An Unofficial FFA member

"Hey, while I am at a church meeting, would you make up some vinyl words for my fair display?  Tonight?  Because we set up tomorrow."

Yep, let me get right on that.  Once the kids are in bed...

Who knew I should have joined FFA back in my high school days?

Father's Day Craft

Today preschool was at my house.  Tiffany accepted a kindergarten job for next year, and has been using preschool time to get ready.  So instead of always meeting at Tiffany's house, the rest of us have been trading and Tiffany gets the time off.

We did a Father's Day craft and I liked how it turned out.  The paper bags are hiding some prepackaged cookies, mostly just because they will save until Father's Day.  I got the idea from Pinterest, and used my Silhouette to cut everything out.  

Pillow Projects

 I've been having fun decorating our window seat with different pillow covers.  I made this "Give Thanks" pillow for Thanksgiving.

 And this jingle bell pillow for the Christmas season.

Sometime during the month of January, I thought it might be time to move on from the Christmas bells, so I attempted making one of those ruffle pillows.  I scavenged from my dresser drawer this well used t-shirt.  T-shirt material won't fray, and it's free!  I cut it up into many strips, ruffled them, and then attached those to my pillow cover.

The ruffle pillow took a bit longer than I thought it would, but then, it seems like most craft projects end up that way.  

Don't look too closely at my rows of ruffles.  It looks like I was a drunk driver for the first few rows, until I figured out what I was doing.

Gingerbread Houses

We were given a gingerbread house kit with 4 little houses for 4 little girls.  So, this afternoon after church, we got it out and attempted to put together gingerbread houses.  And then, I tried to put gingerbread houses together.  Eventually, they kinda held up long enough for the kids to decorate.

 The finished products:

And then the kids ate them.

Kissing Ball

I keep seeing cute kissing balls on Pinterest.  Today, I decided to make one for myself, and it was entirely free.  I used a styrofoam ball that I'd used for another project (ripped the old, dusty crepe paper flowers off first), and went around the yard cutting bits of still-green plants, and some pieces off the Christmas tree.  (Those were the branches that had to be cut off so it would fit in the tree stand.)  I stabbed the bits of greenery in the ball, went back outside for more clippings.....  And voila!

Catching Up

This is just going to be a mash-up of pictures I've taken lately, and a blurb about them.  As I am pretty far behind in posting, this is just going to be the fastest means of catching up.

Elizabeth gave me a make-over after school today.  Have you ever seen that you tube video of the rubber bands and the exploding watermelon?  Well, I had about 10 headbands around my head, and was starting to feel like that watermelon.  Ryan thought I was worthy of a photo though.

Annie and me on a Sunday afternoon.

 Annie and Maddie being silly at bath time.

The fall wreath I made this week.  The ready-made wreaths were like $40 at Michaels, and I figured I could make something decent for much cheaper.  I don't know if I am happy with it yet, but it's up.

 Remember all those onions I wrote about a while ago?  Well, they have been sitting around, and Walla Walla onions do not store well.  They have started to go bad, so I cut up a whole lot of onions, and cried.  If anyone had come by, it would have looked like we had received some very bad news.  Anyone walking through the kitchen was teary eyed.  I got out the dehydrator, and made the whole house reek of onions.  But at the end of it, I had saved the onions from certain death.  I feel pretty good about my homemade, home grown dehydrated onions.

 It was a rough couple of days to be a bird at our house.  Sunday morning a neighbor's dog took a very big bite out of one of our turkeys, and Ryan had to put him down.  Fearing for our other birds, I left the chickens locked up in their coop until we could fix the hole in our fence.  On Tuesday evening, the fence was fixed, and we let out the chickens.  I guess the rooster was miffed at being locked up for so long, and had to assert his manly-ness.  Within 2 minutes of being let loose, he attacked Annie and gave her a big scrape through her pants.  The rooster tried to attack Elizabeth too, and so... this was what was left after Ryan got to the rooster.

 Our garden is going CRAZY.  There's no way I can keep up with it.  This is the bucket of tomatoes I picked one afternoon.

 So I cut up almost all of those tomatoes, onions (this was before dehydrating all those other ones), some peppers, and some jalapenos, and let them simmer on the stove until I had a really big batch of salsa.  (This picture does not do it justice, as it is a REALLY big pot.)

I wuss-ed out on canning the salsa, though.  I ended up putting it in quart sized baggies and freezing it.

Whew.  I think this is it for tonight.

More Craftiness

Emma has been begging me to teach her how to sew.  Since today was a holiday, I decided to humor her.  We went down to the store and she picked out fabric for a pillow case.  I figured it was something with all straight seams, and both she and I could handle that.  (Tutorial found here.)

