Learning to be me

Refashions part 2

2012-01-17T20:34:00.001-08:00

First off I have decided to rename my youngest whom I refer to here as "Ape Baby". She is no longer my baby :-( She is growing up way too fast. She has graduated from the baby stage, so keeping with the same theme but a more mature name, I will refer to her as Monkey Girl from now on.
So back to my refashion...

My second refashion of the week was for Monkey girl. This skirt was super easy! Nothing too special or out of the ordinary, but we preserved "the pants" for a while longer.

Now if I can just get her to keep clothes on longer than 20minutes we will be good.

Under my Flittering butterfly's instruction she is trying to pose for the shot LOL

No that lip balm is "mine"! One of the few words she has down really good!

So My husband has a very select few pairs of pants he loves. It is hard to find him clothes, he is so picky, and believe me looks have nothing to do with it! It is all about feel.
These were one of those pair of pants. They just hit the end of their life, rips and tears everywhere.
I loved how the knee frayed. A detail I wanted to preserve in the refashion.

I wanted to use it as the bottom of the pants but her waist/thighs were too big to just use the bottom part of the jean so I had to use the fray as the waist.

Is just ripped the rest of the front all the way across then cut the back part as the grains rarely match up and end up rather uneven if I were to rip it too. I measured how long I wanted it and cut the base of my skirt.
I cut a 10" section off. 8" for length and 2"for the waste band.

I then measured her waist and subtracted the length of the front panel on the soon to be skirt.
The front section is always a bit bigger than the back section.
Her waist measured 18" and the front of the skirt measured just under 9.5".
18"-9.5"=8.5"
That was the length I cut my elastic for the back of the skirt.
In hind sight I would probably shave off another 1" of the elastic as it doesn't hug her waist too well if she is wearing big girl panties (its not an issue with a diaper/pull-up, it fits perfectly).

I measured about 2" down from the top and pinned the elastic to the back panel on the outside of the material.
One pin on each side and one in the middle.
I sewed it to one side of the back, just up and down, then to the other side. Then I stretched it out and sewed straight across the top twice to secure it in place

I fold the top panel over to encase the elastic, leaving that beautiful fray exposed.
I sewed along the top as close as I could get to the edge and then again around the bottom about 1/4" up allowing my fray to happen over time.

I then took some scrap jersey I had lying around and cut a 2" wide strips of about 4' long.
I sewed a gather stitch at the top of the jersey and made the ruffles happen.

I ran my fingers across the bottom portion of my skirt pulling threads encouraging a good start to a fray.
I then pinned the ruffle to the inside of the bottom of my skirt with the pins on the outside. My machine is a few years old. I like the top portion of my stitches better than the bottom, so I made sure the nicer stitch would be on the outside. I sewed around it twice to secure it in place. One stitch only 1/4" above the other.

There you have it! A lot of words for something so simple.
I love it! No Hemming, all rough edges, and "the Jeans" see another day!

The top of the thigh naturally curves in a bit as it hits the knee making a perfect A-line shape when turned upside down!
Another UFO out of my closet.

Refashions Part 1

2012-01-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

We spent the weekend decluttering 2/3rds of the house, we sorted our unwanteds for donation and craigslist/yardsale. With a clean house, and a more simplistic feel of things I felt inspired to create today, amazing how that is. I hurriedly cleaned a few more things to get a head of things, and got things set up for an afternoon of creating.

I have a box of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) in my closet, much bigger than I like to admit. Everything in the box (and on top) has a specific destiny, I just need to finish them. I hope to work my way thru the entire box within the next few months while the soldier boy is away.

Today I tackled two projects, I just reached for what was on top. A skirt for each of the girls.

I started with My Flittering butterflies'. I was given this shirt but it never fit, and the color never really worked with my complexion. My oldest loved it. She asked if I/she could do something with it for her. A ten minute project!

I took the shirt and laid it out as straight as I could, then drew a line across the gathered bust area.

I sewed the layers in place, then cut the top off.

I then sewed on bias tape adding the elastic as I went (so much easier than trying to feed it in later. I simply just pin the start end in place and as a sew line everything up encasing the elastic perfectly). Done! I just had to wait for My filltering Butterfly to come home to make sure the elastic was tight enough and sewed the elastic together and closed the little inch gap. Sorry no pictures, the camera died.

She loves it!!

I might fix up the layers up front a bit more so they lay better simply by tacking them at the top, but for now its good enough for me, why be OCD about it.
I'll have to try for better picture of it. The girls were rather excited and I had some awesome dance music going in the background, they wouldn't stand still for more than a few seconds at a time, plus I was letting them dance on the table, when does a mom ever let you do that?!

This is my girls favorite music video these days. Who can stand still while listening to this?!

Children's Christmas video

2011-12-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

My kids love kid history!! If you haven't seen it you must check them out on YouTube. My kids love these videos and can quote them word for word!

Christmas Printables

2011-12-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

I am a bit embarrassed to admit, I have had picture frames up in the front entrance way for well over six months now waiting for pictures to be put in them. I just never got around to ordering the right pictures to fill them up. That has changed. The first thing you see as you walk into my house will no longer be six empty frames and two side ways pictures hanging on the wall!

(Sorry for the crappy pictures I keep forgetting to take pictures during the day)

I did not fill them with pictures, because ours are now outdated and I just refuse to hang the old ones, as cute as they are... I really need to get new family photos in the new year!!
But for the temporary fix this will do. I removed two of the frames which made a difference in the lay out. I love it! (I really need to start taking befor and after pictures.)

I found these printables here
top
1. Jones Design Company love that I could add a few scriptural Christ centered ones to the wall
2. Polkadots on Parade
3. For the life of me I can't find the link. UGH! Really thought I bookmarked them all.
4. Betty Crocker Wannabe
bottom
1. & 2. Love from home
I used the making a list and sleigh bells ones

Teachers Christmas gifts

2011-12-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

This year I decided to let the kids help with teacher gifts. I tried to think of something they could make and be proud of yet something the teacher would like (coming from a 5, 6, and 10yr old).

After a bit of discussion they all picked something to add to the teacher bags.

They wanted my simple nativity, faux nog (since all their teachers and their aides loved it last year. My favorite is 1-2Tbsp Faux nog, 1/2 crushed ice and 1cp milk blended with the magic bullet. It is so frothy and delicious), flavored hot cocoa, and dipped pretzels, Oreos, and marshmallows in a mug.

Lil' Mr Emo mixing some faux nog

The kids loved dipping their pretzels, marshmallows and Oreos on a stick in chocolate and almond bark then decorating them with sprinkles! We had a few neighborhood kids that joined in on the fun

I am not sure if there is more sprinkles on the pretzels or my floor at the moment, but they make some good memories and a slight sugar high.

Every counter in my kitchen is a staging area for some part of tomorrow. This counter is being used to assemble goodie bags for a class party tomorrow. Best be off to bed so I can wake a bit earlier than normal to clean up after all this mess and get these things all packed up and ready to deliver tomorrow AM.

We seek after these things...

2011-12-12T07:38:00.000-08:00

Our youths theme for this past year was

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

At the end of every year several of the congregations in the area get together and celebrate all the things the girls have accomplished. Each congregation is given a table to display some of their girls accomplishments or to spotlight the girls.This year we put some of our humanitarian quilts and then we made a craft to display that went along with this years theme. I found this on a blog someone shared with me.
the girls personalized them. They turned out so cute!

(sorry just couldn't get these two photos to turn!)
I cut some vinyl and then printed some swirls clipart I found. We transferred the swirls by scribbling with a pencil all over the back of the page and then tracing them onto the wood. We colored them in with sharpies and then added the vinyl.
We adhered the pictures with spray adhesive (WAY EASIER THAN MOD PODGE!! and there were no bubbles.) then we applied to coats of Mod Podge.

Side note- have you seen this before? It's my new favorite thing!! SPRAY MOD PODGE (glossy, not a big fan of the matte) coupled with spray adhesive of course! Thinking of buying Wal-mart out and giving it to everyone I know for Christmas.

Butternut Squash soup

2011-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

It has cold off something fierce here. I love fall/winter and the excuse to make yummy warm soups.

Last week we made Butternut squash soup. I love butternut squash! I was so excited this morning to find butternut squash in my bountiful basket. I had this post scheduled for Monday, but decided this was a wonderful excuse to rearrange posts and share now.

I found this recipe last year, I altered it a bit. Last week I made enough to freeze for three family meals and a half dozen lunch size portions. I'll scale the recipe down for I family size serving (5-6cps).

1 Butternut squash (the ones we got in our basket were a bit smaller than the ones I usually use, I used two big ones when I tripled the recipe)

2.5-3cps chicken broth (depends on how thick you like it, the thicker then better in my opinion)
1/3-1/2cup onions, chopped (or 1/3cps dehydrated onions reconstituted)

2cloves of garlic
2-3tsp curry powder ( I love curry so the more the better for me)
1tsp nutmeg
1tsp ginger
Sour cream or plain Greek yogurt to garnish

Cut squash lengthwise in half and remove the seeds
Bake squash at 400F until you can push a fork thru easily (about 60-75min)
Cool and Peel the baked squash. We found this works well with a simple pairing knife. We turned the squash flat side down and used my handy little pampered chef pairing knife.
Cut the squash into 2" chunks
Put everything into your a large pot and use your hand plunge blender thingy to blend it all together (or carefully use a blender. I never have any luck using a blender and hot items I always get burned).
Heat thru on the stove top and garnish to taste with sour cream or yogurt.

DELICIOUS!!

Christ centered Christmas

2011-12-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

It is quite the topic this year-Christ centered Christmas!

I am not ready to "kill" Santa Claus for my kids, but I like the idea of educating them about the original St Nikolaus. I only have one Santa decoration and it reminds me of our days in Germany so I am not going to put it away.

I love to give. I love to give my kids gifts, but Christmas isn't about gifts. I need to be more focused on educating my kids on where gift giving started, and remind my kids it isn't about getting it is all about receiving. We have decided to let each kid pick a random act of kindness and spend the week befor Christmas serving others to better remind them its all about giving.

I own quite a few nativities (something I inherited from my mother). Every year we add another one to our collection. Some big, some breakable others are small or durable enough to survive being played with daily. Christ is well represented in out home around this season. They know the story of Jesus and have daily reminders of his humble beginning.

This year I have wanted to make this craft since I first saw it back in November sometime, but have yet the energy to focus on it. I had no really connection with the word JOY so I kind of put it off as a "if I have time" project. I think I will be making it this weekend with the kids!
Our youth group had an assignment to do a service project tonight that wouldn't take too long and I was looking for a lesson to teach the girls on the importance of service and let them know how proud I was of them for all they have done this past month in service. As I trolled the internet I came across this site and found a lesson on J.O.Y. (its the fifth little dot down). I loved it! I think the girls enjoyed it. And I am thinking I am talking to my kids about it come family night!
Here's the idea...
J is for Jesus. He had a purpose here on earth no one else could fill! He lived and died for us. I went into a little more detail then we watched this video clip

O is for others. It is a time for service and time to focus on others. There never is an easier time to find ways to serve. A time to give back. Give Christ the gift of service, find every possible way to do small random acts of kindness this holiday season. I spoke of how they more than willingly spend money on making holiday meals tonight for shut ins and elderly people in our congregation, how they made 90 quilts for a homeless shelter for Christmas, how they jump to serve every time I ask them to. It is that service that builds up and strengthens others, that makes a difference in the world, that is the Saviors work here on this earth.

Y is for you. "YOU?" you ask. Yes YOU! Not you as in what you want, not as in you time but You as in taking the time to reflect on your own testimony of the Savior. Recommit. Accept his message and build up your personal understanding of who Christ was/is and what his teachings are. Accept him into your life, not just when you are going thru a trial or are extremely overjoyed, but everyday in everything good or bad or just because.

After our lesson I had the girls cut out some of these to hang as a banner or as Christmas decorations to remind them of the true reason for the season. We cut out the balls and hung them with grosgrain ribbon.
I printed off these ones and hung them in my kitchen as my own personal reminder.
I may not have it all together but I am certainly going to focus more on educating and talking about Christ with my little ones this year. I am going to find every opportunity to serve others big or small. I am going to recommit myself to being a better disciple of Christ. I am going to find JOY this year as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

My sisters visit

2011-11-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

Been MIA but definitely not idle! Moving from one project to another befor finishing any of them up. Hopefully I will have more to report in the near future. I certainly have a Honey-help-me-do list a mile long!

My baby sister came to celebrate my birthday with me this year. She and her little man spent three fabulous weeks with us. As always I put her to work ;-) It's how we bond.

She sewed several quilts for me and my Young Woman's youth group. We are up to 66 of 80! WAHOO! Hope to complete the last 14 this week.
Thanks Baby Sis!

Side Note:
So bountiful baskets is pretty new in our area. I had to try them out. AWESOME! Look them up if you dont know what they are bountifulbaskets.org
While my lil sis was here I ordered 90Lbs of apples and 25Lbs of Tomatoes thru them. Once again I put her to work.

We made apple pie filling, apple sauce, apple butter, frozen apple crisp, apple chips, and salsa

This little gadget was my best friend!!

Having never made salsa befor and wanting it chunky was rather interesting. It took us two batches and we still didn't get it right. But add a little hot sauce and it is perfect for me, my kids like it as is. It is definitely better than anything bought at the store.

Because I over estimated on the number of onions we would need for salsa (yes 5-3Lb bags is too much LOL), my Little Sis found ways to use them up. As I cut and froze a few bags, she diced a few for some yummy french onion soup. Delicious!!

My lil ape baby got in on helping out.
Yup she is playing with a knife! Mother of the year award, right?!

And this lil man Hi-Tek warmed his way into each of our hearts.
The kids loved having a baby around! He is such a funny little guy!

Thanks Baby Sis! I love you!
Plan to do it again next year! I'll need it!

