Lately

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at a local Mom's group - definitely a first for me!  I was able to share couponing tips & strategies.  Public speaking is not one of my favorite things.....it's more of a hot flash/diarrhea-inducing type thing....but I had a great time and everyone was so nice...plus I was treated to a wonderful breakfast!  You can see a lot of what I talked about if you click here and read my posts related to the "Secrets of Savings."

Although I was speaking on couponing, my mind and heart were elsewhere as it was an exciting day for us in regards to our adoption.  We received word that we are officially DONE with paperwork and our dossier was being sent to Ethiopia!  (I know I already shared that we were done with paperwork, but since then, our dossier has cleared several checks by our agency and so now we're "more" officially done!)  The last time I checked our tracking number for our dossier, it was in Paris!  It seems to be making some pretty exciting stops along the way to Ethiopia!  Still a looooong wait ahead, but so thankful for this BIG step!  Originally my goal was to be finished with all of our paperwork by the end of the year, so we were happy to be about a month ahead of my scheduled goal.  We were also so thankful to the Lord for meeting all our financial needs along with this paperwork goal.  Yes, our savings account is almost empty now, but our need was met and we will happily continue raising funds for our next payment!  Thank you to everyone has been supporting for us and praying for us so far!

Give 1 Save 1

Since starting the process to adopt, I have been enjoying meeting new friends from all over who share my passion for adoption.  Beth is one of those people, and when she told me about Give1 Save1, I was super excited to share it with you.  Then my little blogging hiatus happened, I became a bad blogger, and I never did.  Finally, I have the post ready for you - I'm excited to share it with you, from Beth herself!
...............

Hi there!

I'm Beth and I'm pleased to be doing a little guest post for you guys. Let me tell you a little about myself and a little project that you might just want to help with. 

Ok, like I said, I'm Beth. I'm a mom to two, Will and Abby. I'm also mom to two more though I don't know their names yet! That feels weird! We are in the process of adopting two older girls from Ethiopia. Working on our homestudy. 

When we started the process we knew that it would be hard to make $30,000 come through our house in about a year's time. I was trying to think of how my God given talents could help us raise that money. I thought to myself "Too bad rockin' blog skills and a Pinterest addiction can't pay those adoption fees." And then as I was surfing around that day I came across good old Pioneer Woman's website. A routine stop for me. That day she was giving away a KitchenAid. That day over 40,000 people entered a blog contest to win that machine. And then I thought to myself, "If every one of those people gave me a buck, two little girls would have a home and I could worry about stuff besides loans, like raising them." Unfortunately I am no PW and I don't have an army of people. Yet. A new vision was born. Maybe blogging is a gift. Let's see what we can do with this....

So I came up with this idea, Give1 Save1. In the next year I am attempting to get 30,000 people to join the Dollar Mob. It's a group of people that give $1 every week. It comes out of your Paypal account automatically once a week. Your dollar then goes to a new family that is adopting from Africa. So if 30,000 people joined we could fully fund 52 adoptions a year! And in the process we have a good time. There is a new family each week, but we're constantly talking mommy stuff, design stuff, and we have tons of fun giveaways. We've even opened a shop! I know that it's a recession right now and I know it's hard to give, but everyone has a dollar to spare, right? If you'd like to check it out, come on over. Every family is so appreciative of every dollar! 

Thanks so much for having me over and for listening to my hair brained idea!


...................
(Ok, now it's back to me again)  Hair brained?  I think not!  How about utterly BRILLIANT?!  $1 each week.  Or a one time donation.  This would be a great project to get your kids involved in!  Sometimes it takes so little to bless someone SO MUCH!  

You can also become a facebook fan of Give1Save1 to stay updated!


Thanks, Beth!

I'm Back!

Well, hello there!  Remember me?  Probably not at this point!  It has been so long since I've posted.....due to life being generally busy, and adoption stuff being crazy and pretty much sucking all of my emotions and creativity.  Every day I think, "wow, I should really blog."  And then......I don't.  I realized just how long it's been when a bloggy friend emailed tonight .....probably to make sure I'm still alive :)  Thanks, though - it made me feel special!

So here's my update...along with whatever random thoughts I have!

*On the family front,  my sweet baby girl turned 2!  Two!  And is suddenly not so sweet anymore.  Ha!  Ok, she can still be sweet and also quite hilarious, but she's definitely going through that frustrated/frustrating stage.  Overall though, two is fun - she is loving pretend play - being a mommy to her baby dolls, etc.  I am....I mean, she is....also having a lot of fun with her new dollhouse!  Here's a picture from her birthday....oh the anticipation of the birthday cupcake!

