Waffle Love

Who doesn't like cinnamon rolls?  Who doesn't like waffles?  This seems like the perfect mix of sweet, easy, and delicious!

According to this website, all you need is Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, and a waffle iron, along with some non-stick spray.

We made these a few weeks ago for the girls when they were here for Christmas break.  I'm a couponer, and I was able to score the cinnamon rolls for almost free.  So I was pretty stoked to make yummy free waffles for my family.

Let me just say this right now, these make a huge mess of your waffle maker, even if you use non stick spray in between batches.  The sugar burns into the little cracks, and is nearly impossible to get out.  As each batch cooks, they become harder and harder to remove from the waffle iron, making them more of squished cinnamon rolls, not so much waffles.

I had to soak my waffle iron for a week to get the sugar to come off.

Does it work?  Yes, but it will possibly ruin your waffle maker, so be wary of that.

Is it worth the mess?  I say definitely no.  It was a huge pain to clean up.

Would I recommend it?  No.  I hate messes, and this made a huge mess.  Although they are delicious and the kids gobbled them up, I won't be suggesting we make these again.

More Coffee Please

Dried coffee grounds melt ice?  What?  I had to try this!

As I've mentioned before, we drink a lot of coffee around here.  It's the good stuff.  So for this test, it wasn't hard to come up with the grounds, though it did take some time.

I've been drying coffee grounds for about 4 days.  I put them on a cookie sheet and put them in the lazy susan to keep the pets off them.  They dry in about a day, but I just kept adding to them so I would have plenty around.  You can also get free coffee grounds from any coffee shop, from what I hear.

For this test, I used Caffe Ibis's Hawaiian Hazelnut coffee.  Oh my yum.  It's like liquid caffeine candy.

First, I started with dried coffee grounds.

You can see that's about 4 days worth of coffee grounds.   I put some in this container, and I also put regular ice melt in an identical container, but I forgot to take a picture of it.

I took this container outside and found a good spot to test the melting capabilities.  Our house faces North, so there are spots that never see the sun and never melt.  Perfect spot!

Here's the ice spot.  It has been here for like 10 months.  Okay, probably not that long, but winter is feeling endless around here.

I dumped the containers on two separate spots on this ice sheet.  One is the coffee, as seen here, and the other is the ice melt which you can't see.

I poured them both out at 11:10 AM, and I work until 8:00 tonight.  I don't expect it to get any sun in this spot, and the temps are right around 30, which should keep the ice from melting on its own.

I'm gonna say right now, I wouldn't go through and sprinkle my whole driveway or sidewalk with coffee grounds.  It would look like dirt, and if you had to walk through it and then into the house, I'm almost positive it would stain rugs and carpets.  But that's outside of the scope of this test, so let's just see how it melts first.  Stay tuned!

Edit:  Here is what I found at 8:30 this morning

You can see clearly the ice melt did exactly what it's meant to do, it melted the ice.  You can also see clearly the coffee grounds did nothing at all.

So to sum it all up,

Is it worth the mess?  Nope.  It's a pain to dry all the coffee grounds, and then they don't even work.  Not to mention the fact that if you spread this all over your sidewalk or driveway, then walked through it, it would make a mess of your rugs and carpets.

Does it work?  Nope.  Not at all.  'Nuff said.

Would I recommend it?  Nope.  Doesn't work, too mess, and it's a pain.

Just go buy a bag of ice melt and go about your day.

Blackheads Aren't Just For Teenagers, Right? Right?!?!

I found what appears to be a grammatically incorrect thrifty version of Biore blackhead remover strips, and thought I'd give it a try.  Not that I have that many blackheads, because I'm like, 30, or whatever, and women my age don't get blackheads.  Note the sarcasm.

I have plenty of eggs around these parts, so sparing one for a test isn't a big deal.

I should say first that I am using a very fresh egg, as in it was gathered this morning, and it is at room temperature.