My sons fall party

2011-10-25T20:01:00.001-07:00

I love Pinterest! Thank you whoever thought of and implemented this site! If you haven't heard of it, it is a great resource! I found this site there and had to make these for my sons grade school fall party.

Our school mascot is an owl.

How perfect for a school party that can't be too Halloween-ish.

I did find pulling the oreos apart and sticking them on the cupcake didn't look as cute as the ones on the website! I had to dip my handy little pampered chef pairing knife in water and scrape off the top layer of icing to get the whites to look cleaner.

Can you see the difference?
I also found double stuffed oreos work better or the cheap generic oroes as the icing is easier to manipulate.
These were super easy and fun for all.

Fall Festival

2011-10-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the fall festival at school. Each class is having a fall party.
I was so eager to sign up for snacks and do something super fun, but by the time I spoke to the mom in charge of my oldests class party all she had left was drinks. I found this link for juice boxes and knew what I was going to do. When I talked to the teacher she suggested making a few for those who may not like/celebrate Halloween so I found this link and very poorly attempted to create something neutral.
Here are our final results.
I had the kids help create these treats. My little Emo boy wanted to do his mummy in black, I wasn't in the mood to fight. In the end we decided to turn him into a bat instead. I think it turned out rather cute.

Adjustments
I couldn't find white electrical tape so I used white duct tape. I snipped the first piece in half and started tearing which you can't see very well but it leaves little raw edges giving it a more torn material look.
Here's a pic of my tape roll
(I was able to do 20 with this roll and this is whats left could probably do another 10 easily)

The black mummy gone batty
We wrapped these boxes with black electrical tape then cut out some bat wings out of card stock, folded over a small piece of the wing to hot glued them on, followed by our googly eyes.I carefully pulled all the straws off, making sure the plastic didn't tare before we started, then we hot glued then all back on to finish up our project.

What a fun project! Sad we spent the better part of 2hrs wrapping , and gluing 40+boxes and they will only be enjoyed for a few minutes then trashed, but my kids loved helping and spending time working together (Ok so it wasn't all fun and games, they fought a little, but they talked fondly about their evening over breakfast).

Bows bows bows!

2011-10-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

I don't sell a whole lot of bows. I am not the best business woman! I love to craft but hate marketing, and putting myself out there. From time to time by word of mouth I get a few orders. Some know exactly what they want, others just give me freedom with a color scheme. This month I had a few back to back orders that took me a few weeks to complete. I tried out a lot of new bow tutorials. It was so fun and challenging! My girls were thrilled as they got a few new bows in the process.
I will give credit where due, linking to the tutorials I used. Some of these flowers I found tutorials for long ago and have no idea who to give credit.

These are some from my first order. MK has two girls. She wanted a few neutral, and then pink and purples to match her girls outfits.I recently discovered covered buttons. I love them!Here is another variation of the burnt edge flower. I also made these in pink and white satinThese are my favorite Sunday barrettes. They are time consuming but its worth the effort. I found if I hold the middle of each petal over the flame it gives it a little extra dimension.

These are my new favorite barrettes! A mindless sort of activity, I can sit in front of the TV hand stitching and gathering ribbon then get to assembling them later. I learned from this one fish line works really well and hides well on multicolored ribbon.
I found this tutorial here

Another variation These ones took me a few tries to get right. I was too lazy to use a needle and thread so I used a little hot glue. Once again a covered button really finishes it off.
This tutorial I found here

Order #2 was for homecoming. Ks Mom wanted "big" cheer bows
I don't normally make big bows. This was definitely a first for me. Please she wanted them on the snap clips not the alligator type clips. I learned when using the snap clips, glue the bow on while the clip is open, then after a few minutes close it and then open it a few times. Otherwise it is rather stiff.
I definitely need to work on my big bow making ability.

Order #3 was for the big OU game this weekend. Ms. G needed a few "little" clips for her baby. I forgot to take picture before delivering them. But I am sure she wore them proudly after their big win!!

My girls were so excited to get a few new bows of their own. These babies are so super easy and super cute!!
I found the tutorial here This is Ape Babies favorite. She wore it all last week! Another covered buttonI made this for my flittering butterfly. She loves Zebras.

It was fun putting my bow making skills to work. A friend dropped by one day and kept me company while she made a few of her own. Another friend dropped by the most delicious spring rolls so I didn't have to break for lunch. My little Mr. Emo made me a few bows of his own.My living room is grateful to be rid of all evidence of a week of no cleaning, neglect and the brimming boxes of craft supplies decorating every empty corner.
Back to life as normal.

Goals-humanitarian quilts and running

2011-09-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry ladies and gent I have been preoccupied. I have been working on completing a few goals.

The Young Girls at church are working on putting 80 quilts together for a local homeless Shelter for Christmas. A tall order for 4 girls!
There was a lady at church who passed and had a lot of fabric. Her sister was so kind as to donate it to us to help us accomplish our goals.
We have 9 completed, 9 more ready to tie, and 9 out with other ladies from church hopefully being sewn as we speak.
As well as a meeting with another lady from church who has connections to have a whole lot more tops quilted for us for free.
Anyways, I wanted to make my own contribution. When we have our quilting nights I am running around employing the girls and keeping everyone on task. I never get to sit behind a machine. So when I found some adorable material at Joann's a few weeks ago I decided I was going to make a simple top of my own. Here is my completed topMy iron broke so I couldn't take out all the wrinkles. I am so happy to have some leftover material to make the girls something with.

Next is a goal I had to pass an Air Force PT test (it was easier than the Army PT test). I started back in June just running 3-4times a week, slowly increasing my speed, by alternating from walking to running and then eventually running the entire 1.5miles.
Last Friday I accomplished it with 4 seconds to spare on my run! WAHOO!I had plateaued for a few weeks and couldn't seem to take anytime off my run no matter what I did. After a little discussion with my soldier boy, he suggested I started running intervals (one min at a jog, one min at a much faster pace). It worked!! In one week I took off a minute plus!! I simply just found at what pace was easy to run at and what pace I could tolerate for one minute alternating back and forth. I have decided to coast here for the next two weeks and then on the 15th I will start working on passing an Army PT run (2miles) by December 15th. I already have the pace just need to work on the distance.
Now I need to get back into crafting. SO many fun ideas to decorate the house with for Halloween!
This months goal is to blog more!

Rather slow week

2011-08-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

With it being the first week of school I have been rather slow at getting around to things this week. I finished this shirt last week for back to school. It is a bigger slightly modified version of this one I made for my ape baby here. I love the material. On top of it being the first week of school the Young Ladies in our youth group started back at making quilts for the Jesus House (a local homeless shelter). So I had to get refocused on putting quilts together and making sure we had enough stuff to keep everyone busy. They have 80beds and are usually packed come Christmas time. We are trying to finish as many as possible and are hopeful to give everyone a quilt. Last night was our refocus night. We organized our quilt took stock and started a few more. We have 9 completed and another 6 just needing the binding done, three quilt tops and another four tops out with some of the ladies from church helping us out. They are turning out quite cute. All of our material has been donated by church ladies with the exception of a few backs. I will be spending a few nights working on this project each month to help contribute a few more tops for the girls to tie.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! I am looking forward to sleeping in and doing some crafting this weekend. Hopefully I will have some fun things for next week. Need to create something that will help clean out a few inches of my fabric/craft area. It has exploded!

Back to school blunder- cleaning shoes

2011-08-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

My flittering butterfly has really wanted to get a pair of these. Blue is her favorite color.
My husband has a pair, my MIL has a pair, so naturally she wanted a pair. I wasn't about to spent $60 on a pair of kids shoes for back to school! She will have grown out of them in a few weeks/month and need new ones. My husband made her a deal. We would pay half if she paid half- that way if she really wanted them she would have to work for them. Sure enough the girl announced last week she had enough money and wanted to go pick some out. We made a trip into the city and found out no one in a four hour radius sells or will even order them in kids sizes! UGH!

We went home with a crushed little girl! So we immediately ordered some online. Unfortunately, they won't be here in time for the first day of school- you know the day you have to look your best, wear your favorite new outfit, sporting your new back pack, style your hair just the right way, and run around in your new SHOES. My fashion conscious girl voiced this concern. I am not about to go buy her another pair of shoes right now! She has several other gently worn used that will suffice for the first few day of school, she will most likely wear them sooner or later anyways. So last night I googled ways to clean-up and enhance her old shoes. I came across this link PERFECT!!!

With a little of this

I got this
The lighting is bad, i know! Its midnight and under my energy saving light bulbs that cast a yellowish hue, its hard to get a good picture.
I had to adjust the recipe a little. I couldn't get a good paste consistency that stayed mixed so I doubled the baking soda.

1Tbsp Vinegar
1Tbsp hot water
2Tbsp baking soda

It took less than 4minutes to run the water, scrub the shoe and rinse it. What a difference! Hope my fashion conscious flittering butterfly will accept these until her new shoes arrive next week.

Ape baby's Peasant top

2011-08-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am definitely in a sewing mood. Needing to keep myself moving and occupy my sleepless nights, I recently reorganized my sewing drawers and boxes. I have a bit too much fabric! Great beautiful prints just waiting for the right project.
I came across several patterns I had purchased back in the day when my flittering butterfly was a wee Lil one. The Copyright on the packages says 2001. When I came across this pattern I decided I had just the fabric to use.

Walmart always has a bunch of discount material packets in town. I found a packet for a purse but thought it would make a perfect shirt for my 'lil ape baby. For two yards of each material and a great purse handle it was $5. Steal! I have been holding on to it for over 6months waiting for just the right thing.
I love it when I can make a project without having to go shopping.
I love peasant tops! I, of course, sewed this late one night while my babes were sleeping. I cut out the size 2 shirt, and followed the instructions. I left out the elastic on the sleeves because I didn't want to make them too tight but once she had it on I decided I liked it better without the puff sleeves. I have always been intimidated by store bought patterns. They easily confuse me. However this one taught me a few new sewing tricks I'd have never thought of.I love the scrunchy gathered top piece! It is a wonderful detail!
I will make a few minor adjustments to lengthen it but all in all I LOVE this simple pattern! I am thinking of making another top for winter, with the short puff sleeves and adding a knit cotton full length extension giving it a layered look. What do you think?
My lil ape baby wore this on our Zoo outing this week. I was thrilled when I had several ladies who had lil girls about the same age ask where I bought this shirt- a feel good creative moment. This pattern is a keeper!I think I like to sew.

True learning to b me moment

2011-08-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

My sweet flittering butterfly loves to design outfits. She loves to coordinate her clothes, and changes a dozen times a day to get just the right outfit. Two summers ago I promised to make her something. I took her to the fabric store and let her have free reign, first mistake!

Later on that summer she designed the outfit I was to create with it. I tried to recreate it last summer but with little success. I threw it in a drawer and never wanted to touch it again.Here are her different variations of it. Now she wants me to make a matching skirt HAHA!

The material is stretchy, almost swimsuit like material. I have never sewn with such material. I don't want to do it again, anytime soon! Maybe after I get a serger, maybe under the eye of a trained professional, and I suggest not trying new techniques out on material you are unfamiliar with.

I am happy to say I FINALLY kept my promise and completed her creation! I altered my originally pattern and went for something more simplistic this time and it worked out much nicer. I see all the flaws. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in this project- threads breaking while I was gathering, material not being caught on the backside while I top stitched, cut limited material too short, running out of thread with only ten inches left to sew, material constantly getting caught in the feed dogs, and someone suggested using a zigzag stitch instead of a straight stitch, didn't work! the material was too flimsy)! But it was all worth it with her excitement over the finished product. She is going to wear it until the first day of school. :-/ Atleast I know she appreciates all the effort I put into it!

She is such a poser, didn't have to ask her to do anything. She does it all LOL

I used this site for a pattern. I made both sides the same length and the same width. I had to cut the arm cut outs a little deeper than on this tutorial and made the width of the top band a little bigger. My Flittering Butterfly wanted rounded edges on the ends of the ties, so I sewed them inside out and up the side about 8inches. I then turned them right side out and sewed the black band all round, encasing the flower material which I had already sewn to the underside of the black piece, thus fully encasing the flower material within the black band. (Hope that makes sense. No photos to demonstrate.)

I learned that with a little patience and a little advice from more seasoned sewers it is possible to create the impossible. "If at first you don't succeed, try try again."
Double fist pump! I took my Flittering Butterflies creation and made it her own!

Side note- I recently tried my hand at drawing a few designs. I started by recreating this top. THanks to my soldier boys cousin and her tips, my daughter and I are having so much fun creating all kinds of new outfits (that I will probably never sew but enjoy drawing). Here's my first sketch.

Need to redecorate

2011-08-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those weeks/months you decide you are tired of the way something looks but just don't know what you want to replace the old.
A few weeks ago I decided the space above my fireplace had to change. Since we painted our living-room two years ago the painting above the fireplace seemed to blend into the wall too much. For a large part of the day the wood frame looked almost the same color as the wall. I wanted something more drastic but not over powering.My soldier boy was in the field and I needed some alone, adult time. I hired a sitter and made a run into town to Hobby Lobby. I walked thru the store at least ten times, up and down each isle without having to run to the potty three times, losing a child, or having to pick up things my children have taken off shelves. I love the discount isle! Especially the picture frames. I came across a large black frame for $9, it stands lengthwise as long as I am tall almost. Who could pass that up?!I roamed the store for something to go with it, plates, picture, prints, more frames, or material. As I was about to give up I came across a metal wall hanging that was also discounted due to paint peeling, $14. I took it home and covered the metal that was showing thru with some acrylic paint.Now I need to find the right balance of stuff on the mantle. I keep rearranging my trinkets to see what looks best but no right combo says "finished" yet.
The new home for our old painting is perfect. It pops more and we notice it more each time we pass it on our way into our room.
Now I am itching to start on the master bedroom, it lacks character! But everything I want to do requires the use of the garage and painting. Not happening anytime soon! Triple digits as far as the weather man can see.

Love your state?

