point…

Since the advent of cell phones and other fun handheld toys, I’ve noticed in my home and others charging stations with phones perpetually plugged in (when not being played with). In my brain, somehow I thought that if the phone was fully charged, then the phone would magically know to not draw any more power.

Nope.

In my rather unscientific study with the spinning thing in the meter, the phones that were fully charged seemed to make it spin the same as an uncharged phone.

Only plugging in my cell when it needed to be charged (it has great battery life, by the way), and only plugging in other things when they need to be charged (phones, mp3 player, ereader, etc.)

3. Use Big Items in Off-Peak Hours

Surprisingly, our electric bill is not a standard rate all day or all week long. There are certain days and hours when it is less expensive to run an appliance, as the cost per wattage is lower.

I started to use items like my clothes washer and dryer only during off peak hours, after discerning from the electric company’s website exactly what those are.  Our energy company has an additional program to sign up for that will save a family even more if they use less energy during peak hours, though with my husband’s work schedule that will not work for us.

Here’s another good article on peak hour rates I found helpful.

Hanging clothes out to dry would probably help me with saving money, but I live in Michigan, and it’s winter. We’d be waiting three weeks for our clothes to dry, or dealing with mildew on clothes if we hung them in the basement. This summer, I shall be using my lines more though.

4. Turn off Lights or anything else you aren’t using

Yes, just like dad used to tell you to do. I like lots of light – it helps me feel energized in the winter. However, I’ve been working on being more frugal with the lights unless absolutely necessary. I’ve also turned off anything else I’m not using. I suppose that’s a “duh”…but I used to keep the computer on for ease of looking things up  all day long. Keeping the computer off unless needed has had the added benefit of keeping me off the computer unless absolutely necessary.

5. Use CFL’s if possible or Lower Watt Light Bulbs

I’m not a fan of CFLs, but they do save money both in wattage used and in how long they last.We have been using them 12 years now.

6. Saving with Your Hot Water Heater

If you have an electric hot water heater, try to use hot water mostly during off peak hours. Put a hot water heater blanket around the heater. Drain the water and sediment out of the tank annually, to improve it’s functioning.  Our hot water heater, according to the energy audit, comprises half of our electric bill, so any savings I can do on it helps.

Just these few simple rules (can we agree they are pretty simple?) shaved 20% off of our electric bill last month. That is a pretty good size savings!

Happy savings,

Lately it seems like the tension levels in our country, particularly in the area of politics, have been growing upwards. Everyone seems really tightly wound.

I live with a guy who loves to talk politics, so in normal conversation, we tend to talk about whatever he heard on the news on his drive home. It helps to keep me informed in a way, but it can also make me a bit tense and frustrated.

How so?

Well, I hate feeling powerless and out of control to change things that are going on, which directly affect me and my family, and our future. I’m not just talking of one political party. I’m talking about all of them. Both sides have me fired up as of late.

This frustration manifests itself in different ways in me and in others…

fear

anger

activism

debating

…I was lying in bed a few nights ago, and worrying about gas prices (with hubby commuting 150 miles a day, this is a big deal for us) and people in office who seemed to have failed basic math being in charge of trillions of taxpayer dollars, when I felt a bit convicted.

Have I been faithful to pray for our president and our other elected officials as I ought?

We have two basic commands, as Christians, regarding our political leadership. The first is to obey all lawful commands, and the second is to pray for them.

Not complain about them, rail against them, or my favorite — employ snark against them.

Our primary response…our main way to deal with frustrations….should be prayer.

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;”

1 Timothy 2:1-3

I think I spent nearly 2 hours that night, lying in bed, praying for each of my political representatives by name, starting with our president and his family. In the end, God is in control, and God’s will will be done, whether we like where that takes us or not. To that end, I also prayed that we as the Church, will have the grace to deal with whatever God wills for us, be it prosperity or persecution.

Will  you join me in prayer? Lift up our leaders (or, if you’re outside of the USA, the leaders of your country need prayer too!) to the throne of heaven.

These past few weeks have been really crazy busy at our house:

• birthdays
• storms (snow storms, thunderstorms, wind storms that blew out the window of our van)
• my oldest got her driver’s license finally, after spending lots of time practicing parallel parking and driving on highways
• sinus problems (probably related to storms)
• field trips
• appointments & errands galore
• a new book
• and simply life.

I appreciate the emails of concern wondering where I am. I’m around, busy with life.

What was that about a new book?

Yes, I have a new book out.

Right now it’s an Amazon.com Kindle exclusive because they are very generous to authors to give them exclusivity during the first 90 days.

I have a friend who is way more business smart than I am who helped me figure this out. In fact, I feel like I went to business school recently, while working on this book.

