January Pinterest Club

January Pinterest Club was definately well attended. These are some of the examples of the Valentine's Board we did. My niece, Shelby, did the light gray above, & I really like the way it turned out!

I like this dark gray one as well. I am making mine very similar to this one above. The stencils were cut with the Silhouette Cameo. I really like the versatility of the machine. I like that I can cut any font, any size that I might have on my computer. I also like that they made it Apple compatible, since the first version was not. I do think that the Silhouette is fairly easy to use, and cuts a little better than the Cricut machine that I have. 

One of the other projects that we did were these frames. They are 15" x 15" square, with an 8" x 8" opening. The stencils, again, were cut using the Silhouette Cameo, using binder cover for the stencil material. I would say that it did very well, holding up wonderfully project after project. We only had a couple minor problems.  One, on a few, some of the sticky tape used to connect the binder covers together making it large enough, would come apart. The second thing, was actually with the person doing the stenciling, and it was in using too much paint on their brush, or using a sponge stencil applicator instead of an actual stencil brush. 

I love this chevron look!

I have to say, the stencil brush does do a significantly better job than that of a stencil applicator sponge. This frame above, in the blue and periwinkle, was done by my daughter, Haylee. Some of the trim was hand cut, and it did give it a very cute look. She did a great job. 

The black and white frames are also a favorite! I haven't actually done mine yet, and I don't know exactly what color I am going to choose! 

The third project we did was a burlap pillow with a stitched ribbon heart. It was so cute, but I neglected to get a pic of it before my friend who did it went home. There was definately a giant amount of work for Pinterest Club this time. If I had to do it again, I think I would limit the amount of frames that could be ordered, as most people weren't able to finish theirs anyway, and it just was a little too much! 

However, they all turned out amazing! They even looked great in a solid color only!

Happy crafting!

The Craftermath of Pinterest Club Prep

Pinterest Club for January is happening this Thursday. That is in 2 days, and the 58 frames are finally done. I think next time there will be a limit on how many people can order. These beauties are 15" x 15" with an 8" x 8" opening. They cost about 6 dollars to make, and although they don't have them now, each will be dressed up with some paint, stencil work and a bit of trim. So excited for mine to be done. Loved the ones we saw on Pinterest, although they were a bit smaller.

My husband says that "this" (meaning the picture above) is the craftermath. Craftermath is whatever is left after you make stuff from Pinterest. Funny honey!

Happy crafting!

Project Life Week #3

So, after showing the kids, Project Life: Week 3, this is what I got. "Hey, there aren't any pictures of me!" - from Alyssa. Apparently they need to be in every week's worth of pictures. Nobody told me that. :)

With the new 2013 YW Curriculum, we have been really trying to find ways to improve our teaching. The LDS church offers so much on their site, www.lds.org, for the new curriculum, "Come Follow Me", but we also were looking at some additional types of helps. The CES system, for institute and seminary, lets you log in with your church login that you use for lds.org. With that, there is so much more that is available if that's what you want. That is where the above flyer came from. I especially loved all the tips on how to ask pertinent questions...how to come up with them, and the suggestions they give for doing so. LOVE it! So, I thought I would share it with you as well. To print the above flyer, click HERE.

Hope you have a fab day!

Project Life Week #2

Here is my Project Life Week #2. I am a bit late posting this, as we are now in week #3, but here goes anyway! I am finding it a lot easier to get the "little stuff" written down, and it certainly makes me conscious of how many pictures of my kids I am not taking. So, on the whole, I think I am liking this Project Life thing.

Craft Room Organization, Pinterest Craft With a Little Gardening Thrown In

Check it out! I love it! This was a pinterest craft find...from Little Birdie Secrets. So easy. She even has a short tutorial. That's the best.

This is what has taken up most of the time since Christmas...the dreaded workroom clean out! I have been purging through every craft item and finding ways to make the space I have more useable, since, as everyone knows, a craft person will fill every nook and cranny and then need even more space. I think I probably could have gone through everything a second time as well, but this is as good as it gets for now.

As you can see, I have a space for the sewing machines so that they are easily reachable to use, but still are not continuously sitting on my work table. That has been pretty great. I do have cases for them, but then I never seem to want to put them back in...it's so much hassle. And they do get used on a weekly basis, so it's not like they are just sitting there gathering dust.

