This is the easiest Taco Soup ever – and it can be made completely from items you have in your food storage.
You just throw it all in the pot and let it simmer for a few hours – until those dehydrated vegetables are soft!
These are the basic ingredients – and of course you can use the real thing, but throwing in the dried and canned stuff is so much easier than actually chopping an onion!!!
My picture of ingredients doesn’t show meat. I usually throw in ground beef (sometimes even stretching my ground beef by adding whole cooked wheat kernels), or wieners, or chicken, or no meat at all.
The basic ingredients are onions, carrots, tomatoes, beans, corn and whatever else you need to clean out of your fridge. I’ve even thrown in dried zucchini from time to time just to bug my family (did you know a large zucchini will shrink down small enough to fit in a small ziploc baggie when it’s dehydrated?). Whenever they see an unidentified green thing in anything, someone will always ask, “Is there zucchini in this?”
The only seasoning I add is Taco seasoning – as much or as little as you choose. Add water to get your desired consistency and there you have it. Quick, easy and delicious!
I prefer my tacos on the side rather than getting soggy under the soup! Sour cream, cheese and cilantro or green onions or chives top it off perfectly (I know I don’t have any green stuff on it – just imagine it!).
And even if you don’t have the garnishes, the soup is great on it’s own. We call it Chili!
I found this thing at a thrift store. My best guess would be that it might be used for carrying wine bottles. But since I don’t drink wine, I decided it would make a pretty cute wicker vase.
The first step was to cut off the lid.
(My 13 year old, who doesn’t play with Barbie’s anymore, decided that the little latch part would make a perfect Barbie sized noose. So I tossed it before we got some disturbing Barbie things going on!)
Looks better already!!!
Then I took that bottle of Almond spray paint and went to work – in a well ventilated place of course! That stuff stinks.
I did two coats and then flipped it over and did my third coat to cover the bottom and catch the rest of it at a different angle.
And there it is – an adorable and cheap wicker vase! (love spray paint!) Warning: Do not use with flowers that will require water unless you put a narrow vase inside first.
Add some dollar store berry twigs and there you have it!!!
Now I just have to find a cuter spot for it, but that will come as I unpack those mounds of boxes! Still tons of things to find homes for.
I have found that since I discovered the joys of spray paint, I shop differently now – especially at thrift stores and garage sales. Colour doesn’t matter anymore – it’s the bones that count!!!
Need an easy but fun Valentine idea for your special someone? Well, keep reading . . .
My guy enjoys these little red cinnamon hearts. I find that they burn my tongue and my kids say they’re too ‘spicy’!
But he loves them and so I did this for him for Valentine’s Day. I got the idea from somewhere, but the poem is my own creation. (I’ve typed it out after this picture so it’s easier to read.)
Feel free to use it, just give me the credit for my poetic prowess!!!
The simple phrase I LOVE YOU
Is often hard to say,
Or sometimes we just plain forget
To say it every day.
I want you to know that I LOVE YOU
So here’s what I have done:
I’ve taken little red cinnamon hearts
And hidden them one by one.
I’ve put them in your sock drawer
And in your sweaters too;
I’ve put them in your pockets
And probably in your shoes.
I’ve put them in your long johns
And even in your coat.
Why, I’d put them in the bathtub
If I thought that they would float.
So when you find a small red heart
Here’s what you must do:
Suck it slowly in your mouth
And know that I LOVE YOU!
(www.yearningtocreate.com)
He enjoyed it – and it was especially fun when, months after Valentine’s Day, he was still finding little red hearts!
My Uncle Harvey has recently created his own casket. When I first saw these photo’s, I was enthralled! I’ve never seen anything like this before – and it’s gorgeous!!!
Yes, that’s Uncle Harvey – hopefully he’s not going to need his lovely ‘box’ for many years yet!!!
This is what he had to say about how this came about:
Thank you for your kind remarks about my lovely’ box’. An ex-pupil made it for me (he now owns a joinery factory) out of particle board to my style and specification. It was then painted “British Racing Green” – always been a favourite colour of mine. The painter did a great job and we have always used him whenever one of our cars needed attention.
Finally the graphics – a demanding job sorting out the appropriate photos and locating them in the best positions. An expert friend did this for me, but I did the pin stripe and fitted the handles and cover screws. Inside is finished to the same standard as the outside, and roomy enough for my dog if he’s still around.
The finished price of my box is the same price as the cheapest box available, so I am well pleased with the result. If you feel inclined, place it on your Blog – I might get some orders!
