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Update Your Ceiling Fan with Spray Paint
Ceiling fans can be expensive. But with a little work and some spray paint, it's easy to transform a fan you already have. This is a great DIY project that costs very little and the possibilities are endless.
The picture above is a fan is in my niece's bedroom. This is what is used to look like.
This fan had been in storage for many years but with some pink and brown spray paint it looks great in a girl's bedroom.
Here's another ceiling fan we painted.
This used to be a very old chipped white ceiling fan. Instead of purchasing a new one, we decided to do the frugal thing and paint the old one. The new colors are more in keeping with our decor in the room.
The base and brackets of the fan were painted using a Rust-Oleum Satin Black spray paint. On the blades we used Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Satin in Espresso. We purchased the crystal pull at Home Depot.
With a little work, the cost of the "new" fan was under $20.
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Grow Your Own Sprouts
No need to run to the store when you want nutritious sprouts on your salad or stir-fry. Growing sprouts is something you can do yourself! It's a perfect project for "make-it-from scratch" week.
Sprouts are nutritious, inexpensive, and easy to grow. They can be grown indoors in any climate and they mature in only a few days.
My favorite sprouts are mung beans. I eat them raw on salads and sandwiches, or sometimes by the handful when I want a quick burst of nutrition. They can also be used in stir-fry. Mung bean sprouts are so easy to grow.
Be sure to choose organic seeds suitable for sprouting
. I use ¼ cup of seeds in my sprouting tray. Rinse well before soaking. 
Soak 8 to 12 hours. I usually just put them in a glass before I go to bed, and they are ready to go in the morning.
I like to use sprouting trays to grow my sprouts. I use the Sprout Master Mini Triple
. The set comes with three trays. The trays even have dividers in case you want to grow two different types of sprouts in one tray. 
Once the seeds have soaked overnight, simply pour the water and seeds into the sprouting tray (the water will drain out). Rinse the tray thoroughly and distribute seeds evenly across the bottom of the tray.
The mini sprouter comes with four lids. Position one “lid” beneath the tray and also use one on top so that the seeds have darkness. I set my covered tray on the kitchen counter. You will need to rinse the seeds 2 to 3 times per day.
In just a couple of days you will be enjoying fresh, nutritious mung bean sprouts. I prefer to stop the sprouting after 1 to 2 days when the tails are about ½ inch long. You may prefer to let them keep growing for longer sprouts.
When the sprouts have grown to your desired length, simply put the covered tray in the refrigerator. The sprouts should keep for about a week.
It's so easy to grow your own sprouts!
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Make- Ahead Pancake Mix
Mornings can be hectic and anything I can do to shorten breakfast prep time is a big help. We often have pancakes in the morning so I like to get my from-scratch pancake mix prepared ahead of time. Since I grind my wheat flour and flax seed, I store the mix in the refrigerator to help retain the nutritional benefits.
Preparing the mix ahead is a real time saver. I get the equipment and ingredients out just once instead of five times. It's a simple activity for the weekend that results in prepared mix for the next week or two.
I store the mix in quart size freezer bags (which I reuse). I place the quart size bags in a larger gallon size bag to keep them corralled in the fridge. My pancake mix is simply the dry ingredients from this pancake recipe.
When I want to make pancakes, I simply dump the mix into a medium-sized bowl. I mix the wet ingredients in a small bowl. Then combine the wet and dry ingredients and you are ready to cook pancakes.
It's my morning sanity saver.
Update: I have had several questions regarding how I grind wheat and flax. You can read all about it here.
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Homemade Sandwich Rolls
We have been eating lots of sandwiches lately and I had gotten in the habit of purchasing sandwich rolls at my grocer's bakery. That habit was getting expensive so I decided to try making my own rolls. I made them for the first time yesterday and they turned out great.
I used a recipe from the Money Saving Mom site. The recipe is actually for bread sticks and the bread sticks are delicious, but I thought the recipe would make some really tasty sandwich rolls. The recipe is so simple with the use of a bread machine.
Since we are a dairy-free family, I made this recipe using olive oil instead of butter. After running the dough cycle of the bread machine, I rolled the dough slightly to form a rectangle. I sliced the dough into eight pieces and let them rise a second time.
I brushed the rolls with olive oil before they went in the oven to give them a golden crust. They turned out just perfect for our turkey sandwiches.
A note about yeast: If you are used to using the little yeast packets, please know that purchasing yeast in bulk
is so much less expensive.
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(I love the convenience of shopping online and I think you will too. The links in this post are my referral links. Read my disclosure policy here.)
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