I had a friend stop over around Christmas who I hadn’t seen for years, and who has been working in marketing and pr. I told her that I wish I could hire her because I have books that everyone who reads loves, but that just don’t seem to sell. I recently got a New York Times best seller from another mommy blogger as a Christmas present, and I thought, “How is this book a NYT best seller and mine isn’t?” So I asked my friend about that.I’m not trying to be rich and famous. I’m just trying to help stabilize our income, which continues to drop every year.

Anyway, long story short, she generously gave me a free consult for Christmas, and went through my hard drive where I have over 200 half finished books. She did a little market research with me and showed me which one should be finished first as it’s in biggest demand.  And, even though my son has a side business converting ebooks to Kindle and epub formats, my own books were not up on Amazon until she gave me a swift kick in the behind. I’ve been more than a little surprised by the results for the other two Kindle ebooks, Quiet Times in Loud Households, and Shopping and Cooking Frugally.

She cracked a whip behind me for over two months until a book I’ve been writing since 1996 (LOL seriously) finally got finished, edited by three proofreaders, and published to Kindle.

Yeah!!

Beyond the Chore Chart: Chores, Kids, and the Secret to a Happy Mom is now available exclusively at Amazon.co for Kindle, for the low, low price of just $1.99.

A print edition will be forthcoming in the next month or so, and editions for other ereaders will be available in the next 120 days. If you want to borrow it via Amazon prime, that’s an option too.

As I wrote earlier, we did some small, frugal repairs and remodels to our house, only out of extreme necessity, and spending the bare minimum. We are in the process of foreclosure (still not notice as to when, so for that we’re thankful) but we had some cracked plaster walls, and a few other issues. One ongoing issue was our horrible hard wood floors, which were like wood chips in some rooms (especially our master bedroom). The cost of fixing said floor was to be in the hundreds of dollars, if we were to do a wood laminate. The floors were not salvageable on their own.

The old hard wood floors are clearly in bad shape, before I did the paper flooring.

Enter Pinterest. I know it’s a joke of sorts that we only feel creative while on Pinterest, when actually we’re spending time on the computer. But, for me, Pinterest has thus far proven to be a source of awesome inspiration of the frugal sort. I simply search the items I have on hand and see what comes up for craft projects.

While cleaning and decluttering, I found about a half dozen rolls of brown craft paper, and two gallons of elmer’s glue that I forgot about, stuffed into the back of a closet. (among other things, of course)

So, searching Brown craft paper, I found a project for redoing your floor with craft paper and Elmer’s glue-all. Perfect. Praise God. The original post that I learned how to do this from is located here.

Even more surprising, my husband said this sounded like a good idea. His reasoning was, we’re going to lose the house anyway. Might as well let his crazy redheaded wife try out her scary sounding ideas on a house that is no longer ours.

I know what you’re thinking. What on earth??!?! Is it sturdy? How does it feel? What does it look like? is it durable?

I know what my mom is going to say. YOU GLUED PAPER TO YOUR BEDROOM FLOOR!??!? Kimberly Ann, I raised you better!

(Growing up I frequently glued things to other things…causing most of my mom’s gray hair in fact)

I didn’t want to post about my kraft paper flooring project until it had been 2 months. Well, it’s been 2 months. I love it.

How does paper flooring feel? Soft, smooth, comfy. Organic.

What does paper flooring look like? It really doesn’t look like some idiot glued paper to the floor.Okay, maybe a little, but not unless you know that’s what I did.

Is the paper flooring durable? Well, it survived me sliding furniture in. It’s held up to my rolling desk chair. So far, it looks great. I’m still paranoid about letting the space heater sit on it, or anyone spilling anything on my paper floor. But, it seems quite durable.

There were a few spots on the floors, where there was deep gashes and holes. I filled those with wood filler, a little bit at a time, to smooth it out.

Mix Elmer's Glue with 3 parts water, in a large bucket or tub.

To get started, mix the glue with water. It should be about 1 parts glue to 3 parts water. The instructions I found said to use Elmer’s Glue All. You can usually find this in large containers at stores like Staples and Office Depot. The room is about 15 x 16 feet. I used about 5 rolls of craft paper and just over 1 gallon of glue. I also used 1 and a half gallons of Poly Acrylic finish. That was the most expensive part!

Now, rip up your paper. I kept mine in pieces of about a foot square, but with ripped edges. I used the smooth edges against the wall. Stick the paper, one or two sheets at a time, into the glue, squeeze out, and lay flat, smoothing it as needed with your hands. The kind of paper I had (post consumer craft paper) disintegrated quickly if I left it in the water/glue mix too long, so I had to work fast, and only do a couple pieces at a time. Another roll I had (not recycled) held up better.

It goes without saying to not wear good clothes when doing this. My overalls were stiff as a board by the time I was done from all the glue splashed all over me.