The center top panel is empty – that’s where the casket spray goes. The left panel is a great picture of my handsome Uncle, and the right panel has words. There are pictures around the entire box, with a larger one on each end.
I love how the whole box has such meaning to Uncle Harvey and those who know and love him.
Very impressive Uncle Harvey – and I’m sure your dog loves it too!
Edited to add: Unfortunately Uncle Harvey passed away last year (2017) and was laid to rest in his lovely box. Love you Uncle H!
I unpacked these little blue blocks the other day. But today I added the Be My Valentine words, because we all know that day of love is coming up in less than a month!!!
Originally I made the blocks for a Relief Society Party.
The purpose of Relief Society being: 1) Increase Faith 2) Strengthen Family and 3) Provide Relief.
Now that I don’t need the R.S. words anymore,
I thought it would be fun to make a bunch more words for the family to be creative with.
So I printed these on cardstock and distressed the edges. I keep thinking of more I should add, so I have a list for people to add more words as they think of them.
Here are a few other loving variations . . .
But right now there is only one possible message that could be on the blocks . . .. . . as she wrote her English Diploma exam today, with Math and Chemistry to follow next week. With them counting for 50% of her final grade, that’s a lot of pressure.
This cute little tin was a Christmas gift – filled with delicious homemade chocolates. Mmmm, someone knows my weakness (and yes, I ate them all myself – but not all at once!).
My mom grew up in NZ and used the word “tin” all the time. But it doesn’t seem all that common here in North America in the context she used it.
English lesson time here: when I say “tin” I’m referring to the noun, meaning “a pan, box, etc., made of tin” as opposed to the adjective – eg. a tin can. Tin, as we all know, is “a soft, silver-white metallic chemical element”. My guys says that not everybody knows that, but now that I’ve typed it, you all know now!
Anyway, I liked the tin – it’s a nice size and the lid is hinged in the back. I’ve got plenty of things already that are just for Christmas, so I decided to give this little tin a new look so I could use it year round.
Bring on the spray paint!!!
This was after three coats of spray paint. I know it looks like you can still see the red showing through – but it only looks like that in the picture with the flash. In real life it looks like . . .
. . . this – nice and dark. I used Oil Rubbed Bronze Krylon spray paint that I got in Walmart for about $4.64 a can (that’s a pretty accurate estimate!). I used maybe $1.02 worth of spray paint on this.
As you can see, I prettied it up a little with some natural hemp twine.
And now it sits on my dresser, being a cute little catch-all for those things we collect like buttons, pins, pennies, library cards . . . etc.
Love my tin (the box, not the metallic chemical element).
It really is amazing how spray paint can transform anything – how did I not discover it years ago? Stay tuned for some more spray paint projects!
Oh, and you can check out my Forget Not project here.
I home school my kids until grade 4 – that’s when they start public school. So this year I have Kat at home and she’s in grade 1. We have this wonderful facilitator who comes to our home once a month and does a science lesson with her.
Well, last weeks lesson was about bugs and so Miss S brought in some real live bugs for Kat to play with (although I think I was more fascinated with them than she was! I like bugs – it’s snakes and worms that creep me out because I accidentally killed a snake once by riding my bike over it, and now they’re all after me for revenge!).
We got to observe the three stages of meal worms.
The beetle stage – that light brown one emerged that morning and all he wanted to do was hang out on the cucumber – that’s how you give them liquid (a slice of cucumber about every two weeks). I think he drank too much cucumber juice though because he has since “crossed the bar”.
This is the boring stage – the little cocoons or chrysalis’s just lay around and do nothing. I wonder how long it takes them to emerge. This morning, there was a light brown beetle among them. He’s since been transferred to the beetle dish and I’ll see if he survives better without a cucumber nearby.
This is the grossest stage – maybe because they resemble snakes and worms! But they have legs so they’re not so bad – it looks like they have three little legs on each side, up by their head. And they hardly move at all. I’ve been wanting to see how they make their cocoon, but when I come back to look, suddenly there will be a new one already there and I missed it being formed. Today I did get to see one that wasn’t completely hardened yet because the tail was still moving. Fascinating stuff!
They have these nice secure lids so nothing is going to escape. Even when a basketball knocked them over, the lids stayed on! Phew!!! My family doesn’t seem to appreciate them on the table though so I’ve had to move them to the laundry room.