2011-08-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

I work with the youth group at our church. We recently had two new girls moved in from out of state. We were looking for something simple to give them as a welcome gift, when I came across these again on EtsyI have been dying to order one, but never have...We were a bit crunched on time so ordering one would not be an option for these girls. After searching for something super cute to give the girls and coming up empty handed, I decided to try my hand at making it myself.

I found a clip art of our state.I imported my image into Pages and used the create your own card setting, I was going to make a few, may as well not waste card stock.

As I lined up my white card stock in my printer and hit print I selected the flip horizontally button which prints them backwards.After they were printed I cut out my card stock with my kindergarteners scissors, and flipped it blank side up. I approximated where our town is on the map and put a heart with a sharpie pen there. Then I distressed the edges a little with an ink pad to help it stand out a bit and cover some of the cut lines. I found out what each of the girls favorite colors were and with double sided tape adhered both pieces of card stock together and put it in a frame.

I wrapped them up and included a card that saidSuper simple and easy! I love them and so do the girls. In fact all the girls want one now!
Thinking of making one for each place we have lived and making a wall of them.

Live to create!

The winner is...

2011-08-02T09:06:00.003-07:00

The winner of our PinksNaptimeEscapes is...

WAHOO!!! Congrats Fokxxy!
I am finishing up a few projects for back to school then I should be back. Lots of projects planned for this fall, I just need the heat to die down a little so I can get out to the garage to start building.
Live to Create!

A little behind... got a GIVEAWAY!!

2011-07-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a family of three girls. Both of my sisters are amazing people! Both very talented! I often feel like I was the one left behind when they handed out talents in our family.

My sister K owns two marble slab ice cream stores. She can make amazing cakes. She was an amazing gymnast all thru school. People are drawn to K! She knows how to be a listening ear. She has a real knack for writing little rhymes for advertising and can memorizing things with such little effort. She got the skinny legs and thighs in the family. She is definitely the artist, and it shows on her cakes.

My Sister D- is there anything she can't do? She can act, sing, mother, dress, shop on a budget, does amazing things with her hair, bake, cook, sew, the list goes on...At 13yrs old she was teaching me (21yr) how to cook- I could burn water! She has lived with me several times over the years, and taught me a lot of what she knows. Now that she has her own family, and is off having her own adventures, she has found ways to keep herself busy. Her passion is sewing. After a lot of prodding she has finally opened her own etsy shop-PinksNaptimeEscape. So to celebrate her Grand opening (like a week ago- that's how slow I am) she has offered one of her creations for me to give away!This tied baby blanket and matching burp rag could be yours!
Great to wrap your little one in, or to add to your hope chest, or to give away as a baby gift.

Now she is new at this etsy stuff. She wants to know what the general public like, and to get her name out there. So to qualify for this give away all you have to do is 1-2-3.
1. click HERE and check her out
2. leave a comment below tell her which item is your favorite listing(with an email address so we can contact you)
3. cross your fingers you win this beauty!
NOW if you want an extra chance to win I will put your name in twice if you post this on your facebook or blog (we love to check out new blogs!)

My favorite design is her butterfly. My Ape baby had the most adorable onsie with the butterfly appliqued to it! Now tell me what's yours.

This giveaway expires at midnight MST July 31, 2011

An Itch to create

2011-07-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

After spending the week reorganizing my closet and my craft stuff, I have been dying to create! It's too hot to build furniture (which I am totally inspired to do), too hot to paint, to hot to do any landscaping (which I have tons of ideas for), I finished my last few books and am read out, SO with the AC blasting it is just the right temperature to sew.

After spending hours on Pinterest I finally found something I wanted to attempt.

I found this here I shortened it into a shirt rather than a dress.

I also attemped my first french seam! FUN!! I found this site here. I don't own a serger and we are totally on the Dave Ramsey plan and I have so many other things on my priority list right now. I hate frayed edges and French seams make so much sense on the bottom part of this shirt! Sorry no pictures just trust me, check it out!Its finished, after spending the afternoon unpicking a few mistakes I made
and then having to sew with the kids 'cause you can't bring out the machine without letting them sew something

I must say I like it! The oldest likes it too. She has request one for herself and even picked out the material she wants for hers. I'll make this again in the future!
Now I want to try out a few more patterns/ideas

Happy 4th!!

2011-07-04T11:10:00.001-07:00

KISSING TOADS, grilling, making ice cream, laughing, new T-shirts, naps, turtle races, red white and blue popcorn, family time, friends, and fireworks!
What could be better?
Happy 4th!
Thanks to all those who defend our freedom and the constitution!

Revelation and Resolve

2011-07-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I was thumbing thru a plethora of recipes and food sites looking for new ideas. As I started going thru them I realized everything that looked good and delicious was also very fattening and only going to add to my waste line.

It takes talent to cook healthy food that tastes good!
(my revelation)
I decided to try and make healthy food yummy!

(my resolve)

We spent most of the month of June on vacation. Thanks to both sets of parents! When we returned it was time to clean out the fridge (since it was already most of the way empty). In the process I realized how many eggs we had from our chickens in there. I needed to get rid of 5+doz eggs and more were coming in every day!

I found this fabulous recipe here for Spinach-Feta eggs! DELICIOUS!!(Sorry no pics of my own, wasn't cooking with the intent to share-BUT with a recipe like this who could stop themselves! Delicious!)

I made a few of my own adjustments, to make stick to my resolve. I added a few ingredients and made a few substitutions
added 1cup sliced portabella mushrooms
added basil (An OOPS! cause I grabbed the wrong jar at first, but will do it again, great flavor!)
Subbed two eggs and three egg yolks instead of four eggs
Subbed fat free milk for heavy cream
Subbed fat free feta for regular feta
I also omitted the mozza cheese (just cause i am not a big cheese person).

I HAVE to say it again It was delicious! My kids ate it and loved it! My husband made his own dinner that night and after a taste, he cleaned out what was left in the pan and on the kids plates! Definitely on my list of dinners to make again soon that won't add to my waistline!

With all the recipes in Blog world with cupcake pans I decided to make my own take on an omelet in a cupcake liner. When I first got married I heard the line "When moms on a diet the whole family is on a diet". LOL How true! We love bacon! I like the alternative-turkey bacon but the kids aren't overly anxious about it. So when its breakfast for dinner night they get bacon and I get turkey bacon. Easy resolve! They need the fat I don't! I lined the liner with a slice of bacon (for the kids/hubby) and turkey bacon (for me). Then filled the liner with 1/3cp hashbrowns and dumped a whipped eggs over each cup (6-7eggs plus a little milk makes enough for 12 muffins). Sprinkling cheese over them before baking would have been an nice added touch (but then again I am not much of a cheese person).

The Turkey bacon stayed where I wanted it to more than the bacon did, but there were no complaints on taste!

12 of these fed my small family of six easily!

Another one to add to the dinner list that won't add to my waist line!!

Happy Canada Day

2011-06-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Being Canadian has it's advantages when you are married to an American. In July it happens to be a month of fun and parties! We celebrate Canada day on the 1st and Independence day on the 4th. A whole four days of fireworks (if there isn't a burn ban-DANG! the OK drought this year), food, fun, and celebration.

Every year my mom sends Canadian T-shirts for the kids, which they proudly wear. The kids already laid theirs all out ready to adorn them tomorrow morning!

This year we decided to take a little outing to see Cars 2 and out to dinner but nothing much else for the 1st. I did however manage to make some yummy Nanaimo bars for tomorrow to throw in a little taste of home. I made these a time or two, every time with a new recipe. This year I think I found a keeper! They taste rather close to the real thing!! I found it here. I made a few adjustments-
I added 1/4cp more nuts on the bottom layer because I like nuts .
I couldn't find custard powder for the middle layer so I used 2Tbsp of corn starch and 1-1/2Tbsp vanilla instant pudding powder and added 1Tbsp more milk.
On the top layer I added another two bars of semi sweet baking chocolate.
FABULOUS!! The kids can't wait to dig into them first thing tomorrow.

I also saved a large box of Smarties for our movie tomorrow! Another taste of home!I think I am going to have to run every day this weekend just to keep up with the caloric intake planned for the festivities LOL
I really wanted to make these blueberry muffins for the kids in the AM but just can't find the energy tonight. Maybe next year...

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Graduation treats

2011-06-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

During my search for teacher gifts and I came across these tasty treats HE RE

I knew I had to make these and I had just the event in mind! A High School Graduation open house for two amazing young ladies!
They were a smash! (both the treats and the girls)

A tip- If it is 92F and humid start by freezing your chocolate treats then unwrap them so the PB cups don't stick to the wrappers. Store in the fridge before serving. They melted rather quickly making them tricky to get off the plate.
Regardless they went rather quickly.Thanks N and K for the fabulous party! Congrats on your achievements! Can't wait to see what the next few years bring to you!

Teacher gifts

2011-05-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

The kids were upset at me for not making something for their teachers for the last day of school. I felt kinda bad for neglecting them also! After all we had two of the best teachers this year!!Since the last day of school is an exemption day for the students with good grades and attendance, both of my kids were home. I scoured the blog world for a quick an easy craft they could do while we made bread and decorated a few jars of apple butter.

I came across these HERE
I had all the materials, and the kids were in a good mood to help (they even drilled most of the wholes themselves). These took very little time to put together, yet they are adorable!

I found it rather suiting since my sensitive child's teacher was named teacher of the year!
As she should be with all the crazy boys in her class. She had a knack for knowing how to encourage and challenge the kids. My son just loved to learn from her!
My Flittering butterfly's teacher was #1 in my books! This years teacher knew each student on a more personal level rather than a test score level. Our daughter went from barely passing last year to honor roll this year! She taught her students in such a way that they respected her and loved her without loosing control of the class. We love you Mrs D!! Our Flittering butterfly will forever be comparing her future teachers to you!
Thank you teachers for all you do!

Potato Porcupines

2011-05-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

I saw these on Pinterest the other day while checking things out.
(I can't remember what they called them but my sensitive child said they look like Porcupines)
The kids loved them- Granted they were all sick and these weren't ready for dinner in time (fish only takes 20min to bake, potatoes take 45min- DUH!). However, they did pick at them befor bed and asked if I would make them again tomorrow for dinner.

Such a different twist on the baked potato! (or sweet potatoes)

Just slice your potato/sweet potato into thin slices just not all the way thru. Leave a good 1/4" at the bottom to keep it all intact. You don't have to be at all precise! I sprayed mine with Olive oil spray and lightly salted (the sweet potato I sprinkled a bit of cumin on). I baked them at 400F for about 45min (the longer you bake them the crispier they are, I wanted mine to still be soft).
We just tore them off and ate them!
Delicious!
FUN!

Meal planning

2011-05-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

With the price of gas, and the cost of groceries skyrocketing it seems there is less and less of a budget these days. I have been asked by several friends to post how we stretch our grocery $$$. I, by no means am an expert in the matter but I can offer my two cents on how we manage the grocery budget.

I DON'T do coupons! I would clip them and then forget them. I never found $100+ of savings on things I use. I don't find it worth my while to clip coupons and spend money on things I don't usually buy or use, so I just avoid it.

I also LIKE food! I don't want to eat like I am on a budget, no ramen sandwiches, and tuna potato chip casseroles. I like nice tasty food. I like to try new recipes. I like to eat healthier. We eat a lot of fruit, veggies, and yogurt and still pinch our pennies.

While my mother inlaw was here over Christmas she got me started on freezer meals. In February I started eating healthier. SO between reading up on these two subjects I started to realize I needed a plan.
With these two things in mind, I planned. I planned every meal for the pay period. In so doing I created a shopping list. I then add what I need to replenish and to restock our food storage closet to my grocery list (I take a quick inventory every pay period). This takes me about 20-30 minutes, now that I have compiled my recipes in one place, and now that I am familiar with my storage closet and kitchen contents.

As general budget crunching ideas go, I try to do
1. one spaghetti meal
2. have the kids eat oatmeal a few times a week for breakfast
3. we have laying hens so we eat eggs once a week
4. try to make a few meals with the same type of meat in them beef/pork/chicken so you can buy in bulk
5. make some lunch snacks from scratch cookies/muffins/brownies and freeze them
6. find something you are good at cooking/baking that you can do from scratch to cut costs (I make bread. It costs me appr. $1.50/whole wheat loaf bread, over the $3 I pay for the good stuff we liked at the grocery store. You can soak dried beans instead of using canned beans, make your own soup stock, make your own ice cream, grow a garden and freeze produce to last all year. What ever your niche is!)
7. I make 2-3 of the exact same meal at one time and freeze the extra portions on a few meals. This gives me the option for a quick meal if I don't want to cook, I just remove from the freezer, defrost and bake. No pizza or trip to McDonald's required!
8. Don't go shopping hungry. I always eat befor heading into town for groceries. Then we usually start our trip to Walmart with a quick stop for something to munch while shopping getting a popcorn chicken at the deli (I know not so healthy!). For the extra $2 it works for us!

I have borrowed several recipe books from friends and the library. I have stalked several food blogs. I have complied a good variety of recipes my family likes. Now, I am slowly learning what recipes freeze well and others that don't.

This recipe from a previous entry is a great freezer meal! My husbands and the boys favorite!
Here are three other families favorites. I'll try to add three more later this week.
I always add more veggies than the recipe requires, and less meat. Not for the economical reasons but because I like veggies more.

Feel free to send me your family's favorite recipes!

In complete SHOCK!

2011-05-20T08:26:00.001-07:00

A big shout out to all those who have featured my last blog entry (my pocket cabinet). Everyday since Sunday I have had someone tell me of a different site or two that has picked it up and featured my post. SUPER SURPRISED!!
Last night while checking my stats I was blown away, then again this morning when I saw yesterdays final numbers 2257 hits!! Up to this point my highest was in the 500s for three days when this post was featured on a home and garden blog for my trellis.

A big shout out to all those who have featured me Thank you!! And to all you who have dropped by and left a comment. I am flattered!

Cabinet DIY completed and tutorial

2011-03-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

OK ladies and gentalmen the day I have been waiting for!! A completed product! It is full installed.

