Christmas came early at 884 this year!!!!

Geez it seems like every time I want to delve back into this blog something comes up.  But I want you all to know that I am around and thinking about posts all the time. 

I am going to try and come around a few times a week, instead of trying the impossible (at this time), once a day.  I have a lot of projects that I have started around the new house and massive plans for the next year. 

I do have some awesome news.  I finally, after years of coveting this amazing techie toy, I was able to get one!  I am now the proud owner of a Silhouette Cameo and if you are not sure what this is… please click HERE to be taken to the product page so you can see what this machine is capable of.   On the right side of the page there is a blue box, that says "What can you make?".  Clicking on the links below it will give you an overview of this beast :)

I have had the product since last Thursday and have been playing around with it a bit and Friday I made my first Christmas card in years.  I am going to try and get a tut together for all of you who enjoy making home-made cards for family and friends.

Now as much fun as it is to make cards and the like, there is another project that I can do with the Cameo to help make some extra cash around here.  I am going to be making some custom vinyl sayings and monograms.  I am really looking forward to playing around with this Cameo as there are so many wonderful things to make.

We are still unpacking and trying to figure where to put everything.  G is making shelves in the garage to help keep my craft supplies all neat and organized.  I am going to be putting some ideas I have for my craft area together soon for a post, so be on the watch for that. 

After we get most of the boxes unpacked and stored, then comes the decorating.  I am really looking forward to that stage as I have never truly decorated before.  I always had hand me down furniture (which is not a bad thing, but I would take things as long as they were needed), without care for how it 'fit' with the rest of the room.  So with that big project I am quite excited and am hoping to focus on one room at a time till it is done how I envision.  It could honestly be a long time till things are done to my taste but that is ok.  The fun is in the process in my eyes.

The weather has definitely changed here in south western Ontario.  It is cold and windy, with snow here and there mixed with nasty rain.  I hate the 'dark' days of winter.  It can get so daunting and depressive.  How are you planning on bringing some sunshine into your life this winter?

The Christmas season is fast approaching and with it, my brain is in overdrive with many projects I want to make and give as gifts this year.  I have started on a few of them so far and hope to be able to finish and share them with you in the weeks ahead.

I will also be trying my hand at making 'home-made' beauty products to give to the young ladies, for H, N, and M this year.  I also have some goodies in mind for the guys this year also, R has just moved into an apartment with his friend M, so they are needing things for around the house, and I will probably be making C the same as R and M, and not real sure what to do for W this year. 

What can you make for a 14 year old boy?  If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please leave me a comment below.

Recipe Review

A few weeks ago I went searching into my recipe boards on Pinterest in search of a quick and easy supper I could make that wouldn't have much prep involved and I came across a recipe for French Dip Sandwich's.

The recipe consisted of the roast, beef broth, and buns.  You place the roast and broth in crock-pot for 5-7 hours on high or 8-11 hours on slow.  Gregg and I both felt it was too bland and so I would suggest adding 1-2 packages of Lipton Onion Soup Mix and any other flavouring you like with your roast.  The roast was nice and tender and with the addition of the Onion Soup and a thickening agent ( I used cornstarch), to give the 'au jus' a bit more consistency.

I would love to hear other versions of your favourite Beef Au Jus recipes.  We love having this type of comfort food in our house and we would love to try out any you suggest, so please leave a comment below with your recipe.

What I have been busy doing..

Well, it's been a "few" days since my last blog post, so let me fill you all in.

A few months ago our landlord gave us 2 days notice that she was putting our home up for sale.  We were very shocked but our home was not in shape for a showing due to me being pretty much bed bound for the last few years.  It wasn't dirty, but cluttered.

I started working on the house right away but could only do an hour or two at most a day.  Well then my landlord accused us of trying to sabotage the sale of her house.  Geez.

Unfriendly words were spoken by both of us and I was emotionally drained after a full day of this so I finally told her to evict us and she said she would and I hung up.

I wasn't very worried about the eviction because I knew she had no grounds.  We were not and have never been in arrears and we had not damaged the home.  I also had an ace up my sleeve.  That was my five year lease of which I still had 2 years to go.  Seems she forgot about that and realized she was going to have a hard time selling this house that the tenants still had 2 years left on the lease.

