Coupon Spreadsheet Update

A number of you have been commenting on the issue of sales tax with the original coupon spread sheet. I had not realized that the taxes were calculated based on the original price, so I made some adjustments to the spreadsheet to reflect that.

For those of you who did not read the first post, I do not use this worksheet because I live in London where they do not do grocery coupons. I made this sheet for my sister, and I thought it would be nice to share with others that wanted a very detailed coupon spreadsheet.

Here is a closer screen shot of the sales tax fix for those of you where were asking for this change. 

I hope this spreadsheet proves useful for someone out there. If you see any more errors let me know. I am not the quickest at fixing problems, but I will eventually get around to it.

To access the spreadsheet, all you need is the link Coupon Spreadsheet v2. You are welcome to direct people to the site, but I ask that you do not mass distribute the spreadsheet without permission.

More Ceramics

My husband and I have finished some more ceramic pieces from our date night pottery workshops. We have been having so much fun with these workshops, and as you can see we are learning how to do some many different kinds of pottery techniques.

These are some jewelry pendant pieces I simple rolled out and cut with cookie cutter shapes. Then I took some various textures and added some detail. My favorite is the blue flower that has a nice speckled blue paint on the inside and a pewter colored outer rim. I had another lovely piece, but it broke on me. I was told there is a 30% failure rate for professional potters, so you shouldn't get discouraged if something doesn't turn out. It just so happened that the piece had an air pocket in it, so it shattered.

This is a bowl that I spun on a potter's wheel. It was the first piece that I successfully made on the wheel, so I am quite proud of it. I love the speckled paint job, but honestly I thought it was going to be a different color. The label and picture made it look more like a tea color with coffee colored specks, but instead it turned out robin's egg. Perhaps the paint labels got mixed up, but I still love it. The speckles are actually blobs in the paint, and when the piece goes into the kilm to cure the blobs explode into the speckled pattern you see here.

I finished the bottom with a nice brown color. 

Pottery Plate

I am so proud of this plate! I made it all by myself. When I say I made it, I don't mean I just painted it in some Paint Your Own Pottery place. I actually made it with wet clay, created the polka dots, drew the cool food, and then later painted it.

My husband and I have been going to a ceramics open studio at the local community center for our date nights. Tonight I got my first piece back, this awesome plate! We also got to try our hand at the potter's wheel. I made an awesome bowl, which I can't wait to see how it turns out. It will be awhile before it is done, but I will post a picture when it is done too :)

Family Christmas Craft Countdown - Gingerbread House Village

With only 4 sleeps left until Christmas, and since everyone is home all day, we decided to do a Christmas family activity every night until Christmas.

Yesterday evening we made Gingerbread Houses. Ok they were made out of graham crackers, but they still turned out cute.

This is mine, and everyone thought mine was the coolest. I used vanilla wafers as a rough, pretzel rods for the door, and fruit roll up to outline the window. My coolest feature is the Christmas tree which I made from a Resse cup base with a candy cane stick through the center. Then I just cut up a marshmallow and dipped it in green colored sugar then iced it to the candy cane.

This is Lexi's. She made a cute chimney with the pretzel rods and windows out of square pretzels.

Neil wasn't feeling very well, but he managed to make quite a happy house. This is actually the backyard with a clothes line and a laundry basket.

Ray wanted to go for a England style home. The thatched roof is made from shredded wheat cereal. The round windows are from vanilla wafers covered in fruit loops. The door is candy canes with a knob in the center of the door like they have here. And finally there is a red postal box which was suppose to be close to the end of the path, but it fell over and that is where it ended up. In true English fashion, nothing on this house is truly straight lol. 

What's Today's Treat of the Day

You may have noticed that I stopped blogging about the treats of the day. That is because I have been working hard to create a new blog dedicated solely to the treat of the day. I think this homemaker blog and my treat blog have separate audiences, so I felt it was best to separate the two early.  

Have no fear, there will still be food related posts on this blog. I still plan to do my food challenges with my sister on here as well as food tutorials. 

Here is the link to my new blog: What's Today's Treat

You can follow this blog on Facebook or Twitter 

Dinner Rolls Tutorial

My sister has been asking me to make a video tutorial on how to make a yeast bread from scratch with no special equipment. In this video I walk you through how to make dinner rolls that would be perfect for your Thanksgiving dinner. The recipe is actually for hamburger buns, but I think they make delicious dinner rolls as well. I found the recipe for hamburger buns on Allrecipes website.