Isn't she lovely!!

There are a few kinks I am working out and a finishing touch still waiting to happen but she is functional!

Heres a run down how we did this baby.

I measured and taped on the wall, where I wanted each shelf to fit all the cans I wanted into it. Husband comes in and measures from the top of the fridge to the floor takes into account the casters we bought and cuts the wood (shorter than I wanted!). Huge debate and "you never listen to me" discussion happens "whats done is done all isn't lost" half apology comes and then we are off to work again.

We called a friend to router the front and back pieces so we can use either side, 20min later he returns with beautifully edged wood. Thanks Jimmy!!

Then we built the box.

The outer box is the only thing we screwed, just to give it a little extra stabilitystability.

I will cover these wholes with little furniture buttons as soon as I can get into town to get some.

We doubled up the bottom and top boards (we glued one piece of oak and one piece of pine to save on money and still have the oak to screw into to make it sturdy). This was to help keep it square and the casters need something solid to screw into.

I then measured out where I wanted the shelves. Since we made the box first (mans idea remember his measuring) then I had to do the math to figure out how many shelves I could get in that space. I knew I wanted each shelf about 7.5" so I could easily get the cans in and out with the dowels. After laying one shelf inside, I found all I needed was 6.5" between each piece of wood. So I got the number of shelves I originally wanted LOL plus an extra little shelf for the little cans! I measured from the bottom of our box each time we nailed a shelf to insure if I messed up (which I did by 1/4" on one shelf) all the rest wouldn't be messed up too.

We bought for the more expensive better looking "select pine" for the shelves rather than oak to save the pocketbook. Select pine is my new favorite craft wood, very little if any sanding needed!

We then drilled whole for the dowels to set in.

We used a template for this. We measured from where we wanted the dowels to go and then drilled a hole straight thru a scrap piece. We lined up the template and stuck the drill bit thru and drilled in about 1/8-1/4". This saved so much time! I didn't need to measure each shelf and where to drill. (I married a smart man!) We cut the dowels 1/2" wider than the shelves and they slid right in with a little dab of glue on each end.

A quick sand, a quick stain, let stand for 24-36hrs, add the casters, nail on the back, then a medium coat of poly urethane, screw on the handle and empty your shelves!!

Look how much room I have! (Wish I would have gotten a before pic! Half of those cans were in this cupboard with the all the rest of what is still in there )

Doesn't she fit well! I need to add a small six inch rail on the wall to keep it from scrapping it all up but my soldier boy can do that with a scrap from the back when he gets home in three weeks.

I will suggest you don't buy small casters (I didn't want them to be than visible). We doubled up three rows of small 50Lb casters (6sm casters in total). Because they each swivel and aren't always swiveling in the same direction it takes a extra pull out and then push back sometimes to line them all up. Another thing my dear soldier boy can help me with when he gets home- we can install the larger 1.5-2" flat ball caster.

For now I am enjoying my new cupboard!

Now to figure out what to do with this over cluttered spice and baking supply cupboard...

Princess sashes

2011-03-05T18:58:00.001-08:00

I am involved with the youth group at church. Each year the girls take time to welcome the new girls into the program and to rededicate themselves to setting goals, we call this New Beginnings.

After a quick brainstorm we came across a few princess themed skits and things started to evolve. Unfortunately I was unable to attend as soldier boy is away-tending four kids and trying to encourage a peaceful spiritual feeling is next to impossible with my herd! BUT I was able to contribute!

We wanted each of the girls to walk away feeling like a pretty princess.

My job was to create sashes for each girl to wear like Miss America.

What I used

2" wide ribbon

glitter glue pens

your favorite font to fit printed out as a template

(I used Curlz at 230)

Because it was 10pm by the time I finally got around to starting this project I decided to just print it out with a space between each letter when I typed it rather than try to figure out how to make it print up and down, then I cut each letter out and taped to the table.

I then taped the ribbon over top of the template were I wanted the texted to be (about 10-12" from the end) and I started to trace with my glitter pens in each of the value colors.

Towards the end I was running low on glitter and had to find a way to get every last bit of glitter out of my pen. Gotta love Twix-it clips!

Here they are all laid out to dry. The perfect accessory for every runway princess!

My daughter is super excited to pick through the leftovers at church tomorrow and take one home for herself!

DIning room decor and absent husband

2011-02-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

The soldier boy left for a nice and lengthy field exercise. Left me and the four kids to hold the fort- won't he be surprised when he gets home with all the projects I have lined up for the next few weeks ;-)

First one CHECK!

This is our kitchen/dinning room before we bought our house. Some days I wish we could go back to this beautifully clean and unscathed kitchen...

I have never been much for decorating! I think I have been intimidated by breaking rules, and making it look worse rather than better.

I let my husband do the decorating when we first moved in

He put up big huge poster sheets to help him with his homework.

Then we had some random sheets of paper on the wall, I don't even know what they were for

(you can kinda see them in the background)

And then there were the barrettes, which I am sad to say I never took a photo of today befor I removed the hideous sight. I had three 2-3ft random lengths of ribbon pinned full of bows, and flowers. The hooks were past their capacity with headbands. Not dining room material!

You can kinda see two of the three ribbons on the left in this photo taken befor Christmas.

That has been the extent of dining room decor!

Pretty lame!

I kinda knew what I wanted but just have been holding off.

I was at the local craft store and happened upon their 80% off isle. I was shuffling thru their picture frames and found a 35.5"X35.5" frame for $4.77!!

As I walked around trying to find something to match it I happened upon a few cutlery wall hanging thingies. I played a bit with them and finally decided on one.

It wasn't exactly what I had picture but hey the price was right!

Grand total $21.78

It still needs something maybe a few Decorative plates on each side, but for now it is an improvement. I think tomorrow I will go thru the paint bucket in the garage and touch up the tape spots LOL

Best be off to inhaling some more paint fumes! Almost have the can rack ready for laquer and a backing- maybe this weekend.

Cabinet DIY

2011-02-21T20:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend we have done a ton of little projects and a bit of cleaning. You know you suck at cleaning when your friend comes over and says "Wow I have never seen your house this clean!" ;-)

So here is a picture overload.

You know that non functional drawer looking thing under the sink. We have seen other peoples houses with these little cubbies under there. Our draw in the kitchen was loose so we pulled it off around Christmas and just never got around to nailing it back on. While out on a date to Lowes we found these kits that take 15 min to install and cost only $15!!

Non functional gone functional!!

We liked them so much we got them for the bathroom. Now I don't have to hear my husband complain my hair is in his toothbrush. If he has hair in his toothbrush it is his own fault, it is nowhere near my brush.

While my in-laws were here in January we installed those little screw hooks under our plate rack to free up some more cabinet space. Thanks Mom!!

I have my German Weihnachts Markt mugs hanging on display. I love looking at them and having a daily reminder of all the fun times we had in Germany right below my Polish pottery.

Now I am itching to share this project, even in its infancy!

We spent the day putting this baby together.

You know that space between the fridge and the wall...well we filled it. Last weekend while staying at my sisters friends, they had a little shelf to store cans for this empty space. Being the food-storage-nazi and in-need-of-a-craft person I am, I jumped at the idea. We bought our first cuts of oak (love it way more than pine!!) It smells so good while we were drilling holes and cutting.

So here it is! It is not fully complete-I need to spend the next few days sanding it and staining it, then I can tack on the back panel and find a handle for it.

We have a friend who routed out the edges for us. Thank You JIMMY!! It looks amazing!

We handed him the end boards and 20min later he brought back a very professionally looking piece to match our already existing cabinets.

The inspiration can cabinet had a ledge to hold the cans in, I replaced the ledge with dowels.

I am so thrilled, it turned out better than expected after a rough start (slight miss understanding between soldier boy and I, a miss measurement and a bit of an emotional outbreak). I love this piece! I can't wait to load it up with cans! I can't wait to have it all finished! Now my biggest dilema is do I empty another cupboard and find another function for it, or do I treat myself to more food storage to fill it? LOL

I just couldn't wait to share.

Hope you all had a great Presidents day!

Freezer meals and meal planning

2011-02-16T07:40:00.001-08:00

One of our family New Years resolutions was to save up for a fence.

During a family night we all discussed ways we could cost spending and thus add money to our savings, and reduce our occasional over spending.

The kids decided they would be energy police. They would be better at turning lights off, open the drapes during the day to let in natural light and close them at night to keep the cold out. They would shut the door (a big problem). Get in and then get out of the fridge, no dilly dallying! And we would knock the heater down a notch.

My soldier boy decided to forgo coming home between PT and work in the morning. He would shower at work and take cereal and milk with him for breakfast. Thus saving us on gas money.

I decided since groceries are the biggest part of our budget I would try to cut wastefulness here.

During a my in-laws last visit my MIL told me about her freezer meals. I fell in love with the idea of not cooking EVERYDAY!! I scoured her cookbooks she brought and copied a few recipes and then went thru what we normally eat and came up with a few that would work.

I then took it one step further. I started a meal plan. I plan for my whole paychecks worth of meals. I write down every ingredient I need, and then I go shopping, I only by what is on the list. Over the course of the next few days I make my meals. I make enough of one dinner for 2-3meals and freeze the extras. I portion it out so we don't have a ton of leftovers no one eats. I love it!! The first paycheck we had $70 left over in our grocery envelope! with plenty of meals to spare in the freezer.

I cleaned out my freezer and used all the random bags of this and that to help fill my meal bags.

I place my meals in ziplock bags and write on each one what it is and how to prepare it.

I even have a shelf for my bread. (I don't bother wrapping them because we go thru them so fast!) I filled the bottom draw half with my cookies, muffins, and other lunch snacks and the other half with my fruits that I use regularly for smoothies

The top shelf houses individual portions for the picky eater or for lunches.
I also started to make freezer mixes for my bread. I put everything I need except the wet ingredients in yogurt containers and freeze them for the next time I make bread or incase of emergencies when I need a fresh loaf for someone. It reduces the mess of taking everything out.

Not only have I saving myself money but time! not to mention my freezer looks organized! I know exactly what is in it now!

One step closer to having a fence!!

baby shower gifts

2011-01-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

You might remember this post HERE when I made our Ape baby a few pairs of new shoes.

These are one of them

I made an adorable pair of shoes and matching head band for a baby shower this weekend. They are by far my favorite pair of shoes I have made! I just love them! Normally you can expect a hair bow from me in your gift bundle, but I see more shoes in future gifts from me.

If you are interested in the pattern and tutorial here is where I got it from. It takes me about an hour to whip these babies together IF I work straight through.

My personal advise for this pattern is

-I personally like the look of the seams turned out on the back. It gives it a more finished less homemade look I think, plus it hides the seams better.

-When making them for Ape baby I traced her foot and found the sole to be too wide so I trimmed it down especially at the toe. Next time I made her some the sole was too short so I added a 1/4" all around the sole and then a 1/2" to the length of the top and back pieces.

-For these I traced the sole of a new born pair of shoes at Walmart and then cut down top and back to fit. The pattern is VERY forgiving in that regard!

-For walkers for the sole I use heavy jean from old pants or remnant leather from Hobby Lobby I found for $3 of scrap pieces and made two pairs out of it. (Not costly!)

Happy Crafting!

Homemade Christmas

2011-01-23T18:06:00.002-08:00

So we made each one of the kids something homemade this year. Granted I can't seem to remember for the life of me what we made our lil Ape baby...hmm.

It was fun. We included the kids in on it to. Everyone got a piece of artwork from our Emo child. And the older two helped with a few of the other projects. It was so fun to see them wrap the present and know they had made it. I love those smiles! and the memories of sewing, wood working, and designing are priceless.

The necklace I made for Flittering Butterfly. I had made her another one (check it out in this post) and decided it was just to old for her and gave it away. This one suits her personality better and was the perfect match for her Christmas outfit Grandma bought her.

I got the idea of a Zhu Zhu pet bed from my sister in-law. She made these HERE.

I asked Flittering Butterfly if she wanted to make one for the Sensitive child and she designed this for her brother. I helped sew the curves but she did all the rest. He was thrilled (until his Zhu Zhu pet landed in a toilet full of urine and quickly found his way to the trash YUCK!) I still need to replace it...For now his sisters Zhu Zhu pet has been making good use of the bed LOL

A week before Christmas Emo boy declared all he wants for Christmas is an airplane. I was not about to spend another penny or brave the over trafficked stores, so Soldier boy went out to the garage and put this together with the Sensitive child.

Emo boy quickly made it his own and named his plane "iLRAYo"

This is a bad picture. I took it right before my Mother inlaw was about to pack it up.

I made her a chalk board out of an old cabinet door. I love it! I need to make myself one.

I also discovered chalk markers! I use these all the time now.

I made this for a girl friend. (A lady at church helped me with the colors Thank goodness) I am not so good at that sort of thing. I have a frame to make one for myself I just have to get around to deciding where I want to put it and then agonize over colors again.

I love any excuse to craft LOL but to give them all away makes it that much more fun!

So there you have it...my Christmas creations. I have been so overwhelmed with trying to post this-that wasn't too bad. Now I can start sharing what we have been up to since Christmas :-)

Hanukkah

2011-01-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

This year I got a wild hair to celebrate Hanukkah. We aren't jewish, nor have I ever celebrated Hanukkah befor. We have acquaintances that are jewish but they live no where near us. I did a bit of research online and then took out every book in our library (8 children's books, one for every day of Hanukkah). I decided what I wanted to focus on- the scriptures, the candle lighting, the dreidel game, a few recipes, and learning the history behind the celebration and traditions.

If you dont know much about Hanukkah read here

The first thing we did was prepare our menorah. Being in the bible belt I couldn't find a place to buy one, plus I really wanted to make our own. SO I went with something inexpensive and indestructible (1yr old wont stay off the table!). I cut a long 1x3 as the base and then a bunch of smaller 2x2s to accommodate the candles. I had dear soldier boy shoot a nail up thru the end of each board to drive thru the candles and help hold them in place. The kids painted them and voila, easy peasy!

