DIY Puppy Treats, Part 1

 How much would your spoiled pooch absolutely love you if you made him/her some delicious, peanut butter puppy treats? Don’t laugh! They are so easy to make and even my picky doggies enjoy eating them! And… just think of the money you’ll save by making your own versus buying them AND you know exactly what your dog is eating. Sounds like good enough reasons to me!

  Materials Needed (makes appx several dozen 1.5” treats - seriously it makes a ton):
- 2 cups whole wheat flour (you can use bleached, but it’s not as healthy and may be harder for dogs to digest)
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ cup broth (beef for my dogs)
- ¼ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

 I put mine in my KitchenAid mixer bowl because 1) it’s easier on me, 2) I’m lazy, 3) I could do other things while it mixed, and 4) something slightly more heavy duty works better for this recipe because it gets pretty thick (but I used my hand held mixer every time I’ve made these treats up until now).
 

 

 Combine all of your dry ingredients first. Mix well so that the cinnamon is distributed evenly through the crumbs and flour.

 Next, add in all of the other ingredients and mix for 3-4 minutes on Speed 2. Make sure that the dough is in a ball on your mixer and is no longer sticking to the sides.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough until ¼ inch thickness.
 

 

 Cut with cookie cutter.

Place your millions of little treats on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until lightly browned.

 

Store in an airtight container. Put some in freezer to ensure that they last even longer!


And, if I may note, these dang things smell very appetizing while they are in the oven. Not fair! I, of course silly me, hadn’t eaten almost all day and then had to smell these things for hours while I was cooking them. Although all of the ingredients are edible, I’m just not sure about the whole cinnamon-with-peanut-butter-with-beef-broth-thing would actually taste. Unless you are a dog, in which case they taste scrumptious.

Look forward to a Part 2: DIY Yogurt Topping for Puppy Treats recipe!

If you decide your dog should definitely be allowed to have these healthy and yummy puppy treats, but don’t want to take the time to cook them yourself (Hey, I won’t judge!), they will soon be available for purchase in my Etsy shop: Etsy.com/shop/MommysSewClever

Breast Milk Storage System

This post should really go as a Thief Thursday post, but I'm really not sure who originally came up with it and the person I got the idea from doesn't blog. But, I'm just letting everybody know that I didn't come up with this personally, I just love the ease of use and wanted to share.

So, one of the reasons I was so excited to breast feed was because of this breast milk bag storage idea I saw at my sister-in-laws house. Don't get me wrong-there were no doubts in my mind that I would (try to) breastfeed Little Man, but the storage system just gave me an extra reason to look forward to doing it. Besides, it's so simple and - one of my favorite words ever - CHEAP! How could I possibly say no? I couldn't!

 

Materials needed:
-gift bag the size of your storage bags laying down (use a thick one so it'll last longer!)
-scissors
-tape (just in case)

Cut along the dotted lines on your own gift bag (mine was left over from The Divas birthday party last year). I cut mine and then it ripped a little, so I had to tape the sides. Done. So easy, right?!?! Just pull the bottom bag out through the hole! I spent $0.00 on this project.

It allows you to keep all of your bags in one place, freezes them flat, takes up very little space, and you can put them in order by date so the oldest is used first by being pulled from the bottom. Genius. My SIL had several of these bags full on her deep freeze. I can only hope to grow my stash that big!

(Here's how cheap I am - I rewash and rinse/sanitize the bags when I'm done with them so they can be reused. I put a red dot in the left corner so I know it's on the second time through; after the second time I toss them, though. But... $12 for 25 bags is CRAZAY!)

Clean Pillows

Good morning, world! I hope everybody's day is going well. Mine is, but I just woke up. I got a much needed 10 hours of sleep last night. Can't remember the last time that happened. Not to mention that The Husband surprised me with some Yoohoo and I'm eating Lucky Charms. You just can't beat a morning like this, I tell you what.

With packing and moving, I've been trying to ensure everything is clean beforehand so I don't have to clean it while I'm trying to set up the new house. Some things I noticed I've never cleaned that were really disgusting looking? My pillows. I wash my pillowcases at least once a month, but I've never paid attention to the pillows themselves.

