Canning Jar Pin Cushion

Our weather has started to feel like Fall the past few days. With that change in temperature I have felt the need to get crafting for Christmas.



I found this tutorial recently and thought I would give it a try yesterday afternoon. I ran into a problem when I realized that the lid wouldn't actually screw onto the jar for some reason. So, I took everything apart and tried again. I think I figured it out and it turned out really cute. I put a few buttons in the bottom of the jar, so this pin cushion can serve double duty. It is going to be part of a sewing themed Christmas present for my daughter.

I also saw a cute idea today over at Cluck Cluck Sew. I am going to try it with a lone tea cup we have that has no saucer. I will let you know how it turns out when I get it finished.

Canning Jar Pin Cushion

Great Visit with Family

Yesterday we were blessed to have my husband's cousin, her husband, and 6 of their 7 children visit. They only were able to be here for a few hours, but we were glad for the time we had. We don't see them often because they live in Alaska, and getting down to the lower 48 states isn't a trip they make every year.

My children had fun playing with their cousins, especially my daughter. She had 4 girls to play with, and that meant the girls outnumbered the boys here for a change. :-) We traipsed through the woods, played, talked, laughed and ate too much.

I am thankful for such a nice visit with such a nice family. The other thing I am thankful for is that so much of what I prepared for supper was from our garden. It was such a great feeling to be able to prepare a meal for 14 people and spend less than $12. (I wish I was better at calculating exact costs for meals.)

Check out what was on our plates.



Homemade Whole Wheat Rolls (The flour was a gift from my brother.)
Mashed Butternut Squash (from our garden)
Sliced Green Peppers (from our garden)
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Turkey Breast (Purchased on sale for $1 per pound.)
Corn (from our garden)
Green Beans (from our garden)
Applesauce (from our apple tree)
Roasted Grape Tomatoes (from our garden)
Homemade Noodles (My mom made the noodles and gave me the broth to cook them.)
Not pictured: Chocolate Chip Blondies for dessert.

I can't say enough good things about having a garden. It is truly a gift from God to eat so well for so little. Also, I am thankful for visiting with family and pray they have safe travels for the remainder of their trip.

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Great Visit with Family

Nature Crafts Week: Links

I thought I would share some links with you today to wrap up this week of nature crafts. It has been fun sharing ideas with you. Maybe you will be inspired to create from things you might find in your own backyard.

Please leave me a comment if you have a link to share and I will add it to the list.

My friend Ariel of The Creative Juices of Ariel has a tutorial for a darling little terrarium she made. Moss Terrarium How-To

Kerri of Lovely Little Handmades used Ariel's tutorial to make a cute little terrarium. Terrarium

Michelle at Delightful Learning posted recently about her family's study of seeds. She has shared pictures of a cute seed bracelet and seed artwork her children made. Flowers to Seeds

I found a tutorial for a really cute pine cone owl on Crafster that we will have to try. Pine Cone Owl

I recommend you check out The Crafty Crow for wonderful craft ideas. There are links to so many great projects. Nature Crafts

Tiny Happy has some great nature inspired crafts. She does a lot of hand embroidery to capture the beauty of flowers and leaves she finds in nature. For example, check out this recent post titled Garden-Inspired. So lovely!

Etsy is a great place to be inspired to create or to purchase items from very talented artisans. You can search for a variety of natural materials and find out what others are making with them. Check out Etsy, but be prepared to spend some time browsing. I know the time can fly by for me when I am looking at all of the lovely items.

There are thousands more links I could find and share, but I won't. :-) Now, please let me know if you have any nature craft ideas. Thanks and have a great weekend!

Nature Crafts Week: Links

Nature Crafts Week: Acorns

We have an oak tree in our front yard that my brother planted over 20 years ago as an acorn. It now produces hundreds of acorns each fall. We collect some for crafts and leave the rest for the squirrels. (Side note: We live in the house in which I grew up. We bought it from my parents 10 1/2 years ago and it has truly been a blessing to raise our children in the country.)