(I lost two candles between the store and the house and had to go back to get more but procrastinated till the last moment possible)

Don't look too hard! I had the soldier boy put the candles on and he had the brilliant idea to heat the candle befor pushing it on the nail, which blackened the candles, and the candles aren't all too straight UGH! Not too pretty

But when they were all lit the kids didn't care, they were just fun!

Next came the games. I made these dreidels out of more 2x2s and round wooden joiner thingies. I cut the ends at 45degree angles to create a point and then drilled a hole just big enough for the joiner to fit in. I made ten of these so the kids could take them to school and talk about what they had learned and teach the class how to play the dreidel game. I painted one (and packed it up with all the Christmas stuff), the others I just left raw and free handed the symbols on the sides.

Then I planned out the meals for the week. We tried a meat brisque type thing, the kids loved the potato pancakes so we had those a few times and we had fish another night...can't remember the rest.

So Latkes are potato pancakes. In Germany they would serve these at the fests. YUMMY!! I found this basic recipe. Just like I remembered!

2cps grated potatoes (I used hashbrowns I am lazy)

small onion grated

2 eggs

2Tbsp matzah meal

1tsp salt

oil for frying

Mix all together. drop by the spoonfuls into hot oil (about 1/4-1/2" deep). Fry on both sides

Serve with applesauce or sour cream.

I stole the image from here

We also made Sufganiyot or fried doughnuts. They were delicious. I had to hide some so I could snap a shot befor they disappeared. I dipped some in cinnamon sugar and others in powdered sugar. Notice which ones went faster ;-)

The recipe I have for this one is too long to type with the ape baby on my lap. Sorry!

My goals were to read a book a night and learn something new each night about the jewish culture and this tradition- we accomplished that!

We also built many fun memories around learning. THe kids are all excited to learn about another culture next year. Any suggestions?

Chicken Curry Soup

2011-01-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Upon request here is my sisters Chicken Curry Soup

Sorry none left to take a photo of :-) unless you want me to take a bag out of the freezer...so here is a stock photo

*Sisters Disclaimer* this is not an exact science

WARNING THIS MAKES A LOT! For us it makes three meals. I freeze the left overs in ziplock bags.

Chicken Curry Soup

2-4 chicken breasts, small cubes
2 cans cream corn
1carton Chicken broth
2cans Coconut milk (one for soup one for rice)
1Qt Cream (I use 1can fat free evaporated milk, I like it thick & don’t need cal)
1med red bell pepper, diced
1/4cp onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2-3Tbsp Curry (I like lots)
2Tbsp Flour
1tsp pepper
1med banana ripe
dash Cayenne pepper (optional)
1-2cps uncooked rice

Cook rice according to package, replace one cup of water with a can of coconut milk.
In large stock pot brown onions, garlic and chicken.
Remove from pot and set aside, leaving any remaining juices in the pot.
Add chicken broth and red peppers to stock pot and boil till tender.
Remove peppers and 1cp broth add flour and blend till smooth in blender or magic bullet
Return pepper mixture to stock pot add one can coconut milk, and cream/evaporated milk, and spices. Stir well
Add chicken and corn (don’t drain). Place banana in a small strainer or tie in cheese cloth and emerge in soup. Bring to boil for 10-15min stirring occasionally
Remove banana and throw it away.
Mix in rice and serve.
Notes- I usually use brown rice and it works with this recipe. I also like Curry so I usually add a little extra. I mush the banana a little to squeeze all the juices out before I throw it away. The riper the banana the better. I usually use one that I have frozen for banana bread.

Homemade gifts

2010-12-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

Every time we celebrate with gift giving we try to give one hand made gift.

I made this for my flittering butterfly for Christmas, but I am thinking it might be a little old for my nine year old. What's your opinion?

Cream and copper beads with layered cream and brown metallic sheer ribbons

I don't really wear much jewelry but I might just have to steal this piece!

My soldier boy says it looks very classy.

I love clearance items! I made this for $4.58 and still have left overs for another one!

Would you give this to a nine year old?

Neighbour gifts

2010-12-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

I am on a serious sugar high after sampling all of these delicious treats! Someone has to make sure they are made to perfection ;-P

My husband is going to love all the dishes I left him

I saw a blog some where out there in blog world recently with an eggnog substitute recipe that I really wanted to try. Our Internet company is upgrading their line, so we have had to put up with a rather slow connection these past few weeks...
So to keep my sanity googled "eggnog substitute" in search of a similar recipe and found this
I replaced the vanilla pudding with vanilla flavored powdered creamer, I used powdered milk and omitted the rum extract.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
I tried it warm and cold. I like my milk COLD! If it isn't cold enough I put ice cubes in it. So I had to mix this and then refrigerate it for later because what I mixed was not something I could stomach. While I waited I heated some up in the microwave. It wasn't half bad. Not my favorite but not bad.

I decided to alter my plan, I mixed the vanilla creamer (abt 1.5cups, I got the sugar free kind) with some cinnamon (abt 1/8-1/4cup)and nutmeg (abt 2-4Tbsp). I packaged that as my mix. It was perfect! I was surprised how like Eggnog it was. I just whisked in 2tsp with 1cup of fat free milk. Definitely a guilt free delight for this over indulgent season. Also something I can share with my husband who doesn't eat/drink chocolate.

My other two mixes I bought a #10 can of my favorite hot chocolate mix and added to it. I will be doing more of these tomorrow.
I did one with vanilla creamer.
4 cups chocolate mix
1 cup powdered creamer
I tried an almond creamer and didn't like it so I opted against making any of it.

I had a bar of gourmet chocolate (one of those outrageously large 20Lb bar that just never ends). I shaved it down for another additive. Definitely death by chocolate!
4 cups chocolate mix
1.5 cups of shaved chocolate

Tomorrow I plan on picking up a few more creamers (thinking hazelnut and caramel), some candy canes, and Andes candies to add to my next jars. I also need to scheme up some decorative tag for each jar.
Hope you are all staying healthy, warm, and full of holiday cheer!

Last minute Me

2010-12-02T22:26:00.000-08:00

I am the master of Procrastination!

I have so many wonderful little projects that are lying around just waiting to be shared but every time I turn around I have forgotten to do another project for something else. So, my show and tell gets put on the back burner while I make things like this for class Christmas programs TOMORROW

I am excited to share our latest adventures and new family tradition!
Maybe tomorrow *sigh*

Cheap Headboard

2010-11-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

With any reno, I hate spending exuberant amounts of money on something that I know can be done myself and for much less. You can make this project for a grand total of $41 (Some of the materials I had lying around so it really only cost me $23!

I took one of these

And turned it into this

We framed off the pallet with a little help

We boxed the pallet off with 2x4s (not shown) This was done to make it the desired width and height as well as to stabalize it.
Then we tacked on some peg board to the open end to provide a completely flat surface (we had it lying around), this also acts as a stabalizer and helps to square it all off.

I then laid out the material and batting and lined up one of the sides and stapled it with the help of my soldier boy

I used good quality thick home decor material. I lucked out that it happened to be on sale!
The batting was the thickest I could find the package said it was 1" thick.
We stapled (thanks to my new nail/staple gun) down the right side then I strectched the material as soldier boy stapled the left side.
My soldier boy was having way to much fun!
The air gun blows a puff of air and I kept getting it in the face UGH!

Then I trimmed the batting on the corners and folded the material to get a perfect corner and started stretching and stapling all the way across the bottom. Then did the same on the top making sure to stretch it all out and checking every foot or so to catch any wrinkles or flaws.
(Don't mind the hair I hadn't showered yet!)
So there you have it! A spanking new, inexpensive head board!

NOTE: One could use a manual staple gun for this! They run around $10-15. It just takes a little more elbow grease but I have done it before and it works just great.

We learned the importance of squaring your base on this project and how to use something square to help fix your problems. It was a good precursor to the bed building we did next!

Surprise room makeover

2010-11-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

For my daughter's (our Flittering butterfly's) birthday this year we thought we would give her a mini room makeover. We know we will be relocating this spring so we didn't want to paint the room. We stuck strictly to redecorating the room. She shares the room with the baby so we focused on her side of the room and will do our Ape babies half when we move her to a big girl bed.

Here are the befores

We had primed, and painted all the pieces to her bed prior to today. So as soon as she stepped foot on the bus we hustled into high gear and ran all day. We cleared out the room and disassembled her bed. Next we built her headboard (more on this in my next post), then we assembled the new bed, and then finished it up only moments before she got home (literally 30 seconds before she stepped of the bus).

She loves it!! She was totally surprised!

She couldn't wait to fall asleep in her new bed!

Naming our abode

2010-11-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been reading a few books on decorating your home. One of them suggested starting by naming your space. It is easier to take pride in something you have put thought into, and made your own. I by no means follow any decorating sense! I am so clueless but liked this idea.
My husbands family grow up in the "Hill"ton (Hill being the last name) but not something we could use here. While I was on the lookout for something to name our abode I received a note from Aunt Joann. She shared her fond memories growing up of raising chickens (a recent adventure of ours) and how they named their chicken coop.
Feeling very much like a mother hen trying to gather her chicks constantly and shielding them from the worldly storms brewing around us I felt it fitting to let the coop's name live on. Two generations later...we have named this coop

the Roecker Roost

Low Fat Corn Chowder

2010-11-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

Ok so I think we are over the sickies, I have disinfected and caught up on my sleep and my laundry. I have been avoiding the creative side of me because I am a bit overwhelmed with the Flittering butterflies room makeover due to happen next week for her birthday. I just need to start plunking one project a day out for it and get a move on so it will get done.

My Boys have been begging for me to craft with them! So one yesterday they went out to the garage and decided to take things into their own hands. They found a few pieces of scap wood and build these BY THEMSELVES!

My soldier boy helped them tape the sail on. These are the most perfect bathtub toys!!

The weather in Southern Oklahoma has started to cool off putting me into a soup kick. Huge batches of soup have been cooking in the crockpot all week long and what we didn't eat now fill the shelves in my freezer.
My favorite soup recipe is one I have for Low fat Corn chowder

You need
1 carton Chicken broth
3 cans cream corn (or canned corn pureed in the blender)
1 package Candian bacon (8slices) diced
1/8-1/4 cup Dehydrated onions
1/4 cup dehydrated carrots or 1cup diced fresh carrots
3-4 cups hashbrowns
1 can fat-free evaporated milk
Salt, pepper to taste

Dump all but the evaporated milk into the crockpot stir and turn on high for about 4hrs. Remove lid for last 30minutes to thinken it up. Unplug and stir in can of Fat free evaporated milk. Replace lid and let sit while you set the table and gather the family. Enjoy!

Sicklies

2010-11-04T21:57:00.000-07:00

I have three sickies this week!
It has been one of those weeks I am glad I was prepared for.
Two with pink eye, all but one have thrown up, one with Bronchitis, and one with a double ear infection. Every 8 hrs I set up an assembly for the ones taking meds. So far my flittering butterfly is the only one in good health. (Knock on wood)
I am working on some fun projects I can't wait to finish and share! First things first I need to get these kidlets healthy again. Hope to see you by early next week with a fun project I can't wait to share- a family memory will live on...

First attempt

2010-10-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you remember the post i did with the guy that makes amazing things out of pancakes last week. Check it out here
Well we thought we would try it. Our first attempt was spent working with the consistency of the batter and the heat of the griddle. We used a condiment bottle from walmart and cut the opening a little bit bigger. We thinned out the batter a little bit and turned the grill down so it wouldn't burn the pancakes.
We just had fun! Everyone came with ideas of what to try next. I don't think we will eat pancakes the same way again! Granted we are no where near as awesome as the dad at Jimspancakes my kids didn't notice thats all that matters right?! Heres us playing with our food.

My soldier boy won
Since Emo boy is cat in the hat for Halloween we had to make him a hat

Sticking with the Halloween season we did a witches hat and broom stick

And living in Oklahoma my soldier boy who isn't much of a foot ball fan spent the previous evening watching football with the guys at a party so heres his shout out for team pride LOL

There were plenty more that didn't make the cut including each kid with their names. Here is a butterfly, and a flower, and a pumpkin.

You should give it a try! Fun for the whole family! Thinking of making this our Sunday night tradition for a few weeks.

Halloween Costumes complete!

2010-10-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!
We had a Halloween party to attend tonight so I HAD to have Halloween prepared a whole week early (Thank goodness cause now I can enjoy the week without too much stress.)
We went for a family theme this year
Dr Suess

My Emo boy LOVES Cat and the Hat. Everyday he visits PBSkids.com he plays mainly on the cat and the hat games and watches the movies. He and my sensitive one have been caught a few times talking in rhymes like the books! SO I had plans for a red and white hat for him.

Last week I came across a site that had Sam I Am as a costume to compliment the Cat in the Hat. I HAD TO COPY! (I never got to the sign or the hat but I have a week to finish that)
My sensitive one Loves his costume. Next time I will not use felt I will buy some thing that will last longer!
Live and learn. It may hold its shape really well but it stretches and pells really easily

When my flittering butterfly found out Emo and Sensitive were going with Dr Suess characters she wanted to also. I searched for something clever and Cindy Lou Who was all I could come up with. She pulls it off well.

Ape baby had to stick with the theme. I wanted to make her Gustav-the fish in the bowl but ended up with One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish in a fish bowl. This was the funnest yet most challenging costume to put together! I am definitely learning my limitations in the sewing department!

Here they are!
the Dr Suess group.
For next weekend I will have Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes for me and my soldier boy just not enough time today to finish them today.
Have a fabulous week!

Costume previews

2010-10-21T21:40:00.001-07:00

Can you guess who we are going to be??

