DIY Life

Who says ice cream is just a summer treat? Certainly not my husband, who loves to eat a big bowl of ice cream every night. It can be snowing, wind blowing and 5 degrees outside, but that doesn't matter to him. He just really loves his ice cream.

I have never made homemade ice cream, though I think I will try now, since I found some neat homemade ice cream in a bag recipes at Kaboose. All you need is a pint size Ziploc bag, a gallon size Ziploc bag, milk or half-and-half, sugar, vanilla, rock salt, ice cubes and a child who is willing to shake the bags for 5 minutes. Okay, so you don't need the child, but let them get in on the fun too!

I think experimentation is the key here, but only try different flavors once you get the hang of the shake down and perfect ice cream is made at every attempt. I love chocolate mint, so that would be my first try, after I tried Kaboose's ice cream recipe for my husband, of course! What homemade ice cream recipes have you tried? Please feel free to share them in the comments.

No matter how many plastic bags we reuse and recycle, they still seem to come into our house with every shopping trip. This is no surprise of course, since almost every kind of store under the sun seems to carry them. The accumulation of them can quickly become overwhelming, but it certainly doesn't have too.

If you want to turn that mountain of plastic bags into a little molehill, Instructables has an article on using them to spin yarn to make a pretty plastic handbag, using scissors, plastic bags, a spindle, and knitting needles. The author gives an excellent description with her pictures to describe what she is doing, and makes it seem like it would be a fairly easy project. She cautions to keep it to purse size because the plastic gets surprisingly bulky and heavy.

Since there is no accompanying video to the article, check out these step by step videos at joyofhandspinning.com.
Although the videos are based on spinning yarn, the same concept would apply to spinning plastic bags. the website also gives you insight on how to make a drop spindle.

With this idea for plastic bags, you can knit enough to give as gifts and is an excellent craft project. This idea also proves that you can keep them out of the landfill. I think that I can find the time to knit one. What about you?