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Showing posts from 2012

And the Stocking were hung by the Fireplace

Booyah! Homemade stockings hung by the fireplace? Check! I am so thrilled to have completed these! You have no idea! Let me preface this by stating I am not a 'sewer', hmmm I think that is sewer like where your toilet water goes, and I mean sewer as in 'one who sews'. Ok, you get the idea. I did sew for 4-H growing up, but otherwise I really just bust it out only when circumstances call for it, such as these stockings. So now that we have covered the fact that I am admittedly not going to call myself a seamstress, that's a better word, here's how I made these babies! I have a general sense of what sewing is. I do not do the whole, buy a pattern and pin it together and mark where to tuck and etc etc. No, I'm to impatient for all of that. I am more of a trial and error kind of gal. And I have to say there was very little error on these stockings. In fact my first one turned out the best. Probably because I took my time and was careful. Also plaid is my new f

A Sneak Peek

It's the Christmas season, so let's get in the spirit by taking a little peak. Ok, really it's just a preview of the stocking project that I am finally getting to. I wanted to let you know that I haven't been sitting by the fire eating Christmas Crackers and drinking Holiday Slush. Yesssss, I have been doing that too, but I am also going to check off one of the projects on my list before Christmas, and I'd say I am about half way there. So I thought it was time to let you take a little peak and get you all excited. Or at least throw it out there, cuz I'm super excited about how these are turning out and all I've done so far is cut out the pattern and thrown some scrap fabric on top! Here's my inspiration photo... ( Again I apologize I don't have a source .) And here's where I am at now... I've got a ways to go, but I think I'm going to love them! Plus throwing this out there now gives me the incentive to get on it! You all need t

From My Christmas Wish List to Yours!

One of my favorite stores, West Elm, has now opened a special section called The Market. It specializes in kitchen, garden and personal care. Lets just say I am in love. If I had unlimited resources to spend in one store to do a total overhaul on my house, it would be West Elm, and now with the new Market, I am in lust too. So here are a few of my favorites. Check it out and maybe you'll get some great Christmas ideas for someone on your list. Or maybe my hubby will see this and get a great idea for me! Hint, hint! Enjoy! Incredibly large, amazing cutting board . I've seen these boards doubling as art hanging on the wall, then they take up no storage space! Cast iron Dutch oven . Great for one-pot meals. These glass jars come in varying sizes. I'm thinking they would work well for brown sugar with that rubber seal. I would definitely get plenty of use out of a cheese knife set during the holidays and all year round. Copper measuring spoons . Seriously? Fantastic

ROUSes and Other Not So Fun Creatures

ROUS is a familiar term around our home. For those of you who do not know sweet Westley, Princess Buttercup and the nasty creatures from the Fire Swamp, I highly recommended renting The Princess Bride immediately! ROUS or Rodents Of Unusual Size, have from time to time popped into my home to say hello. In case you've forgotten, this lovely place I call home is a seventies modular home that has seen better days. Let me give you a little glimpse into what I'm dealing with here. When the wind blows, which being from South Dakota is an everyday occurrence, my indoor curtains honest to goodness blow too. The majority of the windows are cracked and or gapping around the frames, so many of the windows are covered in plastic to keep out the cold and the bugs. The cracks in the siding on the outside of our house tend to let in little and not so little creatures of all kinds. As a result the outside of the house will soon be held together more by the sealant I spray into the crack

A Church, a House and a Home

Things have been a little crazy around here the last week or so. Ok, who am I kidding, things are ALWAYS crazy around here. But house things have been buzzing this week, or should I say 'church' things? On Halloween night my father-in-law showed me an awesome find in a farm newspaper. It is an amaaaazing church for sale; dirt cheap. The only catch is that it is nearly two hundred miles from where we live. It didn't deter me, seriously it takes a lot to deter me! With the help of my sister, we found the church's pictures online bright and early on Thursday morning and so the phone calls began... I left voicemails on each of the phone numbers listed and even e-mailed the address that I scrounged up on the Internet. A looooong day proceeded waiting to hear a reply. When the phone rang, I nearly threw the baby 'Hail Mary' style to my husband. A short conversation later with the owner and I had learned that the church was built in 1889 and had been empty for ten year