Definitely learning my limitations on sewing and designing my own patterns!
1.Felt is itchy-not the best idea for a costume! even if it is cheap and holds it's shape really well!
2.I liked the challenge of sewing the brim on a hat
3.You CAN print on material from your home printer! It just took a little patience, but now I KNOW what my printer likes it is so super easy!!
4.Don't let your 8yr old help cut your pattern out or you may just end up having to do it all again yourself (good thing I bought extra material, and I am the queen of mess ups so I just do a few adjustments and altered my original design)
5.I love family themed Halloween costumes!!

Food art

2010-10-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

Check out this guys presentation of PANCAKES!!!

The coolest dad ever!!

Gives a new meaning to playing with your food!

Check him out here

Cleaning tip- stove tops

2010-10-12T06:43:00.001-07:00

How many of you have one of these?

I have had a a glass top stove for almost 4+yrs now. I hate to clean them. If any food gets on them it cooks and is almost impossible to clean off. My mother in-law bought me a bottle of specially design liquid cleaner but it never was easy. The instructions suggested you first use a razor blade to scratch off dried on food, and then spread it on and leave it for 10-15 minutes. BY that time I have lost all interest in cleaning it! I spent many hours it seemed scrubbing the dang food off and never really getting anywhere. Plus once the bottle was gone I really hated forking out that much money for the special cleaner!

In our attempt to save the budget, remember this post here we started using vinegar or bleach in place of Lysol. Well I have discovered that the combination of vinegar and baking soda do a lovely job on a glass top stove! I spray it down with vinegar then sprinkle baking soda over top, you can actually hear it work ;-). I then grab my scrubber (something safe for glass tops) and most of the mess cleans up with little effort! I use a rag to clean it all off. If it looks too streaky I just spray with vinegar again and buff it up with a dry rag.

You end up with a shiny cook top- too shiny to get a good picture of LOL
Clean and shiny at a fraction of the cost and effort!!
Happy cleaning!

MIA

2010-10-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

This has been the month of BIG projects. I think I have bit off a little more than I could chew at times.
Next week we lose two great people in our congregation. They have been serving a two year mission (the whole 24months being spent with us). We wanted to honor them in a special way for all the love and support they have given to us during their time here in Indian country. Two of the most wonderful people you will ever meet!!

A friend of mine asked if I would help her out with putting together a farewell gift. She had the idea I just did the leg work and helped piece it together and tie it. We sewed a 80 something hearts on scrap pieces of material and grabbed our fabric pens. We then had members of our congregation write love notes to them. Once we had them all back we got to sewing.

Here is our finished project all wrapped up and ready to be presented

She was so surprised we got away without her knowing anything about it. She had no idea!

I was a dork and only brought my wide angle lens so I didn't get a photo of the whole thing and both of their faces LOL I love the Hero heart right in the middle!

Some many wonderful things were written. It was fun for everyone to lay it out on the floor and find their message and read some of the ones we mailed off and got back.

Since these missionaries are from Maine we thought we would make this a poofy quilt. We added triple batting, I know you can't really tell but it is super poofy, great for those New England winters.

I love this idea and will use it again in the future. Granted my kids better be a little older so I don't have to lay the pieces out a million times after Ape baby steals a few or Emo boy races his cars across it. What a lovely memory they have that is so personal from every member of our congregation!
Plus I had so much fun hanging out with my friend Kathie for hours on end talking all kind of nonesense! Love you Kathie!

baby shoes

2010-10-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

My ape baby has such high insteps that she fights the battle of the bulge when wearing shoes. She absolutely hates wearing shoes. With as active as we try to stay and her independence there is no way I will let her go without them (plus our yard is full of sticker/pickers/briars it is a matter of necessity). My baby sister sent me this link
I was so excited to make my ape baby something comfy for her feet. She absolutely loves her shoes. She will grab them and try to put them on herself. They must be comfy.

I chose jean for the bottom layer of the shoe, for a little more durability than the flannel- leftover scraps from the kids cut offs.

I lined the sole with a layer of felt between two layers (felt and jean) on the bottom.
I chose jean for the bottom layer of the shoe.

These are so super easy and fun to make!

Pennant bunting

2010-09-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I came across a cake similar to this one on etsy Here.

Of course then I had different ideas on what I was going to do for my ape baby's 1st birthday. As the day crept up on me and had to change my ideals and thought back to this idea.
I made the pennant bunting rather quickly, but as I put it together I realized I used the wrong size sharpie and really wasn't loving it. So then I had soldier boy print off a monkey on card stock. Wasn't loving it either.

Well I searched thru my scrapbooking stuff and found a black and white flower. I pulled out the pink nail polish and voila a cute lil girl monkey with a stylin' flower just like my lil ape baby!
She loved it!! She was so excited.

I would do this again in a heart beat! I love this new fad!

Punched tin- another UFO

2010-09-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

This year my soldier boy and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. We decided to be low key about it. Ten years is the gift of aluminum or tin. I thought it would be fun to do something with aluminum or tin as a themed gift.
I walked thru the hardware store looking for ideas. I walked down an isle of these

I knew just what I wanted to do. I found one that opened up so I could flatten it out and one that wasn't too thick so I could actually do something with it.
I found an image and learned how to reverse images on a Mac (without my husbands help).
Back in the day Toy Story one had just come out. As we looked at ourselves in the mirrors moments after we were married my soldier boy looped his arm thru mine as he pointed a finger upward, he whispered in my ear "To infinity and beyond!" So I chose to frame the image of the temple we were sealed in with those very words.
I gathered these tools

An embossing tool, my very own tin snips, and a 4lb hammer.
I taped my reverse images to the backside of my aluminum venting and started hammering my image into the venting.

I taped it down to a board knowing it would take me a while to finish and didn't want to have anything move on me.

Heres a close up of my punches.
In my quest to finish all my UFO's (UnFinished Objects) I pulled this out and 5months later have it finished and framed.

I used gorilla glue to adhere it flat up against my picture frame.

One year birthday outfit

2010-09-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

I know it has been done before but I just love having a little girl to do things like this for!

Yesterday was our Ape baby's first birthday! No lil girl should celebrate her first without a new outfit! LOL She is quite the precious little treasure!

Do you remember this post when I used a leftover shirt to remake a onsie. Same idea here. I even got to use some of my grandmothers buttons on her barrette. My favorite addition is the cork screw ribbon to top the candle with.

Side note- Have you ever seen one of these?

The chickens even celebrated our Ape baby's first by laying our first green egg! We now have two laying hens! Just wish I knew which one so I could give it a little more lovin and a thank you!

Halloween blocks

2010-09-13T18:39:00.001-07:00

Take a look at these!!

One of my favorite times of day is the time I spend alone with this boy!
Meet Emo boy.

While the older two are in school and the younger one is napping me and Emo boy usually watch TV, read, play games, learn letters and almost always do some sort of craft or drawing.
Today I wanted to make something fun for Halloween. It had to be with wood as I am not allowed to buy any more crafting stuff until I get rid of some of my materials first.
I turned to google images for some inspiration and came across these foam sticker thingies.

I got out a paper and pen to sketch and away we went.

What I used-
2x4 cut to 8"
black/white/light purple card stock
toilet paper roll
purple/green acrylic paint
silver spray paint
sharpie
adhesive (I used Mod podge)

We painted the hunks of wood. Then I free handed my faces with chalk on the cardstock. I cut out my desired hair, eyes (2 black circles slightly bigger than your 2 slightly white circles per character), mouth for Frankenstein, nose for Dracula (light purple card stock). I placed them where I wanted them then drew the nose on Frank and the mouth on Dracula with a sharpie and put a dot on each white circle. I then mod podged my face in place. While I waited for it to dry I cut two 2" strips off my toilet paper roll. I cut slits about a 1/4" down on one side and folded them in like this.

I then spray painted them silver. I used the folds to adhere the ears onto the Frankenstein head.
For Dracula's ears/wings (as Emo boy calls them) I just folded the ears in a 1/4" and glued the fold to the head. Emo boy just had to have a mustache for Dracula so we added a mustace from the leftover trim from his hair line.

My little man loves his Dracula! He watched TV with us this afternoon, went for a bike ride with us, played army tanks with us, and even ate dinner with us. Simple pleasures out of a hunk of wood...
When the older two kids came home from school they wanted to create one too. My flittering butterfly made this pumpkin cat

My Sensitive child and my soldier boy are working on a viking (should be interesting considering the lil man already painted his orange like his sisters).

September long

2010-09-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

Can't say we did much of anything this weekend.
About the only interesting thing we did was enjoy the first of our flock...
Meet Top Dog. Isn't he beautiful?! He has the most gorgeous colors and the most beautiful crow!
Recently he has gotten quite aggressive with the other chickens so he had to go! :-(

This is my soldier boy getting up enough guts to do the deed. He has "chicken"-ed out a few times all ready. Neither one of us has ever killed, and butchered a chicken before...

Did you know that if you hang a chicken upside down by its feet it goes limp and is very calm?
Well I will spare you the in between images but this is what top dog now looks like.

Yummy chicken and dumplings!
For as much slack as we got for trying rooster meat, we enjoyed it. The meat wasn't tough or nasty at all. I could have added more salt, but that was easy to fix. It will be a few more months until the younger chickens will be ready for another meal, but in the mean time we will enjoy our one laying hen and the last of our chicken and dumplings.

I am taking the week off to get my house in order and organize myself. We have a big 1st birthday coming up, I am finishing another UFO (UnFinished Objects), and we are starting to plan a big surprise bedroom makeover. I am very excited to share with you our projects!

Jewelry

2010-09-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

Jewelry making is not my art! But I found something I can do and it looks decent.
A few months back JK Made posted these beauties

I had my Brother in-law who was making a trip to Harbor freight pick me up a few different size stamps. I have made a few to give away but never took any pictures but this one.

Well I wanted something else to do with these for the boys. I found all kinds of ideas. You could stamp them to make key chains, or as gift tags, or to label hooks.
Then I saw these here

Still not for the boys! but I had to make these

Still on the look out for something the boys could make I saw a tutorial on D.I.Y. TV an online little series. Now that I want to blog about them, do you think I could find there URL?! UGH Story of my life.
The boys have since lost theirs, but me and my Flittering Butterfly have been making a few examples for our churches Christmas craft day.

What did we use?
A washer
NAIL POLISH
diamond glaze
a toothpick
How?
Simply paint the washer your base color
Rosette- put a drop of accent color on while base coat is still wet
Take your toothpick and make small swirly motions starting from the outside working your way in, cleaning off the end and dragging a little more of the base coat in if needed.
Other ideas- put a few drops of your accent color on your freezer paper/plastic/work space and use your toothpick to write your name, make swirls, draw or use the edge of your toothpick to lightly paint on your color letting some of the natural washer to show thru (like the purple one in the lower left corner in the grouped picture above)
Let dry for a few hours (they suggest a whole day but really who can wait that long?!)
Apply a layer of diamond glaze and let set for a full day. A MUST! it does take that long.
String it and wear for all to enjoy!

For the boys I tied them like this on a cord.

Here are a few waiting to be glazed. Can you see the butterfly in the green one?

Funk

2010-08-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

I am in a funk!

I want to craft but nothing I am attempting is working! UGH!
Ape baby needs something for her feet when we are out and about now that she is everywhere. Her feet are so tall that they don't fit in normal sized shoes, and too skinny for wide shoes. So I attempted to make her some little booties. FLOP!
I was working on some projects for the church craft day and couldn't put my ideas onto the pieces I was working on. SO I am stuck. I don't even have an idea of what I want to work on...
Need some inspiration!
feed me some inspiration!!
what should I try next?

Does anyone know what might cause this?? I was spray painting and on the second coat I got this. I waited two hours between coats. The spray paint is suppose to be with primer for plastics, which this frame is. I thought it might have been too hot or humid so I sanded it down and waited for an ideal day and it just got worse. HELP??

Crafting with ape baby and Emo

2010-08-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Been busy the past few days cleaning up.

This is letting my children "help" me craft.
Time to get organized so I can move on to the next thing.

Flags and more wood

2010-08-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

So you have seen these all over the blog world as seen here

SO I had to have one. As I sat painting mine, I got to thinking of my vow this summer- I was not bring another American flag into the house without bringing a Canadian flag in with it. So...

I used the same idea. With four 2x4s cut to equal lengths (I cut mine at 5inches)- two for the middle white part and one red for each end (turned sideways). I then found a maple leaf in clipart and printed it out on red card stock. I cut out the star and modge podged it right on one of the white blocks, and Voila! Hope that makes sense.

With Christmas coming up we are preparing our churches Christmas craft day. We had made plans for plenty of crafty things but had neglected to find anything Savior related. So I was on the look out for some sort of inexpensive nativity. I found a craft book that had small pictures of a craft show. In the itsy bitsiest corner I saw something like this.

What you need
6"-2x2 (I did not sand them down before painting. I wanted a rough unfinished look)
5"-2x2
3"-2"furring strip
2x 1-1/2" ball knob
1x 1/2" furniture button
desired paint, hot glue or gorilla glue, some twine

I cut the 2x2s for Joseph, and for Mary. I did not sand them down before painting. I wanted a rough unfinished look. I painted them and distressed them topping each with a flesh colored 1-1/2" ball knob with a hot glue gun.
For baby I painted him with a thick layer of cream, using a slanted criss cross action to give the effect of a swaddling cloth. I distressed him and used a leftover furniture button from this project.
I simple lined all three figures up and tied baby Jesus to Mary and Joseph with the twine.

You can attach a gift tag with phrases like
-"There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries." ~W.J. Cameron
-"Christians awake salute the happy morn; Whereon the Saviour of the world was born." - John Byrom
-Jesus is the reason for the season!
-"When we have the spirit of Christmas, we remember Him whose birth we commemorate at this season of the year." - Thomas S. Monson

I also made a larger version (still unfinished) with left over 4x4 post from my desk. I cute them at 12" and 9", using a 4.5" 2x4 for baby Jesus. Our local wood supplier did not have large ball knobs to make the heads so I will have to keep looking. As well as something for baby Jesus face. Any suggestions?