Ryan built us an end table this weekend too.  I helped a little.  Mostly I handed Ryan the screws and wished the wind would go away.  (Tutorial found here.)  We put on the 2nd coat of paint this morning.

It's on wooden toy blocks until we are sure the paint is fully dry.

Window Seat

Yesterday after church, I felt the need to get the cushion done for the window seat.  Ryan cut me a piece of plywood, and I got out the roll of memory foam I had picked up at Walmart earlier in the week.  Ryan got me set up with a staple gun, and then left to go home teaching.  I was going to impress him with my craftiness when he got home, supposedly an hour later.

I got the padding hot glued to the board.  I decided that might be easiest to do outside since foam leaves a mess when it gets cut.  Then I hauled it inside, cut my fabric, and tried to staple it to the board.

I could not get those staples into that wood.  I tried pushing really hard, I tried another angle, I tried googling staple gun videos to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Well, I would not be impressing Ryan when he came home.

I tried texting Ryan- what was I doing wrong?  Could he think of anything?

Time passed.  No response.  It's been an hour and more.

"When are you coming home?"

Still nothing.

Now I was pouting.  Seriously?  He was doing this to me when he knew I was working on a project?!?!?!!

(The outside work.  Just me and my mighty glue gun.)

Finally Ryan came home.  Apparently the staples he loaded up where about 3x too long.  No wonder I couldn't get those stupid staples into the wood.

 Cushion done, putty applied and sanded.

Next step, paint.

 And done, with 4 new pillows.  I may have "borrowed" some old pillow forms from the twins for the smaller pillows.

Then I took the left over fabric from the window seat cushion, and made pillows for the couch.

Finally Finished

I'm not exactly sure when I started making this quilt, but I think it was last spring.  The house selling and moving got in the way of my actually finishing.  Now that my craft room is finally unpacked (like a week and a half ago), Ryan and I decided it was high time the denim quilt was finished.

Today, it is FINALLY done. 

We made a denim quilt 8-ish years ago with my friend Christa.  Ryan has never been a big fan of it, due to the flannel material on the back.  So this time around, I used a regular ol' twin-sized flat sheet.  Ryan gave it a thumbs up.

{a sewing project}

For Christmas Ryan bought me a Kindle.  I was stoked, although I kind of knew about it before Christmas.  Ryan thought he was being secretive, but... well...  he wasn't. :)

I wanted to get a cover for the Kindle.  I looked for e-reader covers in town, but those were $20+.  So I looked online and it was the same.   Shoot, I could make one for myself for cheaper than that!  So I did.

I found a free pattern on Pinterest (Wahoo- I actually made one of the "to make someday" projects!), bought some fabric, and away I went.  I like it.

Here's the link to the pattern and directions.

Gingerbread Houses

Yesterday after church, once the twins were down for their nap, Emma and Elizabeth got out the craft foam "gingerbread house" kits from their grandparents.  Instead of sitting down nicely at the table to make them, they spread out over the whole kitchen floor.

 My mad building skills were needed for the assembly of the houses.  After that, I was more of a support person- which pieces belonged to each house after a slight mix-up.  I also was in charge of the glue gun.  It isn't a proper craft project if the glue gun isn't used. :)

L-Elizabeth, R-Emma

Choo Choo

We were invited over to a friend's house to make candy trains.  I've made a couple of gingerbread houses in my day, but the trains were new to me.  But it didn't involve praying that the royal icing would hold the walls and roof together and then breaking out the hot glue, and I had an excuse to buy 4 candy bars, so we were excited.

I think technically we were supposed to use each candy bar to make a train car for one long train.  But my children are the kind who elbow each other and snatch the last 4 pieces of candy as another is reaching for that particular kind, so we opted for separate and unattached train cars.

Mmm.... frosting.... Lots and lots of frosting.

We try hard to be creative. 

Crafts for fall

I wanted to put up a picture of the pumpkins the kids made before I forgot about it.  Again.  They made these a couple of weeks ago...

The ones in the middle were my idea- and are made from egg cartons, orange paint, construction paper, hot glue, and black Sharpies.

The pumpkins on the ends were made from construction paper; tutorial found here at Craftaholics Anonymous.  Some of ours ended up a little wonky- but I figured it just adds to their character, right?

{Fall Craftiness}

A couple weeks ago, I found this pumpkin tutorial and I thought, I have got to make me a couple of those.  I browsed the local fabric selection and decided it would have to wait.  (Ugh, Walmart.  'Nough said.)

Eventually I found myself in Y- and I stopped by a fabric store.  I spent $6 on fabric and I was set.  I already had stuffing and felt, so I got out the sewing machine after lunch and made two pumpkins.  They came out really cute, so I sent a picture message to my sister-in-law and proudly pointed them out to Ryan when he got home from work.

