Magnet Pin Dish

I found a  good solution for my sewing pins:-)

 I had the regular stuffed tomato that everyone has, but I really wanted one of those magnet pin dishes that the really serious people that sew have! 

I found two cute silver dessert dishes at the thrift store the other day.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them :-)  I put a strong magnet on the bottom  of each of them ( I did not even have to glue the magnet because it stuck onto the metal) and ta da! I had a Magnetic Pin Dish!

 It has been a huge help to me.  No more pins all over the place! I have one by my sewing machine and I have one at my cutting table.

"Put The Castle In First!"

I thought you all would like this wonderful analogy my friend Valerie made about  her daughter's Toy Castle.  I hope you enjoy her thoughts as much as I did.  Thanks Valerie for your wonderful insight as always :-)

Put The Castle In First

My daughter Kenzington has a darling little Disney play set. It has a tiny little version of many of the rides you would find at Disneyland (including teacups!) and lots of teeny tiny Disney Characters. The set also has an amazing castle. Kenz stores this set in a snap-top box that is just the right size. In fact, it is so perfectly sized for the set that if the pieces don't go in just right, the lid won't go on and close. She often attempts to put the set away and ends up very frustrated! Things just aren't working! She can't get it all in and get the lid on. Then I hear myself saying to her,
"Put the castle in first, the rest will fit in around it."

I'm guessing you already know what I'm getting at here; how this all relates to life, but perhaps, if only for myself, I need to clap it all out and finish drawing the analogy. Bear with me now!

We came to this earth for a number of reasons:

To get a body

To be tested

To have children

To fulfill a purpose

The overall goal of life is to live worthy to return to our Father in Heaven.
I think that SOMETIMES we get mixed up and mistake real life for a real life version of the GAME of LIFE. You know- the board game where the overall goal is:

to zip through school

to get the best job

to fill your car with family

to fill your bank account!

to sell the skunk farm!

to retire in Millionaire Estates or Countryside Acres.

REAL LIFE has to include many of those things, (hopefully not the skunk farm!) which is partly why it's easy to get mixed up about what REAL LIFE'S overall goal is. We spend so much time trying to make the journey through life better that we forget to move toward the REAL overall goal. In fact, many times we've forgotten what the REAL overall goal is and we're not going anywhere at all, just winding back and forth like on the board-game.

So here it comes- the secret to doing it right:

PUT THE CASTLE IN FIRST!

The Castle is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is attending ALL of our church meetings. It is repenting when we mess up. It is studying our scriptures and praying. It is having family home evening. It is attending the temple. It is serving other people. It is reminding others, some who might not even know about the castle, to put it in first.

And guess what?

When we put it in first, all the other little WORTH-WHILE things that are also a part of this experience we call LIFE fit in around it.



Another cute apron!

I made another flour sack ruffle apron for my friend :-) 

Her daughter is getting married and this is going to be her wedding shower gift.  I think the fabric colors are so cute! (you can find the fabric at Hobby Lobby)  I switched how I did the ruffle at the top a little bit ( every time I make one of these aprons they turn out just a little bit different.  That is how things go when you don't use a pattern :-)

People have asked for instructions for this apron and it is hard because really there is not any solid instructions.  I just made it up as I went, but I do have some basic ideas that I can share, but I warn you this will most likely be the worst tutorial to understand so just know you have been warned :-)

I bought a flour sack towel from the dollar store  I like to get a flour sack towel because all the edges are already hemmed which saves me a few steps ( I am all about saving steps!), but I do cut the corners off one end of the towel and I hem the new rough edges by pressing under a quarter inch twice and then hem it down until the corners look like this. 

Then you need a quarter yard each of two different coordinating fabrics.  I cut each  quarter yard of fabric into 6 inch wide strips. 

 Then you press in the sides of each strip of fabric a quarter inch and hem around all sides.

Sew big stitches on one long side and lightly gather into a ruffle.

