Unless you don’t mind your stuff thrown into a closet all higgledy piggledy. I might be the only person in my family who does mind and is desperate for some home organization. When a mother is desperate for home organization she goes to IKEA.

At the beginning of the summer I said that I was done with IKEA, that I had bought nearly everything in the store twice over and I was ready to move on. I take it back, three times’ a charm. But with every some assembly required box I bring home I wonder if there’s another way.

Could I find a dresser at a 2nd hand shop and paint it? Could the kids make do without dressers? Could I build a dresser?

No doubt with Pinterest and a lot of elbow grease I could answer “YES!” to all 3 questions. Only I don’t want to. I want a quick and simple solution and the kids to put their clothes away neatly right now. It’s just that I want to be the kind of person who DIY’s a solution to all household problems, who recycles old things and skips out of the cycle of new stuff.

I fear I am a little like Professor Umbridge saying “I will have order.” And when you are that kind of person IKEA really is Swedish for common sense.

UPDATED: After a marathon dresser assembly I’ve been told to stay out of IKEA. Should any more boxes requiring assembly come home I shall have to assemble them myself.  Humph.

The post Dependent On IKEA appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

Now that Halloween is done get your hands on some discount pumpkins and get cooking. If you are lucky enough to find (or grow) one of the more delicious varieties of pumpkin like Australian Blue or a Long Island Cheese bring one of them home.

Cooking big pumpkins is easier said than done. Visit Poppy at Funny or Snot for a pumpkin cooking tutorial.  Once you’ve cooked the question soon becomes “What on earth do I do with all this pumpkin?” I’ll tell you.

I like to purée the whole lot of pumpkin. Mash it with a potato masher, run it through the food processor, squish it with your hands. If you opt for the hand squishing please send pictures.

When it’s all good and smooth it’s time to get eating. Store cooked puréed pumpkin in the fridge or freeze. I advise freezing in 1 cup batches so you are ready to bake when you defrost.

Pumpkin Recipes

My go to pumpkin recipe is Martha Stewart’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares. Simple to bake and wonderfully moist. Most importantly everyone eats them.

We are big fans of snickerdoodles at my house. It’s a fun word to say and all that rolling in cinnamon sugar is a good job for little helpers. Annie at A Bitchin’ Kitchen has a recipe for Pumpkin Snickerdoodles that I am going to try this weekend.

One of the most popular recipes I’ve ever published is the Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte. There’s also a video version, but we warned it’s an early morning production.

I am currently loving soup and pumpkin soup is a favourite here. Last year I mastered Homemade Pumpkin Soup. I added apples but you can flavour it anyway you’d like. Ginger would be lovely.

And don’t forget to hang onto your seeds. Get those seeds in the oven and roast them up.

How do you eat pumpkin?

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The solution – homemade cleaners and scrubs.

Here’s 10 super simple ways to keep your house clean without over extending your budget or toxifying your house.

Our new house is carpeted, top to bottom. And it’s old carpet. I am new to vacuuming a house full of carpet. To help in the task of cleaning carpets I love this idea from Mrs. Happy Homemaker for Homemade Carpet Powder. It’s baking soda and essential oils, I can support that.

To help in the task of making a new house our own, I will be bringing along some rosemary from the garden to simmer up a delicious homemade room deodorizer. A simple recipe from One More Moore with lemons, rosemary and vanilla. Lovely.

Vinegar is a homemade cleaning powerhouse but it’s not all the pretty smelling. Here’s the solution – infuse vinegar with lemons or oranges. The Freshly Simple shows us how to infuse the vinegar and then turn it into an all-purpose cleaner. Great for counter tops, cabinets and anything else that needs a freshening wipe.

As I said there’s it’s all carpet in our new house but the house we’re leaving behind is all hardwood. I don’t want to leave our house in a filthy mess for the new people, that’s just bad manners. I’m going to mix up some homemade floor cleaner from Nature’s Nurture and leave our floors shiny clean.

For weekly maintenance I only use water and a micro fibre mop. I am assuming that post move our floors are going to need more clean than water. For your amusement here’s me cleaning my floor.

And now the bathroom. Is there anything worse to clean than the bathroom? If there is I don’t want to know about it.

In the case of extremely dirty bathtubs Marissa from Finely Ground did a cleaning experiment and reports on the best way to get the grunge out. I won’t tell you the results, you can click over, but I will tell you it’s simple and easy.

New to me at the new house is shower doors. I was scared of the soap scum until I found this recipe for soap scum killer from Life, Crafts and Whatever. It’s a simple mix that needs to be heated first to get the job done. Spray, wait and wipe. Clean shower doors. Hooray!

The post 10 Simple And Cheap Homemade Cleaners appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

Here’s the latest news from Homemade Frontier Headquarters – We’re moving!  In, uhm, 11 days.

On the upside we packed a lot when we listed the house. On the downside we are freakin’ moving in 11 days!

While I crave the simplicity of going the moving supply store and picking up conveniently sized boxes, I am not in favour of immediately recycling brand new only used once boxes. Not to mention the huge expense of paying for boxes.

So instead I’ve jumped on board the DIY moving train and scrounged all over town for free boxes. So far it’s worked out great.

If you are in the market for boxes here’s what I’ve learned -

• Ask on Facebook and Twitter. Friends have good ideas about where to look locally.
• Visit the liquor and grocery stores. Buying liquor and groceries helps, in many ways.
• Make friends with people who’ve recently moved and offer to take boxes off their hands.
• Be prepared to leave your phone number and to make multiple visits to pick up boxes.

I used newspaper, table linens, towels and sheets to pack the breakables. I believe there might be a box in the kid’s room that is entirely filled with paper from the shredder. It’s important to bring your shredded sensitive documents to the new house. And it’s also important to let the kids help.

I am very much in favour of the moving rule to throw out or donate what you don’t need before you send it to the new house.  I might be the only one in my family who does but because I am the Team Leader of packing I get to be the boss.

The next step is themove. We’ve got a truck, cause it’s a DIY move. We could use some help though.

Anyone available over the Labour Day weekend willing to do a little labour? I promise that you’ll be well fed and well caffeinated. Hello? Anyone?

The post DIY Moving: Packing appeared first on Homemade Frontier.

Seven months later, after many skype calls and emails, Homemade Frontier launched. While we’ve only been blogging here for five months I consider the BlogHer conference weekend the real Homemade Frontier anniversary.

Last week Sue and I met in New York City for BlogHer ’12 and held our 2nd annual Homemade Frontier think tank.

Sue in blue, Kristin in white

This picture is not of the think tank meeting. You might call this the morning after picture. We were so busy thinking we didn’t take a picture until a few days later.

We’ve got some new ideas up our sleeves and we learned some new tricks at BlogHer ’12. But we’d like to ask all you lovely readers to help celebrate our renewed excitement for Homemade Frontier.

What are your ideas? What would you like to see more of here? Do you have a story to share about your homemade experience? We would love to have some guest posts and share your expertise.

I know quilting has been highly requested and I will get to it, promise. Once we are settled in the new house and my sewing machine has a new home. And I am working on finishing up a sock so we can get to the heel lesson.

Share with us – what has been your favourite Homemade Froniter post?

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