Unusually Domestic

When stumbling around the web yesterday, I found a link that amazed me. It was 6 uses for a binder clip that made me think: “Well I could have thought of that,” but were so neat and crafty! My two favorites:

A cord organizer:

 

An impromptu iPhone stand:

These simple and helpful uses for unlikely household items got me thinking domestically… what items could be used unconventionally around the house? I asked some friends that live in my sorority house and did some internet searching and found some great and kooky tips that will be fun to try out around the duplex next year!

Unlikely home tips:

Remove coffee cup stains by rubbing the inside with a cut lemon. For extra scrubbing power, dip the lemon in kosher salt. Then, wash in hot, soapy water.

Does your shower curtain stick? Rub hair conditioner on the rod, and the rings will move smoothly.

Use a wide candle as a pincushion. The wax helps pins and needles slide in and out of fabric more easily.

If you've lost your bathtub plug, use a golf ball as a substitute. It stays in place and rolls back if dislodged.

Speed up slow moving ketchup by inserting a plastic straw into the bottle. Take that, Heinz!

Remove dirty or greasy fingerprints from painted walls or non-washable wallpaper by rubbing the area with a slice of white bread.

To get animal hair off car seats or the sofa, run a rubber glove over the fabric. Hair sticks to the glove and comes right off.

Clean a bathroom mirror with shaving cream, then wipe with a soft cloth. It helps defog the mirror after showers.

Shine small copper items by rubbing gently with a cotton swab dipped in ketchup. Rub off with a cotton cloth and they'll gleam.

Put toothpaste on facial blemishes overnight to reduce the size and redness.

Use denture cream overnight to remove stains on bathroom and kitchen surfaces.

Ink/marker on furniture, clothes, walls and carpets? Spray some hairspray, wipe & watch it disappear!

Spray vodka on musty clothes to kill bacteria and make them smell fresher.

Stinky Sink due to the garbage disposal? Run hot water, drop orange peels down the hatch, and turn on the switch. Lemon, lime, and grapefruit rinds also do the trick.

Soak tea bags in ice cold water then apply over your eyelids, as compresses. The tea will bring down swollen eyes, removing the redness and puffiness after a while.

I hope you found these little tidbits as interesting as I did! My favorite new tip was absolutely the one about coffee cup stains because I am an avid coffee drinker. I can't wait to put this new information to test whenever these situations come up around the duplex.

Have any weird tips like this? Comment & share 'em! I'd love to hear your input.

Keep calm & carry on!

Folds of Fun

This post is dedicated to my dear friend, Spring Break.

Over the nice vacation that we just had from school, my family and I went on a cruise through the Western Caribbean. It was wonderfully relaxing, a ton of fun, and the best source of “people watching” that I’ve ever had. However, even through the beaches, massages and snorkeling, my favorite part about the week at sea was the quality time that I got to spend with my brothers and parents. My favorite time of day was dinnertime, not only because of the meal, but because no matter what we chose to do during the day we could all enjoy each others company for at least that one meal. Every night, the first topic of conversation at dinnertime was without fail: the napkins.

The napkins in the dining room of the cruise ship were always folded to perfection! Each night they were different and exciting. Now I know that it sounds lame, but believe me – we Nicholsons are entertained easily and got a real kick out of napkin art. One night, as I vowed to learn more napkin folding techniques, my mom suggested that I blog about it!

Even before spring break, napkin folding was very close to my heart. Odd? Maybe. Explanation: The summer before my freshman year at TCU, I worked at a Young Life camp in Colorado. I volunteered behind the scenes as a server in the dining hall, but this was no run-of-the-mill camp mess hall – we were full on waiters and waitresses, making a full meal experience for the campers! When the motto of the camp is “Guaranteed the best week of your money back,” it’s gotta be good. We, too, intricately folded 500 napkins each day for dinnertime. We would spend hours preparing them and it was a lot of tedious work, but hey, on the bright side now I have a new party trick.

We learned five different folds, one for each night the campers dined at Frontier Ranch, so I thought I would blog about our most basic one: the standing pyramid.

I wrote out instructions step-by-step, but I used pictures from www.napkinfolding.net because I don't have any fabric napkins to do the photos myself! 

