Help! Any Idea how to get rid of "old" smell in suitcases??

                  

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UPDATE

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I found the answer to my question at  The Art of Doing Stuff

She says to pour a whole box of  kitty litter in the suitcase,

close the lid and leave it for a week.

Bye Bye  yucky odor

I bought this old suitcase at a thrift store.... and Love it. 

This is where I had it last week....

and this is how I changed it up after housecleaning this past week

Now I love it and all, but it has this annoying "oldish" smell that no matter what I do... it lingers.

Any ideas what might work to get rid of the smell??  

                  

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UPDATE

****************************************

I found the answer to my question at  The Art of Doing Stuff

She says to pour a whole box of  kitty litter in the suitcase,

close the lid and leave it for a week.

Bye Bye  yucky odor

Chicken and Gravy recipe and tips

Hello friends,
I made a chicken for dinner the other night and thought I would share some tips.
I am by no means claiming to be any kind of special chef or anything, but
I am still learning the ins and outs of cooking myself and thought I'd share a few things while
I'm at it.

 I like to buy whole chickens ( fresh, not frozen) , and because there are only 2 of us I get the smallest one I can find.  Unless I plan to use the leftover chicken for another dinner I get a larger one.

First of all I always allow enough time for prep and cooking.  I always figure at least 24 minutes cooking time per pound of chicken.     
I used  a 5 lb chicken cooked it for  2  hours at 350 degrees.

This is what you will need:

1. whole chicken
2. 1-2 Tablespoons softened butter or margarine
3. poultry seasoning
4. salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350
Begin by opening your chicken, it's usually a little yucky so I suggest to open in your sink.
and take out what I like to call the "little package" from inside and discard.
Rinse inside and out and pat dry with a paper towel.
(Sanitize all kitchen surfaces thoroughly after they've come in contact with uncooked chicken.)
I usually fill my roasting pan with just enough water to cover the bottom and sprinkle a little salt and pepper in it.   ( this will help add  to the gravy when the chicken is done.)
Using a butter knife spread 1/2 the butter/margarine on the breast side of the chicken and sprinkle with poultry seasoning,  salt and pepper and  place in roasting pan. Repeat for top side.
Cook breast side up
This is what it should look like. 

Once the oven is preheated, place chicken in oven and set timer for 90 mins
 I check it after 1 1/2  hours just in case.  If it's getting too brown I will tent a piece of foil over it for the last 1/2 hour or so.

Gently pull on one of the legs... if it easily pulls away from the chicken and clear juices run out than its done. If the leg wants to stay intact... it needs more time.

 Remove from oven and let sit with foil over it for about  10 mins. It will be WAY  too hot to slice.   I use a large fork utensil to remove from pan 

 and place on a cutting board...

see how the leg just pulls right off ?

with foil wrapped over the top.

 Mine was done in exactly 2 hours and it was delicious


For the gravy:

Pour the juice from the roasting pan into a saucepan and  heat on stove on low or medium heat.

Mix together 3/4 cup of  water and about 2 tablespoons of flour until smooth.
Mix well, you want it to be smooth, not lumpy. 
I use quickshake by Tupperware  Works like a dream

and slowly add to juices whisking as you pour it.

  Let it thicken as you whisk it and is almost boiling then remove from heat.   It should
look like this:

and your done!  Just put in gravy boat and serve with that yummy chicken.


You can leave the gravy on the stove for a while, (burner off) but it may continue to thicken. If this happens, just thin it out with some more water.

If you try it.... feel free to share the results with me.    Or if you have any questions, type them in the comments section and I will answer them the best I can.

Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Button necklace tutorial

Hi ! hope you all are having a great day.   I can say I am much, MUCH better.
I had a minor setback a few weeks ago and it took some time to get myself in working order again.
But like my sister told me, "hold on, the sun will shine again" and she was right, it's been shining brightly the last few days.  Thank the good Lord.


Now on to the most recent project....
This is VERY simple to make, I think it only took me like 20 minutes tops.  terrible pictures and all :)

All you need is 6 or so large buttons in various sizes, largest at least an inch in diameter ( I save the extra buttons they give you on clothes.  And as you can see, last year I was way into the cropped jackets with the huge buttons.)  The flowers were from a bracelet that I never wore, it was one of those cute bracelets that is always upside down.... so annoying!!  So I broke the flowers off and used them for this necklace,  and I used a piece of a neckline from  a t-shirt because It had the perfect curve to it, but I'm sure felt would work also.

these are the steps

and this is the finished product....

I've worn it a few times and always get a lot of compliments.
I think it would be even cuter with bright colored buttons for summer, but this is what I had on hand.

Linking to  

Thanks for stopping by!

Thrift Store Finds

I was very excited to be featured on two of my favorite blogs this week,

Eisy Morgan and DIY by Design
they each host a craft linky party on their blog
and I love seeing all the great things that are created and shared.
I'm always so inspired.
So,  thank you ladies!!


I went thrifting the other day and was so
thrilled with what I brought home
Yay!! More junk to fix up!
and all for less then $20
Guess I should go easy on the exclamation points...