See me here

Heat packs

2010-08-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was in need of a heat pad this week and had limited energy and time. I wanted something that was fast and easy!
With two very active boys who we have lots holes in pants which this summer were made into cut-offs.

I have lots of these lying around

So with two seams and a little rice I had an instant heat pack.

Once again it pays not to throw things away.

under the weather

2010-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

I have been quite under the weather this week. I came down with a nasty cold and a debilitating crick in my neck. After spending two days supervising the kids from the living room floor my little man was begging for me to go out and finish a few crafts we had started. It was extremely therapeutic! I needed to listen to his babble and relax a bit while trying to be creative.

I have created a monster!! He loves to paint. This is the second shirt he has ruined this week. The other one he decided to paint on the way home from Hobby Lobby with his new paints he picked out. "I couldn't wait, I sorry!" Who am I to get in the way of his creativity?!

Here's a sneak peak at what we were up to. I am not quite finished, maybe this afternoon during Ape baby's nap time.

However my Emo child finished his projects and loves them. He is currently playing Legos with his giants.

My soldier boy was so sweet and made me a rice bag to help with my neck problems. I thought why haven't more people used socks as heat bags? It was a new sock so it wasn't like I was getting foot goobies all over my neck.

Well this is why, Poly-cotton has a tendency to melt! Rice started popping out. So I had to make a rice bag and quick before Ape baby found this one. I'll show you next time what I ended up using...gotta run cranky teething ape baby is demanding my time.

signs of autumn

2010-08-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

The WINDS have changed, and I am not ready for summer to be over yet! Yesterday it hit 110F with the heat index and today we didn't get above 85F with some mighty cool gusts coming out of the north. It can't be over! I didn't get as much swimming in this year as I wanted. I haven't eaten enough watermelon. I don't have a good tan! We have hardly done any hiking! Where did the time go?
While summer is on its way out I must take advantage of the first signs of fall. With the cooler weather we opened all the windows, put some clove scented stuff in the Scentsy burner, brought out the mixer, turned on the oven and got to work. This is what my kitchen looks like. Isn't it a beautiful site! I can bake again!

I love to bake bread! Over the years I have tried about 30 different recipes but stopped when I found this one over at everydayfoodstorage.net.
Baking bread has been a way for me to feel like I am in control of what my family is eating. WE LOVE BREAD! We go thru 4-6 loaves a week depending on who wants what in school lunches. If the kids are hungry they go for bread above any other snack in the house. It usually turns into a family affair. But tonight it was just me with my noisy machines, and a cup of hot apple cider while my soldier boy put the kids to bed.

We always start with this sweet machine

There is something so beautiful about freshly ground flour.
I love to sit and run my hands thru it and just think while I wait for my mixer to finish kneading my dough so I can move onto the next loaf.

While I wait for my dough to rise I usually find something else to occupy my time. Tonight I made these delicious granola bars! The kids will be so excited to find these yummies in their lunches. I would have eaten them all had I not quickly packed them up!

I am starting to remember why I love the fall!

flowerless flower pot

2010-08-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

Do you ever give a gift and wonder if it will ever be used? or if it will simply be tucked in a corner somewhere until it is eventually tossed.
I love giving crafted gifts! I think it is so much more personal and I hope the receiver realizes I put my time and a little effort into my gifts, rather than senslessly buying them something. It requires that I put a little effort into thinking of the person I am giving it to. Crafted gifts don't always mean I am spending less money either!
This past week we were walking thru the school and my flittering butterfly wanted to drop by last years teacher. There right as you walk into the room on her display shelf is this beauty!

The kids and I made these magnet boards last year for teacher appreciation week.
tutorial found here
The teacher made mention how it matches the classrooms decor (black and white) perfectly. She just had to place it somewhere for all to see. My flittering butterfly was ecstatic and so was I.

Here is my sensitive child's. I have seen this beauty grace the kitchen counters at his teachers home. I love to teach my kids the importance of giving thoughtful gifts. I am greatful others are showing them how to graciously recieve them.

check me out on here

UFO-wall art

2010-08-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

My house is full of UFO's (Un-Finished Objects). Thursday night I decided to pick two to finish by next weekend. Last night I finished the first one (minus the framing but it can hang in its raw form for the time being).
So, I found these a few weeks ago and thought I should find something to use these for. I bought them over five years again in Germany for 2,50Euros, it's about time they find a home either on my walls or on someone elses.

I have this empty space above my computer-I thought perfect location for some wall art.

I went on a search for something to inspire me and came across this picture here

I grabbed my pens and started to "swirl," then school started and my canvas was put in the pile of UFO's in my bedroom.

I decided this would be a great inspiration to get my butt in gear and finish all those UFO's in my room. It would be something I would see everyday to encourage me.

I wanted my picture to be personalized, I decided to add each family members name to my art (soldier boy wanted his to be on a grasshopper ?? no idea why. Can you see it on the grasshoppers leg).

My middle name is star so I added a star flower. I love citrus fragerances, the flower on the right reminds me of an orange and my name is in the center of the flower on top of the swirl.

I absolutely love my art! It isn't quite as good as sometimesiswirl but for my very first drawing ever I am pretty pleased. My kids love looking at it and finding their names, looking for the bugs and seeing the different flowers. Everytime they look at it they find something new. Just watching them enjoy it makes me love it all the more.

Thanks you sometimesiswirl for the inspiration!

Headbands

2010-08-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

My little ape baby is our last. When I found out she was a girl I was thrilled. We did everything girly! She had her first manicure at 8days old. She never went without a headband until she was old enough to rip it off. I love having a girl to spoil again!

When ape baby was first born I had a hard time finding headbands that fit her. Even the smallest ones I could find at the stores were too big. They were always falling into her face.

Heaven forbid she be without a headband and cute bow! So I went on a search for the perfect headband. Someone told me to try nylon. Now I going to admit something very embarrassing...I couldn't find any! I went to Joann's fabric and asked the lady if they carried nylon. It never occurred to me in reference to "nylon" she meant nylons you wear to church. LOL The very nice lady at Joann's must have had a good chuckle over that one! After asking what I needed it for she explained what I needed and directed me across town to Wal-mart.

So for all those new moms out there (thinking of you Maureen), I thought I would explain how to make the ultimate newborn headband.

Buy some good quality nylons. I like the microfiber tights, they are thicker and don't pell.

You start by cutting a 3-5 inch strip then a smaller 0.5-1 inch strip off one leg. The 3-5inch strip will roll up as you stretch it out shrinking the size of the band.

Then you take the smaller strip and wrap it around the large band adhering the ends of the little strip with a dab of hot glue or E-6000, or you can hand stitch it. You want to be able to stick no more than a pinky finger in the little band so you may have to wrap in around it self a bit (this is to help provide a gathering point on the band so make sure it isn't too loose). Then you are left with the perfect headband for tiny heads! Plus you have plenty more material to make them for all your friends or have a back up or ten.

These are my most recent faves! My husband thinks they look slightly like a garter, but I personally love them.

I found some of this stuff in the fabric department at Hobby Lobby. It has an elastic middle.

I measure it directly around my babies head and cut it. I have also recently made one for an order that I had measurements for the babies head and subtracted an inch which work perfectly.

You can hand sew it together but I had my machine out so I just did a few stitches as seen here on the lower right side of the picture.

You can finish these off with a little ribbon to clip your bows/flowers on to hide your seam, but I am lazy and hide the seam with the flower clipped directly over the seem.
Hope this is comprehensive. Happy crafting!

butterfly net

2010-08-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

I spent the morning at the hospital with this young man

Nothing too serious just needed a cat scan for a mild concussion.
They gave us a bunch of these to make sure we made it home without having to stop if he needed to empty his stomach.

By the time we got home he was feeling much better. So we had no use for the "barf bags".
How do you keep a 5yr old occupied all afternoon and evening when he can't jump on the tramp, ride his bike, go to school, ride his friends 4wheeler, or do anything that may cause another head injury or jarring?
You make one of these!

A wire coat hanger and one of those bags makes a great butterfly net.

But since we have no butterflies we caught grasshoppers, beetles, and spiders

Here he is showing off his mad catching skills

The kids also used one to water my garden plants, carry rocks from the rock all across my driveway, and feed the chickens.
Very versatile little thing. I only wished I would have taken more than five of them home seeing all the entertainment they have provided us with today.

too hot

2010-08-16T19:10:00.001-07:00

It has simply been too hot to do anything around here!

We have locked ourselves up inside, lying around doing nothing.

Kids refuse to do anything. I refuse to just sit still.

good thing we are country folk and the kids don't need clothes!

Eating delicious fruits of the land

I love to shoot

2010-08-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

Photography is one of my dream hobbies. I wish I had more of a creative eye. I wish I had a better handle on lighting and shutter speed but I don't. One day I will be able to invest the time into taking a class and spending time learning that talent, for now I just enjoy taking pics of my kids.

As I was blog hopping today I found these cute photos over at craftedbylindy
How stinking fun!!

I wish would have thought of this while my kids were young!

Food storage

2010-08-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

This month being what it is and having to use some of our food storage I thought I would share my knowledge of food storage, and how we built it up.
During the beginning weeks of 2010 Oklahoma suffered a terrible ice storm.
There were over 100,000 HOMES not people HOMES without power. Some were without for just a few hours, some for a few days and some for 10days! We were one of the lucky families to have lost our power for one hour short of 7days. You sure learn a lot about yourself in such a situation! With family a good two days drive away we decided to stay put and stick it out.

We quickly learned that what we had was hardly enough! We had to get creative!

The roads were closed and people were going crazy with fear of not having enough so the grocery store shelves were bare! We learned we needed to change our view of food storage.
Food storage has always been something we have had. You know a bag of wheat, buckets of sugar, oats, and lots of canned goods but we never had to apply their usefulness with limited access to goods. Never a rhyme or reason to it all.

Weeks later I stumbled across this website I learned a few tricks of food storage from everydayfoodstorage.net
We started storing meals rather than just canned products. I found seven easy meals that we LIKE to eat with minimal ingredients and preparation (its all about comfort in times of stress). Some of these meals were a little more labor intensive as I was also looking for stuff to help during those times of financial crisis.
I then wrote out the ingredients and how many of each meal. I chose to have a minimum of 7 meals per recipe.

Spaghetti x7
1 box of shagetti noodles
1 can spaghetti sauce
1 can mushrooms
1/7 jar of Parm
Chicken Fried Rice x7
1/2 bag rice
1 can chicken

1 can corn
1 can diced carrots or 1/4 cp dehydrated carrots
1/8cp dried onion
2 chicken bouillon cubes

I would then add one meal a week to my food storage. Now don't forget you have to eat breakfast and lunch too! Provide variety, and a well balanced diet.
Now I like to store my meals together, all my spaghetti in one spot, my fried rice ingredients all together in another. I also label them, on each label how many days of each meal I have and the recipe on how to make it.

Over the past 6months we have been able to store almost 6weeks worth of meals.
What's your secret to successful food storage?

living on a budget

2010-08-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those pay days that has to be stretched?
UGH! It has been one of those and looks like a few more to go. So while crunching numbers and thinking of ways to save on the budget we found a few ways we could save a penny here and a penny there.

My soldier boy usually makes the 16mile one way commute home during his 90min break in the morning between PT and when he has to report for work. A tank of gas doesn't go far when you have to go into town twice a day. So he is now going to shower and eat breakfast at the office.

We lucked into another garbage bag of apples this week! A blessing! My kids love apples, apple sauce, apple butter and I am thinking of apple pie! I can't say how we get them ;-) but every so often the soldier boy is handed a garbage bag of beautiful apples that have to be chucked! There is nothing wrong with them they just can't be used again by the distributors of the fruit. So we have a large tub of apple sauce for after noon snacks, apples for lunches, and maybe an apple pie for Sunday dinner!

Reusing! Going green to go cheap.
I read a few articles on recession-proofing, penny pinching and "old school" cleaning I came up with a few ways to reduce the stress on the budget. We go thru $10 of paper towels every two weeks! This pay period I spent $10 on kitchen towels, wash rags and these reusable scrubbers.

I also have spray bottles full of vinegar cleaning solution, bleach cleaning solution, homemade Lysol wipes, and baking soda scrub.
When explaining to our children the "trial" my almost 9yr old pipes in, "It still costs money! Time is money AND it costs money to wash them." I laughed. Yes time is money, but that is one thing I can sacrifice if it means saving $20/month on paper towels. I think she is on board, this afternoon I caught her grabbing a kitchen towel instead of the last roll of paper towel.

We also decided to "rotate" a few of our food storage meals. (I think this needs to be another post)

Being resourceful is very much like crafting to me! I love challenges I can over come and see the results of! LOL

missing duct tape

2010-08-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

One of my many passions is emergency preparedness.
I HATE tornados! Never been in one, and never want to be. When I found out we were moving to Oklahoma I was less than excited! I was horrified! I made sure I had a storm shelter on my property, and right out my back door. (Now I have seen really nice ones you build under the garage, wish I would have seen those before we moved in!)

(I know a little trashy looking-summer time fun. The kids stack the bricks into a chair and play king on top of the cave. Looks like time to edge trim again)

In the spring we were doing our annual tornado drill. I thought what a better time to pack an emergency kit and everyone gets to climb in the the shelter to put theirs inside. This would help them familiarize themselves with the cave, so if we ever have to use it they would be more comfortable.
I put together 72hr kids in advance. Then we packed everything into a 20gallon bucket. These buckets are great! They seal enough to keep bugs and rodents out, they hold a great deal of stuff, and they DOUBLE AS A SEAT!

We let each kid pack their own bucket with thier 72hr kit, toys, coloring books and pencil crayons (or colored pencils as Americans call them- crayons would melt in the summer heat). Then whatever room was left over we added other common things like our emergency candles, matches, blankets, radio, water purifier, personal hygiene stuff...you know.
Recently I was looking for some duct tape for a project I was trying to quickly put together. I couldn't find it anywhere! Last night while coming across some photos I found it.

