Year of Monthly Dates

When my daughter suggested that we all make our Christmas gifts for each other this past Christmas, I was really glad that Pinterest announced the secret boards. I had fun pinning items to the secret board I created with all my Christmas ideas for my family.

 

For my husband, I put together a Year of Monthly Dates.

 

On our Cozi calendar, I set up an 'appointment' for us to meet on the 1st day of each month to open the envelope for that month and set aside a time/date for our monthly date. Included in each envelope is a prayer prompt for each of us, as well as a prayer bookmark where we can record prayer requests we have for that month. There is another envelope inside the manila envelope with the details for the date for that month.

For our January date, we were to create a hint box for each other. After being married for a while, sometimes you need a little help from your spouse on what would be an encouragement to them. These can be simple things like, making sunny side up eggs for breakfast or picking up a 3 Musketeers bar on the way home. Our job now is to fill out the little slips of paper and decorate our boxes for each other.

The pictures are a little out of order on this post because we did go out for breakfast first at a nearby place that a lot of the locals just love and we had never been there! We just might have to go on a few more breakfast dates in the future... :o)

 

Since we were heading to Hobby Lobby anyway...I was wanting to look for some items to rearrange the mantel, especially since I have this new pallet art work that my husband made for me for Christmas! Isn't it beautiful! I found just about everything I was looking for, just need to figure out what will go in the shadow box (and I did trim the flowers so they fit in the vase better).

 

Want to know what we are doing for our date next month? Be sure to check back next month! :o)

 

 

December Photo Project - Day 21

 Homemade Christmas gifts for friends - Sugar scrubs and bath salts

 

Are you making homemade gifts this year?

December Photo Project - Day 12

On my knitting needles: a new Pinterest project, wrist warmers!!

December Photo Project - Day 3

Another Pinterest project completed!

Snowflake Window Decoration Tutorial

I am not really a winter person, but I do really like snowflakes. And as much as I love decorating for Christmas, I love having decorations that can be up past Christmas. The house always looks so bare after Christmas when all the decorations are put away, so to be able to keep some 'winter' decorations up, helps me to keep the 'winter blues' away.

 

One of the very first things I pinned on Pinterest was a window decoration using ornaments. This year, I have been pinning some crochet snowflake projects and thought I could use the same concept as the ornaments, but use snowflakes instead.

 

So I used this snowflake pattern, but instead of making the garland, I made single snowflakes.

 

 Then I gathered some pom poms, fishing line, a needle and a pair of scissors.

 

 I tied a knot at the end of a length of fishing line and put this through a pom pom.

 

 Then I threaded the fishing line through one of the snowflakes. To kind of keep the snowflakes and pom poms from slipping down the fishing line, I looped the fishing line around again and put the needle through the same spot. You can add as many pom poms and snowflakes to a length of fishing line that suits you. Then I made a loop at the top of the fishing line.

 

 I placed tension rods in the window frame

 

 Then using ornament hooks, I hung the lengths of snowflakes and pom poms onto the tension rods.

 

 You can add as many lengths to your window as you like.

 

I just love the way it looks!

 

What projects are you working on?

Pinterest Christmas Ornaments

Every year since I can remember, I have purchased Christmas ornaments for each member of our little family.

Source: sewmamasew.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

But with all the creative ideas I have seen on Pinterest, I decided to make our ornaments this year.

I did all the embroidery on these last week at our Pinterest party...

Today, I took the time to finish them up a bit...

I wanted to back them all with a bit of felt, so I removed the embroidery hoop, placed the fabric on top of the felt, then added the hoop back onto the fabric and the felt.

 Then I trimmed off the excess fabric and felt around the embroidery hoop.

 I added a touch of glue around the cut fabric to seal the edges.

 

 Added some ribbon around each hoop...

 



...and a bit of ribbon at the top so these can be hung on our Christmas tree this year. One more completed Pinterest project!

 

Have you completed a Pinterest project lately?

InstaFriday!

Have you had a chance to pop over to Life Reaaranged yet? I am really enjoying taking the time to recap my Instagram photos each week!

Here we go...

 It was a Pinterst week around here! Kev cut and put together this mason jar box project for me, so I spent time this week finishing it up. To give the wood a weathered look, you start by staining the wood with a somewhat dark stain. Since the stain has to dry, of course we move onto other things...

 

So about mid afternoon on Monday, Matthew mentions that he has to bring something to his Italian class the next day. Good thing he knows his way around the kitchen. He actually made biscotti and impressed his teacher!

Getting really tired of pale hospital green paint in my bathroom. It is the only room in the house that hasn't been repainted since we moved in here 6 1/2 years ago. Not really sure if I want to go with these colors yet...

 Happy Compassion mail day! I received a letter from Abner this week!



Finally finished! One summer afternoon, Kelsey and I found a cute tear-off pattern sheet at Michael's. I thought, that would be a really cute blanket to make! Three months and over 200 rows later, it is done! Now to decide what to do with it, Kelsey thinks I should save it for one of my future grandchildren. Not sure if I should hang onto it for that long...