Anyway
I have been looking for some cabinet kind of thingy for my hallway
It needed to be a good size, but very shallow.... hard thing to find
but wouldn't you know I finally found the perfect thing.
AND it was only 12 bucks.   Now THAT put a smile on my face :)
and here she is.....

I know what your thinking....

IT'S UGLY!!
and I agree , but wait until you see what it looks like when I'm done.
then you can judge.
Hopefully it will be finished soon.
***update***
and it's done!

not so ugly now

 


and here are a few other things I picked up
Recently I've been obsessed with old suitcases, especially when they're like $3.
and so needless to say, I grabbed this right up.

and I loved this
glass vase that reminded me of a beaker.

And this is what they look like in my living room :)

My husband added his own decorative touch....
. don't those
work boots look nice there??

My Fresh Start

I read somewhere that

"sometimes you just have to cry, 

let it go, 

shake it off,

then move onto a new,

fresh start"

So my friends

  this is the beginning

of my fresh start....

Upcycled T-shirt

I am so excited to tell you I jogged TWO MILES tonight!!  (without stopping for a breather)  Wahoo!!   I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere.  Honestly, when I started jogging, I was thinking.... I'm never going to be able to do this.   But look at me now, Mr. doubtful....  two miles :)

So anyway onto the t-shirt up cycle.
I bought a few long sleeved t-shirts on clearance for $3.00 hoping I could make some cute short sleeved shirts for the summer.   This was very easy and didn't take long at all since there was no hemming involved

1. First step was to fold the shirt in half, line the sleeves up and cut them both off the length I wanted at the same time.   This way they were the same length without all the measuring fuss. I just left the sleeves since knit won't fray and I like how it rolls a little bit.
2. Next I used my disappearing ink sewing marker to draw the v- neck and cut that out.   I only cut out the front part of the neck and left the back alone.
3. cut 2 rectangular pieces from the sleeves for the ruffled neck..  This I just kinda eye balled how much I would need and pinned them on the front of the shirt.   
4. Since I didn't want sewed ruffles I just  pinched and pinned the pieces of fabric in random spots on either side of the v neck
5. Sewed the pieces along the shoulder seam and to the back of the neckline.Sewed and back-stitched  each of the pinned spots a little just enough to hold it in place.  I then had to trim all the threads.
6. Then to make the bow I just cut another rectangle piece of the sleeve, folded it in half and sewed the edge to make a smaller rectangle.   pinched it together with a piece of the neck line that I cut off and hand stitched it together.   and then hand stitched it to the shirt 

hope these pictures help a little:

Yes those are pins, this is the before it was sewn picture.   But the after it was sewn picture looks the same just without the pins :)

 

I'm thinking about adding some pearls or something...  guess we'll see.
What do you think?    have you done any up cycled tops recently?

Linking to

Sew Much Ado ( We did it Wednesday) 

Upcycled gift bags

I saved this cute gift bag from a wedding gift thinking I would reuse it sometime.  And now is the time!  I really liked the pink and white stripes... perfect for a baby girl gift.   I know what your thinking....  It only costs a few dollars to just buy one!   But I like to recycle :)   But clearly that wedding cake on there just isn't  saying "baby girl" to anyone....  

so I removed the wedding cake from the bag and set it aside to use a lil later.

this is what it looked like underneath

and this is the cake I set aside for later use.   so cute!

I made a pretty big felt rosette with a pearl in the center and some green felt leaves to cover the large cake and glued them on.
  and it looked good enough... but good enough just didn't cut it for me  It definitely needed  something else. That huge flower covered the cake shape but looked a little lonely.  Then I remembered the butterflies ( cut out on my cricut/ thank you sister for the cartridge)  that I had leftover from another project and glued one of them on.

then I just drew a swirley curly dotted line to show where the butterfly "flew" past the rose.
Much better!
so cute and it only took me a few minutes to finish.

The pink bag I've been saving from I'm not sure where....

kind of Blah

I cut out "stems" and leaves from some green scrap paper,  glued them on, glued 3 small felt rosettes to the tops.   repeated the butterfly process and ..... Done.

So much cuter than the plain pink bag!

I embellished a wedding card with the cake from the first gift bag..

First step was to cut out the polka dot paper into a rectangle.   Fold in half to make the card.  ( I made mine to fit into an envelope I already had).

polka dot paper is already folded in half in this picture

cut out some pale pink paper the size I thought would look good for the cake embellishment.
Cut brown paper a little larger than that and glued the layers together with a glue stick.
I apologize that I forgot to take a picture of the inside, I made this VERY last minute and the picture taking was not helping get it done faster.  My husband was patiently asking me every few minutes ... you almost ready?  translation     "You're done,  let's go".
But anyway, what I usually do is print out the little verse or saying that  I want in the card on computer paper.  cut it out a 1/4" smaller than the actual card making sure it is centered and where I want it to be and glue it to the inside cover .  I thought it turned out really cute.   Loved that the polka dot paper was already distressed looking.  Saved me a step.   I usually ink the edges a little bit.

Thank you for stopping by!
Debby