Tag Archives: DIY

Combine Your Old Compacts to Make a New One

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on March 21, 2013 1 comments

It’s that time again. I finally saved enough broken compacts to make a ‘new’ one. I used to throw away my compacts when they broke or ran really low but not anymore. Click HERE to See How to Fix a Broken Pressed Powder Compact.

Today, I simply broke up the remaining pieces and combined them into one empty compact.

Then I added rubbing alcohol and mixed it together until it turned into a clay like substance. You don’t want to use too much or it will dry extra hard (You can still use it, it will just be harder). And now I just have to wait for it to dry. Rubbing alcohol is also a sanitizer so I know that the recombined makeup is clean. I know it looks a little sloppy when wet but when it dries it will look much more like one bought from the store. When it’s done it will be just like new!

I actually had more broken compact powder than I needed so I saved the rest for next time.

Click HERE to See How to Fix a Broken Pressed Powder Compact.

Free DIY Houses for Small Pets

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on January 30, 2013 None comments

Recently we ended up with a small rat as a pet. In the above picture you can see Benny enjoying a Milkbone. (Our local pet store told us you can feed rats dog food). We weren’t sure we were going to keep him so we didn’t want to spend a lot of money on his house or toys. You can also see a toilet paper tube in the background, another favorite and free toy for small, rodent pets. We originally made Benny’s house out of an empty Country Crock container.

As Benny got bigger, we got attached to our litttle guy and we realized he wasn’t going anywhere. Now he is too big for his butter tub house so we made him a house out of the bottom of a milk jug. The indented circle on the side was also a great size for a door.

As I was writing, I realized that we had also made a butter tub house for our hermit crabs. Yes, the one in the picture above is on his back and no I didn’t have to help him get up. The point of all of this is that small pets are often very happy with toys and houses made out of household items that we often throw away. I know that these things can often be very expensive at Pet Stores and honestly our little friends don’t know the difference.

Making Home Brewed Sweet Tea

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on August 5, 2012 1 comments

If you have never made your own sweet tea then you obviously don’t live in the south. Just joking, but I made some sweet tea with our coffee maker recently and I wondered how many people actually do this. I used tea bags I already had in the house, put them in the top of the coffee maker, added water and ran the coffee maker like I would to make coffee. Let it cool, add sugar and you have fresh brewed Sweet Tea. I have worked at restaurants for years that sell sweet tea and they make it in a very similar way. This is something I make when we are out of other sweet drinks in the house and I am trying to stretch our grocery budget since I have everything to make it on hand. Note- I recommend using decaf tea bags because the tea can get very, very strong if you don’t.

DIY- Make Your Own Taco Seasoning

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on January 14, 2012 None comments

I recently tried making my own taco seasoning. It was really good and indistinguishable from the store seasoning packets. I had fun making it and I stored it in an old salsa jar. I’m still a little unsure of any savings over buying taco seasoning packets for cheap with coupons but I did already have most of the ingredients needed. The recipe is as follows-

1/4 cup chili powder

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Mix all the ingredients above in a small bowl. To use substitute 2 rounded Tablespoons for 1 packet of taco seasoning.

Thanks, Smashed Peas and Carrots for the recipe.

Homemade Weed Killer Update

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on November 1, 2011 None comments

It worked! But as you can see I didn’t spray enough in certain areas. I will go back and spray again but I’m happy with the results that came from mixing items I already had in my cabinet. Click HERE to see my previous post on how I made it.

Homemade Weed Killer

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on October 27, 2011 1 comments

This is the first time since I was a child that I have lived in a house. Something we considered when renting our house was the lawn care but we still wanted our own lawn. My boyfriend mows our decent sized lawn so I decided that it was up to me to pull the weeds out of the sidewalk cracks and mulch flower beds.

However, we have hundreds of clovers mixed in with the mulch. Instead of hand pulling each of them I decided to look up homemade weed killer.

After looking it up, I learned that salt and vinegar are the two main ingredients in homemade weed killer, both of which I already had in my cabinet. I took both of those and mixed them in a small reused spray bottle.

I sprayed it on the clovers today and it worked!

Thanks to The Garden Counselor for the information.

Making Your Own Coffee Creamer

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on October 4, 2011 None comments

One grocery item that we go through like water and constantly run out of is coffee creamer. It is so much cheaper to make coffee at home than to buy it, even with the cost of coffee creamer, but I wondered- could I make it myself for even cheaper?

Using the recipe of-

-1 can of sweetened condensed milk ($3 for two)

– 1 ½ cups of nonfat milk (~$.50)

– 1 tablespoon of vanilla ($1.5 for about 2 tablespoons)

Mix everything together and shake

I doubled the recipe and it made the amount in the water jug in the picture above. So for about $5 I made just a little bit more creamer than what a $3 coffee creamer generally holds from the store. This coffee creamer was MORE expensive than the coffee creamers from the store plus the time and energy required to buy everything and make it. The taste was good but not quite as good as store bought coffee creamers. Overall, this project didn’t save money but it was fun to try. I may try other recipes in the future to see if they will be more cost effective. If you already have the ingredients on hand (I didn’t but you might!) then this would be much cheaper and it is easy to make.

Doubling Milk

Posted by Ney@ShopahoicSavers.com on September 25, 2011 None comments

We decided to try the milk / water trick when we were half way through our gallon of milk.

Before

After

Click HERE to read how to do it. Now we just have to figure our how we will drink it all before it expires, but we eat a lot of cereal so I don’t think that this will be a problem.

Repurposed Glass Jars

Posted by shopaholicsavers on March 29, 2011 None comments

My sister Candy, who is planning her wedding, was looking for DIY center pieces when she came across this idea for reusing glass jars. Click HERE to see how.