Two years ago I asked my husband to drill a small hole through the middle of each acorn I had gathered (with the little tops removed). He was sweet to oblige me. My daughter and I then threaded a needle with some embroidery floss and strung the acorns to make a unique necklace.



It is so pretty and has fooled many people into thinking it is made of purchased wooden beads until they look at it closely.

Just look at how young my girl looked just two short years ago while wearing her new creation. She just won't stay little no matter how hard I try. :-) However, I am proud of the young lady she is becoming and love that she is crafty.

Check back tomorrow as I round out my week of nature crafts posts with some links to other sites with great ideas.

Nature Crafts Week: Acorns

Nature Crafts Week: Corn Husks

We grow sweet corn in our garden every year. We also live right next to corn fields. Needless to say, corn husks are plentiful here, and can be used for crafting.

Last year my daughter and I collected some husks and dried them in a single layer on towel lined cookie sheets. We used some to make the doll below.



Here is a nice tutorial you can follow to make your own corn husk doll. (Corn Husk Doll) I also found a cool tutorial for a corn cob doll that I know my daughter will want to try, (Corn Cob Doll) If you have a daughter like mine who loves all things from colonial and pioneer times then these would be great crafts to try.

Nature Crafts Week: Corn Husks

Nature Crafts Week: Leaves

Fall is the time of year when we have plenty of leaves falling in our yard. They are our most readily available natural craft supply.

There are several projects we have made over the years using leaves. One is to place a leaf under a piece of paper and rub a crayon over it to make leaf rubbings. Another is to get out a piece of clear contact paper and lay leaves all over it. Then place another piece of contact paper on top. These make great placemats. You can also paint a leaf and then press it onto paper thus turning the leaf into a stamp.



The fall banner pictured above was made using felt, acrylic paint and leaves. We arranged leaves on a piece of white felt and then used a sponge brush to dab paint all over the felt. When we were finished we removed the leaves and were left with reverse leaf prints. This could also be made with regular fabric and fabric paint.

Our favorite family activity involving leaves is simply to play in them. Check out the pictures below that I took back in 2003. Look how little my oldest two children were. Where has the time gone? Sniff, sniff.

Nature Crafts Week: Leaves

Nature Crafts Week: Apples

Continuing with my theme of nature crafts I wanted to share with you about painting with apples. We have been blessed with an apple tree in our back yard. We don't spray our tree, so the apples don't look pretty. However, they are perfect for crafts (and making applesauce).



I recently had my preschoolers painting with apples (See post here.), and used a popsicle stick as a handle. This made painting with the apples so much easier.



While the children loved using the apples as paintbrushes they also did some stamping with the apples. We used acrylic paint on paper, but if you wanted to stamp on fabric then fabric paint would be just the thing.



You don't have to be confined to just using red either. Check out the photo above. It was taken two years ago when my kids stamped with apples using all sorts of colors of paint. (Look how little they were!)

Another craft idea I remember seeing used apples as a table decoration. The apples were cored and a votive candle was placed inside. I think that would be so pretty for a fall dinner party. OK, I don't actually host dinner parties, but you know what I mean. :-)

Nature Crafts Week: Apples

Butterflies

Our caterpillars all hatched out of their chrysalis's and we were able to observe three beautiful butterflies. It was a wonderful way for us to marvel at some of God's creations. I wrote a post with pictures of the whole process on my other blog if you are interested. (Click here.)

Butterflies

Nature Crafts Week: Pine Cones

This week I want to take some time to focus on crafts made from items found in nature. We are blessed to live on some acreage that is filled with items that can be used for crafting. I will be sharing some of the items I have collected and some crafts that I have completed and/or hope to complete with these found items. I would love to hear your comments and check out any links you may have about these items.



Last week I gathered pine cones from our yard. They were very sticky, and I made the mistake of just picking them up by hand. My advice would be to wear some sort of gloves. Just make sure they are old and you don't care that they become sticky from the sap.

I did a little research and decided that the best way to get rid of the sap was to bake the pine cones. Below are the steps for completing this task.

1. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Place pine cones in a single layer on the foil.
3. Put in a 225 degree oven.
4. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
5. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet.
6. Now you are ready to craft!