Then basically you sew the strips of fabric on the flours sack towel about 3 1/2 or  4 inches apart from each other.  Do not  gather one of the fabric strips because it will be your waist band.

 

I wish I could tell you exactly how I piece it all together.  Sometimes I start sewing the ruffles from the top and sometimes I start from the bottom.  And I do the top collar ruffle different every time also. So all I can say is this is what I end up with! 

Good luck!

A great gardening resource!

       I am sure you have all about had it with the gardening craze I am in, but I just had to share this wonderful website I found called Provident Living Today.com. 

They have some great information on how to grow more effective gardens. 

 Here is a link that will take you to how to grow veggies. And Here is a link that will take you to how to grow fruit. 

Clever irrigation system for plants!

I think this is so cool!  Check out how buried unglazed clay pots make a very effective watering system for your plants in the garden. 

You can find a bunch of info here at Tipnut. There is also a few other neat ideas Tipnut shares using other items like coke bottles, buckets etc.  Here is a great example as to how to use clay pot ollas in a raised garden bed at website called A Path to Freedom.  This website has a lot of good ideas about edible landscaping too.  Some of their ideas are little extreme for me, but their story is really interesting I think :-)  They turned their yard in the middle of the city in Pasadena CA.  into a thriving organic gardening business.  They sale a lot of fruits and veggies to local resturants etc.
Pretty cool!

Where to put all those recipes!

There is a blog I like follow called Controlling My Chaos and she never disappoints with the recipes she posts!  And even better she makes the cutest digital scrapbook recipe cards that you can print out as 4x6 photos.  I had all of my favorite recipes from her blog printed out at Wal Mart, but you have to make sure you pick the true to size prints or they get cropped wrong.  So I have had all these recipe card photos, but I had not found a good solution as to where to put them yet ( I did not want them to get smudged and ruined). 
Well the other day I was at "Michael's" (craft store)  and I FOUND THIS!

It is a cute Paula Dean brand recipe binder (On clearance) that came with plastic protector sheets that hold 4x6 cards and it also has tabbed dividers with the different food categories!  Yay!  I finally found my solution :-)

I love that it is not too big and it holds my recipes perfectly!

One of my favorite recipes I use a lot is her Salsa recipe.  It is so easy and it tastes a lot like the Salsa you eat at Mexican restaurants. 

 I want to add some of my other favorite recipes to the binder so I decided I needed to start making my own cute digital scrapbook recipe cards.  Here is one that I made of the Bread recipe I posted yesterday.

Click on the card to make it bigger, then copy and paste it to whatever file you want it to go to.  I just put mine in a file I made on my desktop called blog recipe cards.

Happy Blogging :-)

Soft and Delicious Whole Wheat Bread

I  made the best bread this week! 

 I wanted to try a new Whole Wheat bread recipe from the one I usually make.  In my search I came across this recipe in a booklet I got from the Tucson Cannery back in 1999 when we lived there.  When I saw the name "Soft and Delicious Whole Wheat Bread" I knew I needed to try it!
Here is a picture of it when the loaves had  risen and were ready to bake.  I did not get a pic. after they were baked, but you will just  have to believe me that they baked into the most beautiful yummy loaves of bread :-)

The recipe

Soft and Delicious Whole Wheat Bread

Makes 4 loaves

5 cups warm water

2 Tbs. yeast

1/3 cup oil

1/3 cup honey

2 eggs

1/3 cup potao flakes

 1 Tbs. salt

6 cups whole wheat flour

4-5 cups unbleached flour

Dissolve yeast in water.  Make a sponge using all ingredients down to, and including salt. mix and let sit for 10 min. Add flour a cup at a time while mixing until dough is close to cleaning the mixing bowl then knead for about 5 min.  cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double. Punch down; shape into 4 loaves, place in greased pans. cover and let rise until double. ( I used rapid rise yeast so I shaped loaves in pans let them rise in a warm oven about 200 degrees then turned the oven up to 350 and baked for about 30- 40 min.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 min.. Put hot bread on a towel to cool for a soft crust.