Extremely frugal Cooking tip: Saving veggi scraps

I am on an extreme budget for groceries, so I never buy more vegetables than what I need, and I am always looking for ways to stretch my food for recipes. I came up with this tip:

Save your vegetable scraps. Save the tops and ends of carrots, save the tops of onions or bell peppers, and save the tops of celery, and those tiny soft sticks in the center you never eat. Keep them in a zip top bag through the week or two weeks, if your veggies will keep that long. At the end of the week, toss this bag in some water to make a veggie broth for soups. Broths are so low maintenance! I through mine in a crock pot over night with some chicken bones (from chicken breast that I took the bones out myself) add seasonings, and tada! You have a broth to freeze for later or use for a healthy lunch or dinner. Broths don't have to be just for soup! Use them in the place of water when making rice or other savory recipes.

I also like to save the tops of my tomatoes for an at home tomato scrub I saw on youtube!

DIY: Make your own makeup kit or palette

So I stumbled across this on youtube, I watched several different videos for this, so I decided to do a photo tutorial on the whole process! Here are the main two videos I used to do this, if you want to view them. (depot eyeshadows) (cd eyeshadow palette)

These are the supplies you will need to depot your eyeshadows
a large plate
an old wash rag (a clean one!)
eyeshadows, blushes, any makeup in compacts or kits
rubbing alcohol (70% is good, but if you can find higher, go ahead)
a skinny knife or metal nail file



First step, fill your plate with a shallow layer of alcohol, shown above



Then, carefully take your knife and place in between the metal container holding the eyeshadow, and the plastic compact. Try prying from the edge or a corner, but pry carefully, try not to break the eyeshadow or stab it with the knife!



If you are successful, you will be able to take out the little metal plate and the eyeshadow, yay! Depending on the brand and what glue they use, this will be either easy, or not, lol.



Now place all of your depotted products into the plate. Be sure the alcohol is shallow, we don't want to soak the eyeshadow and make it soft. It's ok if you get a little on it, it will evaporate. Let all of these soak for 5-10 mins, to soften up the glue. You may need to soak them longer, depending on the glue used.



Next we wipe off all the glue, ewww, and get glue buggers on your fingers and wash rag!



You now have clean bottoms to make your own makeup palette!

Supplies you will need to make your custom palette:

depotted eyeshadow, blush, etc
cd case (I used an old aol case as well)
magnet sheet or strips with peel off sticky backing
optional: photo paper or printer paper

***NOTE*** Some cheaper products will store the makeup in aluminum, which is not magnetic,
so you will need to omit the magnet and use double sided tape or glue or whatever, be creative!

First we need to measure our cd case (or box, or whatever) OR, if you are feeling froggy, just wing it (not recommended for perfectionist)





Now we cut the magnet to size, peel off the sticky back, and stick it onto the bottom
(if your makeup isn't in magnetic metal, just use glue or double sticky tape and nevermind the magnet) Soooo now we have a magnet lined box, as shown above.





Now we arrange the makeup like so, one is a cd case, the other is an old aol case (yes, I got my eyeshadow wet, we can't all be perfect, he he)








Next we take a photo of our arrangement and write the names of the colors and brand if you desire. You can print it out and write it on the paper or use a photoshop type program to type over the picture, like I did!








And here you have your finished product! Make sure you print your picture out the same size as your cover so it fits inside. I didn't do one for the aol box but you could glue it on the inside and decorate the outside, fun fun!

Money Saving tip: Don't throw away those broken eyeshadows!!!

Ok, so I saw this video on youtube. (clicky to view) I was so ready to try this. I had two broken eyeshadows that I picked up for like $1.00 each at a bent can store. They are pretty pricy eyeshadows, one is a HIP Duo by L'oreal and the other is a single eyeshadow by Prestige. They were broken, but I liked the colors and was determined to use them. Thanks to this video, they are pressed back into the containers like new! (or almost, anyway) So here is a video, I did a pretty crazy job, I was holding the camera and fixing the eyeshadow, lol. But I am sure you can do a nicer job. View the original video, this gurl does a great job and has other good videos too! My videos have no sound because I have a playlist on my blog, just click on the play botton, find something you like!

Here are the supplies you will need:
broken eyeshadow
old scrap material or old shirt cut up into small squares (one square for each eyeshadow)
rubbing alcohol (70% or above is best)
eye dropper or small measuring spoon
small bowl or container (to put alcohol in)
a quarter for pressing, or just use your fingers!