Kelsey and I enjoyed fall tea and cookies one afternoon this week. The last few days have been unseasonally cool, overcast, and a little gloomy. Looks like our normal October weather will be returning soon... :o)

Mason jar crate done! After the stain, you spray paint the wood with an antique white paint. Then you sand off most of the spray paint to give the wood that 'weathered' look. I forgot to take a picture of the box with the jars and flowers in it! I was hoping to use it as a centerpiece for our table, but it is larger than I anticipated...still trying to decide where it will live...

Yesterday brought use a sprinkle of rain, so we lit a few candles. Kev and the kids made this tea cup candle for Mother's Day, isn't it cute? :o)

 Pinterest Party treat! Vanilla Chai Cupcakes

 

Since I had 2 cups of hot tea yesterday, I starting searching on Pinterest for mug cozy patterns. Found this one which is actually a mug cozy coaster! So quick and easy to crochet, I made 2 yesterday!

 Got together with some of the young ladies from our church for our first Pinterest Party! We each brought our own project supplies and spent a few hours this afternoon working on one of our Pinterest pins. We have already scheduled our next meeting we had so much fun!

 

I had planned on working on this project, but I didn't have the right color paints at home. So a little last minute scrambling and I was able to work on these which will be new ornaments for our Christmas tree this year.

It was a pretty busy day around here, but we made time tonight to work on Christmas cards for unsponsored Compassion kids. This is something we did last year too. If this is something you might be interested in doing, be sure to leave a comment and I can get the information to you.

So how was your Instagram week? Be sure to link up with Life Rearranged to share your Instagram week with us!

InstaFriday

Here is a roundup of some of my Instagram photos from the past few days...

 

Now that we have been in a good rountine during our school week, I have gotten back into my walking schedule. A while back, Kelsey bought an iPod, so I was able to 'buy' her old iPod from her. I love that I can create a playlist of walking songs. I usually 'shuffle' the songs before I head out the door. Two days this week, my walk started with Shaun Groves songs. Have you heard of him? If you haven't, you need to go check him out...like right now!

We had a little visitor over the other day and there was no bib in his bag. I improvised with a wash cloth, some fabric, and some safety pins. After he left, I figured I could find a cute pattern on Pinterest for an apron to keep at our house, just in case. I found this pattern and just loved how quickly it came together! Now to make a couple more...

Just a week ago and up until a couple of days ago, our day time temperatures were right around 100 degrees! As of yesterday, it looks like the weather is starting to cool off, hopefully not too quickly!

On Thursday afternoons, I am at home by myself for a couple of hours. Yesterday, I wanted to keep myself busy, so I pulled out a project that has been sitting around that needed to be worked on. This is the third cloth book I have put together in the last couple of weeks. These make great gifts, but I am thinking of keeping this one if my church bag, just in case a little one sitting near us needs something to keep them quiet for a bit...

 

Today I pulled out some fabric I bought a few months ago and sketched out a quilt block to make a small quilt. I was able to finish piecing the top together, now to wait for my friend to let me know that her quilting machine is up and running!

 

 

Are you on Instagram? You can put together a blog post of your Instagram week with the rest of us at



Playing catch up

During the summer, I found a couple of challenges on Pinterest that I thought would be fun for me and Kelsey to work on together.

Source: blog.allisonlehman.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Source: whitepeachblog.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Since there are more than 30 days during summer, I figured we would have no problem finishing these up!

Well, today is the 4th of October and we just finished day 19 of the challenges. Summer ended up being busier than either one of us expected, but we are determined to get working on finishing up the challenges. Here is my picture from yesterday:

My shoes - it has been over 95 degrees here everyday since last Friday, summer just doesn't seem to want to leave.

This is not my doodle, this is my husband's doodle from a card he made for me. My drawings/doodles could and never will look this good!

This is my doodle, I was never really a doodler. My nose was always in a book. My kids are better doodlers than I am which means I probably don't even have a doodling gene in my body. I will stick to reading, baking, photography, sewing, etc.

What kind of challenges have you done with your kids?

Home Ec Day #2

Today was another day of no book work. We had a little visitor...

 

While our little visitor was napping this morning, I thought I would see how far I could get on a Pinterest sewing project which is a gift for an upcoming bridal shower. I am always on the look out for new apron patterns and this one looked cute and quick to put together.
 

Source: amyheartsit.blogspot.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

 

Since I had already cut all the pieces out yesterday, I was able to sew the apron together during our little visitor's morning nap! Yay! The pattern does not mention ironing over and sewing up the side seams for the top and bottom piece, so if you do make this pattern, be sure to remember to inclued those steps.

Another thing which I added was a backing piece for the waistband. Without the backing piece, the wrong side of the apron would look like this...

Yuck! Really looks unfinished, so I cut another waistband piece of the floral material, folded over and ironed a 5/8 inch seam allowance on all sides, then pinned and sewed this piece onto the existing waistband. This is a nice way to hide all those seam allowances without doing a zig-zag stitch or using a serger.

One other change I made was the neck tie strings. I cut these at 2 1/4 inches long instead of the 4 1/2 inches long. I just like the look of a smaller width neck tie.

Ta-da! One finished apron!