After observing the bugs with Miss S and her magnifying glass, Kat got to create her own bugs in the three different stages out of all this material that Miss S brought. (Sorry, forgot to take pictures and the worm balloon has since left us. You’ll have to use your imagination – think egg cartons, etc.)
Miss S is wonderful and does all these fun science projects with Kat and asks her probing questions and then listens and talks and laughs along with Kat – and Kat can talk the ear off an elephant!!!
So, why a meal worm post on a “Creating” blog?
I was thinking of the most amazing creation of all time – our world. I often see things (like the life cycle of a meal worm) that just remind me of what wonderful and glorious things our Heavenly Father has created for us. And I am just in awe – especially at this time of year, when it’s so exciting to watch the world start to wake up and spring to life after it’s winters rest. What a loving Heavenly Father we have to provide such an awesome place for us to dwell.
I have a beadboard shelf that I love, but I thought I’d be able to do a little more with it if it had some hooks on it. So I was looking for oil rubbed bronze hooks at Walmart – and I found some! But they were $2 more each than the exact same hook with the bright brass finish.
So what did I do?
I bought the cheaper brass hooks for $1.97 each and took them home to doctor them up a little with my newest favourite thing – spray paint (which I didn’t need to buy since I already had plenty of at home!).
My guy taught me this little trick for spray painting the tops of screws – just poke them in cardboard so they stand up nicely.
Couple coats later, and I’m now the proud owner of the more expensive hooks, at the less expensive price!!! And I know it’s only $4 I saved, but it makes me feel good! And there’s a lot you can buy at the dollar store for that much!!!
I screwed them on and now I can do so much more with my shelf – like hang things from it!
It’s a fun little place to decorate for the seasons!
St. Patrick’s Day is just a few days away and I’ve done nothing yet to decorate. I don’t do much for St. Patrick’s Day – mostly because we have four kids with birthdays in March (yup, four!), and there is also all the basketball playoffs, and the Relief Society Anniversary Party. So there is no time to celebrate the green day or Pi day. About all I’ve been known to do for St. P’s day is wear green and put some green food colouring in the milk. The girls are always a little startled to be pouring green milk on their cereal in the morning!
Anyway, Krystal at Sassy Sanctuary did this cute shamrock craft and I thought to myself, “I can do something like that!”
So I went to my stash of frames, and bingo – found the perfect little chalkboard frame!!! With moving and building, I hadn’t seen my stash in years. I have no recollection of ever getting this little chalkboard, but it must have been from a dollar store or sale bins at Michael’s or Walmart, cause that’s how I shop!
I roughly painted the outside edge in a beige, being sure to miss lots of spots!!!
I’m not set up for cutting out wood yet, so I decided to let cardboard be my shamrock base. I am set up for cutting with an exacto knife!!! I just traced my pattern onto the cardboard and green paper.
I think the part of this project that took the longest was choosing the green paper – again, from my stash! Then I distressed the edges and mod podged it together.
I used my Burnt Umber oil colour paint to distress the edges of the frame (after lightly sanding of course!)
Just lightly rub it on with a cloth, after rubbing most of it off on paper first!
Wait, what’s this? A blue frame? Well, this is the backside of my chalkboard! I thought it looked pretty usable too for something else – but that’ll be another post someday! Stay tuned!
When I did my top layer of mod podge – after letting the bottom layer get really dry (don’t want any bubbles in my shamrock!) I put a piece of fabric on top of the wet mod podge. Pressed it down firmly and then peeled it off right away.
It gives the top finish a “canvassy” look, which I like better than brush strokes.
The next step was simply to tie the shamock to the frame with some jute and add some words . . .
I love it! And you can be assured that I’ll be changing out that shamrock for other shapes for different holidays.
You often hear people say, “Oh, you’re so lucky!” but I think the more accurate phrase would be, “Oh, you’re so blessed!” Hence my words “Lucky means Blessed”.
The St. Patrick’s Day shelf . . .. . . add a few hydrangeas, burn candle wicks so they show up, and voila! (Oh, and I just added the hooks to my shelf – check out that screaming deal here!)
We have two Christmas trees every year. We refer to one of them as our “Nativity Tree”. It’s got white lights and lots of gold and silver on it, and all ornaments somehow remind us of the Savior.
Under the tree are some small gold and silver boxes – one for each person in the family. On Christmas Eve we all take a bit to time to think of what gift we will give the Savior this year – some way to help us grow closer to Him and to improve ourselves. We write this on a piece of paper that is in our box – and also look back on our past “gifts” to the Savior. It’s a good time for personal reflection!