I put a piece of glass on this table due to make it easier to scrape paint off it, and also due to the soldering irons that I use sometimes for jewelry. I had one out on the table and the heat caused the paint to bubble slightly. That was when I knew I had to invest in a glass top. Pier1 has them for a good price, which was where this one came from.

In the corner of the room, you can just see the new ribbon organizer I found at Joann's for 40 percent off (around $13). These are, by far, the best way to organize ribbon that I have seen. And, as you can see, I already need one more. (grimace)

This little tomato starts are doing pretty well, considering one of the grow light bulbs is burned out, and I am needing to rotate the trays around to make sure each plant gets enough light. Supposedly the replacement bulbs have shipped. (wink, wink) We shall see. Be that as it may, from the picture above, you can see that they are just getting their 2nd set of leaves. This is about the time that they can start receiving some liquid plant food. As these little guys will grow, those larger leaves, their first ones, will actually start to turn yellow and fall off. They have those so they can get enough nutrients to get their true leaves and then when they have them, these first ones aren't needed anymore. So don't be alarmed it you see that happening. It's perfectly normal.

Well, Pinterest Club has been rescheduled to next Thursday, January 24th. We had a little trouble finding enough wood at the surrounding stores to make the frames from. What is up with that? Additionally, there were people requesting frames up to last night, and it is just a little difficult to make 43 frames overnight. It's not like we are getting paid for it, either.

So, that's all for today. Happy crafting, and gardening!

Icicles & Cold Weather in Arizona

I'm not sure if you can see it well or not, but there are actually icicles on our fountain in the back yard. It was 25 degrees fahrenheit for the last couple of nights. That is unheard of here in Gilbert, AZ. However, even though I was a little worried about the chickens, of course, they were totally fine.

However, this was what the ficus tree across the street, in the neighbor's yard looked like Sunday morning (yesterday am). Apparently, someone at a nearby nursery told him that if he ran an oscillating sprinkler all night on his plants, the water would freeze and then the frozen water would not allow the tree to drop below 32 degrees fahrenheit. Not sure if that is correct info or not, but it sure made a memorable tree. As I was talking to the neighbor about his tree, some of the giant icicles you can see, on the bottom right of the tree, fell and crashed on the ground in a loud noise. I laughed all the way to church! So funny!

They (the weather people on TV) say it hasn't been this cold since 1988, & I believe it! Tonite it is supposed to reach freezing temperatures by 10:00pm. We actually had to break down and buy a blanket for my daughter's horse. It is just too cold. Tonite all the baby chicks and the silkie are locked in the enclosed section of the coop with a lamp on them in there. The rest are roosting up at the top of the coop, next to a heat lamp. They will all be fine. I think I might just not go anywhere tomorrow. Good thing we don't live in the midwest! (chuckle).

AZ Cold Weather & Chickens

Oh my gosh!! It is supposed to get into the mid 20's tonite & that is a rare occurrence here in Arizona. My littlest chickens that are a few months old are under a heat lamp, with plenty of deep bedding. I think they should be fine. The other 3 are roosting up at the top of the coop near the eaves next to another heat lamp and I am pretty sure they should be fine. We have a white silkie bantam, and the silkies cannot fly. Their wings are just too short. This one, her name is Bambi, usually burrows down into a little hole she has dug out. I am worried she won't be fine. I tried to move her in with the little chickens, but she just wants to peck at them, which isn't good. I finally ended up moving her into an enclosable section of the coop where there won't be a draft and there is plenty of deep bedding. I won't like it much if I go out there and find chicken popsicle in the am! (JK...kind of terrible I know...all I can say is my husband's humor must be rubbing off after 22 years.) Can you tell I obsess, just a little?

Tomato Starts

Well, it's that time of year again...time to start little seedlings for the spring garden! If you haven't begun doing so, better get on it! I have, over the years, tried various potting methods, and this year, I decided to invest in some small pots for my soon to be finished (hopefully this weekend YAY) little greenhouse. For markers, I read somewhere about cutting up used and cleaned yogurt containers, and that is what I have been doing. These seedlings are a few days old and don't have their 2nd set of little leaves yet.

I've been hearing a lot about "smash book" lately. As soon as I checked it out, I realized I have been doing this kind of thing as a garden book for the last few years. I purchased this eco journal from Barnes & Noble and have customized it for the garden. (It is still available there for $12.95.) Every year, I just add a new tab on the side of a clean page with the new year on it and keep on going. This particular one above is several years old, & I love it! 

