I don’t know about you, but over the years, ours kids have been blessed with some truly amazing teachers.

How do you come up with the BEST gift to say thank you for dealing with, loving, teaching, and inspiring, my children EVERY day of the week?

Well we are here to help you out.

Starting today until Sunday (5-19-13) evening you can get a special word necklace (regular price $21) for that super amazing teacher for only $15.

No coupon codes, the price has been set just for you.

Go ahead, spoil those teachers, show them how much you truly appreciate them.

Go here to order your word necklace today.

Here are some suggestions for a good word to order for a teacher:

teach, learn, dream, nurture, love, teacher, thankful, or inspire

**This offer is not valid with any other current offers or coupon codes. You can order as many as you like.**

We spent the past weekend at Junk Jubilee in Des Moines, Iowa.

We enlisted our 13 yr old daughter, Korby, to take pictures of our booth.

I think we might have a future photographer on our hands. 

A big thank you to everyone that came out to our booth. We loved meeting you.

Smoking Gun Beef Jerky is located in Lincoln Nebraska at 443 N.48th St.  I drove by this place so many times not knowing what I was missing. Beef jerky here is always tender, flavorful, and consistent. The selection of flavors is overwhelming. But no need to worry, you can sample each and every one if you like.

But that would take some time. I have found I love the Applewood flavor, our son Kalen love the Wicked Awesome, and Korby usually gets Garlic BBQ. From super spicy to sweet, I promise there is a flavor you will enjoy.

As you walk in, ok before you crack the front door you will notice the smell of jerky being made. That smell will almost hypnotize you – I love it!

Not only can you get beef jerky, but turkey jerky, and last time I was in there, there were some bison products. Along with a huge selection of spices for cooking, both indoors and on the grill. There you can also find Smoking Gun Jerky Marinade the same as they use to make their jerky. With a new food dehydrator in our house I will be giving that a try very soon.

With distribution through out Nebraska and other parts of the United States if you see this logo on a package of jerky in your local store you have my word it will be delicious.

]]> http://www.kraftykash.net/2013/03/29/local-feature-smoking-gun-jerky-inc/feed/ 0 http://www.kraftykash.net/2013/03/27/a-proud-mama-moment/ http://www.kraftykash.net/2013/03/27/a-proud-mama-moment/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:17:07 +0000 Kashoan http://www.kraftykash.net/?p=1945 You know that old saying  ”Time Flies”?

That has been going through my head at least 12 times a day lately.

Our son is a senior in High School this year.

We are planning graduation, parties, & listening to him describe his plans for the future.

I have so much love in my heart for this kid. I see a lot of myself in him.

I am proud to be his Mama.

A big thank you to this amazing photographer for capturing these images.

Papa D’s Pizzeria in Firth Nebraska. 

We heard about this restaurant from a local radio station. We are a pizza loving family around here. Who doesn’t enjoy a good slice of pizza?

We had to travel about 30 minutes in the truck to get here, but it was totally worth it.

The staff were extremely friendly & helpful. The food was amazing. We will definitely be making a trip back to Papa D’s soon.

They also make their own pizza and pasta sauce. We went home with a jar of pizza sauce to try for ourselves. LOVED it!

Our daughter, Korby, loved that we had pizza left overs. Anytime she can have a slice of cold pizza for breakfast, she is happy.

You can go like Papa D’s Facebook page here.

Don’t forget to check back next Friday for our next local feature.

Happy Friday!

Enter Washi Tape. Please tell me I am not the only addict out there. Anyone else LOVE washi tape? I am beginning to think we need to start a support group  club.

So I picked out my favorite colors/ prints and came up with a fun pattern. There is not a right or wrong way on choosing the pattern. Just do what you love.

BTW the yellow chevron is my favorite. I could add this to everything in my office space.

Remove the crystal light label from the outside of the container.

Then cut and washi tape your container. How fun and easy is that?

I am using mine to hold pens, pencils, scissors, & a magnifying glass.

Hope you liked this DIY project and it inspires you to make something fun today.

