Drawer Clean Up!

Junk drawers are the worst.  I have or rather HAD two of them in my kitchen.  We moved in with a 4 month old and things kind of just got tossed into places.  Then more stuff got tossed onto the other stuff and now it's just a giant mess.

A quick visit to the dollar store helped me out quite a bit!  The ice cube trays were perfect for the little screws and nuts and bolts and whatever little bits that were laying around the drawer.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and now when I need something I know exactly where it is!!

"Honey have you seen my work glove?"

"It's where it belongs, in the garage, and NOT in the drawer!"

What part of your home do you wish would just get cleaned out already?

Kitchen Help

I've been on a mission to organize the spaces in my home where I spend the most time.  Starting with the kitchen.  I nanny for an 8 month old little boy and I have my own 12 month old Evelyn.  Needless to say, they eat...All. The. Time.

Now that they are digging in more often than they are having a liquid lunch I have plenty of dirty bibs, cloths and towels.  They would end up on a pile next to the laundry room door and I would scoop them up at the end of the day and throw them into the larger laundry basket in the laundry room.  Bad Idea.  This just meant that I had a larger basket of laundry hiding behind a closed door.

Easy solution!  I visited the local Dollar Tree and purchased a small laundry basket to store under the high chair.  I can toss bibs, towels and wash cloths in there and at the end of the day I only have a small load to wash.  No yucky wet towels at the bottom of the basket from a few days ago.

Not to big, not to small!  Just right!

Happy First Birthday! (invitations...)

Happy First Birthday!

Our little girl is turning One this month and I went and splurged on etsy invitations.  I tried like heck to recreate these beautiful inviations but it just was not possible.  They are just too cute!  I'd like to thank Rachelle's Printables for having such a quick turnaround (12 hours!) and super friendly email conversations.  I felt like mine were the only thing they were working on. I had them printed by Snapfish for a local Walgreens pick up.  All in all for 35 invitations it only cost me about $20 (not including the stamps).  

So cute I want to eat them!  

"Is it me or is this the cutest thing ever?"

What is your favorite etsy store? 

"Instant" Cookies (Part 1)

When I was trying to nurse Evelyn I tried all kinds of different supplements.  One of them that actually seemed to work made me smell like I'd bathed in maple syrup.  All day.  For 4 months.  There are worse things a person can smell like but after a while it was annoying.  And to this day, 8 months later, I can't stand the taste of maple syrup unless it's mixed in with something like oh, waffles.  Yum.

I bought a box of Quaker High Fiber instant oatmeal hoping to help with the baby weight and to have a filling breakfast.  They only had one flavor.  Maple and Brown Sugar.  After the first packet I couldn't do it.  I had flashbacks to that horrible bitter tasting liquid supplement.  Yuck. But of course I couldn't throw away perfectly good food so there it sat on the top shelf of the pantry until a few weekends ago I was thinking it would be nice to have some oatmeal cookies, and what an easy way to get rid of those oatmeal packets!

So I looked online for "instant oatmeal cookies" and I came across this recipe.  Instant Oatmeal Packet Cookies

Holy oatmeal batman!  They were a little flatish but so chewy and yummy.  I could tolerate the maple flavor because it was mixed with cookie goodness.  They were of course handed out to friends and family and we ate quite a few ourselves!  Hubster liked them and was sad when I told him I probably won't make them again since I don't intend to buy that type of oatmeal.  I'm sure the other box of oatmeal that I bought will end up in a cookie though.  I just don't have the desire to eat oatmeal for breakfast.  I'm a protein in the morning kind of gal!

A little flat but really yummy!

What is your favorite kind of oatmeal cookie?  Traditional?  With nuts or raisins?

"You're Turning Violet, Violet!"

It all started with a playgroup and a sale...

I recently joined a new playgroup in my area and I offered to host a rather large group of ladies and babies (why didn't we name our group that?!)...    I've been trying to bake more often so when Evelyn grows up we can do it together.  The grocery store had giant boxes of blueberries on sale and I had fed so many of them to Evelyn that she was sure to turn blue at some point.  So I decided to make a blueberry cakey cookie with them.  I literally looked up 'cakey cookie recipe' in the Google box.  And this is the recipe that  I found: Chocolate Chip Cookie: The Cakey Version . I know I know, *GASP* why didn't I make them with chocolate chips?  Well you see, I only had about 1/8 cup of chocolate chips and I had about 2 lbs of blueberries....so that's why.  

The cookies were Ah-Mah-Zing!  But my husband made a comment that they needed a little bit of something.  Then he suggested a lemon icing.  He is a genius.  So I make a simple lemon icing with a bit of powdered sugar, lemon juice straight from the bottle shaped like a lemon and half and half.

Just one lonely little cookie...it needs something....

Many happy cookies with a lemon icing!

My playgroup ate them up.  There were only about 4 left after everyone had gone home so it was left to me to eat them all up!

What is your favorite cookie?  Cakey? Chewey? Crunchy?

"Shelley's Stitches" Gift

My sister in law Shelley, owner of "Shelley's Stitches" created this cutie patootie little onesie for Evelyn!  I love the sparkly birdy and the color scheme is really great!  It's all high quality thread and the onesie is super soft.  She does custom work from her home and you'll love what she can make for you!  

The cute kid can be distracting, I know!

Feel free to visit her Facebook store and see what what she's done recently! Tell her the Fabrycated mom sent you!

What is YOUR favorite independent creative mom store?

...And we're back!

It's been a while since I've posted!  Wow does time fly?!  Evelyn is almost a year old and I think I've made it though relatively unscathed.  I'm finding so much to do around the house that I think other mom's and even non-mom's would be interested in.  Keep an eye out for some fun baking ideas and great organizing projects in the future here at Fabrycated Mom!

Brought to you by the letter F and also the number 11!

:-D