1. Start out with a flat fabric napkin, lay it out so it looks like a diamond as opposed to a square.

2. Fold the bottom corner to the top one, so it forms a triangle. 

 3. Fold the bottom two corners of the triangle up to the top corner. They should meet in the middle and form sort of a gap down the center of the napkin.

 4. Flip it over! (That's my favorite step because it is the easiest!)

 5. Just like in step one, fold the bottom corner up to the top one to form a triangle.

 6. Fold down the center of the napkin. This makes an even smaller triangle.

 7. Part the triangle to make it stand up on its own! It's surprisingly sturdy.

How domestic. This little touch, a folded napkin, is sure to spruce up any table setting you have for any occasion. It's a fun, simple way to show guests that you care about their meal with you! Make an ordinary dinner a little bit extraordinary or put the finishing touches on your Thanksgiving feast. Click here to learn more folds! It's not a secret any longer: I love folding napkins.

Keep Calm 

& Fold On!

Perfect Produce

This week, rather than tackling a tactile domestic goal, I learned some literally valuable information. Just like tons of great advice – this comes straight from my mother (and with the help of the world wide web - through this blog and to your noggin').

Earlier today, my roommate and I were talking about our shared immense love of a many splendored fruit: the avocado. We were sharing our favorite meals and snacks that highlight avocados when I made the bold – yet true – statement that I would eat just a whole avocado for lunch and be perfectly content. I started daydreaming about this hypothetically wonderful meal and realized that I don’t know the first thing about picking a great avocado. What color should it be? Are the ripe ones firm or soft? So many questions: what about pineapples?! Bananas? Tomatoes? I got motivated to find the answers.

Signs of awesome avocados: 
It’s a good idea to buy an unripe avocado and wait for it to ripen to use it. When its skin turns from green to a dark brownish-green color and "gives" slightly when it is gently squeezed, you’ve got the perfect ‘cado. Avoid dark sunken spots or cracks when picking them, as well. 

I HIGHLY recommend this wonderful webpage for timing & storing advice for avocados. They have a visual avocado time line.  Neat!

Signs of the perfect pineapple:

         The pineapple ripeness test was the most interesting of all the fruits to me. I think this video shows it better than I ever could describe it, so have a go at this YouTube gold.

 

Signs of the best bananas:

         Bananas’ ripeness can be pinpointed by the external color. The fruit will change from green (unripe) to yellow (perfectly ripe) to brown (overripe).  I always think that overripe bananas look disgusting and useless, but I was surprised to find that they are very useful for many recipes. Banana bread, shakes, banana chips, baked banana, or banana pops are several things that overripe bananas are great for! 

I picked my three favorite fruits to highlight in this post, but if your favorite isn’t on here – take heart! My advice would be to search around on the web to learn more. Even if you think you know your favorite fruits/veggies inside and out, you might be surprised and learn something new like I did!

Also, looking up information on the proper way to store your produce is worth the while. Because what good is knowing which ones to buy if you aren’t storing it properly? Knowing that will save you money and energy with less trips to the grocery store! These are useful tidbits of knowledge that can help with domestic endeavors ‘til the end of time.

  

So Keep Calm & Ripen On!

Laundry Love

Upon spring cleaning my ever-so spacious dorm room, I realized that I have way too many clothes for the square footage of my room. As I was packing them up to take some of them home and clear some space, I realized I probably needed to wash/dry clean/have what you will with those pesky sweaters and overcoats that don't machine wash. 


Looking at the garment instructional care tags, I realized something: I have no clue what "hand washing" is. Then the domino effect started: what really is fabric softener? Why use cold water? What fabrics should I not put in the dryer? How can I do laundry without enlarging my carbon footprint? What is the meaning of life? Which was first, the chicken or the egg? So I figured laundry would be a great subject to delve into!


Without boring you, the reader, with laundry tip upon laundry tip, here are my two favorite tid-bits that helped me revolutionize my laundry world!

Hand Wash

1. Plug a sink, and add about 1/4 cup detergent.

2. Read the labels on your clothing and then fill the sink with the correct water temperature listed on the label. Keep in mind that some articles of clothing require cold water while some can be washed in hot water. Remember to leave room for the clothing.