Thank god she asked us for a 5 year lease, LOL, that kind of back fired on her.  Now she had to disclose this to each potential buyer.  So she called and asked if we could get together to talk.

She said that we could buy the place ourselves (there is no way I would ever buy this house), or move out and she would pay our first and last at the new house and our moving truck and the use of 2 guys to do the lifting as neither Gregg nor I should be lifting things.

Gregg and I talked about it and realized this might be our opportunity to find a home more suitable for me. A ranch or bungalow so I wouldn't need to go up and down stairs any more.

We immediately set out looking for a new home.  We looked at 3 houses within days of having this conversation with our landlord.

One was really small, one was older but the basement smelt damp and mildewy.  And a fully redone century home.

The last one, the redone century home, was really beautifully renovated.  It had the original hardwood floors, sanded and re-finished in a dark chocolate stain.  All brand new windows, new tile in kitchen, landing and bathroom.  

It had a 1 1/2 -2 car insulated garage, which of course Gregg loved.  He can't wait to get his tools all set up so he can do things he used to enjoy.

A huge backyard that was mostly fenced in.  Directly behind our property is a park so we didn't have to worry about neighbours behind us. The house was basically perfect except one very huge issue that made us actually turn down the house.

This house was a 3 bedroom (we only needed a 2 bedroom), but the third bedroom was only suitable for a nursery or office really.  And the kitchen was so tiny you couldn't even put a dining room table of any sort in there.

It was an extremely hard decision to turn it down and we took all weekend to finalize that decision.

Monday morning I got an email from the owner's asking us if we had made a decision and Gregg emailed him back with an explanation as  to why we were turning it down.

Not 30 minutes later we received a reply back that made me scream and clap my hands.  The owner's had been trying to decide whether or not to open up the one wall in the kitchen into that small useless bedroom.

We called them and agreed to take it with the new plans.

The only drawback now was we had 15 days to pack and move.

So, we have moved to what will now be referred to as "884".  We have the other place till Oct. 31 and have gotten all our belongings out with the amazing help of my oldest son and his room-mate.  They have done all the lifting and if it wasn't for those two I don't know what we would have done.   Gregg's son even came down to help us one day.  Now I just have to clean it and say goodbye.

And just because I have to vent, my ex-landlord reneged on the deal and hasn't given us a cent.  We definitely didn't have the money right now to move but we couldn't risk losing this bungalow as they are rarely available to rent in my town.

I am slowly unpacking and getting things done in the new place but I will have some progressive photos as we continue to settle in.

Tried and True - I have used it for a year

Last year I participated in the 31 Days challenge over at The Nester.  I had a lot of fun gathering information for everyone and I even tried a few things myself.  But I have to admit there is only one thing that I tried myself last year that I am still using today.

Can you guess which one it might be?

If you have read the series you will see that there are a lot of neat DIY 'recipes' posted and billions more online for you to find but I wanted to update you on the one thing I use and will never stop using.  It's the DIY Dryer Sheets Method 1.  I went to the local thrift store and bought a couple of baby receiving blankets and cut them up to use as my dryer sheets.

We have only purchased ONE bottle of Fabric Softener in a year and we still have lots left.  I personally use one home made sheet for 20 washes and then re-soak and use again.  The only thing we found to be a negative was that when my son would do laundry, he would always take my dryer sheet home with him, and we would never see it again lol.  So now we don't let him use them LOL .  See only one negative and I fixed it.

Here is my latest load with the dryer sheet.  It looks dirty but remember that it is used about 20 times and then washed and we do the whole process over again.

Have any of you tried this?  If so what did you think and are you still using it?  It saves us  tons of money each year.  If you have not tried this yet, please do, it really does work, we never have static cling and like I said we do use each 'sheet' approximately 20 times before moving onto the next one.  

Saturdays Recipe Round-up

I'm going to try and do a feature post on the weekends where I share interesting recipes that I have found on-line that week.  I also am hoping to prepare one of the previous weeks recipes and give you my review for that recipe and what it was hit or a miss. 

I want to try and do some of the things that I lovingly pin each week.  So for this week's recipe round-up please see below and if you decide to try one of the recipes featured each week I would love for you to come back and let us know what you thought about the recipe, anything you found difficult or would change/add, and its level of difficulty.