He thought they were great.  And he wanted about 8 more in 36 hours for his FFA fair display.

(I'm impressed.  Ryan can take my happy little craft project and it turn it into something stressful.  Oh well.) 

I got very little else done yesterday, but by the time I got to bed last night, the pumpkins were done!

I put them in a plastic garbage sack and drove them up to the fair (along with a whole lot of other stuff piled in the back of the minivan) this morning.  Ryan took the school pickup full of produce, display board, hops and students up to the fair, and I followed along behind with the twins and all the decorations.

I hope everyone is very nice to my pumpkins because I want them back.  And soon.  I'm counting the days until they can come home. :)

Valentine Wreath

Cold weather and the lack of sunshine leads to a couple of things- a) major sugar indulgence, b) cabin fever, and c) the crafting bug.

While blog-hopping the other evening, I found a crazy idea for this wreath over at the Tatertots and Jello website.  (Ok, so it's an odd name for a craft blog, but whatever.  Maybe if I were more of a crafty person, perhaps I would understand.)

I have always been a little envious of other women's abilities to beautifully decorate their homes, and have decorations for each holiday and season.  And then not having their cute stuff disappear behind other stuff (ie, the pens and papers a husband empties from his pockets and leaves on top of the entertainment center, or the mountains of dirty clothes, school papers, Polly Pockets, Legos, clean laundry and crumbs that seem to accumulate all over) like at my house.  Visions of the displays at the craft store float around in my mind and I think, for a short moment, surely I could do something cute like that. 

The next day I drug (Er, maybe that's not the right way to say it.  There were no drugs involved, just a whole lot of crying and fighting over who got to hold mom's phone) dragged the twins to the store to buy the supplies to turn the charming vision into a reality. 

I found the 12" wreath form ( later used as a hat or a weapon of sisterly abuse), $4 worth of Valentine cupcake liners (which can be sat on and still be usable) and then made my way over to the ribbon aisle.  Ribbon can be very pricey when you need large amounts, so imagine my excitement to find 60 yards of red ribbon on clearance for $1.49.  Score! 

That afternoon, after I got the twins down for their nap, I found my old friend the glue gun and got to work.  Thinking the wreath should be pretty self-explanatory, I didn't bother looking up the directions again.

Imagine my surprise at learning there was a reason for that particular ribbon to be so value priced.  If you so much as breathed on it wrong, it creased.  Good thing I was going to cover it.  

An hour later, when I was thoroughly tired of folding cupcake liners and burning my fingers in an attempt to make those liners stick to my ribbon-covered wreath form, I picked off the last of the hot glue cobwebs.  Ta da!  It was done.

(Do you like our coffee filter snowflakes that are also on the door?  We are nothing if not classy.)

I realized that my wreath didn't quite look like the one in the picture.  Mine was a little more... funky.  That's when I checked the craft blog and realized I was supposed to "bunch the liner up at the bottom by pressing all of the side together like a flower" and not fold them into quarters. 

I guess mine is "original" and "has character."  Right?

Pillowcase Projects

For Christmas, I made Emma and Elizabeth matching Christmas-themed pillowcases. They liked them so well, they've been on their pillows ever since. It was making me laugh a little, seeing them in June and July. I thought I should probably make them some new ones that aren't so..... Christmassy.

I went to Walmart (we don't have a fabric store in town), stared at the fabrics and realized maybe I should have asked Emma and Elizabeth if they had a preference for color or theme. I pulled out my trusty cell phone and called home. Ryan answered, and we talked about fabrics for the twins, Emma and Elizabeth. Well, I thought we'd brought the conversation around to the older girls, so when I asked Ryan if he'd ask the girls what color fabric they wanted, I could tell Ryan thought I was completely insane by the tone of his voice. But I was clueless as to why he thought that. I pressed my point, so then I could hear Ryan over the phone (with an overly enthusiastic voice) ask Annie and Maddie what color fabric they wanted. ("Do you want PINK? Yes, PINK? How 'bout BLUE? Do you like BLUE?" etc.) I tried to talk to him, but he couldn't hear me call out his name. So, then I just started laughing. I was standing in the fabric dept. of Walmart giggling to myself. I'm sure it was a sight. Ryan got back on the phone and told me that he got a reaction to purple for Maddie and pink for Annie. (The twins do not know their colors yet.)

We got things straightened out, I talked to Emma and Elizabeth on the phone, and I got the fabric cut and purchased. (That's another story... Ugh. Walmart.)

So I made pillowcases yesterday and today during nap times. I made the Ariel one with purple trim for Elizabeth, the Princess one with yellow trim for Emma, and the Dora ones for the twins. They all really like them, so it makes me feel nice. Of course, I would hate for anyone with REAL sewing skills to look at the pillowcases.