Pinteresting: Pill Box Gift

So here's the Pinspiration: Using a week-long pill dispenser as a week-long mini-gift dispenser! I found it on Pinterest, originally posted by The Sweetest Occasion; they used it for Valentine's Day, for 7 days of love.

I thought it was a super-cute idea, but I was hoping to figure out something other than just candy. Then I totally scored when I saw really big pillboxes at my local Goodwill near the cash registers! I picked up two, but I wish I'd picked up more. (I'm hoping my recipients will be understanding and let me steal the containers back so others can enjoy the gift.) Unfortunately, even a "Jumbo" pillbox is still only 1.5" by 1.25", so my options were severely limited. I had to get creative! Here's a similar sized one from Amazon: EZY Dose Weekly Pill Reminder

One reason I wanted to avoid an all-candy (at least in this first round, for my best friend N) is because she's been working on weight loss, and I didn't want to throw off her efforts TOO much; there is candy under ONE day, but it's a small amount, and I'll understand if she throws it away instead of eating it - hopefully it's the thought that counts! ;D

I did keep the little slips of paper idea, and changed it - each day got a loose "theme", and since I love me some alliteration, they all had cheesy names! Having 2 S's was a pain, though - Man, Saturday was FRUSTRATING to figure out, but I'm happy with what I came up with.

The weekdays/message/gift for this particular pillbox:

• Sippin' Sunday - Relax with a cold drink! (Individual drink packet, low-calorie Raspberry Lemonade)
• Manic Monday - Something sweet to help you get through Monday! (M&M's)
• Tricky Tuesday - Give yourself a brain-break with this (slightly) tricky puzzle! (Custom crossword puzzle)
• Wear it Wednesday - Here's some new bling to wear today! (dangly earrings I made)
• Treat Yo' Self Thursday - TREAT YO' SELF! ($5 bill)
• Finally Friday - It's Friday! GO NUTS! (Pistachios)
• SWEET, it's Saturday - Here's a reward for getting through this week!  (Redbox gift rental code, a fake diamond ring charm - N really loves jewelry, but I can't afford the good stuff ;D)

Now, some of these gifts are specific to my friend N, obviously; for example, the crossword puzzle I made her won't work for everyone else because I made it using our personal history as the clues. If you want to do something similar, I highly recommend using the website Armored Penguin for your puzzle-making needs - you can make crosswords, word searches, and word scrambles!

This is the "prescription" I included; I made it sturdier with some coordinating cardstock and edging scissors. I found the cute prescription image through Google (it's from Testy Yet Trying) and modified it using good ol' Fotoflexer.

Then I used good ol' Microsoft Word, made a table, and filled it with my "clever" messages and some pictures of us to put under the gifts. I used the ruler on the margins as a guideline to shrink the pictures correctly.

Sorry, no sneak peeks of the pictures - N would kill me if one of those pics was made public. ;D

I cut them out using my paper trimmer, put the pictures on the bottom of the boxes, filled the boxes, and folded the messages on top!

The pics I took for N's gift were too blurry - these are for my friend R's birthday (she LOVES Grumpy Cat!)

Also R's version - her gifts were slightly different

Aaaaand the messages (which conveniently hide the gifts!)

Voila! (We're back to N's gift now. Consistency is very important in blogging, as you can see.)

Finally, You have to give them the "prescription"! The way I do it is to print out the picture, cut some colorful card stock paper (if you want to cut the border with edging scissors, I recommend adding an inch to the height and width so you have plenty of room; if not using edging scissors, 1/2 an inch should be plenty to still look nice), and glue it. To tie it around the pillbox like I did, punch a hole in the corner, wrap your ribbon around the box at least twice, then feed one ribbon end through the hole and the other end will overlap one side of the card/hole - tie a knot, curl the ends. (If you REALLY don't get it, email me and I'll try a mini-tutorial of how to tie it.)

Back to R's box!

Now, as you may have surmised by now, I've shown examples from two separate pillboxes. N's gift was just for fun, whereas R's is for her birthday. It was part of R's overall bday gift - the pillbox was for the week leading up to her birthday, and then she has an actual gift in the bag pictured above. That is what's so fun about this gift - it can fit almost any occasion! It is tricky to come up with/find small stuff, but at the same time the creativity is fun, too!

Link parties I've joined

Pinteresting: Iced Coffee at Home!

Mmmm, iced coffee.

Look, I need my coffee fix, even in 100+ F degree heat. I have a legit caffeine addiction, which is kind of pathetic considering all I drink is 1 cup of coffee a day - but if I don't have that 1 cup every 36 hours or so, my head starts pounding. Most months of the year, hot coffee in the morning is lovely and soothing. In the Central Valley of Northern California, though, summer is typically a June-October affair, with week-long spans of over 100 degrees. We just finished another run - last Friday the temperature dropped to 90 F, and it was as if Spring had returned! It was HEAVEN.