Getting Started with craft paper flooring

Like a puzzle, I did the edges first, and worked backwards towards the door.

This is what the floor looked like once I was done laying the paper down. This process took two hours and one pot of coffee to do, between my daughter Anastasia and I.

There's Stasia working on the paper flooring.

Biggest surprise of this project? How long it took for the paper to dry! I was pretty amazed. I planned on doing it one night (we worked until 9 pm) and then being able to start doing the poly on the craft paper flooring the next day. Instead, it took nearly three days for it to fully dry. I’m not sure if the weather is a factor.

As you can see in the lower left corner of the picture, there’s a wee corner popping up from the craft paper. This happened all over the floor, and was starting to stress me out as I watched it happen. Thankfully, I was able to go onto the floor very gently (as it had no poly on it at this point, and was still a bit damp) and use diluted glue and water (leftover from soaking the paper — I put it into a small elmer’s bottle), and a paint brush, and I secured those stray corners of my craft paper flooring.

The floor, at this point, looked really scary awful, as you can see. I was having remodeler’s remorse.

The website I got this project off of said you could also stain the paper after it was done, but I didn’t have any extra stain laying around, and besides, it was cold outside and stain is smelly. If we were staying here long term, then I might have.

Once the paper was fully dry, and all corners and edges were glued down well, I started to use water based poly on the floors.

Now as I said, this was the most expensive part of the craft paper floor project. I thankfully had about three quarters of a gallon of the water based poly in my basement from another project. This stuff runs about $40 per gallon, but unlike regular poly, it doesn’t stink, cleans up well, and it dries really fast. I was able to do about 6 coats per day. The label recommended 1-2 hours between coats.

After we had about 10 coats on the craft paper floor, all was again right in the world. The floor looked a lot better. It feels very smooth.

Craft paper flooring

I was worried, because of the condition of the floor under it, that I’d have some rough spots coming through the floor. Instead, I can’t even notice them.

Looks good, doesn’t it?

What nifty projects have you discovered by way of Pinterest? I’d love to hear!

Because it’s Valentines’ Day I feel like I need to talk about something romantic…but this week, I’ve planned to do posts for all of the frugal organizational projects I’ve done lately. This is a slight deviation. It’s a frugal project, but with a heart theme

I wrote in my book, Shopping & Cooking Frugally, I love bath stuff, so I’ve tried to find ways of making some of what I love at home. I consider bath fizzies to be a lovely treat, but the price just keeps on rising for those!

Have you priced bath fizzies? I used to balk at paying $1 each, but now they’re going for $2.69 each at our grocery store.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Not only was this week Valentines’ Day, but a friend of my girls’ is having a birthday this week, and I thought this would make a great gift for her.

Homemade Bath Fizzies

(makes about 35-40 small bath fizzies)

I realized while cleaning my pantry I had some Citric Acid leftover from when I had been sprouting (it helps with mold). That’s the most expensive ingredient. You can find it at the health food store, some pharmacies, or online.

The other ingredients: baking soda, corn startch, water, food coloring, and essential oils we usually have in house. Perfume would work too.

Start by sifting together:

• 1 3/4 cup of baking soda
• 1 cup of citric acid
• 1 cup of corn starch

Fill a little spray bottle with water and add some food coloring. This is optional, if you want them colored. I chose red, as I’m going to make hearts.

Remove 1 cup of the mixture into another bowl (because it’s easier to work 1 cup at a time), and spritz your mix a couple of times, mix together, spritz again…you don’t want to get it too wet, or it will fizz on you before bathtime.

Keep on going until it’s just moistened enough for you to squeeze it, and it stays together.

Add about 5-8 drops of your favorite essential oil. I added 4 drops of Ylang Ylang and 4 drops of Rose Blend.

Push into an ice cube tray or other mold. I find something without too much definition works well. This heart shaped silicone one I have was found for 25 cents at our local Goodwill! The Silicone ones work well, as it’s easier to pop the fizzies out.

Another option is to use a two piece hollow ball or container from a vending machine (the ones with little toys in them). This would make larger ones.

Let them sit for about 30 minutes, to dry a bit.

Pop them out.

Let them dry a bit more on a tray or other dry surface, while you make another batch.

If they crumble (And that happens), you can use the crumbles in your bath too. They just don’t look as nice for a gift

I found this adorable jar with lid (At the top of post) for $1 at Salvation Army, and this candy dish was part of a box of stuff I bought at an auction last month for $5 a box.When you wash out a container to store them in, make sure it is completely absolutely dry before putting the fizzies in there! A tight fitting lid will help keep out moisture.

I’m giving our friend this pretty dish, with the bath fizzies, as her birthday present.

The other stuff is for me and my girls.

To use, just drop one into the bath while you’re in it. It will fizz up and make a nice smelling bath.

Happy Valentines’ Day,