*Adoption News!  I am THRILLED to let you know that as of today, we are officially DONE with paperwork!!!!!  Our dossier (and most of the contents of our savings account) are on their way to our adoption agency, and in 1-3 weeks it will be headed to Ethiopia!  So excited for this step.....each step bringing us closer to our precious son(s).  We are also delighted to share how faithful God has been in providing for our needs.  The check we had to send today was pretty massive, and we had enough to cover it, plus a little more.  Of course we are still saving like crazy and fundraising since we still need close to half of our funds to come in.  We are praising the Lord for providing for our needs, and thanking our friends and family who have contributed!

*Orphan Sunday - we had the opportunity to help put a service together at our church and speak about our adoption journey.  It was truly a blessing to be able to hear the stories of others in our church family.  God puts families together in some pretty amazing ways!  We can't wait for the day when we can share updates to our story.

*Fundraising - so yeah, we still have a large chunk of change to raise.  A friend of mine from college is a consultant for Tastefully Simple, and she volunteered to do a fundraiser for us!  Not only that, but she sent me a box with lots of yummy samples!!!!!  If you haven't tried Tastefully Simple, they have some great mixes that help you to prepare foods with just a few ingredients - great for those nights when you don't know what to cook, or for snacks for unexpected company!  My favorite products are the Beer Bread, Bacon Bacon seasoning, and definitely the Oh My Chai!  Yum!!!!  This fundraiser is online, so if you would like to participate, click here, then "Shop Our Products", then "Host/Event Search", then you will need to fill in my name and state (PA).  If you want to order but don't know my name, you can figure it out pretty easily by looking around the site, but if you are having trouble, message me and I will get it to you - I just don't want to blatantly put it out there on the WWW, know what I mean?  The fundraiser is ending November 30 and you will receive your orders in plenty of time for Christmas - they make GREAT gifts!

*Thirty-One Gifts - you might remember that I started selling Thirty-One Gifts to help save money for the adoption.  I have to say, after about two months in, I am LOVING it!!!!  Our purses, totes, wallets, and other things to help you stay organized also make great gifts!  Orders made by December 12 will arrive in time for Christmas.  Of course I have to mention, if anyone is interested in a catalog/online party - a quick & easy way to earn FREE products - let me know!  Or, if you'd like to receive my email newsletter to stay up-to-date on our amazing specials, just give me your email address!

*Shop With A Purpose - Along with our fundraising efforts, we'd like to support the fundraising efforts of our other adopting friends.  I have started a Pinterest board featuring many of the fundraisers I have been made aware of - there's a little bit of everything there, so if you are looking for some unique gifts that will also help to form a forever family, check it out!

*From Here Onward - Just to let you know, I do plan on being a more regular presence once again on this blog.  Hopefully I'll even have some creative crafty ideas again at some point!  Thanks for sticking with me through the craziness of life!

Orphan Sunday

Orphan Sunday 2011 from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

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!

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?

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!

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).

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

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!

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!

Mossy Rock Designs Spotlight & Giveaway!!

If you've been here much at all, you know we are adopting, and you know I have a passion for adoption.  So much of me wishes I had a big ol' pile of money just sitting around ~ to not only pay for our own adoption, but to help others do the same!  (In my head, my pile of money is much like Scrooge McDuck's and I like to open the door and dive into the gold coins and swim.....anybody else remember DuckTales?!)  Anyhoo....one way I can support others in their adoption journey is bring them some awareness, so from time to time, I'll be featuring an adoptive family and their fundraising adventures!  And guess what?  The first one is today, and it includes a GIVEAWAY!!!

Our first spotlight is (drumroll, please....) Katie Bradley of Mossy Rock Designs!!

Katie is a stay at home momma of two boys, a wife, daughter, and friend.  She and her family are in the process of adopting their daughter from Ethiopia.  Her passion is creating watercolor and ink nursery art, and she has also recently illustrated two children's books (one is Miss Bunny, Mrs Mouse and Me)!  Seriously, this girl has TALENT!!  Lucky for us, she has an etsy shop, and 100% of her profits go towards bringing her daughter home.

Would you like to see some of the items from her shop?  I thought so!

Hair Time

Baby Bear

Boy with a Sparkler

Meeting my Momma

and my personal favorites...

I Love Ethiopia

Small and Large Hand

Beautiful, right?  Let's get on to the giveaway!  Katie has offered up any 5x7 print from her shop to the winner!  And we're giving you lots of chances to win!!  (Please leave one comment for EACH entry!)

