More Flour sack Aprons!

I made some more aprons as Christmas gifts.
A thanks to my girls for helping model them for me :-)

I am sorry I still don't have a good tutorial as to how to make these. I don't make them with a pattern I just make them :-)  Each one I have made has turned out a little different then the others so their is not an exact way. But basically you need

-a flour sack towel ( I get mine from the dollar store

- 1/2 yard of two different coordinating fabric choices ( cut into 6 inch wide strips)

- coordinating ribbon for the neck band and ties (wide ribbon works best)


- coordinating ric rac for trim (optional)

I have another one to make.  I will make sure I take pictures of the process and add the rest of the details soon. but basically  most of it is hemming and gathering ruffles and sewing them onto the flour sack towel.

A Christ Centered Christmas!

I have pondered for several years now as how to make Christmas more meaningful for my family and help them understand the true meaning of the season!  This year it has been a welcome relief to honestly not have the means to have an extravagant Christmas.  I know that might sound strange that it is a relief, but it is true!
 We, like a lot of families across the Nation have been hit hard by the financial Crisis and poor economy.  
So this year (and I am hoping many years to come no matter what our financial situation is) I want to start a new special Christmas gift giving tradition. On the first Christmas Jesus received 3 thoughtful and meaningful gifts from the Wise men.  That would be useful in his life.
So I decided that each year we would give are kids three gifts also.  One being something they want and wish for, the next being something that is useful or needed, and last being something from the heart that reflects their personality, talents or hobbies
 Another  tradition I want to start that will hopefully bring Christ back to the center of things is that they choose a gift that they want to give Jesus.  Not only for the season , but for the whole year. Something they can do to improve their relationship with Christ.  Some examples might be to have more consistent and sincere prayers, letting go of a bad habit, saying I love you to someone everyday etc.  I have a little gift box and on Christmas morning I want everyone to write down what they want to give Jesus that year and then we will put the papers in the box (kind of like a time capsule) and then the next Christmas we can open the box and read and be reminded of what we had promised Jesus the year before and Choose a new gift for the next year. 
Another Tradition I want to start is a Family Christmas Journal.  each Christmas I want to record the events of that Christmas Season and what is going on with each family member.  When my Mom grew up my Grandma bought a new box of ornaments each year and they would write a poem or a write the events of that particular Christmas Season on the back of the box.  I wanted to continue this tradition, but I don't need more ornaments for our tree so I thought that a Christmas Journal would be a nice replacement.

So what are some traditions you do to bring more meaning to Christmas? 

Little Peg People Nativity

I thought it would be fun to make a Nativity set out of little peg people!   My Two year old sure has had a ball playing with them :-)  (Move over Fisher Price!) 

I still need to spray them with sealer and add some burlap or something to tie around Joseph's head,(right now he looks a little too much like obi-wan Ken obi) I would also like to add the wise men, animals and a shepherd eventually, but right now this it all I had time to paint.
If you want to paint your own peg people  you can find them Caseyswood.com

Grandma Lucille's Carrot Cake

 I am not usually a big carrot cake fan. And I have decided that it is because most carrot cakes have nuts in them and I can't handle nuts in cake.  (It is a texture issue I have had my whole life), but my family was over at my sister Kari's  for her Birthday last Sunday and her daughters made Grandma Lucilles carrot cake for her(without nuts).  Talk about a pleasant blast from the past! It had been years since I had had that cake and I was instantly reminded of how amazing it is!   Thank goodness when my sister Kari was in college she had the presence of mind to ask for the recipe.(A few years before Grandma passed on.) 

You want the recipe too?

Grandma Lucille's Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp cocoa
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 cups grated carrots

Frosting:

1/2 Cup butter
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts
about 5 cups powderedsugar
Directions:
Cream sugar and oil. Beat in eggs one at a time. sift dry ingredients. add alternately with buttermilk to egg mixture. Add carrots.
Pour into large oblong pan.
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hr. Cool and Frost.


Frosting:

Cream butter and cream cheese; add sugar and vanilla mix. Spread on cake.

Garnish with nuts.

Yummy! Yummy!  Yummy! 