3. If you're washing whites and want to bleach them, now's the time to add about 1/4 cup bleach to the water.

4. Put your clothing in the water and get it thoroughly wet and soapy. If it's stained, you may want to let it soak for a while.

5. Knead the clothing with your hands in the water for a few minutes, much as you would knead bread

6. Unplug the sink, drain and start the water running. Rinse your clothing until the water runs clear, not soapy.

7. Wring out and hang to dry, or place clothing in the dryer.

Eco-Friendly Washing Tips

• Use cold water setting for washing when possible
• Always use cold water setting for rinse cycle
• Use smallest possible water level size
• Use cold water laundry detergent
• Wait to have a full load to do laundry
• Do not wash clothes that aren't dirty
• Avoid the permanent press cycle which uses more water on most machines

Cold water is more delicate on clothing. Clothes will last longer, with brighter colors, and more intact fabrics by washing laundry this way on a regular basis.

Keep Calm & Launder On!

It’s February – you know what that means. The Xs and Os are abundant, pink and red are the only colors you can spot Target, glitter is everywhere, you’re doodling hearts in the margins of your notes, and the sugar – OH, the sugar. Forget Beiber -- everyone has seemed to catch the Valentines’ Day fever. 

My favorite part of Valentine’s Day is the element of surprise! I truly believe that nothing can make a heart swell like an unexpected gift/favor/happenstance. For instance, I walked into my room today to see a lovely little arrangement of Valentine’s goodies including nutella (my obsession) with a card from a secret Valentine. It made my day! I wanted to give other people a surprising joy on V-Day – domestically, of course.

For my sorority, I hold a position called “Greek relations” chair. My job basically entails tangibly showing the other sororities and fraternities how much we appreciate them. For tomorrow, on behalf of the sorority, each Greek house will get a little V-day treat: Heart shaped brownies!

I cut some domestic corners that I want to share! Some products that saved pain & time were:

Silicone bake ware is durable, long-lasting & rust-free! It doesn’t restrict you as much as traditional bake ware does. This really helped when I was making the heat-shaped brownies because it kept the shape wonderfully & without pain. 

Betty Crocker Easy Flow Decorative Icing is fantastic. This product gives the illusion that you spent forever on the icing and messed with the whole plastic-bag-sticky-fingers-icing method. Thanks to this easy short-cut, domesticity is made easy and more tidy! 

Thanks to these products, making the Valentine’s Day treats for the Greek community was a breeze. I wrapped each one in a piece of red tablecloth and tied it off with a nifty bow.

Here’s to Valentine’s Day & the love of chocolate!! Hope you are surprised by some lovely things today.

Brewing Joy

This snow-induced 9-day weekend has been an absolute blast! These nine days of zero classes, time with friends, movie marathons, snow playing, road trips & snuggle fests have been fueled by warm beverages. Hot chocolate, coffee, tea, you name it -- I've been living off of it. 

Since I live on campus in a sorority house, I have to abide by TCU policies on dorm appliances. That means I can't have a coffee maker or anything of the like. However, my roommate and I found a loophole, and that beautiful loophole's name is Keurig. I use that little wonder of a machine every morning to brew a trusty cup of coffee (let's be honest: two) each morning. The downside to this shortcut is that you can only get so much room to be creative.

The future homemaker in me was longing to mix creativity and domestication into my morning routine. I decided to bring the coffee shop home and learn how to make four-dollar-worthy drinks. Once I got my hands on some essential supplies, I let some online recipes guide me through the land of espresso.

If you're not really sure what espresso is, here is a great explanation of the difference between drip coffee & espresso. Spark Notes version: espresso is basically a much finer grind, tons stronger than coffee & you need almost boiling water to make it.

getting started:

Essentially, I needed an espresso machine, milk, espresso and a mug. I used some extras to experiment with: sugar-free Torani flavoring syrups (hazelnut, vanilla & caramel), almond milk, and white chocolate syrup.

First, I tried making a vanilla/hazelnut latte:
Latte = 2 oz espresso + fill ¾ of mug steamed milk + remainder with foam
With no particular measurement, I dashed in some vanilla & hazelnut syrup.

