Burlap Pencil Bags

Hi Ya'll!! Lots of things have been going on around our house. My youngest started preschool, planning my boys camping carnival birthday, attempting to redecorate my living room (pics to come soon) and working on my Shaklee business. I wanted to stop real fast though and show you a simple item I put together for the fall teacher gifts this year. Target....oh how I love you! You always have the best $1.00 section around! This year you did not disappoint! When I first spied the pencil burlap bags I grabbed a ton of them and then later went back and bought a ton more! These are great to have on hand for a fast gift! Holds lip gloss and a mini hand sanitizer perfectly! I had no idea what I was going to do with them at first. Millions of ideas swirled in my head.... do I stencil you, add felt, stamp you, add a sparkly pin, make fabric flowers....see the choices are endless!!

Then I decided a simple felt flower would be just the ticket for these adorable bags. One of my favorite felt flower patterns is HERE. Craft felt is super cheap! You can buy a sheet usually for .33 cents and it comes in a huge array of color choices. They also make adorable headbands or clips! For these particular flowers I did sew them on and then hot glued the edges down. So these babies shouldn't come off!! I added a rhinestone for flair!

Now RUN to Target and get some of these bags before they run out! I bought the last that my Target had. lol. These little felt flowers will work on any little bag though. Enjoy!

Organization

I love to organize. A trip to The Container Store or Ikea sends me into a fit of happiness. Yes, I know it's a sickness, lol. It seems in my house though there is always something that needs organizing and just recently I needed to re-do my kids tooth brush drawer. I wish I had taken a picture but I tackled it without getting one. There was a mass of new toothbrushes (we just went to the dentist) and we had more dental floss than I knew what to do with. So a trip to the Dollar Store, my handy label maker and some re-purposed Crystal Light plasticware completed the job!!!

Now everyone has their own toothbrush holder. The plastic bins were 3 for a $1.00 at Dollar Tree!  I put a little label on each basket and now even dad knows whose toothbrush is whose. They like to change colors from time to time and that throws him off. Not anymore, lol! As long as they get put back in the right spot. lol.

I couldn't bare to part with these Crystal Light containers because I just "knew" they would be good for something. Turns out they are perfect for holding extra dental floss and all those new toothbrushes!

How to clean a straw cup!

Do you have a straw cup? I LOVE mine UNTIL it's time to clean the straw, lol. I drink protein shakes out of it most of the time. I try to rinse it right away so nothing sticks to the inside but sometimes in all the busyness, it sits on the counter for a few hours. Then that sucker is hard to clean and doesn't clean well even after going through the dishwasher. Ewwwww! So one day I spied some chenille pipe cleaners left over from a party and decided that would be the perfect straw cleaner! Now my sink drawer is never without one! After I am finished I wash the pipe cleaner, let it dry and reuse it again and again! The pipe cleaners work well with straw sippy cups too.

Did you know Shaklee offers FREE MEMBERSHIP with our Vitalizer Vitamins?!?!?!  Thats awesome!  Now is the perfect time to sign up to get 15% off your entire purchases through Shaklee for life. Your membership never expires, why pay retail?  Let me know if you have any questions. Just place everything in your cart then go to "join now" and check out! That's it!! Click below to visit my Shaklee website.

www.journeytohappy.myshaklee.com

 

Blue Cheese Bacon Wrapped Chicken

This recipe has prob. been done a million times/ways but this is one of my husbands favorite ways to cook chicken (besides another chicken recipe I'll share soon!). I thought I would share it because it IS very tasty and super simple. I also love it because the ingredients are simple and it can be cooked on the grill or in the oven! 

In this particular recipe we used Blue Cheese. You can do any kind of cheese you want to use. We have done Pepper Jack, sharp Cheddar Cheese and even Monterrey Jack. Sometimes I like to add red bell pepper slices or purple onion too.

Ingredient List: 

Boneless/Skinless Chicken Thighs (I like them better than chicken breasts), Bacon, Blue Cheese, chopped Garlic, Garlic Powder, Season Salt, Pepper, toothpicks and optional chopped Basil or Parsley (not pictured)

After rinsing and patting your chicken dry, spread some garlic and blue cheese over the chicken. Then wrap with bacon and secure with toothpicks. It's ok if you need more than one toothpick, I do.  I cut my bacon in half and use one going one half going one direction and use the other half to go the other way around. Keeps the cheese locked in!

Continue until they are all wrapped. Once you get to wrapping it goes fast! See how pretty they look!

Once wrapped sprinkle with your seasons! YUM! 

Next, I threw them on a hot grill BUT first I wiped a sheet of tinfoil down with olive oil and cooked the chicken on top of it. This will keep the grill from catching your bacon on fire. I grilled it until the chicken/bacon was a nice golden brown.

 

 Look at this chicken goodness!!!

Enjoy!! If you make the recipe I would love to hear how you liked it or changed the recipe!!

The Dirt Edition: Getting Red Wine Out!

Today I want to show you something that just absolutely amazed me in this Dirt Edition!!