Also because all ovens bake differently it may bake quicker then the recipe asks.  I pulled mine out about 12 minutes earlier than the recipe said. 

And just so you know this cake rises up quite a bit.

I had been having trouble knowing what would be a inexpensive gift for friends and neighbors this year and I have decided that they need to have some of Grandma's carrot cake too.  So that I what I am making this year.  I am baking it in bundt pans and mini loaf pans so I can easily slice pieces and spiral them on a plate. 

December bugaboo book pick

For this month I chose the book "Little Women" by  Louisa May Alcott

I love this story!  And it reminds me of the Holidays.  And since the December book club  theme is Christmas/Holidays, this is a book that came to mind.  I know we have all heard of this book and seen one of the many movie versions, but have you ever read it?  If not you are in for a treat!  If you have not noticed by now, I am a sucker for classic books and this one is one of my favorites for sure!

Regular 2011 Primary Bookmarks

Hi all! 
I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season :-) 
I am sorry I have not posted much lately.  I have been busy making flour sack aprons and painting Nativity puzzles, but I finally took some time yesterday to make a much requested bookmark!
I had posted a magnetic bookmark with the 2011 childrens Primary theme a little while back, but several people have just wanted regular bookmarks that don't fold.  This is what I came up with. 

If you notice I made this one unisex and have the boy one and the girl one on the same page.  I don't know why I have not thought of that sooner :-) 

 Anyway  click on the photo.  Copy and past it to your computer. Print it out as a 5x7 or at some photo places (Wal Mart) you can choose to have them printed out "True to size".  Cut them down the center and thats about it.  I personally would also laminate mine just to make them more durable.

The Scotch brand laminator is the best deal out there when it comes to laminators. 

Baby Jesus

I make and sale these Nativity Puzzles at my Esty shop.

  

 It is a lot of work painting all the detail on each puzzle piece, but the most difficult puzzle piece to paint is the Baby Jesus.

 The hardest part ( and it is always a miracle to me each time I pull it off ) Is getting his face just right.

And I have to admit I was pretty pleased with how this Baby Jesus turned out that I painted today :-)  So I had to take a picture and show it off before I ship him off with the rest of  this puzzle to his new home!

I think his face is really sweet  :-)

Thanksgiving crafts

I love Thanksgiving!  I have not had much time to do any Thanksgiving crafts this year so I wanted to share some things I have done in the past.  Here is the link
 Also here are a couple of crafts I saw out in blog world this year that I thought were cute and wished I had time to make.  First I just adore this Turkey! You can find it at a blog called "Under my Umbrella".
I also love the idea of a Thanksgiving countdown.  I like the idea shown here.  I love the idea of counting down all the things we are thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.   I think this concept would work well also as a Thanksgiving tree.
I am sad to say that these ideas will have to wait until next year though :-(  The time between Halloween and Thanksgiving goes way to fast these days!

Happy Crafting!

Girl (scripture super hero) magnet book mark

Here is the girl book mark!  I have had several requests for a girl version.   I found the clip art for the boy version online. I could not find a girl clip art anywhere that matched it. So I tried my hand at drawing my own super hero girl.  I tried to make her as similar to the boy as I could so they can match.  But like I said in my last post I am no professional and thank goodness for electronic drawing pads :-)

 If you are new to making these bookmarks you need to click on the picture to make it a bigger size and copy and save it to your computer (I like to send it to my desk top so I can easily find it). Then upload it to your favorite photo print website.  I do mine through Wal Mart and I like to print it out as a 5x7 since it gets cropped down some on the outer sides. You can have it printed as a 4x6, but it cuts off quite a bit off the outer sides so you will have to crop off more from the middle to even it out. ( I hope that makes sense) On more details as to how to make them check out this link.

Enjoy!

Super Scripture Girl!

I have had multiple people ask me to make a girl  bookmark for the 2011 Primary theme "The Scriptures are true!", but I did not have girl clip art to make one. I had originally found the boy one online.  So I did not know what to do. So I finally tried my hand at sketching one myself a few weeks ago and this is what I came up with. I am sooo not a professional artist so I have been a bit shy about sharing it.