A Day on the Ranch

We worked cattle earlier this week. Here's the truth about that. I like to imagine waking up before dawn to work cattle looking like this. But in reality it felt like this... For those without first hand experience of working cattle, it is nothing like the romanticized ideal that we see in movies or read in heaving bosom books. At least not in my twenty seven years of experience. For me it always involves swearing, a lot of it. Somebody almost always ends up crying. Me. There is yelling and dust and dirt and tension. You can cut the tension with a knife. There are moments where you hold your breath, and you pray to God very sincerely that the cattle just do as they are suppose to the. first. time. Then they do! And you inwardly do a happy dance, thank you Lord Jesus dance. Then the next moment comes and again you hold your breath and pray fervently. This continues for the rest of the day until the last calf is loaded and the gates to the pasture closed tight. This is how wo

Easy Halloween Decoration

I was outside with the kiddos the other day, following a huge wind storm. We were picking up fallen branches, and I got to thinking some of them would work really well for a project I had in mind. The twig got pushed aside for a couple of days and then I'm watching the Today show and lo and behold, Ms. Martha Stewart had the same stinkin' idea. Ok, it wasn't like it was rocket science, but just for the record I had it first! It's pretty simple and straightforward but I like it. I took a hurricane lamp and filled it with rock filler. I placed a battery operated candle inside and placed the twig behind it. Now, Ms. Martha spray painted her twig black, which would be a nice touch. I'm just not patient enough, plus I kind of like the natural look, so in the twig went. Next I cut out various shapes from construction paper. Bats, stars, moon, cats, you get the idea. Then my daughter got in on the action and we too black thread and threaded it through holes we made in t

Homemade Finger Paint

I made a really fun, fairly simple finger paint recipe from Trish Kuffner's toddler book recently. My three year old was driving me crazy and was underfoot. She had seen a commercial for finger paints and decided we should have some too. I opened up Kuffner's book, and tada... She had several recipes for finger paints. So here's how it looked going through the process. Overall it was pretty straight forward. It takes about ten minutes of stirring for the cornstarch and water mixture to come together. Just stick with it, it will come together! I was a bit nervous that because I was using food dye, it would stain little fingers, but it doesn't. I don't know if its the drop of dish soap that makes the difference, but it washed right off the skin. I just stripped my little one down and let her have at it, so I can't say if it comes out of clothes or not. :) I did as the book suggested and put little dollops of the uncolored mix in mini muffin tins and t

Repurposing Projects

This time of year, when the weather starts to cool and I feel the need to snuggle in, I start getting all crazy with crafting ideas. I picked these crates up the other day outside the dumpster at our local John Deere store. I told politely asked my husband to grab them after checking to make sure I could take them. I am not sure yet what I'm going to do with them, but I've got a couple ideas. Maybe paint them and hang them for shelves, or use them as toy bins, maybe even laundry hampers for the girls. Really there's a million uses for a nice crates like these, so I'll come up with something. They're around 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 feet. Nice solid wood! I'm super excited about these! If you have any ideas or have done something similar, let me know how it turned out. And now I have a confession to make. I am as bad as the retail stores, as one season comes in, I am already moving onto the next one. Fall weather has finally arrived here in the Midwest and as much as I l

Happy Fall- Time to Slow Down

I've been busy following several blogs. They have such beautiful homes and are great inspirations. Sometimes I get carried away thinking that blog homes and magazine homes look that perfect every minute of every day. It's hard to remember that often the photos shown are there for inspiration and are only slices of a moment caught on camera. Pictures do not necessarily tell the story of true everyday life. Rachel Martin's blog, Finding Joy ,has got me thinking about taking the time to look for the spaces in my home that make me happy and inspire me. I need to focus on those places more, and less on the toys all over the living room floor or the messes on the counter that need to be put away. Instead of getting so wrapped up in what is unfinished, I need to focus on what is finished. This is the sign I just put up for Fall, it makes me smile to see it every time I come home!   This Scarecrow came from Lakeside Collections and the pumpkin from Walmart. The chair was my

Shining A Little Light

Let me take you back about a year ago. I awoke early one morning to a rattling and clanking sound. Certain that I had a mouse in a trap somewhere (living on the farm I deal with quite a few mice) I checked the usual traps, but couldn't find anything. Then, following the sound I found the little culprit stuck in my recessed light in my bathroom. I was six or seven months prego with baby number two and didn't wish to climb up on a chair to try and solve the problem by myself. My husband was away at work and after a frantic phone call to my brother-in-law, help had arrived. Problem is, when he pulled the glass out, that little mouse moused dropped straight down and the person who was suppose to be holding a bag to catch it (me), ran off screaming. The mouse got away and the glass slipped out of my brother-in-laws hero's hands and shattered on the floor. So long story short, I have been staring at this, every time I use my bathroom. Pretty bad, isn't it? So I had a strok