Homemaking on the Homestead

I use to have a clothesline and loved hanging my laundry out. I made a simple little bag to hold my clothes pins. You don't need a lot of sewing skills for this fast easy project!  Make a Simple Clothes Pin Bag for your Clothes Line! Summertime is time to hang out the laundry! I love my clothesline but was always struggling with how to deal with the clothes pins. Well I have solved that problem and want to pass this on to all you clothes line ladies!!   This is a VERY simple project to make! If you don’t sew, do not despair because you can hand stitch this one! Supplies: 1 child’s size button up the front shirt,  about size 2T or 3T 1 coat hanger Thread to match the fabric Lay the shirt on the table and button up the front of the shirt. Turn the shirt inside out and sew the bottom of the shirt closed. Turn the shirt right side out and unbutton the first few buttons at the top. Now you have a little ba...

(this article contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support :) Wool dryer balls are a super easy project. They really are amazing to use. If you are not familiar with them they are used in the dryer for drying clothes. They can be a frugal alternative to dryer sheets. I don't use dryer sheets for several reasons, but one being the cost. For me, they seem like an unnecessary expense. I'm not a big fan of things used once and thrown away (I don't buy paper towels and only buy 1 - 4 pack of napkins from Costco about every year to year and a half), I use towels and wash cloths instead of paper towels and I have my own homemade napkins instead of paper napkins for our daily use. Back to these dryer balls. Aside from the benefit of helping reduce static they also can reduce drying time. I wasn't too sure if I believed this but now after using them I can say that they do reduce the time by anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. This has been my observat...

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week Good morning! I'm enjoying a hot cup of coffee and a warm home on this cold winter morning. It is warmer then it was last week, which is nice. We get a little melting of the snow each day before it drops back below freezing. Our white winter world is still holding on. For many of you, I'm sure this is the norm. However for us here in the PNW it is not. We do get snow, sometimes a big snow storm. But it melts quickly and we move on. Winters here are typically mild and wet. So this winter has been very different! It has been a good week so far. My son came for a visit over the weekend. He and my youngest son have b...

Sometimes, even though you've been doing the same thing for years and years you come across a different, perhaps better way of doing it. That is a hack, “a not so common solution to something”. And more specifically I've stumbled across a method of folding laundry that I really like and is different then the way I have been doing it. Maybe I'm just slow to come around to things like this. After posting this, I'll probably hear from ladies that have been doing it like this or similarly for years.. ha, ha.. :) But I just had to share as lately I've been on a laundry theme. I was reading through a recent Reader's Digest and came across this article: http://www.rd.com/home/cleaning-organizing/marie-kondo-folding/ I was not really thinking I would try it, but did find it interesting. After cleaning out my summer clothes and reorganizing my drawers I decided to give it a try. All I can say is.. wow! I really like this. It makes the drawers lo...

A few blog posts back I mentioned laundry. I asked if laundry was a job you liked, disliked, or loved. I've never been a big fan of laundry. Maybe because over the years raising 8 children we had a LOT of laundry. It was a daily constant chore. As someone who had many children said long ago, if the washer and dryer are not running, we are in trouble. :) And that was so true. When the children were at home it was all about the system of laundry. Everyone old enough did their own laundry. Each child had their own laundry basket, each child had their own color of towel and washcloth (which they hung on a hook after use and washed with their laundry). And each child did their own laundry once a week. There was still general/family laundry to do such as kitchen towels, cleaning rags and such and my and hubby's laundry. So to me laundry was a home management task, not something I took time to enjoy. Of course nowadays that hecticness is behind me and life is not t...