Sprucing up the bistro table

Since I don’t usually spend the big bucks to inve$t in durable patio furniture, I have a bistro table set from Joann’s that is several years old and starting to show it’s age.

The base of the chair is all wonky and starting to rust; I’ll likely have to clean it with a wire brush and repaint it by the end of the season.

BUT! I thought it could use some cushions, since the chairs have never really been all that comfortable.

Enter one of my design heroes, Kristin Nicholas. You may remember I made some wicked cool leg warmers she designed. I don’t wear them nearly often enough, as I am generally more conservative in my color palate than Kristen is, but everytime I do don my legwarmers, it’s a good day.

Kristen shared this fabulous tutorial last summer on printing your own fabric, using a canvas dropcloth as the fabric (AKA- cheap!) and basically whatever paints you have lying around.

I really liked the affordability of the project, because I wasn’t about to shell out $30 a yard for some Sunbrella fabric that was going to sit on my rusty bistro chairs.

I cut and preshrunk my canvas cloth, then I cut out a stamp or two like from kid’s adhesive foam.

A little stamping action with some random acrylics I had lying around, a little striping action, some sewing and stuffing of foam padding…

I only used one color, because I didn’t want the cushions to stand out too much. I wanted the main focus of the flagstone patio to be the garden, not the bistro set.

and…

TADAAAAA! My spiffy bistro table. Now, for some iced tea and some quiet time…

Tortilla madness

Once again, I found myself at the store astonished at the price of… tortillas this time. Three bucks for 6 whole wheat tortillas? Ouch! Madness I say!

I just couldn’t buy them.

I looked around the internet and I found this fabulous tutorial on making your own flour tortillas. They are pretty easy to make! I’ve made them twice, and the second time was significantly easier than the first.

They’re not exactly circular, but hey! I made ‘em myself!

The ingredients are common household staples that I almost never run out of:

2 c flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp oil

3/4 c milk

I’ve been afraid of doing things 100% whole wheat based on my past horrific bread experiences, so I used 1 1/3 c white flour and 2/3 c whole wheat flour. Next week I think I’ll attempt half and half.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer, with the dough hook and loosely stuck to the recommended times for kneading. The dough needs to be a little stretchy. The hardest part is the rolling of the tortillas, I almost got a splinter from my wooden rolling pin the first time, but yesterday’s tortillas were much easier to roll.

I’d also recommend warming your tortillas on a dry skillet of some kind (see photo) instead of the microwave. Microwaves do weird things to tortillas.

Happy tortilla making!

Frugal Friday

Have you ever heard of GasBuddy.com? It’s this sweet site that allows you to punch in your zip code and it will then show you the gas prices at various stations all around your area.

Even though a penny less a gallon realistically only saves me about 11 cents (I have a 12 gallon tank car) it’s the psychological aspect of “sticking it to the gas man.” Or something.

Speaking of gas and cars and such… has anyone revisited the idea of being a one-car family?

We have casually considered it… I’m a stay-at-home-mom with a 6 month old so I am not carting people around to various activities. My ventures out of the house consist of the grocery store, bible study (which is now done for the summer),  a moms group (also done for the summer) and Babies R Us once a month for diapers. I go to the gym a lot too, but we usually walk there since it’s 2 blocks away.

I don’t go out and drive for the heck of it, especially now, and if I am sitting at home, not going places to conserve gas, then why in the world do I have a car? Granted, it is convenient. And nice. And the way we’ve always done things. But I am starting to wonder if it’s really necessary…

Any frugal thoughts? Gas/car related or otherwise?