8 months of not washing our pillows looks pretty gross doesn't it? I searched online, but only found  instructions that contain bleach, which I really didn't want to do.

This is what I did do, though:
1.) Put two pillows in my washing machine, on their sides, so that it would keep the balance (I have a top loader not a front loader).
2.) Poured in a capfull of our liquid laundry detergent and sprinkled  approximately 1/4 cup of borax on the pillows.
3.) Turned the water temperature to the hottest it would go and turned my washer on.
4.) During the rise cycle, I added a few tablespoons of white vinegar to help sanitize the pillows.
5.) Ran an extra rinse cycle to get rid of the vinegar smell.
6.) Popped my pillows in the dryer (with my wool dryer balls I made here).

Really made a difference, didn't it? It's kind of hard to see just how much of a difference washing them actually made, but I didn't want to edit the picture any. You can tell there's no more yellow or sweat spots, though.  I'm definitely going to start washing my pillows every 4-6 months to try to ensure they never look that gross again.

Easy Peasy Girls' Skirt

Good morning! Guess what? Today I'm actually putting up a new post. Yay! Exciting, isn't it? Or maybe I'm the only one that is excited by this... Oh, well. I'll apologize in advance for lack of pictures. I lost them when my laptop crashed a few weeks ago. At least it's easy to figure out.

Today's sewing project is actually extremely easy (hence, the title) and took me less than 30 minutes total. In all honesty, it probably would have taken me less time, but I didn't bring my iron to work with me, so I had to pin what I needed to sew when I got home. I guess that just means it took an extra ten minutes out of my clock-watching time. I love that it's finally hot out, but hate that the heat means no customers and slow days. At least I get paid to work on my crafts I bring from home! Can't beat that!

Materials Needed:

- Scissors

- Fabric of choice – at least ¼ - ½ of a yard (I used just over ¼ for my 5 year old)

- Tape measurer or ruler

- Pins or an Iron

- Pencil

- Braided elastic (½ inch or ¾ inch, depending on size of child)

- Safety pin or paper clip

- Sewing machine or thread and needle

Here are the measurements you'll need:

- Hip to Knee + 1.75 inches for the hem

  --》The Diva measured 10.5 inches hip to knee + 1.75 inches for the hem = 12.25 inches total

- Around the waist for elastic and x2 for fabric

  --》The Diva measured 20 inches around the waist x2 = 40 inches

I used ¾ inch braided elastic for my skirt for The Diva and some cute polka dot fabric that she picked out herself at Jo-Ann's. I, of course, could not find my measuring tape, so I used a ruler to measure. I wrapped the elastic around her waist once and cut where it met, then measured that (20 inches exactly) so I knew exactly how much I needed the waist of the fabric to be (40 inches, since we doubled it so it's not skin tight on the poor girl).

I measured out a rectangle that was 40x12.5 inches and marked it off in pencil on the back of the fabric.

After cutting out my rectangle, I pinned down my hems. The bottom is ¼ inch folded under, and then another 1/4 inch, making it 1/2 inch total.  And the top is ¼ inch, which is then folded under a 1 inch space for the elastic. I hope that makes sense.

I then placed my elastic on top of the upper hem in order to ensure that it would fit inside of the encasing instead of being too large. Of course, a clothes pin could not be found, so after I sewed everything together, I used a paper clip to pull my elastic through the encasing and it worked well enough for me to be satisfied (I definitely recommend a safety pin instead though).

I just did a short, straight stitch for the two horizontal hems, which is shown in the picture above.

Next, I pinned together the sides to make the vertical hem.

I did another short, straight stitch ¼ of an inch in. Then, I did a zig-zag stitch over the edges to better ensure that there was no fraying at the ends.

Thanks for reading today's post. I would love to see some skirts that y'all make using this tutorial! The Diva tried on her shirt as soon as she came home from school, as you can see above. She absolutely loved her skirt and even wore it to school the next day on top of some black leggings. Made this mama proud, that's for sure. Look forward to another post this week and a new project next week!

If you have any questions, PLEASE post them. Again, sorry for my lack of pictures.