photo by modmami
DEAR SARA: What to do with old travel-size baby-wipe containers? I have found several travel-size wipe containers around my house. After having two kids in diapers, for some reason I have collected about six of these travel/diaper-bag wipe containers. I can only find uses for the large wipe containers, not the travel size. I already have a container in the car for quick and easy cleanup, plus the one in the diaper bag for actual diaper changing. I also gave one to my daughter to use for her dolls, but I don’t know what to do with the rest of them. Any ideas? — Tara, Iowa

DEAR TARA: You can use one in your glove compartment for registration and insurance, facial tissues (moisturized tissues come to mind), pens, coupons or winter hand warmers. At home, you can store sewing needles, safety pins, bobby pins or crochet hooks. You can cut fabric and polyfil padding to fit. Adhere with glue, and trim the edges with ribbon or rickrack. It would make it look more stylish, so you could give it as a gift. Inside, you could include items such as playing cards, stamps, envelopes, address labels, recipe cards, seed packets, tea bags, photos or dryer sheets. Or homemade baby wipes. Make your own from sherpa fleece or bamboo velour on one side and cotton knit or flannel on the other. Cut them to approximately 8″x8″ square and serge together. You could also make them for kids to hold their handheld games or memory cards. Or keep it for yourself to hold bills you need to pay and a checkbook.

DEAR SARA: Usually, when I make a cake, I use canned frosting, and there’s always some left over. I hate throwing it out. Any recipes or ideas of what it can be used for? — Carol, New Jersey

DEAR CAROL: You can refrigerate your leftover frosting for a couple of weeks or freeze it. You can reuse a frosting tub by removing the label and recovering it with wrapping or any type of paper. You can use it as a gift container for cookies or keep it for yourself and use it as a mini first-aid kit, change container, etc. If you cut holes in the lid with a blade, it can be used for children’s paintbrushes when they do watercolors.

DEAR SARA: I was wondering if I can freeze homemade pizzas. Do you have a special recipe, or do you just make a regular recipe and freeze? — Sarah, Illinois

DEAR SARAH: Yes, you can freeze homemade pizza. You can freeze it cooked or uncooked. If it’s uncooked, you can freeze it on your baking pan for a couple of hours. Once it’s frozen, use a spatula to remove it from the pan and then wrap it with plastic wrap. To cook, thaw it or cook it frozen. If your pizza is already baked, then I’d wait for it to cool, cut into pieces (to save freezer space), wrap in foil, and freeze. You can freeze just your homemade dough, too. Freeze it after you punch it down after the first rise. Thaw in the fridge. Once thawed, you can put it in an oiled bowl to rise. Then stretch and shape it, add toppings, and bake. Or you can prebake the crust and add your toppings, wrap and freeze.

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