Next, I made a caramel cappuccino:

Cappuccino = 2 oz espresso + fill ½ of mug steamed milk + remainder with foam

 The only difference between a cappuccino and a latte are the amounts of milk... lattes have more than a cappuccino. How can you remember this fun fact? Because there's a latte milk in a latte. I'll be here all night. 

Next, I tried an Americano.

(This is a variation on my regular Starbucks order: grande americano with two pumps white mocha & two pumps toffee nut. SO GOOD, low calorie & strong. That's my kinda drink.)

Americano = espresso + fill mug with water

then I added in a little bit of white mocha syrup and hazelnut.

My Favorite:
Hazelnut Latte with Almond milk

Follow the instructions for the latte, but steam almond milk instead of 2% and add some hazelnut syrup before brewing.

Lastly, I whipped up a variation on a macchiato.
I even tried a little foam art!

Caramel Macchiato = 2 oz espresso +2 tsp vanilla syrup + fill ¾ of mug steamed milk + foam dollop + pour espresso OVER foam + top caramel sauce

These concoctions made for some very happy roommates! The drinks were pretty simple, and made for some good conversation and smiles, which I'm thinking is the real magic behind coffee -- the experience of drinking it in good company.

I'll leave you with a favorite quote of mine:
"A morning without coffee 
is like sleep"
... so keep calm & brew on!

Cake Baking 101

This week's domestic challenge came in the form of a sugary sweet multitasking treat! I'm all about time management -- so I decided that I would combine two "to-do list" tasks into one.

Today, I had an interview to be a Frog Camp facilitator for the TCU First year experience program. Part of the interview included a two minute "personal introduction" where the applicants basically had creative control to showcase who they are. I wanted to think out of the box, so I got to thinking domestically!

Now, I'm not a baker, but I stumbled upon a recipe of a cake online that I've been excited to try out. I’ve checked out this rainbow cake on several blogs – it absolutely amazes me! Color + Cake = Probably Delicious

For my interview, I decided I could make the cake symbolic. I made each layer stand for something that described me!

RED: Reminded me of hearts, which reminds me of relationships. One of the mottos that I live by is that relationships are the most important thing in life.

ORANGE: My favorite coffee mug is orange. I am slightly (completely) in love with coffee. It’s a great relationship: I drink it, it keeps me awake. There’s not much I’d rather do than have a great cup of coffee in great company. I also love scoping out not-so-well-known coffee shops around Dallas/Fort Worth

YELLOW: Reminds me of the SUN! I love the sun. I could bask in its warmth all day, and in the Spring/Summer, I usually do! (Even January, I’m still sunburned from playing outside yesterday)

GREEN: I always associate this color with growth. My college years are all about growing, improving & learning. I like to pursue things that will benefit my growth, for example, I am a Young Life leader for a local high school. This role has helped me grow spiritually, realize the importance of acting selflessly, and develop self-discipline.

BLUE: Reminds me of where my heart is: Lake Travis in Spicewood, TX. I work at a camp, T Bar M, in the summers where I get to love on kids and get paid to play. My favorite part about this job (other than the relationships that come out of it) is getting to drive boats all day!

PURPLE: I bleed purple. My loyalty to my school, TCU, is a huge part of my life! Go frogs.

All right, enough symbolism. Let’s get baking.

I used the following supplies:
6 round, disposable cake pans

6 small bowls

2 boxed cakes (don’t forget the eggs, water & oil)

Food coloring (red, yellow, blue)

3 cans of icing

It was actually very simple! Here’s how I did it:

Compose the batter for your 2 boxed cakes & disperse it into six small bowls.

 

Color each little batch of batter according to the colors you’d like to use. I chose rainbow! Mix the primary colors to make purple, orange & green – dip back to your fingerpainting knowledge from kindergarten!

Pour each batter into a cake pan. It will be a pretty thin layer, but that’s good! Bake each pan for about 13 minutes, or until the cake has risen. Keep a close eye on it, because burnt cakes aren’t fun.

 Layer the cakes by spreading a thin layer of icing between them.

Ice the outside of the cake generously, decorate if desired, and
viola

The cake was delicious,
the interview went well,
and I think this was one large leap toward my goal of domesticity!

thanks
to those following along for the journey!