Homemade "lunchable" from a canning jar !!

Sunday, 17 July 2016 - about 6pm my time

I think it was yesterday that I was checking on a link in one of the team posts at Etsy.  It promised a lot of ideas for recycling projects.  When I got there, I discovered the ideas were on 34 of those flip-though-the-advertisements photo presentations, so I declined to "read" it. 

I did happen to notice a story photo at the top of the page, however.  It showed a canning jar that someone made into their own "lunchable" container.  I loved the idea and shared its discovery back at the team where I found the original link.  It was my follow-up contribution to the thread process.  :-)  I wanted to share it with a larger audience (possibly  :-), so I am letting you know about it.

This is not something I would use in lunches for kids because it is glass.  Adults who take their own lunches to school or work should be careful enough to avoid breaking the jars, or be better at cleaning the mess up afterwards if they do.

You can follow the link below to the actual article page, or you can go to the main magazine page here. There is a photo at the top as of today.  If you follow the article link below, there is even a video to watch several ways you can use this as a food carrier, including meat/cheese/crackers, cereal/milk, yogurt/berries, chips/dip, and something else...

The idea is simple. 

1. You take a small canning jar (the small, square-ish, about 4 or 8 ounce size, wide-mouth jar is used in the example) and fill it with one part of the meal items -- usually the wet part, main part. 
2. Put the metal jar lid on. 
3. Then you reuse a small plastic container from lunchbox fruit portions to hold the dry item (crackers, chips, cereal, etc.), inverting it onto the top of the metal lid. 
4. Once you add the jar ring, you have a secure food storage "device" that could fit in your purse or backpack if you need it to. 

Snacks on the bus are nice.  Maybe all the freeway commuters need snacks for the traffic jams.  I just don't think glass and kids go together well.  I hope that adults will be careful enough to keep it from breaking.

I suppose a plastic freezer canning jar might work even better... but make sure it doesn't leak if you try the milk or yogurt suggestions.  I think they have a different type of seal.

Enjoy creating your own special uses for the two part food choices you eat.

Deb

http://work2gather.etsy.com
http://facebook.com/Art.Crafts.Recycling
http://crafts-explored.blogspot.com



http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/news/a39404/school-lunch-idea-diy-lunchables/

Business Tip :: Insurance and Home Inventories

12 July 2016

I have been exploring home ownership and related subjects, including insurance, lately.  I am searching for a "final resting place" for my senior years.  I have moved too much in my life, been homeless too many times, and renting doesn't allow me to shelter my children when they need it.  I am praying to buy a small but decent house in the Eugene OR area so I can continue my business pursuits as long as possible.  Trying to figure out the minimum costs involved, I have been exploring a lot of information sites, including searches for insurance details for a home and a business.

I somehow found a link to www.iii.org over the weekend.  It is an organization website with tons of links to text and video information on different topics about insurance.  The full name of the organization is Insurance Information Institute (III).  I don't know who they represent, who they might be affiliated with, or any of their background details, I just followed a search link to their site.  If you need that information, you will need to explore their affiliations yourself.

I had also been looking at Home Inventory options online.  Several names came up in the search process for that topic, and it turned out that one of the names is associated with III --  www.KnowYourStuff.org.  I explored that website and decided to sign up and see how it worked.  So far, so good.

I was planning to create another Excel file to start listing my possession and figure out how much I have and maybe what I paid for it... so kind of record for when I decide about an insurance policy.  When I discovered there are free programs to access online, I thought that might be a good way to get it done.  I liked the Institute so much, I thought their inventory program might be the best place to start exploring.

So far I only had time to enter a bunch of categories for my records, and one item to see how it would look in a printout.  The categories for this home inventory program are "rooms" -- but I just made some of them into possession "rooms" like craft supplies and stamp collections.  I wasn't able to get the list of categories/rooms to print, but the one item I entered printed, so I will use that as a guide sheet and try to figure out a list of my rooms for this inventory record.

I have already shared my discovery of III and KnowYourStuff.org with one of my Etsy teams and my family group at Facebook, but I wanted to share to option here.  It seems like a wonderful way to keep track of my crafting supplies, their costs, what I have and what happens to it, how much I get if I sell it, etc.  I think I am going to use it to record all the crafts I make and sell just to have a record of them, too... especially my collectible collections.  I just don't know if I will start a separate file for those, or just a separate room in this one.

I hope to share this option more as I learn the process myself.  If you already use an online inventory program for your own records, share that below, in the comments section.  It will be great to find out what other crafters are doing with these issues.

Until next time,
Deb   <3