 And I finally sat down today and used my daughters (the true artist) Electronic "Bamboo Fun" sketch pad to help clean it up, beef up the lines and make it look less sketchy. This is the end result. 

 
 What do you guys think? Does it match the boy one close enough?


Update:  You can find the bookmark I made with this Scripture girl here.
and you can find the boy one here :-)

Dollar store inspiration!

Like I said in my last post my Ward had our Super Saturday last weekend. One of our crafts we did were Barn stars mod podged with with scrapbook paper.  I wanted to make one for each season that I could switch out hanging in a frame or on my front door, but unfortunately I could not justify the cost of purchasing 4 of them :-(  Also I just loved the rustic look of them and could not bare to mod podge over them so I decided keep mine rustic and hung them in my old American themed front room.

Then while I was visiting the dollar store a couple of days ago I made a discovery!  I saw these Tin Stars with tacky snowmen and Santa's painted on them.  And then my crafting light bulb went bing! up above my head :-)  I bought a bunch of them for a dollar each and spray painted them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint.   mod podged the scrapbook paper on and antiqued the edges. 

 I have only done the Christmas ones so far, but I plan on making Fall, Spring and Summer too :-)  Next on my agenda for this craft is to find a cute open frame to hang them on.  I think I want to hang it on my door. Oh and Paula, just pretend you did not see this or the apron set ;-)

Another flour sack apron!

My Super Saturday was last Saturday and it was a blast!  I was in charge of  an apron class. Here is the apron again made in a different fabric from the original one I made.  (Don't take too much notice of the wrinkles left over from it being anxiously shoved into my sewing bag after a long day of Super Saturday crafting fun :-) I still have plans of  doing a cute stitchery on the front of the apron that would match the fabric.  I will have to take the time to take pictures and make a step by step tutorial  when I make the next one

Here is the matching Trivit.  I found these blank pinewood plauqes @ Michaels.  I painted this one antiuqe white and mod podged coordinating fabric from the apron on the top of the plaque wh hard coat mod podge and finished it off with ric rac and added 4 felt feet to the bottom.

Next I made a pinch pot holder.  I have seen the oval ones around, but I wanted to make a square one instead so this is what I came up with. 

So there is the set!  I want to make another pot holder and an actual flour sack towel with matching fabric and ric rac sewn on it to make a complete set.  This makes a perfect gift set for christmas or a birthday.

November bugaboo book pick!

Sorry I am always late posting my book picks!  I  have been busy getting ready for my Super Saturday apron class among several other things that I am involved in so I have been a little distracted I guess.

So I have decided to have each month be a reading theme.  This being November and the month of Thanksgiving I wanted to choose a book to help us remember to be thankful for all our many blessings.  The book that kept coming into my mind is "The Hiding Place"  by Corrie Ten Boom.  I can't tell you how much I love this book!  This true story is a good reminder that no matter how bad your circumstances are there is still room to find things to be thankful for :-)

scrabble tile necklace and chicken eggs

My daughter had a bunch of friends over for a movie night and they were making scrabble tile and washer necklaces.  She decided to put the diamond glaze right on the letter side of the scrabble tile showing off the first letter in her name.  we drilled a hole in it since I was out of bails and put cording and a bead on it just like we did the washer necklaces.  We liked how it turned out!

Now if you did not know already.  My family got baby chicks this last spring and we have been anxious all summer for them to start laying eggs.  All of them are laying now except one. The hen who lays the blue green eggs just started laying last week.   We have 4 different types of hens so our eggs are mix of colors :-)   It does not matter how many times we collect the eggs it still is a fun surprise to see new eggs sitting in the laying box :-)

October Bugaboo book pick!

I decided that I must not be much of a mystery reader because I had no idea what book to pick for the October "Mystery Theme".
After looking this morning online for a "good clean
Mystery book. I found " House Of Secrets" by Jeffery S. Savage. It had really good reviews and I am excited to read something out of my usual reading comfort

Spanish Primary Bookmarks!

