Chest Freezer Inventory

We just bought ourselves a little beaut! We bought a deep freezer off on ones of those facebook yardsale sights. It only cost us $60 so we are thinking if this lasts us 5 years we will be very pleased. I originally wanted a stand up freezer, but for $60 I couldn't pass it up.

I have participated in a freezer meal swap the past few months so once a month I'm getting 12 freezer meals. That doesn't include normal freezer things, leftover I freeze and things to stock up on. So my little freezer over the fridge was not cutting it. I finally convinced the hubs that we needed one. The next day we looked around at freezers. Stand up freezers were $600 (that was the cheapest I found) and chest (which I didn't want at the time) was $175. We left discouraged and I thought we'd put this dream of mine on hold. The very next day someone posted it and I was very excited.

One of the reasons I didn't want to get a chest freezer was because they are terrible to organize. Now I'm not the queen of organization, but I can only take so much. So in hopes of not forgetting what we have in it I've created this freezer inventory spreadsheet. Wasted food = wasted money!




Because I'm still getting use to having an additional freezer it is pretty bare right now, but I imagine it feeling up pretty soon. Now to spend the week finding ways to organize the inside.

~CJ

CTR-B Lesson #4

I gotta get these up earlier! Tomorrow's lesson is #4 Joseph Smith's Childhood. Here is a coloring sheet I made to go with enrichment activity #1. Also, Here are the word strips needed for the lesson. Either print in color or print in black and white on colored paper. Hope it helps! Oh and I would love to know if you used this so I know my sharing is worth it:) Good luck

~CJ

Crafts By YOU linky party: January 2013

If you read my post about my New Year Goals you know one of my goals was to have a linky party once a month. Well here it is! Linky Party #1! Here you can submit your favorite project of January 2013! This will be open until the last day of the month. On February 1st check back and see if you have been featured! Let's see how this goes.

(This is a text link, if I get a good response I upgrade to the thumbnail. Until then there will be no picture)

MLK Day

It's Monday already?!?! I can't believe it. Since the Hubs works for the school district which means he had a day off from work and school today! So we enjoyed a nice (long) bike ride! We biked to a park that is a little over 6 miles from our house, ate a picnic lunch, tried feeding the ducks but they wouldn't come close enough. Ryder got to play with his cousin on the playground and then we biked the 6+ miles home. It was tough and I am pooped! Luckily my little bug is taking a nice nap so I can relax. Hence the not so exciting blog post.

January 21st is always a fun day. It kicks of the Birthday's. My brother is turning 30! We'll be going out tonight to celebrate. As if that weren't exciting enough, my grandparents are celebrating their 68th Wedding Anniversary! I love that! We had a party for them Saturday, it's always fun to get families together to celebrate!

My little bug is turning 2 in less than 2 weeks! He is getting so big and is so smart. I can't believe how much he knows. He impresses me everyday. So in a few weeks I'll post party stuff:) It's Sesame Street! It's going to be so much fun!

10 easy Valentine's Day Ideas

My little bug isn't in school yet so Valentines aren't really needed. However, I thought it would be fun to have him give something to his cousins. Plus I teach a primary class in church that I would like to give a little something to so they will like me... So here are some ideas that I have come across that I LOVE!

What got me thinking about it was I saw these bubble gum party favors at Sams Club today for $10. They also had just fun colorful ones that weren't valentinesy. If I didn't already have the favors for my bugs upcaoming Birthday Party I would have gotten those. $.41 a piece, what a deal!

samsclub.com

These recycled crayons are so much fun. These are one of the first things I ever pinned and I'm so glad I did. I love the no candy idea.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61951289@N08/5672821563/sizes/l/in/photostream/

This next one is perfect for school age kids. When I was in school I was always losing pencils

http://indulgy.com/post/exx28Vs6E1/love-this-diy-valentines-day-gift-idea-all-yo

Valentines don't have to cost much. Here is an almost free idea. However, I'm a little nervous about taking all those paint chips.


http://www.babyalerts.ca/valentines-day-diy-projects-kids/

I'm thinking of making the grandma's a photo bookmark or my little bug.

