Foodsaver Personal Pan Pizzas

I'm not being paid to say this but one of the best appliances I've ever purchased has to be my Foodsaver!  If you're not familiar with what this puppy does, let me fill you in.  It's a machine that sucks the air out of bags and vacuum seals them.  So basically, you put your food in these special storage bags and the Foodsaver sucks the air out and vacuum seals your meal and then you freeze it or refrigerate it for however long it takes a hungry family member to discover it.  The beauty is that food last a LONG time when it's sealed this way.  Oh and no freezer burn.  Oh and you can microwave it in the bag.  Oh and the food tastes just as fresh as when you put it in.  Oh and I've saved tons of cash by storing leftovers and not having to buy takeout.  Oh and I don't have to throw out food because it's spoiled. Oh and the bags are washable and reusable.  I'll stop now to show you what I made recently.

Here's mine.  It's a little used to say the least.  

I made personal pan pizzas yall!  You heard me!  I made all different kinds too.  I like certain toppings on my pizzas that my kids want no part of.  I made the dough from scratch so no nasty preservatives. The dough recipe can be found on any site with basic food recipes but most of the recipes for pizza dough call for two cups of flour which equals 4 personal pan pizzas when you divide the dough into quarters.

One quarter of the dough in a ball shape on a flour dusted surface.  

Pound the dough flat.

Roll it out with a rolling pin.  

Make a lip by pinching the edges. 

Add your toppings and place the pizza on some freezer paper in a baking pan.  I stacked my pizzas on top of each other and froze them for about 4 hours.  This made it easier to vacuum seal because the air suction would not suck the sauce off and it was better to manage hard dough.  

I folded over the wax paper and slid the pizzas into the Foodsaver bags and sealed. Now when I'm feeling lazy about cooking all I have to do is pop one of these babies in the oven and I look like a superstar.  

Nydia 8)

I Made a Dress Out Of a Man's Shirt

There's a group of crafty individuals out there that are using old thrift store clothes and turning them into useful, cute clothes.  I wanted in, but I can't sew.  That is until now.  All summer long I've been learning how to sew; on my own with no teacher.  There are a lot of tutorials on the internet for this.  Obviously I'm still a beginner, so I've had a major learning curve to overcome.  Here's a couple of the dresses I've made so far.

This dress intrigued me with its pattern.  No they are not strawberries.  The pattern of the fabric just put me in a good mood.  This was a very large dress and I am a very small person, so I had plenty of fabric to use.  Oh and it cost only $2.50!

This is the dress I ended up making.  I used a pattern from Patterns.com.  This pattern was only 99 cents to download but it was written in Russian!  Did I mention that learning curve?  I had no instructions to work with but I stuck with it.  I'm a trooper I tell ya.  

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Not too shabby for an absolute beginner.  

How about this little gem here ladies and gentlemen?

This next dress started out as a man's shirt from The Gap.  I liked the light green pattern and the material was cotton.  You can't go wrong with cotton when making a summer dress.  This shirt cost a whole $2.50.  

This is the final summer dress I came up with.  I kept the button details and the shirt tails.  By the way, I used a free online Burda pattern.  Check out Burdastyle.com.  They have tons of free downloadable patterns for all levels of sewing competence.  

I love the back of this little dress!  Seriously check out Burda Style.  They have really up to date fashion patterns.  

I also made this skirt out of a HUGE one I found at Goodwill.  Cute no?  The skirt was FUGLY!  Sorry I forgot to take a before pic.  Basically I took the original skirt apart and added a contrasting band from a pair of slacks my husband thought he threw out.  Honest I'm not a hoarder.  

My mother asked me why I wanted to sew when store bought clothes are so cheap.  I told her the satisfaction of "I made this" can't be bought.  Am I right?  

Nydia 8)

Re Size Earrings That Are Way Too Big

The other night I went out to dinner with my husband and I got all gussied up.  You can relate; right?  Well, normally my hubs is all like, "Wow!  You look tasty.", or some other classy man statement.  However, the other night, he went all, "Holy cow!  Those earrings are BIG!", and he didn't mean this in a good way.  Don't get me wrong, I couldn't really care less about my husband's opinions on fashion but this somehow got me to thinking that maybe at my age, thirty something- cough, I might be getting too old for the whole wagon wheel sized earring fad.  The problem was I really liked those earrings.  What to do?  What to do?  I know!  Re size them!  And that's precisely what I did.  Check this out.

This earring was almost as big as my hand.  

First I had to unhook the loopy things from the earring hanger thingy.  Sorry, I'm not more technical with terms folks but I'm not a jewelry designer by any stretch of the imagination.  

I found something with the desired circumference I was looking for.  I bent the earrings around this bottle of glue to re size them.  

This is the new size I was left with.  I think it's a much better fit for the size of my head.  Don't you think? 

I cut the loopy things off.  

See the loopy end there all dismembered.  I used a wire cutter for the job.

I was left with a smaller more acceptable sized earring.  Oh and you can't mistake the cuteness.  

Nydia 8)