How To Make Homemade Vanilla Almond Milk

I have been trying to be more aware of preservatives and unnecessary additives in my food lately.  I mean does anybody really know what Dipottasium and Gellan Gum are?  I highly doubt they are things you would ask to have sprinkled in your morning cup of coffee.  They are ingredients listed in my almond milk that I drink pretty much every day of my life.  I am sure someone reading this knows the purpose of the weird sounding ingredients but I do not feel like googling and it just sounds like something that was made in a lab to keep my Trader Joe's Almond milk extra fresh.  

I have been wanting to make my own almond milk for the longest time and I finally attempted it this weekend.  It was SO much easier than I thought and I have decided there is nothing quite like fresh almond milk.

If you have never made your own I suggest you give it a try!

What you will need:

• 4 cups of raw almonds
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract 
• 5 1/2 cups of cold filtered water 
• cheesecloth (for straining) 

Directions:

1. Soak the almonds in a bowl of clean filtered water overnight.  The longer you soak the almonds the creamier your milk will be. 
2. After your nuts have been soaked, place your almonds in a strainer and strain out the water. 
3. Place your almonds, vanilla extract  and 5 1/2 cups of filtered water in a high powered blender. 
4. Blend on high until smooth. 
5. Place the cheesecloth over a container and pour the mixture onto the cheesecloth.  The milk will soak through leaving only the almond meal in the cheesecloth.  
6. Once all the milk has been caught in the container below give your cheesecloth one last twist to wring out any extra milk. 
7. Put the milk in an airtight container and keep it in your refrigerator for up to 4 days. 
8. Enjoy! 

This is so fresh and yummy! If you do not like almond milk you can also do the same process with cashews or walnuts.  You can use the leftover almond meal in cookies, muffins or any other almond meal based recipe.

How To Find Great Art Prints For Under $20

Who knew starting a gallery wall and adding art around my home would be so expensive.  I actually underestimated how much it would all cost until we moved into our new house.  $50 here, $30 there and so on really started adding up and I reached a point where I needed to start getting a little more creative with how I was going about collecting art for my home.

I recently discovered two (awesome) ways to incorporate new art into my house that is beyond affordable.

1) Purchase white canvases from your local craft or framing store and paint something abstract or unique on it yourself.  Small canvases will run anywhere from $5 to $10.  My local framing store recently had a buy one get one free sale so I stocked up and got a great deal on a small little stack of canvases.  My husband is actually the artistic one in the house so he already had all the acrylic paint.  I simply drew out my designs with a charcoal pencil and they painted over the tracing with my paint. I could not have been more happy with how they turned out!

2) Search for art in thrift shops.  If you can look past the ugly chipped frames and stained dusty dirty glass you can find some really incredible artwork!  Re-framing a piece of beautiful art is easy so all you need is a little vision.  You can also find great frames at thrift stores.  So if you love the frames and don't love the art you can buy the frames and toss the art.  Another thing to keep in mind is that most thrift shops have days where they have 50% off sales.  So if you really want a great deal ask the shop when they are having a sale.  Sometimes you can even negotiate if you talk to the right person.  It never hurts to ask!   I found the lion print above in a dusty corner of my local thrift shop.  Originally it was in a really hideous black bamboo frame and the glass was stained and beyond dirty.  It was something that could have easily been overlooked but I loved the print so much I snatched it up immediately.  I paid $7 for it and walked out doing a little happy dance.  The deer print was also a little gem that I found in a thrift shop.  It was $3!  I put both of them in simple black frames that I already had and they are perfect additions to Ronin's room.  I will be continuing to scour my local thrift shops to find more fun pieces for my walls.

Do you have a favorite affordable source for finding great artwork?  I would love to hear!