I love this boy valentine! Feb 14th is such a girly holiday. What boy wouldn't love this?

http://www.jacolynmurphy.com/2012/01/for-valentinesall-is-fair-in-love-and.html

How cute would these be to throw in your child's/ hubbys lunch? So fun!

http://www.coolmompicks.com/2012/02/last_minute_valentines_ideas.php

These ones can be done with staples or a sewing machine. Love that you could buy candy in bulk and divid between gifts.

http://irinascutebox.blogspot.com/2012/02/valentines-day-gift-idea.html

This brings me to a side note, can kids even hand out candy not package from the store? When I was a kid we would just buy a big bag of conversation hearts and put like 5 in each card. I think that is a no-no now right? So I guess the one above would be for non school kids.

I love this idea, maybe it doesn't fit into the easy category because it would be time consuming to make all the slits.

http://24-7-365.blogspot.com/2009/02/lavish-me-with-praise.html

Another sucker one. Seems easy especially if you had a cricut to help you. She does include a template.

http://www.quietfish.com/notebook/?p=3109

And last, but not least Fortune cookies. I think older kids would have a fun time coming up with the different fortunes to go inside.

http://celesterockwood-jones.typepad.com/designwashrinserepeat/2009/02/freebie-fortune.html

Valentines Day is in a month from tomorrow! Do you know what you are going to do yet? Now to get ideas on what to give to the Hubs!

~CJ

New Years: Blogging

Today is day five for my New Year goals and the final day. I'm already thinking I took on too much. That's why I need your support! If you are just joining my New Years Goals you can start here.

Today's goal I'm sharing is blogging. You may have noticed I've been slacking lately. Well this year that is about to change! How? I'm taking things slow. I'm having an official blogging day once a week so you should see at least one blog post every Monday! Something to kick off the week. Every once in awhile there will be some extra posts thrown in there. But for now I'm keeping it simple and once i've mastered that I'll kick it up a notch!

In addition to more blog posts with recipes and crafts and what not, I want to host my first giveaway! Also possibly starting a linky party (need to research that more) once a month.

Not only do I have Crafts By CJ, I also have a personal blog with my families fun stuff. I haven't updated that in awhile. It's sad to think of that. It is a journal for my family that I never write in. So I'll be doing that once a week as well to give updates on the family.

I'm hoping you will enjoy my posts in 2013, it's going to be a good year!

~CJ

New Year Goals: Organization

This is post #4 on my New Year Goals. If you are just joining the fun you can start here.

I'm embarrassed to say that our office/ craft space is a nightmare right now. it is out of control! This year is my year to get organized and stay that way. Hopefully in the next month or so I'll be posting a craft space reveal. Here is the little beauty that I bought that is getting me motivated!

Sorry for the poor picture, taken on my cell phone.

I bought this off of a local Facebook Yard sale site for $5! Does your city have one? It is so nice!  Before this picture was taken I had already removed 4 or 5 stickers. Let me let you in on a secret, when Goo Gone says let stand for a couple minutes they mean like 10+ minutes. At first it was not helping at all. Then I sprayed it and let it sit for like and hour and they came right off.

I am so excited to fill these drawers. Not just to teach my little bug to stay out of them. How is your craft space organized?

~CJ

CTR-B: Lesson #2

This lesson calls for badges that say "Heavenly Father Trusts Me to-" and then the Children fill in the middle CTR. I went ahead and made them for my class and figured I share them with my lovely followers. If you don't follow me already I would love for you to. If you already do, you are awesome! Here are the badges. Just print them out and cut around them. I couldn't figure out how to add a circle border around them, hopefully you can find a cup or something to trace that is about the right size. Need more handouts? Check back, I'll add them as I make them.

New Years Goal: Weight

This is post #3 about my New Year Goals. If you are just joining please start here to get the full scoop.

I make a loss weight goal every year and every year I am disappointed. Ever since I can remember I have always had problems with my weight, never happy. It's effected me in some ways and kept me from doing things at times. Now being married and having a sweet boy my weight is out of control!

So every year I make a goal to lose a bunch if weight, but it never happens. So this year I'm keeping my weight goal simple: DON'T GAIN WEIGHT. I know this sounds silly, but if I could just not gain any weight this year that'd be nice. It could be hard thought because we are trying to get pregnant.

We signed up for a gym membership and like 7 other family members (9 including us) go there too. So we'll have a lot of encouragement. In addition to that we are still biking every once in awhile. When it warms up a tad Ryder & I will probably bike more. Also, we inherited Wii Fit from a sibling and have been doing that about 4-5 times a week.

