Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Who Wants to Win??

Want a chance to win one of Thirty-One Gifts awesome Organizing Utility Totes  (in your choice of pattern)? 


Head on over to A Turtle's Life for Me, where Natalie is giving one away from me!  If you follow The Cellar Door Stories or "like" me on Facebook, you've already earned an entry!!!  While you're there, look around....Natalie has soooo many great projects and is pretty much the guru of freezer meals!  Good luck to all those who enter!


Monday, October 17, 2011

Fun with Felt!

I have been a bad, bad blogger lately.  So many things to do, so little time to blog about them....  Here's a little project I was working on a few days ago....easy, no-sew felt hair clips!  It was the perfect craft for a rainy day.


I added a both a hair clip and a safety pin on the back of the flowers so they can do double duty!  They were sooo easy, I can't wait to go back to Hobby Lobby and get some felt in every color!!  I used two great tutorials for these, so instead of writing up my own, I'll direct you back to the originals (which I found popping up on pinterest)....for the flowers go here, and for the bows check this out.

What is your favorite rainy day project?

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Fall Food Favorites: Apple Butter

Just in case you didn't see my guest tutorial last week over at The CSI Project, I'm reposting it here for you today!


Hello fellow CSI Project fans!  I'm Angie from The Cellar Door Stories, and I'm so excited to be here for Fall Food week!  True, when you think of fall food, pumpkin is probably what immediately comes to mind.  But for me, nothing says early fall like apples!  We live close to several apple orchards and have a family tradition of picking apples each year.  Along with homemade applesauce, I like to try out a few new apple recipes each year.  This year I decided to try apple butter, and I'm going to be sharing my recipe with you today!

A friend had mentioned to me that she made apple butter in her slow cooker.  I was intrigued and decided to try it out myself.  Her recipe started with whole apples, and I had already turned my mountain of apples (1 1/2 bushels) into applesauce (go here to see how it's done), so I needed to improvise a little.  I scoured the internet and my recipe books for ideas, and ended up creating a recipe that is kind of a mish-mash of about approximately 36 other recipes I looked at!

First, gather all your ingredients and dump them into your slow cooker (I recommend spraying your crock with cooking spray ~ makes clean-up a LOT easier).  I used the following, but you can definitely tweak the amount to your taste:  10 cups applesauce, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground cloves.


I cooked my apple butter on HIGH for a total of 12 hours.  By the end of the 12 hours, it was time for me to go to bed and I didn't want to leave my slow cooker on any longer.  I turned it off but left the apple butter in so it kept cooking.  Yes, that seems like a long time!  It takes a long time for some of the liquid to cook out.  Your time will vary depending on the amount you are making and your slow cooker.  Stir occasionally to make sure your applesauce doesn't scorch.  I took the lid off for the last 5 or so hours.

Here's what my apple butter looked like after about 6 hours...


And here's what it looked like in the morning...you can see a lot of the liquid has cooked out, and it's a few shades darker.


I spooned the apple butter into jars - from my original 10 cups of applesauce, I ended up with 8 jars of apple butter.  I still haven't figured out the whole canning thing, so mine went into the freezer, but this could definitely be canned!


Bonus ~ who doesn't love homemade food?  This could make a great little gift for someone!  I decided that as a gift, the jars were looking a little too plain, so I added a raffia bow and some scrapbooking paper stamped "Made Especially for You!"


Add a loaf of homemade bread, and you have a perfect hostess gift for your next fall night out!

Thanks to the CSI Project girls for having me today ~ hope to see you all over at The Cellar Door Stories, where I love to blog about DIY & crafty ideas, food, family (including our adoption journey), frugal tips, and any other random thing that crosses my mind!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Featured on Remodelaholic!

I'm super excited today because tonight my frugal mud room storage is being featured over at Remodelaholic!




Remodelaholic has been on my blog list for ages now, because every day they feature amazing DIY and remodeling projects found all over the WWW.  They also have linky parties each week for DIY Projects, Recipes, and a For Sale by Owner link-up for those of you with etsy shops or other home businesses!  Be sure to go visit Remodelaholic!  (My post should be up around 6PM EST tonight).

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

We just recently had a Houseiversary ~ 4 years since we've moved into our home ~ now it's time for a Blogiversary!  (How much more mileage can I get out of the "-iversary" suffix?!)  I've had this blog for a year now and thought it would be fun to do a run-down of my Top 10 Most Popular Posts, based on the number of views statistics from Google Analytics.

Here we go....

#10:  DIY Growth Chart 

#9:  Thrifted Apothecary Jar Re-do

#8:  Light Saber Pretzel Rods (& Star Wars Birthday Party)

#7:  Laundry Room Reveal

#6:  4th of July on the Cheap:  Wreath

#5:  Chicken - It's What's For Dinner

#4:  Porch Swing Makeover

#3:  Frugal Mud Room Storage

#2:  Changeable Wreath

#1:  Gallery Wall for Cheaters

I have had so much fun with this blog over the past year!  Each new follower and comment bring me a smile...THANKS for taking this little trip down memory lane, and THANKS for your support over the past year!


Linked to:  Someday Crafts, Stuff & Nonsense, Thrifty Decorating, Night Owl Crafting, House of Hepworths, The Frugal Girls, Tatertots & Jello, WhipperBerry, The DIY Showoff

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Fall Foods at The CSI Project

Hey everyone!  This week is "Fall Foods" week over at The CSI Project, and who should be guest posting over there today but little ol' me?!  I love the weekly themed link-ups there, so I am totally thrilled to be a guest-poster!

Visit thecsiproject.com

If you haven't been over to The CSI Project before, let me tell you a little about it.  Basically, each week has a new theme.  There are guest tutorials related to the theme on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then beginning on Thursday, you can link up your theme-related project!  The linky party ends on Friday, and the winners are announced on Saturday.  It's lots of fun and there never ceases to be a TON of great ideas.  So head on over today, and then go back Thursday to link up your Fall Food!

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