I whisked until frothy

and applied a small amount to my nose and chin.  Then I applied the toilet paper strips over the top.  I ran into a problem here, because the toilet paper I used was 2-ply, and the top ply didn't absorb the mixture and just peeled off.

So note to self, use 1-ply toilet paper, or just peel your paper into 1-ply sections.

Then I let the mixture and paper sit for 15 minutes.  I timed it.

While I was waiting, I pondered on some things.  Mostly, I hate throwing away almost an entire egg white, so perhaps next time I'll have a party and have all my friends join me, or do my whole face and legs and arms.  What I'm getting at, is 1 egg white makes a LOT of remover.

After 15 minutes, the toilet paper is supposed to be "rock hard", according to the site.  It was definitely rock hard!

So I peeled it slooooowwwwwly of my chin, and to my suprise (because I really didn't think this would do a thing), I could see little pieces of stuff sticking to the toilet paper and coming out of my skin!  Upon closer inspection, I don't think they were blackheads, mostly just dead skin and loose hairs, but my chin feels smooth.

I repeated the removal process on my nose, and it made my eyes water like crazy, so be aware of that before you go putting this in sensitive places, and I saw the same result.

So to sum it all up:

Is it worth the mess?  Yes, the mess is minimal unless you're a hard core whisker.  Then just behave with that whisk.

Does it work?  I think it's more an exfoliation technique, not specifically for black heads.  I will try it again, and see if I see a reduction in blackheads over time.

Would I recommend it?  Yep!  It's cheap, natural, and heck, if it makes you feel like you had a day at the spa, then why not?

Are You A Soap Hoarder, Too?

Confession time.  I'm a soap hoarder.  I love soap and water more than any body wash (see previous post).  This means I usually end up with little itty bitty parts of soap that are too small to use (They get lost in the "curves", if you know what I mean), but too big to throw away without feeling guilty.  I came across this little hack, and thought I'd try it out.  This is what I ended up with:

Two bars of soap playing piggy back.  This is after 2 days of sitting in the shower, semi-wettish.  When I tried using them today, they fell apart back into 2 bars of soap.

Is it worth the mess?  Sure, theres really no mess per se, so it's worth a shot.  

Does it work?  Not for me.  I used Dove Pink, it's my fave, but it may work with other brands of soap.  

Would I recommend it?  Probably not.  I would think these would be a better idea to keep small soap pieces still usable.  

Coffee, Anyone?

Today I tested the coffee grounds body scrub.  Search it on Pinterest, and you will find numerous links to websites offering uses for coffee grounds.  I thought  this was a good place to start, since we drink a LOT of coffee in this house.

Here is the link to one of the pages I used for referencing how to use coffee grounds.  Of course I was most interested in getting rid of cellulite!

Here's how it went down.  I gathered a plastic container and put in some coffee grounds, a little salt, and some olive oil.  I proceeded to the shower.  Then I began to slather the mixture on my "problem areas", which is code for "everywhere".  Let me just say, it was a gross looking mess in the shower.  It dripped everywhere, and was on the shower curtain, and the walls, and it was running in puddles into the drain, and it looked a little like a horror scene.  But I continued to scrub.

Once I was done, I used the handheld shower head to rinse everything off, and down the drain.  However, even though I have a commercial coffee grinder, there are still a few beans that don't grind fine enough to go down the drain, so I had to fish those out.  This could be a problem if you have drains that are sensitive to debris.

I'll let you know, I still have cellulite.  Boo.  But I know it doesn't go away from any topical treatment, so I didn't expect anything.  I feel exfoliated and moisturized, as you would with any moisturizing exfoliating body wash or loofah.

Is it worth the mess?  Maybe, if you're thrifty and don't like throwing stuff away.  For me personally?  I'd rather buy a body wash so my shower doesn't look like it had diarrhea thrown in it.

Does it work?  For exfoliation and moisturizing, yes.  To get rid of cellulite, no.

Would I recommend it?  Not as a first resource, but if someone was adventurous, sure.