Some of the vintage pieces that they use in the magazine, we have here at our house. So I got to thinking, why not redo a spot in our dining room to look like what they did in the magazine?

We, of course, added our own spin on things.

When I flipped to the page with all the awesome benches, I knew we could “redo” this look in our dining room.

Here is how our bench project turned out in our dining room.

What do you think? What magazines inspire you to “redo” an area in your house?

This was during our open house on Saturday night.

We seriously, have the BEST customers ever!

A big thank you to this business for supplying all the lovely vintage props.

Some date back to 1896, some have old dried flowers between the pages,  and 2 of them have 2600+ pages. They are all very cool because like a lot things that are old, they have an untold story. They have clues to maybe who owned them or where they came from and I just think that is the coolest.

I think stacked up high the pile would top out over 20 feet tall. My guess is they would weight over 500 pounds. Keep in mind this is just dictionaries that does not count the nearly 40 Atlas’s we have, or 35 Bibles. All taking up a shelving system that is over 7 feet long and nearly 5 feet high.

All of this started from one dictionary from a Great Grandma that was found in a box of books that we stashed under the stairs for years. I believe she would be proud to see how we put these books to good use. We love each necklace we make & are thankful to make each one.

Wishing you the best of weekends – I think we might head out and shop for a few more dictionaries.

I was lucky to make a great contact that supplied my with a few (ok maybe more than a few) vintage boxes all from a closed museum between Lincoln and Omaha.

My first thought was some of these wooden boxes would make a great table.

So here we go:

Before I could begin a trip to the local car wash was needed. After $1.00 spent, these were clean. I used soap first (these were really yucky) then rinse, making  sure not to hold the wand to close to the wood or it will become fuzzy/chewed up by the high pressure.

Loaded up after the wash, I let the boxes dry in the sun for the rest of the day. I babysat them, turning them over, opening lids, in order for them to become completely dry.

While they dried in the pickup. I headed to the EcoStore of Lincoln. Totally cool place to get a variety of building, remodeling, misc supplies. I was hoping for legs and stain. The stain was on the free shelf – SCORE! But the 2×2 for the legs were warped badly – so no good. Ended up Lowes had an 8′ 2×2 for $1.69.

The stain was a Minwax ipswitch pine which was great for this box and legs. I picked a light stain, I did not want to change the color of the box much. I did not sand or prep the box in any other way other than washing.

I applied 1 coat of stain to exterior of box. I did not need to wipe off the stain – that old pine was thirsty and soaked it right up.

Go ahead and let this dry and move on to the legs.

The legs were cut at 14″ each using a saw and miter box. Use any kind of saw you have,  just making sure it cuts straight or your legs will be crocked. Repeat 4 times.

I used the miter box for cutting to make sure the legs were straight.

I used a pencil to draw an X on the end of each leg to identify middle and carefully drilled straight down into each leg. This will allow screwing in the legs to be an easier task.  Of course a brad nailer would be an excellent choice to attach legs to box – but I do not own one.

I started the screw (which was a 3/8″ x 2″ lag screw) before I stained them to ease in the turning and not getting stain all over me – because I am naturally messy. 2 coats seemed close to matching the color of the much older box, since this wood for the legs was new.

Look like assembly time is here after allowing a couple hours for the stain to dry.

Next I butted up the leg to the corner and traced the outside edge with a pencil, once again making an X so I know where to drill. Once all 4 corners were finished – all that was left was to attach the legs. I used a wrench to snug up the screws and  placed a  washer on the inside of the box. Not certain if the washer was totally necessary, but seemed like a good idea.

And there it is – I was happy in the end I have a nice, sturdy table, with a hinged lid to stash stuff in. It took me an afternoon to do this – most of the time spent waiting for stain to dry.

That is how I converted that ammo box into the above table.

Wooden ammo boxes can sometimes be found on Craigslist,  military surplus stores, garage sales, or flea markets.

We have a few ammo boxes for sale. If you are interested in buying one please email us at kraftykash@yahoo.com