If you bake pine cones be prepared for your home to smell like Christmas!

I have a few ideas for these pine cones. One is to make them into miniature Christmas trees in tiny clay pots. Another is to make a wreath. I am also envisioning some sort of tree fashioned from several pine cones. Plus, I will let the children play with them. I imagine they would be fun to stack.

Let me know if you have any other ideas for me.

Nature Crafts Week: Pine Cones

My little guy this morning.

Embracing the literal meaning of "clean your plate".

My little guy this morning.

Check out these sweet potatoes!

This was my first year to plant sweet potatoes. I bought a 12 pack of plants that were nothing more than small vines and cost just over $2. I planted them at the end of April and look what I got in return less than five months later! I wasn't sure what kind of harvest I would get, so this totally exceeded my expectations.



They were kind of tough to dig out, so I ended up needing my husband to help me. I was thankful for his help. Our ground is rock hard right now, but we managed to get them all out, I think.

Check out the sweet potato pictured below. It weighed in at just under 7 pounds!! We had some that were really funny looking. My son said one looked like a goose. :-)



I will be giving some of these away, and will store the rest for meals all fall and winter. If you have any tried and true sweet potato recipes I would love to hear about them.

Check out these sweet potatoes!

Helping Hands

Today I am grateful for many things. We truly have so many blessings. Yet, I wanted to share something that happened yesterday.

My son had used the bathroom when he was finished with lunch and flushed the toilet. I was in the kitchen and thought I heard water running longer than normal, but didn't check it immediately. When I did go into the bathroom I realized something wasn't right and took the lid off the toilet tank. The float had broken off, so the flap wouldn't close to stop the water from turning off.

I turned the water off and called my dad. While I was talking to him I thought about my husband's uncle who is a retired plumber. I gave him a call, and he told me he was headed to Lowe's in 5 minutes. He said he would stop by here first. He only lives about 5 minutes away and was here right away.

He looked at the toilet, went to Lowe's and got the right part, came back , and then fixed my toilet.

I am so grateful for his help because my husband had a golf match last night (He's a coach.) and didn't get home until quite late. The last thing he would have wanted to worry about was fixing our toilet. The other thing I am grateful for is that I didn't have to get the kids out and mess with nap time to get the parts. For that matter, I might not have purchased the right part.

So, today I am grateful that God worked out all those little details and provided a pair of helping hands just when I needed them.

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Helping Hands

Vintage Aprons

A dear friend gave me some vintage aprons a few weeks ago. She said she had thought about making them into window treatments, but never did because they weren't a good match for her decor. So, I am they lucky recipient. I am trying to decide how I will use them. Anyone have any ideas?

For now, I have enjoyed looking at them and pondering what the women who wore them were like. Did they begrudgingly complete their household chores, or did they find joy in the task of running a home? That time gone by when women wore aprons in the house is such an intriguing time period, and I have so many questions. I want to ask the few women I know who lived through that era what they think of us young women today. Do they find us lazy? Do they wonder why more of us don't know more of the domestic arts such as sewing and canning? Like I said I have lots of questions and pray I can make the time to ask them.

There is just something about these aprons that makes me long for those seemingly simpler times...

Vintage Aprons

Chrysalis

Yesterday I posted about the three Monarch caterpillars we found on Monday. Here is the link to that post.



Anyway, my preschoolers had just arrived for our morning class and I was showing them the jar of caterpillars. All of a sudden the caterpillar that had attached to the side of the jar last night started wiggling around and turned into a chrysalis right before our eyes.

We had to start class and didn't see how it looked when it was finished until it was time for the children to leave.



The color is so pretty and I love how there is a little bit of gold on it. I wish I had videotaped it changing. There are still two more caterpillars, so I will have to keep an eye on them.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how beautiful the chrysalis is even though it isn't a butterfly yet. While it doesn't appear to be doing anything but hanging there waiting to have a butterfly emerge from it, a great transformation is happening.

Today as I was dealing with my four year old not making some of his best choices I was fairly frustrated with him. Yet, I know that God is working on him (and me ) and that my son will come out on the other side of this as an even more beautiful creature in Christ. I am thankful to have seen that caterpillar become a chrysalis today. It gave me a greater appreciation for the child my son is now with hope for the future.


