Quick Freezer Update

At the moment I'm on a big Paleo kick but unfortunately our tiny freezer was not able to manage our trips to costco and the grocery store. It seemed like a smart choice to buy a stand alone freezer to store all our extra food. That's where this sexy beast came along. 

I paid $80 for this beaut, not to shabby for a gal this size (seriously she's huge). As soon as I saw her though, I knew I had to do something about that hideous color. I mean, she's really a terrible pale yellow that the above picture doesn't quite grasp. I figured I would paint some chalk paint on the front door so we could have a running chart of exactly what we have inside. 

I swept myself off to Michaels (I prefer Hobby Lobby but it's the next town over and much more of a drive) and picked up some chalk paint. I decided to splurge a little and buy the Rust-oleum brand since I figured this freezer will probably have a lot of writing and wiping. The can cost me $25 but I still have more than half the can left (and that's after 3 coats). 

Here's the beginning of the first coat. 

One coat down - 2 to go! The can actually said you only need 2 coats but I could still see some of that horrible yellow coming through, so I did 3. 

Last coat drying. It suggests waiting 4 days to let the paint fully settle before you "prime" it. With any chalk paint you need to coat the entire surface with a layer of chalk. This helps all future chalk to come off fairly easily. 

There's my layer of chalk. 

And then you wipe it off with a damp cloth. 

And here's the finished product. I bought some nifty chalk markers from the Hobby Lobby and they are totally worth their $12 price tag. Of course I wanted to create a beautiful Pinterest-worthy chalk design, but I figured a list would better suffice my needs. 

So there you go. Ugly freezer to still ugly, but more functional freezer!

Photographer Spotlight

Elena Shumilova is one creative mom!  She didn't pick up a camera until 2012 when she decided she needed to capture moments with her boys.  Check out her inspiring images, taken on her farm in Russia.

 

 

 

Make sure you visit her Flikr page to see more of her beautiful images!

Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce

My friend is leaving for Mexico tomorrow so she surprised me with 2 bags full of fruits and veggies that she wasn't able to juice her way through. When I looked in the bags I saw that there were about 20 red apples...I don't have a fridge big enough to fit that many apples, let alone the other veggies. 

That's when I figured I should make some applesauce! I recently bought a crockpot so I figured I would give it a go in there. 

I peeled, cored, and chopped 8 apples (that's how many it took to fill my 6 qt crockpot). I threw in a pinch of salt and a helping of cinnamon and turned the crockpot on low for 6 hours. 

When the timer went off I didn't find the apples to be mushy enough, so I threw in a cup of water and put it on low for another 2 hours. It made about 7 cups of applesauce.