For a while, I thought I would just keep my blog and print everything out, but it does lose the coolness, if you know what I mean. I'm talking about all the little doodad's that make a smash book awesome. So, celebrate your gardening awesomeness and begin your own little smash book for your garden! It's so fun to look back at how the garden changes through the years. Happy gardening!

Keep Calm & Hug Your Dog!

Every household of a weimaraner needs one of these!! And for someone who has 2 in one home, we definately need one! Alyssa is making a smashbook of her dog, Bentley, and requested I make her one. Here it is. You can print it by clicking on the image itself. Happy hugging!

2013 YW Lesson Curriculum Study Helps

In our ward, some of the youth have requested that we provide them with lists of the scriptures for the month so that they could study them at their leisure during the month.  The girls do know that the scriptures are all listed online, but it is nice to have them right on a list that can be put into your scriptures. As I was compiling the lists, I went ahead and added the outline titles as "topics for discussion" because I thought that they are excellent questions that we could ask ourselves as we study those particular scriptures. These are made to print back to back so that on the backside of the card are listed all the conference talks that are listed with each outline for the month. I hope that makes sense. I am excited about these little cards and think that they can be saved and used for other applications as well. I do have the rest of the year almost done and will upload them when they are finished.

***UPDATE: To print this PDF file click HERE.

***2nd UPDATE: To access the entire year of 2013 YW Scripture Study File, click HERE.

New Recipe and a little bit of Chickens (not related)

Saw this recipe on Pinterest but originally from "The Girl Who Ate Everything" and loved the sound of it! Lasagna Roll Ups are definately going to be added to my go to recipes! Just about everyone in my family ate them all up, with the exception of one person, who will remain nameless, (Rylan), who simply pushed it around on his plate!! These were really good!

So, Haylee happened to actually catch some young pullets at my father-in-laws. For those of you who don't know what those are, they are teenager chickens. These ones, and there are 3 of them, even though in the picture you can only really see 2, are used to running around with their mommy hen. It makes me a little bit sad to take them from their mom, but my father-in-law simply has too too many chickens and roosters at his house. We have them housed within the original chicken coop in their own little chicken coop. This is to get the other 4 hens used to having them around and hopefully limit any pecking, etc. on them.

This hen has been hanging out in front of the little coop where the new babies are and as soon as I opened the door to let the babies out, ran in to peck the white one. I strongly suspect that white baby is a rooster, but we shall see. Hopefully not. 

 

Found this little baby (the ladder pictured above), like a prize, in a trash heap by the side of the road in our neighborhood! My husband, when I told him about my wonderful find, simply said, "Please don't dig through other people's trash. Did anyone see you?" I had to chuckle to myself! Anyway, I think it is simply awesome and I plan to use it in my garden as a trellis for melons, etc. So excited by this find! Been wanting one for simply ages.

Mr. Harrison needed to come outside with me yesterday to help bring the ladder out of the car, and also needed the dreaded fire truck. By dreaded, I mean that it makes a LOT of noise, which is probably what he likes, and my daughters absolutely hate it! (chuckle) I laugh because they are getting a little bit of payback for all the noise I have had to endure over the years with them! Payback truly is great! Anyway, Harrison was having a great time with the fire truck until it got stuck in the grass and would not move, in which case a giant case of tears ensued! 

Project Life Week 1

So, I have officially started Project Life 2013!! I am so excited to go forward with scrapbooking, and not backward. My goal this year is to take better pictures, (that goal was not realized this past week, ha ha), but every day is a new day, thankfully. Anyway, above is my first effort, and I am fine with it. Yay!
I am loving that this is a new year. I think that I was really ready for it, if you know what I mean. I spent the whole of last week cleaning out my work room, and let me just say, after 2 black trash cans filled and 6 trash bags as well, it is still full, and could use another go through. Aaargh! The thought of that fills me with tears!
However, I do know that an orderly life allows me to feel like I can and actually want, to do things. And it feels me with peace.
My daughter was talking to me about Ali Edwards and her "One Little Word", and I loved that idea. I am going to ponder on that and choose a word in the next few days! So excited for all the possibilities in this new year! Hopefully, you are too!