My friend Michelle was telling me about how at her wedding reception she accidentally spilled red wine all down the front of her wedding dress. That the dress was sitting in a closet at her MIL's house and never got cleaned. They felt it was a lost cause to try and get red wine out of it. I told her if she wanted to try Shaklee I would bring over some Nature Bright and Basic H. I had no idea if it would work on a stain so old but that I knew both would get out red wine. Most wedding dresses are made from satin, silk, polyester, crepe, etc, which might be easier to get out opposed to cotton. So she contacted her MIL and within the next two weeks we had the dress to try our experiment on! The first thing we did was take before pictures and place towels between the layers of the dress so nothing soaked through to the other side. Here is my friend in her dress at the wedding (I marked her face out since this on the web).

Then we mixed up a solution of Basic H and Nature Bright in water to spray.

 Here is the before:

As we started spraying the stain, it really started just breaking up and disappearing. Nature Bright has natural enzymes in it that break up stains (but is also color safe!) We were jumping and up and down with excitement over getting this stain to break up so quickly!

Here are the during pics:

After about 15 minutes (all we did was spray and lightly rub with our fingers) the stain was gone. No yellowing, no solution residue, and no stain! 

Let me tell you I have one happy friend! To think for 4 years your dress is ruined and then in 15 minutes have it back white and KNOW you did it yourself....priceless!!!
Now how is that for a GET CLEAN Edition?!?!?!

If you would like to check out GET CLEAN for yourself, go to my website at www.journeytohappy.myshaklee.com  They sell the products individually or in kits. If you will please consider following my blog! :)

Labor Day!

Loving the three day weekend we have had. So sad that tomorrow it all ends!! Saturday we decided we needed to finally get a wireless Blue Ray player for our bedroom. The kids tend to watch Net Flick movies in the den on the game system and we tend to watch them in our bedroom (which is next to the den). We were tired of hooking up the laptop to watch a movie or tv series we were catching up on. So a fast internet search and a quick run up to Best Buy and we were in business!! Afterwards our tummy's were growling so we decided to stop at Taco Casa for lunch and then The Burger Box for ice cream. When we got home we were full and ready to sit and watch a movie!! Great way to spend the day! Curled up and relaxing!!

Sunday, we found ourselves still wanting to be lazy. So while Riley watched some shows I worked on some PTA stuff. Other than eat, snack, rest and watch tv we didn't do anything. LOVE days like this, they don't come often.

Which brings us to today, Monday. We decided a family breakfast out to let the kids use some certificates from school was in order. I love this bunch so much!

After breakfast since Ben is starting preschool I needed to grab him some new tennis shoes. So a fast trip into Stride Rite and he was the proud new owner of light up firetruck shoes (should make Uncle R proud!). Aren't these cute?!?!?!? I LOVE Stride Rite, they last forever and come in wide sizes for Ben's cute pudgy feet!

Since we were in the area, my husband wanted to go run into The Virgin Olive Oiler. At Mother's Day he had given me the best Balsamic Vinegar and Garlic Olive Oil. It was so good we have already used it all and he wanted to get me some more (and I let him). If you ever are in Fort Worth/Hulen area stop in! Amazing flavors of all kinds in vinegars and olive oils! Would make a great gift to the person who loves to cook...and eat, lol. You can view their website HERE!

Now we are back home and doing what we do best.... relaxing....before the busy week starts up again! :)

Scour Off your stove top!

One of my good friends husbands decided to cook and when he did he made her stove top a mess. She told me she had tried many things to scrub off the grease but nothing was working. So I offered to bring over my Shaklee Scour Off and try it. We set our boys up with toys and got to work with some Scour Off and an old tooth brush. Within ten minutes we had the stove top back to grease free with no scratching of the surface! Also, thanks to it being made with cherry pits there was no harsh smell (it resembles the scent of bubble gum)! I recently used it to clean the inside of my oven too. NO more heating up the house using the self cleaning feature (the smell is just awful and can't be healthy for breathing) and no more chemical smell using Oven off (never again!). I've also used this on my glass shower door with no scratching and cleaning my porcelain sink.

Here are the before and afters! My friend was so happy to have her stove back to looking white and pretty!!!

I also tried it on some baking loaf pans. To keep my bread from sticking I always spray Pam (or wipe cooking oil) and then flour the sides. The bread doesn't stick BUT my pan is always left with this awful residue that won't scrub out. Not anymore! Scour Off works on that too!!

 As you can tell I am sold on this product! Great stuff!

School Organization

Do your little kids come home with all the cute awards, promotion certificates, ribbons, end of year reports cards, etc?? Mine do and I can't bare to throw them out but if your not careful it can quickly clutter your space!! So last year I decided to come up with an easy system of keeping it all organized. I purchased three accordion files in different colors (got one for Ben ahead of time!) and labeled them with each child's name. I got these at the Dollar Store for $1.00 a piece! Can't beat $3.00 organization!

Then in each tab I labeled it up to 12th grade! In order to fit everything I had to combine some years.

Now you're all set for all those special mementos! The kids come home with them and they get immediately filed and put away! Every once in a while we enjoy going through them to see all their accomplishments! When they get old enough to leave home they can take their accordion file off with them to show their own kids!