You start off by adding your liquids and yeast. Let that set for 5 minutes while you gather the rest of the ingredients. Then mix the dry ingredients in with a wooden spoon.

Once well mixed, turn the dough on a floured surface.

Knead the dough by stretching the dough length wise, folding it in half, and then pressing down in the center with your hands. Next rotate the dough, fold in half, and press down again. Continue this process for about 10 minutes.

Once the dough is kneaded enough, the dough will have a bit of a stretch to it. At this point you will form a dough ball by tucking the edges of the dough on the bottom side of the dough ball.

Place the dough ball in a greased mixing bowl and cover.

Let rise for an hour and a half, or until it has doubled in size. Next you will take your fist and punch in a downwards direction in the center of the dough.

Divide the dough up into small balls to create the number of servings you wish to create. For hamburger buns, you will probably make about 8 larger balls. I made 16 dinner rolls with this recipe. Once the balls are formed, cover and let rise for an hour.

Bake the rolls at 350º for about 30 minutes. At this point you can add 

some sesame seeds if you are making hamburger buns

You can top the finished rolls with butter.

3 Shirts from Hot Patterns 3 Graces

I have been wanting to try a Hot Patterns pattern for awhile. I really liked the fact the pattern comes with three shirts since it was a bit of a pricey pattern. However, I liked the trendy look of the shirts and I am trying to update my wardrobe.

This is the pattern I used from Hot Patterns #1089 and the website has videos on construction techniques and pattern variations that you can do to alter the shirts to make different looks.

The cowl neck variation was the easiest to make. 

I made all the shirts as long sleeves because it gets very cold here. 

This cross-front version was very challenging. I had to take it apart a few times to master this shirt, but in the end I figured it out. I think it would have been much easier if I had my dress form with me. However, the Hot Patterns website provides a very good video on how to assemble this shirt. I had to watch it in sections and pause it while I sewed. I consider myself quite the advanced seamstress, but I had never tried a cross-front shirt before and as I mentioned it was harder than I thought.

Finally we have the loop front which was a little difficult, but after watching the videos I was able to get it right. All of these shirts I made with fabric I ordered from Fabric.com.

Knitted Shawl

I spent about a month knitting this shawl. I don't often pick patterns with an intricate design, but I really liked the look of it in the picture. I found the pattern at our local farmers market, and I was curious how different a British knitting pattern differed from an American pattern. While there were a few words phrases that were different, it wasn't very difficult to figure out what they meant.

I must admit that it turned out very nice. The pattern shows through nicely and it looks great on. This will help keep me warm in the winter when we walk down to the tube station.

Treats of the Day for Week Ending Nov 18

Brownie Bites dipped in Mint Chocoalte

I used a basic brownie mix and a brownie pop mold. When they cooled down I melted some Hershey's Mint Chocolate Chips and dipped the tops of it in the melted chocolate. I then topped it some green sprinkles for a minty appearance. 

Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Toffee Chips

I had made some toffee chip cookies earlier and they stuck to my cookie sheet. I was brave and decided to try Chocolate Toffee Chips, which I had much better results. These cookies are delicious and they didn't stick to my cookie sheet!

White Cupcakes with Vanilla Creme Filling and Caramel Icing

I made these cupcakes that I filled with a homemade vanilla custard. I tried to add some whoppers to the custard, but I don't think it really got much of that flavor. I then iced it with caramel icing and drizzled chocolate on top. These were super yummy!

Hot Buttery Yumm Chex Mix

I decided to make a chex mix this week because my family likes to snack on chex cereal every once in awhile. I tried the Hot Buttered Yum Chex Mix recipe on the Chex website. Personally I thought this was great, but for whatever reason nobody else has been eating this. Perhaps because there is still yummy cupcakes left.

Gingerbread

Since it is Friday, I thought I'd make something easy. So I tried a recipe from the cookbook that came with my bread maker. This gingerbread recipe is a quick bread recipe that worked out nicely in my bread maker. I think next time I might double the recipe because the loaf of bread it made was very small.