Need some more inspiration for Make Your Own projects? Here are some of my favorite books that make a great addition to any household and will give you plenty of ideas for recipes to try, ways to save money, or tips for going green.
The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making
This is a truly lovely book with a nice amount of photos and well written recipes for homemade alternatives to common pantry items. The author of this book also writes a blog (EatingFromTheGroundUp.com) and each of the recipes is accompanied by an entertaining little story to go along with it. I especially like her addition of “tense moments” to some of the recipe instructions to get you through those parts of a recipe where you’re not sure if it will really come together or not. You’ll find recipes for hamburger buns, cream cheese, marshmallows, ketchup, yellow cake, graham crackers, and fruit rollups, just to name a few.
The author of this book is the mother to a family of 10 children and she really knows how to stretch a grocery budget. Lots of her recipes are easy from scratch recipes for things like pie crust, pancake syrup, or ranch dressing. There’s also plenty of recipes for main dishes and side dishes and her recipe for Crockpot Chicken Cacciatore has a permanent place in the the menu rotation at our house.
If you’re interested in going green and making homemade cleaners, you’ll find this book to be a very helpful resource. It’s filled with lots of great cleaning recipes as well as information on the chemicals in cleaners so you know which ones are the good guys and which ones are the bad guys.
The Stocked Kitchen: One Grocery List . . . Endless Recipes
As the title suggests, the concept of this book is to streamline the chore of grocery shopping and cooking by limiting the variety of things you buy and instead learning how to combine those things into more and more recipes. You’ll find lots of family friendly recipes that are easy on the budget. I agree that their concept of using what you have, to make what you need, is an empowering way to work in your kitchen.
The Tigthwad Gazette books were first written in the 1990′s but the advice and the tips are truly timeless. Every time I get out my Tightwad Gazette books I get so engrossed that the time just flies. These are the most thorough books you can find on frugal living and doing things for yourself. The author does a wonderful job of sharing her lifestyle and inspiring you to realize that being frugal is a way of life that can be very rewarding.
I'm Bev and I love to share ideas for living a more creative and resourceful lifestyle with homemade alternatives we can make for ourselves. 