I finally have the 2011 Primary bookmarks in Spanish!  But I could not figure out how to add the accents at the top of the words.  If this is a problem and if anyone knows how to do this please let me know. 

Someone had also asked for a regular Spanish book mark that was not a magnet bookmark so everything is rightside up.  So that is the bookmark below.

.

I also changed the yellow ric rac to black poka dotted ribbon.  I thought it matched better so I have an English magnet bookmark  with the black ribbon also if you want that.

I hope this helps and is not too confusing.  Double check which bookmark you are copying before you print it out since I have 3 different versions here I don't want you to end up with the wrong one :-)

Some Super Saturday ideas!

I am on the R.S. meeting committee in my ward. And I don't know about you, but one thing that all our ladies look forward to each year is Super Saturday!  Our goal this year was to have easy, cheap, and practical crafts.  I thought I would share with you the crafts that I am in charge of.  I will  take pictures of the ones other people are in charge of the next Sunday when we have our display table out and then you can see them all of then.

First off I have aprons made from  flower sack towels. I made a full and a half apron. I know that half aprons are all the rage right now, but I tend to spill on the top half of me more then my lower half so I wanted a full apron too. I will have to give tutorials later, but I will tell you I am not very good at sewing so it has to be easy in order for me to want to do it. And these were quite simple aprons to make. All it took was simply sewing the decorative fabric onto the the already hemmed flour sack towels. I did not even use a pattern. I just looked at others ideas on the Internet and then did my own thing.
By the way that is my cute twelve year old daughter being my model for me.




Next I made trivets to match the aprons.  I found these wood plaques at Michael's for like a $1.50 and painted them brown for a base color and then I painted black on top of the brown and sanded the edges and corners to reveal the brown color underneath.   Then I added the fabric on top using hard coat mod podge.  Last I sprayed it with sealer and added little felt feet on the bottom.

 I am going to have a dish towel to match this set, but I have not got to that yet.

I also emroiderd (sp?) a dish towel that I got from the dollar store with a vintage embroidery pattern I found online (there is a matching apple pattern too that I have not finished).  and made a trivet to go with it.  I  want to make a half apron out of a matching dish towel  with matching embroidery on it also.  That way people can choose which set they are most interested in.

Next we are making placemat scripture bags.  I found this cute place mat at the dollar store.  this project is so easy!  there are many tutorials online on how to make these.

I have already shown this flower/bow holder, but here it is again since it is part of the Super Saturday stuff we are doing.  I explained how I made it in an earlier post.

 

Last we are making more metal washer necklaces because people requested making them again since they make such great gifts!

Whew! So there you have it! Like I said I will have to give more detailed tutorials soon. 

Easy burp cloth idea!

I was invited to a baby shower for my friend Debbie and I decided that it was the perfect time to pull out the package of cloth diapers that I had purchased more than a year ago with the idea of dressing then up into cute burp cloths.  I wanted to match the colors with this "Lamaze Peacock toy" that I was going to give her.  I got coordinating ribbon and ric rac and sewed it on the side of the cloth diapers (So simple!) and it is hard to see in the pic., but I sewed the ribbon and ric rac on with bright orange thread to give some contrast to the other colors and bring in the orange that is in the peacock.  I did not think to take a pic of the back of the peacock, but the back has  black and white colors that is how the black polka dotted ribbon fits into the color scheme :-). I love these kind of crafts!  So easy and simple, but adorable at the same time!

Happy Crafting!

Cute recipe stand

I love this standing recipe holder!  I can't wait to make one ;-)
 Raising Homemakers.com has a tutorial on how to make one yourself.

2011 Primary theme bookmark magnets!

 I was asked if I could make Primary bookmarks for the 2011 Primary theme "The Scriptures are true!"  So this is what I came up with.  I also was asked awhile back if I could make some that were in Spanish, If anyone out there knows the Spanish translation for the 2010 and the 2011 primary themes please let me know since sadly I don't know much Spanish :-(

For best results for this bookmark I would have it printed out as a 5x7 because I think a 4x6 would crop too much off.  Most online photo centers let you preview how it will crop first.  For a reminder of how to make the bookmark magnets go here.
And remember I stole this fabulous idea from the blog Controlling My Chaos.  She has a bunch of other cute magnet book mark themes you can get.