Do you see it? the pink roll in the top left bucket. Well at least I know I will be well prepared in an emergency.

barrettes

2010-08-11T06:32:00.001-07:00

I recently inherited this jar of buttons while cleaning out my grandmas house.This jar is more than just buttons. Sure it has some sentimental value being who they came from and she has past on, but REALLY it means more to me than that. These buttons came off worn out shirts that she or my Papa wore over the years. This jar is full of their memories, not mine. Some of them have been carefully strung together in pairs to keep matching ones together, other are just single lone buttons. They are all shapes and sizes and a variety of beautiful colors.

These buttons represent a day and age when one needed to be self sufficient, and resourceful. A day when they wasted less. Living thru WWII had its challenges, ladies learned to cut the buttons off worn out shirts and to save them for something later. They would use the worn shirt as rags or hankies, or re purpose it to fit another need. The buttons were saved for an outfit they would make in the future or to replace a missing button on another shirt. This jar is an inspiration!

I had a few orders come in this week. They were all for local people who knew exactly what color they wanted. I put together a few barrettes in each color, and they picked the ones they wanted. I was able to use some of these buttons to enhance my creations.
$7 (available in black, tan, teal, pale blue, burgundy)
I made this one for my ape baby. This button was the perfect accent. Simple!

Here are a few of my left overs barrettes. I love doing business this way! It find it so much easier to know what colors a person wants and for what occasion. It makes it more personal.
$5
I bought these zippers five years ago and have finally found something to do with them! I really should take a picture of many zippers I do have. Maye next time...
$3 or $5/pair
This is one of my favorite ribbon barrettes! I love the colors.
$4 (barrette not the headband)
I made this headband. I absolutely love it!! It looks great with a barrette and stunning without. I have already been asked to make a green one for friend (unfortunately the flittering butterfly closed the window befor I could document the URL of the blog I got it from. So if I stole the idea from you let me know so I can link it to your page!)

If you are interested in any of these beauties or want me to create something special for you email me at sales at roeckerfam dot com $2.50 shipping and handling for first item and $0.20 for each item after FREE on orders over $25

Left $2 Right $4

Left $7 Right $3 or $5/pair

I love to sew!

2010-08-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

In junior high school, or middle school as you Americans call it, I took home economics. I FAILED the sewing portion of the class...come to think of it I also failed the cooking part (something about using 1/2cp salt instead of sugar in a smoothie). I don't know how I got credit for that class, hmmm... When the rest of the class was sewing dresses and fun skirts I was sewing a pair of plain straight blue striped shorts which my mother still has in her hall closet still missing the elastic. They were so awful!
Later on in years my dear soldier boy bought me a sewing machine that I tinkered with, teaching myself along the way mainly sewing patch work quilts. I am in no way a whiz but have to admit I have come a long way since those hideous blue striped shorts thanks to the wonderful world of craft blogs!
I have always hated homemade clothing. I hated the traditional dresses. You know the ones that were made with flowers that were meant for Grandmas couch and were anything but flattering. They looked so unfinished. I hope my kids don't hate me in later years when they look back and see pictures of all the things I have made them wear this summer!

We found some cute skirts at a farmers market and I wanted to replicate them. I thought since I was home I would attempt such an endeavor under my mothers watchful eye. I used bias tape and lining for the first time. I have much to improve on but for a first attempt the girls were pleased!

Next were these adorable dresses I found inspiration from here
The tutorial was super easy!

Then I came across this tutorial and just had to make it! While my ever creative sister was here I thought, what a better time to use her applique skills and learn something new. I designed what I wanted and she showed me how to do it. I fell in love with it! It wasn't until I had a few ladies stop me in the grocery store and ask where I bought that shirt or comment on how gorgeous it was that I realized I MADE IT and SOMEONE ELSE liked!!
I have a box full of gorgeous material just waiting for the perfect project for me to sew any suggestions?

Upcycle

2010-08-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

I hate to waste. I have an attic full of things "we might use" at a later date. I have been very keen on redusing our collection this year so it has to find a home at our house or it goes to someone else. Bit by bit I have been reducing our clutter and our unused stuff.

I bought these chair several years ago from IKEA on clearance for our from patio. I never really used them. Once I we moved to OK we used them on our back porch a few times but after a few weeks they looked so nasty from weathering that I never wanted to sit on them. I have been looking for something to do with them. This spring they found their home. My daughter and I were looking around for something to use as a trellis and found these chairs all fold up. She took them apart removing the support leg and voila a perfect sollution!

T-shirt refashions

2010-08-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

I have been so impressed with all the tutorials on T-shirt makeovers this year I absolutely had to make one! Last time I was in town I purchased a few $3 t-shirts from Walmart and have been patiently waiting to tackle new project. This week a fabulous friend offered to tend the boys during ape baby's nap time. My flittering butterfly and I used our time wisely and started crafting. She helped me cut, hand stitch together and place the flowers. Then she kept me company, telling silly stories and giggling over silly things while I machine sewed everything in place. She loves her new school shirt! It didn't take as long as I had anticipated either, we managed to complete the whole project in less that two hours. I can't wait to make the next one!

Go here for the tutorial

Over the last few days I have stared at this thinking "What could I do with this?" Waste not want not!

After a bit of playing around this is what I came up with. I cut a onsie up to make a t-shirt, stitched a strip to the bottom and then used old jean and some remanent material to create the flowers. Best thing is I had it all, I didn't have to buy a thing for ape baby's new shirt. I love being a mother to little girls!! I need to work on something for the boys soon they are starting to feel left out.

2010-08-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Since I got my computer two years ago it has had it's home here

ON THE KITCHEN TABLE

Which we used to eat breakfast with Grandma, looking up recipes on allrecipes.com, or crafting (the kitchen table also doubles as my craft area). It was convenient and already there. It meant I could always see what my kids were doing on the computer while I was in the kitchen, living room or dining room. Very accessible and very public place.
After a few weeks of extreme humidity, followed by a few weeks of extreme heat I was able to give my baby a new home!

This was the first project my Soldier boy and I worked on together. First project in ten years LOL

Soldier boy is unfamiliar with and too cheap to buy me a nail gun so we screwed the thing together. He has since decided it might be a good idea to get one for the next project.

I stained it ebony. I like the almost Zebra like look.

And here she is. In her new home!

I love it!
Still where I can see everyone when I am using my computer and where it can be seen.
Soldier boy didn't originally like my plans I drew up. He came up with his own. But after finding a few pictures of what I wanted and plans on how to create something similar he agreed to TRY my way out first then we could always revert back to his if it didn't work out.
Once we got past the planning it was all fun and games!! We rocked house! We make a great team. I was OCD about which boards went where and he was OCD about making sure the holes all lined up so the buttons would form a straight line. I would research what I needed and he would trust me and buy it. I can't wait to find something else for my soldier boy to help me build.

2010-07-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

This summer I spent some time at home in Canada with my dad. My dad is amazing at wood work! Creating things, refinishing things, and fixing things. He can look at a piece of wood and say "You know what I could do with that!..." I was inspired to do a like wood work myself.
My living room lacks any way of telling time unless you strain your neck just the right way at just the right angle to read it off the microwave. I set off to find just the right thing, something simple I could refinish, so I hit the local thrift store and found this. (Sorry I forgot to take a picture until I was part way into sanding.)

And I got it for this price...

I thought it would look great in black!
I removed the glass and tried to remove the face plate but that baby is on there good! No amount of prying and unscrewing screws worked. I really wasn't keen on keeping the Ducks Unlimited logo! I would have to think of something later.

I spent a whole day sanding this baby. We had saw dust on the kitchen table, in the carpet, on the back porch and all over the front porch, everywhere ape baby wanted to go (or where I could find something to entertain her) I would take it with me and kept my hands a moving as long as she would let me.

My intentions were to stain it ebony, but after sanding it I kind of liked it just the way it was! It looked almost white washed antiquish.

So I grabbed some scrap paper and cut a few circles out and tried them on. Found one I liked and modge podged it over the DU, I put it back together, muted the chime that rings on the hour and VOILA!
I LOVE IT! Now we have a decent way of knowing what time it is all for less than $10!

Patriotism

2010-07-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

In our family we are so lucky to celebrate two countries birthdays in July! A week to focus on our different up bringing- as different as Canada and the US can be LOL. Every year the kids get their Canadian shirts and then their American shirts but this year I wanted to do a LITTLE decorating.

For July 1st- Canada Day I created this.
It is actually the first Canadian decoration I own/have made. SAD!!

For July 4th- Independence day I created this
I had recently found 8 window panes on Craigslist for free! Then bought another 10 at an auction for $0.88! When I saw this here I just had to start using these windows.
(can't find the link to where I found this idea)

Lessons learned
Canadian deco-When on a budget, you use what you have and live with it! The original I saw used berry sprigs and branches instead of leaves and used red and white leather instead of hemp. The original was much more elegant looking.
US window Flag- Never paint in the humid southern heat! It took three days to complete because the paint just wouldn't dry. I had star stickers which were just the right size. I cut them out with a razor blade and used the remaining back as a stencil. It worked well for the first half then started to fall apart as it got saturated with paint. I reminded myself not to swear, I had to improvise! I made another stencil out of a cereal box which worked well enough to finish the project.

Next year I am going to introduce my kids to Nanimo bars, and butter tarts for Canada day and then do some sort of red, white and blue dessert for Independence day.

Heritage- making it perosnal

2010-07-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

When my soldier boy and I started having children, we made the decision to name them after ancestors. Each of our children is named after someone from their family tree, and for the most part we are able to tell them something about each person they are named after. For us this is very important. I wanted them to have a daily reminder of who they are and that they need to honor the names they have been given. So this is what I came up with. (Each frame has their names on it now, I am still working on Ape babies since the ladies she was named after both died in infancy there are no pictures. I will have to be more creative with hers).

My flittering butterfly's

My sensitive child

My emo boy

My soldier boy's wall at work.
Soldier boy is the sixth generation to serve in the military. So to pay tribute to those who have served before him we created this wall and added the kids hand prints on each side of the photos to remind him of who he is and why he serves.

Cakes

2010-07-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Stole the idea of a cake post from my SIL here. Granted her cakes are amazing in comparison. Thought I'd share any way.

My sister the creative genius, and I love to be creative. When she comes to visit it never fails we craft something! I am more productive when I have someone to work and laugh with! More fun is had when you can bounce ideas off each other. One year we were into cakes.

my flittery butterfly's birthday cake one year. She asked for a turtle power princess and this is all I could come up with

My sister the creative genius loves frogs, so she got frogs for her birthday

A dinosaur birthday cake we make for a friend

A double birthday party- one for the sensitive child, just his size.

And one for my soldier boy. These were my favorite. We spent a good long time in the German candy store imagining things we could do.

Here's one I did for a garden party. I had made a round cake for the head, but my emo boy, and my sensitive child decided to lick all the frosting off while I showered in preparation for this party. I ended up taking the newly cleaned cake pan and flipping it upside down and icing it moments before I had to leave. No one suspected a thing ;-)

Here's the lazy man's cake. But for him it was the ideal cake!

He could eat it ALL by himself! Which he tried.
My other sister owns a marble slab ice cream shop. These are two of my favorite! The one was a last minute cake for a wedding. I think it is stunning!

I dibble and dabble

2010-07-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

I love to quilt! I wish I had all the money in the world to quilt all day and all night and never be restrained by time, space, resources, or finances! Maybe one day...

(my first patch work quilt for my BIL for his wedding)

I have fond memories of sitting under quilts in my grandmothers home as she would quilt and tie her various quilts for new cousins, or newly weds. She seemed to always have her frames up and my mom and her would keep their hands busy as they visited.

(my oldest sons rag quilt)

Two years ago I joined a quilting group and started to learn different techniques of piecing and machine sewing a quilt. I got to thinking outside the box of the typical patchwork quilt and found a new love.

(my first sample quilt before the binding, I gifted it to my niece for her birthday last year)

I love sample quilts! You can learn new techniques and finish a project in a matter of a few hours. Instant gratification! I also like the idea of making the back as interesting as the back!

Big quilts are fun but time consuming and tend to wear on me. I work on it for a few hours then pack it away for a few weeks then bring it out again. Ask my sister who is still waiting eight years later for her wedding gift LOL... all it needs now is the binding (which is all cut out, ironed, and ready to be sewn). Or my Three year old emo son, awaiting his baby quilt...ugh!

(Ape baby's blanket)

My goal is to finish my sons quilt by Christmas!! And maybe talk my mom into finishing my sisters quilt by then too *Please mommy*

(sensitive child's recent grandma quilt, he picked out the accent material for a panel she had purchased. We had to improvise with the foot prints as the material we had looked funny. After years of trimming off the bottoms of her pants and saving the extra material we finally found a use for it!)

BlumenBs

2010-07-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time a while back I started to create barrettes for my flittering butterfly. I would dream of things I could put in her hair. After a few people loving on them and paying to have some of their own I opened an etsy shop which I let flop! I put them in a salon and forgot about them. I am not a business woman! I like to create because I can not because someone is paying me to.

I learned how much I would rather sit and do as I please when I please, and then see the joy on someones face when I "give" my creations as gifts. Crafting is more personal for me. Maybe in teh future I will try again but for now why mix business with pleasure?!

Time to create

2010-07-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

I wasn't about to separate my private blog from my crafting time highlights, but have decided to jump on the band wagon when a few of my creations ended up on someone elses blog! It gave me the courage to say I can createI love to craft! I am married to a busy soldier boy and have four over active kids; I don't get much time to craft. During the day I am either holding my ape baby, calming my emo son, tending some sort of animal/reptile/insect with my sensitive child, or trying to keep up with my beautiful flittering butterfly-time never stands still with them around! I stay up all hours of the night just to let my creative juices out.
Creating to me is knowledge.
I love to learn! I love to be frugal! I love to develop new talents! Creating helps me to understand where my strengths and weaknesses are- to better understand myself. So, in so many words here's to documenting my journey on becoming ME...

Under construction!

2010-07-20T21:49:00.001-07:00