Puzzle for Toddlers

In several countries around the world children's day will be celebrated tomorrow, with that in mind I made a puzzle for my daughter.

It's really simple to make and all I used was cardboard, a paper napkin with Minnie Mouse theme, glue, paintbrush, scissors, exacto knife, ruller and transparent adhesive paper.

Here's how to do it step by step:

Wait about one hour to allow the glue to dry!

Happy children's day and don't forget to allow the child in you to show up to play from time to time! ;)

Keep the flavor of your tomatoes, put this storage box together in 2 simple steps!

Did you know that you shouldn't keep tomatoes in the fridge because they will loose flavor?

Well, I recently found out so I thought of a way to store them on my kitchen stand next to onions and garlic. I immediately found a paper bag so they could breath but it wouldn't stay up, it needed something to support it. 

I went to my "magic boxes" in the attic , found a recipient big enough (2L demijohn), cut the top off and voilá!

1. Cut the top of the demijohn off

2. Fit the paper bag in the recipient and fold the remaining paper outside. (Or in my case, fit the recipient in the paper bag and fold the remaining to the inside)

Happy tomatoes this ones I think! And I really notice the change in the flavor!!! ;)

Used frying oil

Did you know that frying oil can be used 3 times and then should be sent to recycle? The collected oil is mostly used to produce bio-diesel or as a raw material in (non food processing) industry. 

To dispose your used oil be sure to use a non breakable bottle and that you will be able to close the recipient (When I don't have the original empty bottle anymore, I use water plastic bottles). 

You should strain the oil while pouring into the container so small particles of food do not enter the container - this could cause mold to grow. See how to dispose your used cooking oil here! There are also nice tips of how to dispose it in the garbage bin if you don't have a collecting place nearby and how to reuse it for other projects!

I don't use a lot of frying oil and I also don't use it often so it's easy to forget how many times I used it. I started to keep the oil in a used jam jar and then I started to mark the jar with indelible ink pen every time I used the oil, so if I see I would be marking the jar  for the 3rd time I know I have to dispose it after this use. Every time the jar gets empty I clean all the marks (with alcohol). 

So this is my oil jar with my reusable frying oil:

I only painted it so everyone in the house knows what it is and to decorate. I only used a empty jam jar (not exactly this one :D) and special glass coloring pens:

Don't ever put frying oil down the drain: it pollutes water dangerously and it will clog your pipes! If there's no collection system in your area dispose it in your trash bin in a closed recipient. If this would be the case then you don't need to strain the oil.

Plastic bag dispenser

OK... Is it just me or this is how plastic bags end up in your house too???

Every time we buy vegetables or fruit that you have to weight you end up bringing a new plastic bag home, this bags are not big or resistant enough for anything else... ALMOST anything else! This is what I do with them:

1. I place them in my big shopping bag to use them again in groceries (I also do this for bread plastic bags). While reusing be careful to place the new sticker in the same place of the old one (I once paid for the old sticker again and it was more expensive that the new one, but still, I don't want to be doing any frauds!!!). 
2. I use the bags for waste disposal in the bathroom. Bathroom rubbish is usually light and they can take it even if torn. Also in the bathroom you usually don't have to worry about leakage (tried to use them for organic waste in the kitchen but I always have to check if there is any tiny little rupture...).
3. When the bags are really damaged I place them in the recycling bin.

So that's why I keep the bags. In the kitchen I have a bag's bag that my mother in law made me, it's so so cute! But as I forgot to take used bags to the groceries my bag's bag was too full so I took some bags to use in the bathroom but is was getting quite hectic... You know what they say: Necessity is the mother of invention! :P

I grabbed a big box of tea, one big plastic stick and two plastic pieces to use to roll the plastic bags (these last two are from the balloons holders).
All I needed to do was the holes to set up the rolling device on the sides and one other on top to be able to pull out the bags.
To keep the bags organized I folded them crosswise. The first bag was fixed with tape to the stick and kept it tight while rolling. When adding a new bag roll the bottom of the new bag with the top of the previous bag and keep it as tight as possible.

... and by the way 100 posts! Congratulations to our RY!!!

TV cabinet re-do!

Look what we did with this old TV cabinet...

In this case we used:

- sandpaper
- paint and paintbrushes
- storage boxes

The  drawer was falling apart as well as the supports so my "husby" helped me fixing those! Thank you Carlos for supporting me in this crazy ventures!!!