Philippians 1:6 (New King James Version)
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

Chrysalis

A Relaxing Day at Home

I have so many things to always be grateful for, but today I am mostly thankful for a great day yesterday. My kids were finally all fever-free and we were able to do some things around the house. I have enjoyed my new preschool and babysitting on the off days, but I have truly been missing the slower paced summer we had. I was thankful for my husband and kids being home with me Monday.

Between the mountains of laundry I was tackling and the gallons of tomatoes we juiced, we squeezed in some time to take a ride in the woods. We hooked up the cart to the four-wheeler and were off. It was a beautiful day and I so enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine.

We marveled at God's creations. There were plenty of birds and bugs to see and hear. Then a white-tailed buck ran in front of us. They are always run with such grace. I asked my husband to stop near some milkweed plants so I could see if there were any Monarch eggs on them.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this guy eating on the underside of a leaf. I looked around some more and found 2 others. I picked the plants and we brought them back home. (Don't worry. There are still plenty of milkweed plants left.)

I rigged up a giant pickle jar with the milkweed leaves, a small twig, the three caterpillars, and some old pantyhose for the top. I am so anxious for the kids to see the beautiful chrysalises. I will definitely share pictures when it happens. If you have never seen a Monarch butterfly chrysalis you are in for a treat.

So, not only am I thankful for a day to rest and spend time with my wonderful family, but I am thankful for the opportunity to have my children experience some of God's wonderful creations first-hand.

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A Relaxing Day at Home

Natural Cleaning

I thought I would link up with Passionate Homemaking and the natural cleaning blog carnival Lindsay is hosting.  If you have never visited Passionate Homemaking you should definitely check out all of the insightful and informative posts Lindsay always writes.  Good stuff! 

I will put links to my natural cleaning blog posts below.  Enjoy a healthier home while being frugal as well!

Natural Cleaning Kit (with printable cleaning recipe cards)

Fauxbreeze

Baking Soda in the Dishwasher

Natural Dishwasher Detergent

Quick Bathroom Cleaning Tips

Natural Cleaning

Co-Sleeping Works For Me

The first time I put my baby girl in bed with us we got so much sleep it was a miracle. She was just a few days old, and I didn't even know there was a name for it. I just knew that I needed more sleep than my round-the-clock nursling would allow.

Ten years and 4 children later co-sleeping has provided me with many sleep-filled nights. I don't sleep soundly, but I enjoy not rushing to get a crying 1 year old from his room on a cold night.

My kids usually are in their rooms full-time by the time they go to school. Sometimes the older ones will camp on our floor for fun. My 4 year old and 1 year old are in our bed most nights right now though.

Last night was a prime example of why I am thankful we co-sleep with my four year old. At around 3:00 a.m. he bolted out of bed and started running. I said his name loudly and he came back to bed. I am pretty sure he was asleep, and have no idea what possessed him to run. I just know that I am thankful he was in my bed or who knows where he might have ended up.

So, to make a long story short, co-sleeping works for me. Join We Are THAT Family for more Works for me Wednesday ideas.

Co-Sleeping Works For Me

Mommy Instincts

I am trying to come up with something to be grateful for after the night we had last night.  My oldest son came home from school yesterday and took a nap.  I took his temperature and it was 101.5.  After 2 hours of a nap it was 102.6.  We gave him some Motrin around 9:00 p.m.  He did get some rest after that, but never did eat and only went to the bathroom one time.

Fast forward to 2:00 a.m. when I bolted up out of bed.  I never heard a sound, but something made me get up to check on him.  My son was throwing up because his temperature had shot up to around 104.  I got some medicine in him and gave him a tepid bath.  His fever started to come down, and he was able to sleep again.

I woke up a few more times in the night to check on him, and his fever is down around the 102 range this morning.  He is miserable though and I am praying his body quickly fights off whatever is getting him down. 

So, while I am not happy or grateful that my son is so sick, I am grateful that God gave me the instincts to know when he needed me last night. 

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Mommy Instincts