Do you know of a good recipe that you think should be showcased, please click the link below to email me the link to the recipe and I will try and get up some from those sent in each week.

So let's begin our very first feature here at Homemaker Haven.  I hope you will enjoy this feature, if you do please leave a comment and let me know if this is something you wish to see continue.

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese Ham Bake

Beer Battered Grilled Cheese Sandwhiches

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Creamy Bacon Carbonara

Chocolate Covered Banana Split Bites

Yum! I wonder which recipe I will choose to make this week.  So many possibilities and so little time.

 

And last but not least, here is the recipe that I am  going to trying to make this week.  With October coming up upon us I decided to try out these amazing looking Pumpkin Snickerdoodles.  Just click the picture to be taken directly to the recipe. 

I do hope that someone will join me and make one of this week's recipes and leave a review in the comments below.  Happy Cooking!

Are you a disorganized pinner?

This week I am going to try and get some of my Pinterest boards cleaned up.  I have been on there for about 3 years now and what a mess I have created.  If you are not familiar with Pinterest then let me help you get addicted lol.  While you can go and view things, to actually save your boards, you will need to register and to do so you need an invitation.  Feel free to contact me and I will send Here is a screenshot of what it looks like right now.  I did start working on renaming and making new boards to help keep things organized but I have a very long way to go.

 So this is what my Pinterest looks like at the moment.  I have a wee bit of boards, but the problem is I have things stashed all over the place, like all my recipes are in the Recipes folder.  So it will take me forever to find a recipe I want to use if I have to go through that folder which at the present holds 197 recipes.  You may also notice that I started to cull those recipes into specific recipe boards.  Such as 'Recipe - Deserts', and 'Recipe - Cookies and Cakes'. 

This will take you some time to get things organized if you have been a pinner like myself.  This project will take longer than a day for most of you.  But set a reasonable goal in regards to how long this will take you to complete.  I am going to try and get into Pinterest once a week and organize.  If I am able to come more than once all the better.

First thing I do to organize my boards is go in one.  Then I slowly look at each of the pins and move any to other categories if they are placed incorrectly.  I also look for duplicates and get rid of any that I find by deleting them.  After both of those are done , I take another quick look at what is left in the original board and decide if they can be split into more specific boards and create those to move the pins to.

To edit my boards I click the little pen icon and create a board or move the pin to its correct board from there and then when you click save, a refreshed board will appear with your pin moved.

You can also now specify your cover photo for your boards.  To do this you will go into the board of your choice.  I am going to choose my scrapbooking board for this example.  Just hover your mouse over the board you want to edit and a button will appear that says 'change cover'. 

Click that and another box will load up on your screen.  This box allows you to scroll through the pins on your board and find your favorite one that showcases what your boards are about and once you find the image you would like, click save changes and voila… you have a new board cover.

Today I have worked on my Scrapbooking, For the Home, and my Photography boards.  But there is still tons to do but remember not to get burnt out by doing too much of one thing each day.  That is why I will be working on this task a bit each day till the boards and nicely organized.

Do you keep your Pinterest all organized and if so how do you do yours?

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I'm Back

Hi everyone.  I must apologize for being absent from the blog for so long. 

I got quick sick in the last year and have not even been able to get out of bed let alone blog but I am back!  I ended up having an Ileostomy at the end of May and my life is slowly getting better and better every day.  I will be posting about the last year of my life in the near future just to help explain the absence.

So, with the news that I am back, I also have purchased a domain for this blog and will be moving over to that in the near future as well.  So there will be lots going on over here at Homemaker Haven.  I do hope that you will stop by again in the future to see me and be a part of the new blog.

It's that time of year when we start making crafty winter/Christmas décor items and gifts for our friends and family and I have some ideas that I want to do for my own house.   One project that has me all excited is making a candy wreath.  I will be slipping out this week to get supplies. 

Although… we are not sure but we may be moving in the near future, so I might have a gorgeous new home to decorate.  Yeah! 

I hope that all of you are well and I look forward to meeting the new faces and reconnecting with those who were dropping by before.

Well that’s all the news I have for you today but please check back in again as I start my way back to my dream blog and reclaiming the house into our home.

When do you all start getting ready for winter/Christmas season?