So I needed to switch to iced coffee, and FAST. I had a coupon for Keurig pods, and I do loves me Keurig, so I bought some "iced coffee" pods. It's "iced coffee" because it brews hot coffee over a glass full of ice. So yes, the coffee gets cold, but it's also severely watered down. So it tastes nice, but it loses a lot of the coffee flavor that us coffee drinkers like.

LUCKILY, me of 6 months or so ago thought ahead and pinned a simple method of making your own iced coffee! I saw the Pioneer Woman's method, but her method makes enough for a party (which could come in handy one day) - I don't need THAT much coffee, as I'm the only one drinking it! Luckily, I stumbled upon Seeded at the Table's method, which was essentially the same as Pioneer Woman's, but on a much smaller scale.

So, the simple formula seems to be a ratio of 1:8 coffee to water.  Pictured below is 1 cup of coffee to 8 cups water. I decided to get all fancy and use filtered water from my Brita - next time I might just pay the $1 and get a gallon jug from the store, since I had to re-fill the Brita and wait for it to finish filtering in order to get my full 8 cups. Not fun when I'm impatient. The Seeded method recommended 6-8 hours, or overnight. I went with overnight 'cuz I was going for MAXIMUM LAZINESS. Plus I was using a light-roast brew, so I figured the longer sitting would result in a stronger brew. (It seemed pretty strong to me!)

Pour your coffee grinds in first, then the water, then give it a good stir. Cover it up and let it sit!

Despite the jug label, the coffee is not fruit-flavored.

Once you wake up (or wait your allotted time), pour your mixture through a strainer lined with paper towels, coffee filters, or cheesecloth. I replaced the filter every time I let a good amount of coffee seep through. If you're using a cheap $1store strainer like I am, keep in mind that coffee is an oily liquid and you'll have to rinse off the strainer and dry the bottom every once in a while to let the coffee seep through again. Or get a better strainer. ;p This was the only part of the process that took time - the filtering (both in my Brita filter and out of the coffee grinds); I'd say it took maybe 15 minutes to filter the grinds out.

Ahhhh Black gold, Texas tea, concentrated caffeinated heaven!

 Once you've filtered all the liquid and tossed out those coffee grinds (if you garden, coffee grinds are great for soil!), pour yourself some over a glass full of ice cubes!

The test cup, mixed with stevia and organic half-and-half. BLIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. It's so refreshing while also giving me my morning caffeine dose!

The Kitchn also has links to other methods to try, if you'd like; I'll stick with this one for now, 'cuz it's the least time consuming for me. (Although the idea of vanilla ice cubes might be one I need to try!)



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Pinteresting: DIY Air Fresheners

So as I've mentioned before, I'm *ahem* slightly addicted to Pinterest. Oh, just a total of 22 boards and over 1,300 pins, not addicted at all, I CAN QUIT ANYTIME I WANT.

I say this with a small amount of annoyance because while I have all these great pins, I've yet to try most of them out! So since I have all this free time on my hands for now, I'd like to try at least one new thing from one of my MANY Pinterest boards out.

This week is actually kind of busy; I have some things going on that I need to prepare for, so I wanted to pick something easy to try out for the first round, and with a high likelihood of success. So I found a pin on my Housewifery board for air fresheners made from fruit and herbs.

Source: theyummylife.com via Sammi on Pinterest

I decided to go with the "Williams-Sonoma Scent", which consists of lemons, rosemary, and vanilla extract; I used the miniature slow-cooker method, since I have a handy-dandy Mini-Dipper.

The original "recipe" is for 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, 2 lemons, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. The changes I made based on cost/necessity/size of mini-dipper: I used baby lemons (2 babies for every 1 regular size) 'cuz they were on sale for 10/$1; I could only fit in 2. I couldn't find fresh rosemary at the grocery store, so I threw in about a half-teaspoon of dried. The mini-dipper only fit about 1.5 cups of water. With all this half-ing of the original recipe, I figured it would be best to half the vanilla extract - and I figured right, 'cuz the extract is STRONG.

My verdict: It's subtle and it's nice! Every time I breathe in deep, it smells like either lemon or vanilla, neither of which is bad! As you can see, mine's not NEARLY as pretty as the website's thanks to using dried rosemary (which isn't really a part of the scent). I also like that it's all natural stuff, so I'm not adding chemicals into the air AND I can still re-use the mini-dipper for food stuff, too (my personal favorite use so far: chocolate fondue!). Plus using the slow-cooker method means I don't have a super-hot stove-top burning all day and posing a possible fire risk; slow-cookers don't burn hot enough to be a danger (although naturally I keep all possibly flammable stuffs away from it just in case, because duh).

Edited to add: Once it gets simmering after about 3 hours, the rosemary kicks in, the scents all combine and it smells HEAVENLY. Oh muh guh. Only downside is that it only really smells heavenly in the kitchen - the rest of the place is very subtle but clean-smelling. So I need to figure out how to make the WHOLE house stink good, not just the kitchen (although I'm not complaining when I walk by the kitchen - yum!).

This was perfect: easy, nice-smelling, and it makes me feel like a housewife. Now to find another Pinteresting project!