September bugaboo book pick

Sorry to post the September book pick so late :-(  Time just goes too fast these days!  I wanted set themes for my book picks for now on.   In honor of the new school year and education the September theme is Newbury Award books.  So I chose "Princess Academy" by Shannon Hale.  If you have never read any of her books yet you are in for a treat :-)  They are always entertaining, suspenseful, and Her books always makes me think.  This book in particular teaches us how education makes a big difference in having a more successful life.

Happy reading!

Pressure Cooker

So I am embarressed to say that I had never used a pressure cooker in my whole adult life( until yesterday). My mom had bought me one a few years ago and sadly I did not even open the box until yesterday.
 My mom used one a lot while I was growing up, but I had it in my mind that you used it only for canning and cooking beans etc. and it seemed like it was too complicated to use, but I ran across this article and after reading it I realized that I never really understood the true function of a pressure cooker. I decided to finally pull mine out of storage and literally blow the dust off the top of the still sealed box. I looked up pressure cooker recipes online and found that there were tons of things you can make with a pressure cooker. I finally decided on a simple recipe for pot roast. I pulled a pot roast out of my deep freezer around noon and let it thaw, but by the time I decided to start cooking it around 5:00 pm It was still a little frozen so I was unsure if it would work out, but within 1 hour I had a fully cooked super tender pot roast :-) I was in shock! It was tender like it had been in a crock pot all day, but in a fraction of the time! I've decided that my pressure cooker is my new best friend in the kitchen! Here is another good website to get recipes and info on how to use a pressure cooker



Michelle

Flower/Bow holder

Here is another Super Saturday idea :-)  We are making hair bows and flowers as one of our classes and I thought it would be fun to also  make a holder to put them on.  I loved this one at Ucreate and so I patterned mine below after that one. 

It was really easy to make.  I had an old picture frame that I was not using anymore and I mod podged cute scrapbook paper onto the back board (Is that what it is called?).  I happened to already have chicken wire due to the fact that we got Chickens this year and I had some wire left over from making their coop.  I cut the wire a little bigger then the frame so I could have some control of how tight the wire needed to be.  I ran the ribbon down through the frame because I was going to have the ribbon hanging down out the bottom to give more space for bows and flowers to clip onto, but I did not have enough ribbon to do that, but I thought it still looked cute inside the frame anyway so I kept it there and it also provided a clever way to attach my top hangy ribbon part so I would not have to staple the ribbon onto the back of the frame.  I had a little piece of ribbon left over so I made a loop and attached it at the bottom to hold head bands.  I found the best way to insert the back board and chicken wire into the frame was to mold the wire onto the back board first and then I pushed it down into the frame.  I clipped the extra wire off and taped duct tape around the back of the frame to ensure the back was nice and tight and it covered up any sharp wire edges that might still be left over that wanted to scratch the paint on the wall. 

As always I forgot to take a picture of the process, but hopfully it made sense how I explained it.  It probably only took me about 45 min. to an hour to make it. 

 Here is another shot of it showing my small supply of hair flowers (I can't wait to make a bunch more at our Super Saturday) and head bands at the bottom.

Dressing up a dollar store kitchen towel!

So this is what I have been up to lately!
 I was thinking of what I could do this year for some inexpensive, cute, practical gift ideas for Christmas.  When I  saw these cute Kitchen towels at the dollar store the other day knew exactly what I could do with them :-)  I found some pretty vintage pear and apple embroidery patterns online to stitch onto the towels (I have noticed Vintage embroidery is big right now).  I am almost done with the pear towel and this is how it looks so far. I also plan to sew some red ric rac across the bottom.  I want to stitch the apple pattern on the other towel and  I want to make a matching pot holder, trivit and dish towel apron and make it a whole set! I will post how I am doing those once I get them finished :-)
 I am also on the R. S. meeting committee in my ward and we are going to do the towels and aprons for our Super Saturday coming up, but we might be doing flour sack towels instead.
p.s. My Chickens have started laying eggs finally! Yay!