Big change, low cost

Several years ago, we decided to carpet our hardwood stairs.  The stairs were very pretty but every time anyone went up or down them, it sounded like we had a herd of elephants dancing in our house.  So we had carpet installed.  It was nice for about five minutes.  For some crazy reason, I chose a very light tan color for the carpet.  I'm not sure what I was thinking!  The carpet got stained and stained and stained.  We shampooed repeatedly and for a little while the stairs looked good again.  But it never lasted.  The stains were too deep.
We thought about taking the carpet out and having a runner put in but that was too expensive.  We thought about new carpet, but that just seemed wasteful since the carpet is in great shape, just stained.
Finally, I mentioned something that I had been thinking of for a long time, but was afraid it was just plain crazy.  Why shouldn't we dye the carpet?  Crazy, huh?
Well, we did it.  We bought two bottles of dark brown RIT dye and just bit the bullet.  I was so scared with the first swipe of the sponge.  What if I ruined it?  Fortunately for all of us (and for our budget) the dye worked beautifully and we now have chocolate brown carpet on our stairs and the landing at the top of the stairs.  It was hard work, but it's so much fun to do something you've never done before!

The picture above is the carpet before being dyed.

Below is the landing at the top of the stairs.  The picture is really dark.  I don't think I used my flash. Oops.

Food Coloring Allergies & Natural Food Colorings

My husband and kids are allergic to food coloring.  My husband's throat swells and breathing becomes difficult if he eats anything with red #40.  My kids all have different reactions.  One throws up whenever she eats yellow #5 and gets a violent headache when she eats yellow #6.  One gets whiney, one gets hyper,  and one has a Jekyll/Hyde reaction.  So, probably needless to say, we are hyper-vigilant about reading labels and we hardly ever go out to eat.  Even eating at family or friends houses is difficult. Sometimes people think we're crazy because we choose to live such a "natural" life when it comes to food.  Those people haven't seen the results when we slip up!  Believe it or not, children do survive childhood without KoolAid and Jello. 


We've discovered a few things that help to make us feel a little more "normal".  I love to make birthday cakes for my kids.  When they were very little, I learned to decorate cakes.  I never got very good at it, but I really had fun so they became an outlet for my creativity.  The one problem with cake decorating is that most cakes have colorful icing.  I have found a few places that sell natural food coloring but it is very expensive and the colors are not true.  Here are a few things we've used instead:
   Lavender---blueberries
   Pink---raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, pomegranate juice
   Yellow---tumeric
   Green---liquid chlorophyll (supplement) or green food supplement
   Orange---carrot juice
I haven't found a good source for blue or brown or deep red but I keep trying.  The most important thing to know about these natural coloring is that they do flavor the icing a bit so be careful about how much you use.




    

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Any home baker knows that real vanilla extract is awfully expensive, but it is also essential for good baking.  The fake stuff just won't do.  For one thing, it doesn't taste as good.  Another thing is that my kids are very allergic/intolerant to artificial flavoring and coloring which is in fake vanilla (vanillin).  Because of this, many years ago, I learned to make vanilla extract.  It's very simple.

HOMEMADE VANILLA EXTRACT
1 quart jar filled with vodka
3-4 whole vanilla beans, cut down the middle but not scraped
Fill the jar with vodka (the cheap stuff is fine) and add the vanilla beans.  Put the top on the jar, but not too tight.  Shake the jar every day for at least two weeks.  The longer you can let it sit, the stronger your vanilla will be.
This picture is only half full.  I need to make some more soon.

COFFEE/VANILLA SYRUP

We love coffee!  Cappuccino, expresso, latte, or just plain old coffee;  you name it, we love it.  So, we set up a coffee bar in our kitchen (or as some of us are apt to call it:  a "hot beverage center").  We have a regular coffee maker, a Keurig one cup coffee maker, a expresso/cappuccino maker, and a French press.  Off to the side, on a shelf, we keep cocoa and cinnamon and sugar.  We also keep a hot chocolate maker and homemade marshmallows there.  In mason jars, we have different blends of coffee and loose tea.

One thing we've really enjoyed has been putting vanilla syrup in our cappuccino.  We actually found vanilla syrup at the grocery store, without artificial flavoring or food coloring!  That is a must for this family with all of our allergies and food intolerances.

The difficult thing was paying the price for the bottle of syrup.  It was almost seven dollars for one bottle.    They must think they're selling liquid gold.  But, being very non-frugal that day, I bought it.  It was really good.  Not seven dollars good, but okay.  When the bottle was empty, I washed it out and refilled it with my own homemade version of vanilla syrup.  We like it even better than the store bought stuff.  Here's my recipe:

VANILLA SYRUP

2 cups white sugar

1/2 cup water

1 T. vanilla extract

Boil sugar and water together until sugar is completely dissolved.  Stir in vanilla extract.  Remove from heat and cool.  Pour into bottle and enjoy.