One year I thought that it would be neat to receive “gifts from the Savior”. I didn’t mention it to anyone in my family, so they were a little surprised to wake up on Christmas morning to find gifts under the Nativity Tree! (All our gifts go under the colourful tree – the tree with the other types of ornaments you collect over the years and that the kids have made!)The gifts under the Nativity Tree are all wrapped in plain paper and they each have a scripture or saying on it that is pertinent to that person, or to the gift. We always take time to read the scripture before opening the gift.
I usually buy the gifts from a church bookstore, but that can get pretty pricey. With this year being a house-building year for us with not a lot of extra cash laying around, I decided to make gifts. We might not have had cash laying around, but we did have plenty of wood laying around!
For example . . .. . . this is what my guys gift started like! It’s a chunk of solid oak that was cut off the bottom of a newel post on the stairs. What would you make with that?
Now before I started any projects, I asked everyone what their favourite scriptures or quotes were, and their favourite colours, so I could make something meaningful to them.
My guy likes Mosiah 4:19
“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”
This is what I came up with for him . . .. . . a candle holder, with his favourite part of the scripture.
It’s simply words stamped onto cardstock, then distressed and mod podged onto the stained piece of oak. He loves it, even though he wondered if I dulled his drill bit drilling the hole in the top!!!
My gift was thoughtfully made for me by me at my friend’s craft classes – thanks again Kd!!!I love this quote and picture of the temple. I was going to give it to one of my girls, but then I realized “Hey, I want it!!!” And if I keep it, each one of them will be able to benefit from the message!
Elle’s gift was probably my biggest challenge! She liked a really long scripture, and the whole thing was so good, I didn’t want to shorten anything. (You can read it in the pictures!)
Her favourite scripture right now is Doctrine and Covenants 98:1-3.
I decide to make her a candle holder too, but hers was a soft wood and didn’t dull the drill bit!!!I printed out her scripture – one verse per side of the wooden block. Mod podged on scrapbook paper in her favourite colours and glued on the little clothes pins. I like the clothes pins because that way she can easily change her scriptures, or add pictures, or anything else inspiring.
Warning: remove ribbon if you’re going to burn the candle!
Yes – it turned out pretty cute!!!
The next three daughters were easier – they all got long pieces of wood to go over a door or window.
Min got Proverbs 3:5-6 (one of my favourites too!)
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct they paths.”
Jo got Alma 26:12.
“Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak;
therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God,
for in His strength I can do all things . . .”
Lee chose 1 Timothy 4:12.
“Be thou an example of the believers,
in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”
Jen got a picture of the temple too. I printed hers from this site.Then it was simply mod podged onto a piece of 2×6 with all the cute other little details to match her room.
Laying a piece of cloth over the mod podge while it’s still wet (pressing it down and then peeling it off right away) gives a nice canvassy looking finish.
Kat’s gift was actually made by my mom! Thanks mom!!!
Six puzzles to keep me her quiet in church! These are about one inch squares and each side has a picture on it. It’s pretty challenging!
And finally, Mac got a popsicle stick puzzle.
One side has a picture and the other side has . . .. . . a message! And again, mod podge is the secret ingredient!
And the final, finally . . .. . . a picture of the Savior by Liz Lemon Swindle – an amazing artist.
She says of this picture,
“During His ministry, Christ healed a blind man. The leaders of the Jews called the man before them and demanded he renounce Christ. When he refused, they cast him out.
When Jesus heard what the leaders had done, He immediately went looking for this man (John 9:35). I could see the determination on Christ’s face as He made His way through the crowd. I draw comfort from knowing that if He will search after him, He will search after me.”
This 8×10 picture was free during the “Every home should have a picture of Christ” campaign. All I had to do was frame it!
This tradition that we started a few years ago has quickly become one of my favourite parts of the holidays. Tears are often shed and the Spirit is felt as we celebrate our Savior’s birth.
You just throw it all in the pot and let it simmer for a few hours – until those dehydrated vegetables are soft!
My picture of ingredients doesn’t show meat. I usually throw in ground beef (sometimes even stretching my ground beef by adding whole cooked wheat kernels), or wieners, or chicken, or no meat at all.
I prefer my tacos on the side rather than getting soggy under the soup! Sour cream, cheese and cilantro or green onions or chives top it off perfectly (I know I don’t have any green stuff on it – just imagine it!).