MANDATORY:  Visit Mossy Rock Designs, come back and tell me what your favorite item is.

EXTRA ENTRIES (again, please leave a comment for each one you qualify for!):
* "Like" Mossy Rock Design's Facebook Page.
* Become a follower of Katie's art blog (and show her some comment love!)
* Become a follower of this blog, The Cellar Door Stories, via GFC.
* "Like" The Cellar Door Stories' Facebook page.
* Make a purchase from Mossy Rock Designs!  (This one is worth 2 entries, so leave 2 comments!)


This giveaway will end October 7, and the winner will be chosen by Random.org.

Good Luck!

Fall Food Favorites: Homemade Applesauce

Ahhhh......fall!  Cooler weather, soon-to-be-changing leaves, apple cider, pumpkins....I love it all!  One of the things I really love about fall, especially this month ~ apples!  We have fun apple picking at a nearby orchard, and enjoy tasting all kinds of apple treats.  I typically try out new recipes each year, but the one tradition we have that must happen every year is applesauce.
When you make homemade applesauce you not only save money, but you know exactly what ingredients you are using, and in this case it's only one ingredient:  apples.  It tastes much better than what you can buy in stores and it's really not as hard as you might think!  I can remember my grandma and mom both making applesauce over the years, but I didn't really learn how until after I was married, when Jon's grandpa taught me.  I'm a little biased, but I think this is the best applesauce ever.  :)

So here's what you do...
Get some apples.  This year I bought 1 1/2 bushels.  Following Gramps' advice, go for Ginger Gold.  To us they have the perfect taste, so you will not need to add any sugar.  We usually wait a few days and let the apples soften up a little bit.  Then wash them, and use an apple cutter to core & slice them.  (There is no need to peel them if you will be using something like a Victorio Strainer).  Fill a heavy duty pot about 3/4 of the way full, and add a little water - not much, just enough so the apples don't scorch on the bottom.

Cook on medium heat for a little while, stirring every so often (do you like my precise measurements?), until apples are mushy.

When the apples are mushy, dump them into the funnel of your strainer and crank that handle!  You will want a bowl to catch the peels, and also something to collect the actual sauce.  If you have added too much water, most of it will come out with the first couple turns of the crank, and you can dump it out so your applesauce isn't too runny.  **My son loves to help turn the crank, but it is important to have your child stand back when you are dumping your apples into the funnel....they are HOT and could easily burn you!**

When the applesauce cools, fill your containers.  I use plastic containers I buy from my local grocery store's deli.  I wash them out and and save them from year to year.  If I ever learn to can, I could can my applesauce, but since I am intimidated by the canning process, I choose to freeze mine.  Here's a glimpse of my freezer...

my fresh homemade applesauce nearly fills the top shelf!  (Yes, I know I need to defrost!)  We'll have plenty of applesauce and will be able to have a taste of fall throughout the year!

Linked to:  Remodelaholic Recipe Party, The Frugal Girls,

RoadKill Rescue Feature

Today my red spraypainted chair is being featured over at RoadKill Rescue!!  I LOVE the idea for this blog...."one man's trash is another woman's treasure!"  All the projects show great transformations....and they all begin with an item that was obtained for FREE!  (Now that is my kind of project!!)  Whether it was a dumpster dive, a curb pick-up, or something you already had around the house - these are the types of things being featured from all over the blogosphere!

Go check it out, and be inspired!!

Fun Fall Activity Repost

Looking for a fun fall activity to do with your kiddos?  I'm reposting this from last fall, back when I was the only one who regularly checked my blog!

Ok, so probably everyone has done this craft.  It certainly isn't original but it came out of the recesses of my brain today when I was trying to think of a simple fun activity to do with Jackson while Carly took her nap.  It's easy, cheap, already had all the supplies on hand, and it can double as some fall decoration - so that makes it a win-win-win-win in my book!

Materials needed:  crayons (preferably old or broken ones), crayon or pencil sharpener (or old cheese grater), wax paper, newspaper, scissors, iron, marker.

Layer newspaper, one sheet wax paper, crayon shavings, wax paper, newspaper.  I used an old tea towel on top of it all, too. 

Iron on low setting just until the crayon is melted.  Draw your leaves (don't be jealous of my sweet leaf drawing skills!) and cut them out.  (For the pumpkins, we drew them first so we knew where to put the orange & green). 

Tape or hang them on a window and admire your new cute suncatchers!



(Yep, it's definitely afternoon & he's definitely still wearing pajamas).



Linking to:  The DIY Showoff's Fall Festival Party