Food is where I need to make the big change. Chase & I get into really bad habits, especially when he is off from work. We've been staying up late watching Netflix and snacking on junk! He's done with his winter break so we should be better.

What are your keys for losing weight?

~CJ

New Years Goals: Savings

This is post number #2 on New Year Goals. If you are just joining the fun start here.

We try to save money every year, but some how we always manage spend most of it. I recently came across something called the 52 Week Money Challenge. Basically each week you put money into a jar. In week #1 you'd put $1 into it, week #2 $2, Week #10 $10. Week #52 $52. In the end you have $1,378!!! We have our chart taped onto a mason jar and cross off the week once we put it in.

Sorry for coloring, printer was out of ink...

The post where I found this didn't credit the original person so I have no idea who came up with this idea, but I love it! So simple and can be changed to fit your needs. My husband works with Schools so we have no income during the summer, we may be putting it on hold during those months or instead of increasing just do $20 a week. Is more than $20 too much for you a week? Just stick with $20 a week. You still end up with over $800.

I saw someone suggest doing it backwards so you don't have the larger deposits in December with Christmas. If you are like us we are still recovering a little from Christmas so we are happy it's just a few bucks. We also are thinking you don't have to go in order. For example, this is week 2 for us so we'd be putting in $2. We rarely have cash (going to make this a challenge) so I had to withdraw money from our account. Instead of putting in $2 we put in $5 and crossed off weeks 2 and 3. Now we don't have to worry about it another week, or finish a week early. I think the important thing is to put in something each week.

This is a perfect way to save up for something. Can you say Christmas?!?! My mom always said, "Why shop for Christmas only in December? I don't make any more money in December than the rest of the year." If anything you make less because of that days or week off you get because of the holiday.

Here is how I made mine. I took the chart I found here and adjusted it so it will fit on a quart size mason jar. You can get my adjusted version here. Look at the money building up already!

Do you have any money saving tips and tricks? What works for you?


Happy Saving!
~CJ

New Years Goals: Food Storage

This is goal #1! If you missed the intro you can start here.

I don't know about you, but I am really pumped about Food Storage lately. I just feel so strongly that it is something that we need to have. I'm not saying go out and spend thousands of dollars. Start small. Work on a 3 month supply and then build to 6 and then 12 month.

Our goal is to spend $20 bucks a month towards our food storage. Most of it will be going to the LDS Cannery and working there. It is the cheapest around because you don't pay labor costs. You do the labor. It's pretty fun to do.

I have a whole outline/ schedule of my plans this year of what I'll purchase. Ex. For January I'm getting 5 cans of canned ground beef and a 2 pack container of propane tanks from Walmart. This costs me around $16.50. Then I take the remaining $3.50 and save it for a month when I'm spending more than the $20 limit.

Now if you are like the 2012 me you have food storage, but not quite sure what you have. We recently went through all the stuff we inherited and threw away what was expired and organized what was left and recorded it.

Then I made a cool little spreadsheet. I'm hoping you can edit this to fit your family without me losing my original and everyone else seeing what the last person did to it. Make sure you type in the amount in your family in column B2. The amounts I got from the LDS.org website. I did not factor in kids because a lot of the Food Storage lasts 30 years so kids will be adults before it expires so I'm counting my almost 2 year old as an adult since he'll be 32 when this stuff expires.

Some stuff isn't on here, like meats. Also, I lumped all my beans into a generic category, I don't think I'll be purchasing lima beans etc.

Hope this helps!
~CJ

Happy New Year!

Wow I really slacked off at the end there. New Year= New goals! I love this time of the year. Yes I'm sad all the Christmas stuff is packed away and that cheery anxious feeling is gone, but in it's place is a new anxious feeling. The feeling of a clean slate. I'm really excited for my New Year goals this year because I feel like I am a lot more excited about them this year. They seem more manageable.

I've come up with 5 goals I would like to accomplish this year. I will share them with you next week (Monday-Friday) and the resources I have found to help me with them. I'm super excited and since I've chosen a few of the common Resolutions I'm hoping I can inspire and help you in your goals. The best way to accomplish goals is to talk about them and have support right? Thanks for being my support. Feel free to return the favor I'd love to hear about your goals this year!

~CJ

Quick Link to my goals:
Food storage
Savings
Weight Loss
Organization
Blogging