Laundry Closet - After

Desperately refreshing, no??

All these labels were just scrapbook papers printed with text boxes inside of shaped clipart from Word.

That's all.  And some elmer's glue.  I made the bag bag out of scrap fabric.  The rest is just elbow grease and containers from here and around the kitchen.  The doggie treat containers here (pink) are : an oatmeal box and chocolate milk container! :)

Laundry Closet- Before

Shameful Before Picture. 
This area is head-on from our kitchen door.  Talk about a dramatic entry.  Stored here is: laundry detergents, plastic bags, doggie supplies, extra egg cartons, cleaning supplies, lunch cooler, light bulbs, garbage bags, .....  a lot for a small space.  It was desperate for some TLC and organization.  The "after" effect will be up soon. 

There are entire stores devoted to organizing and labeling and storage.  I do not have access to such a store nor do I have the budget to accomodate those types of remodeling jobs.  So, I went to my computer, scrounged up some basic supplies and used what was already there.  Up next, you will see what I came up with.

Homemade hamburger buns

I recently thought to make my own hamburger buns just for the sake of trying.  I had seen the recipe here and just filed it away.  Then I had one of those meals planned when I took for granted that the buns were already in the freezer.  I found out differently.  So, I brought that recipe front-and-center and went for it.  I was initially skeptical that they would turn out just right.  I am not a scared baker, I'll try just about anything and I am OK with tweaking.  But I was just not sure that these would be "normal".  Unfounded!  They turned out great!  They rose beautifully.  The sandwiches were wonderful, too!

Country Salad and Homemade Bread Braid

Using an upside down roaster lid, this is the prettiest country salad, doncha think??  I love using whatever is available at hand to serve and make it lovely in a very simple way.

And......the homemade bread braid, using the BreadBecker recipe and hand braided.  It was delicious!

Thrifty Re-Do Coming Soon.

I thought this was cute.  My 12 year old  daughter severely disagreed.  It's now wadded up in a drawer.  I will rework it for my other daughter.  And she'll like it. :)

Chicks Are Here!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Thrifty Re-do: Denim Cutoffs Turn into Girls' Skirt

My older daughter recently found a pair of jeans that she needed to give up and cut off just to wear as shorts. By the way, my children think cut-offs are fabulous!  I just couldn't throw the bottoms of those jeans away, though.  I hate to waste perfectly good fabric just due to sizing.

So, I took my seam ripper and did some reworking and now I have the cutest skirt for my younger daughter, for just the cost of my time, elastic and the few scraps that I used to accessorize it. 

Here's the tutorial:

First, I slit the non-topstitched side seam, usually the inner thigh seam.  I did not cut it open, only ripped the seam to allow the fabric to remain intact so that I had the most fabric available for size.

Then, open up both pieces and  match them together, right sides together.  I pinned from the hem back up toward the waistline. Pin and stitch.

I added a little patch here on the inside, just to keep one of the holes from getting to far out of control :)

Also, I turned under the waistline, pinned and stitched as you would for any simple skirt pattern.   Elastic is next and stitch closed.

This is what I drummed up to accent the front of the skirt. I attached it by hand by stitching through the button down through the denim. I made about 4 stitches and secured the threads off inside the skirt. Of course, you could do whatever you desire on this part, or nothing at all!

And here's the finished product, minus my elastic. 

Dylan

Random shot.....just a reminder to myself to live in the moment.

Garden

So, this is our first really big garden.  Our first garden in our new house.  About 40 foot rows, I'd say.  Two of them now contain seed potatoes.  One-broccoli.  Half rows each of carrots, onions, green leaf lettuce  and spinach.   Yippee!!!!  We are sooo excited.  I also must say that I have a fabulous set of neighbors.  Mr. L has been plowing our ground for us for several weeks to get it ready.  He also did the potatoes, all we had to do was prep them and put them in the row.  He ran through it and  did all the hard work.  Soooo thankful!  Now, we've begun to pray for rain and for the Lord to bring His harvest.

Valentine

My first attempt at these since my old fashioned metal pancake shaper-thinggees got tossed out.  I love this gadget my dear sister gave me for Christmas.  You can shaped it into any shape at all.  There are measurement lines for the bisquick or whatever and the liquid and you just shake it together and shape it as it goes into the pan.  It was soo easy!  And made me feel like a great Mom since the kiddos were super excited about these!

Christmas Mantle

I meant to post this at Christmas time. I just loved this picture.  It looks soo homey.  We had a beautiful Christmas, our first in our new house.  We've even had a few fires in the fireplace in spite of our doubts that we'd give in to the "cold" down here.

Bugs

They grow REALLY BIG down here.  What is this???

Garden

And so it begins.....our neighbor has been nice enough to turn our soil for us.  This is our first year in our new place and we know there will be a learning curve with gardening in a new climate.  But we're going big. Well, in comparison to our little quarter acre home/lot we had in our subdivision, this plot IS big.  But it's not huge.  It only takes a few minutes for him to plow, but we are hoping for a good year. 

Our plan is:
potatoes, spinach, lettuce, corn, carrots

Then later:
peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, and we have a few strawberry plants elsewhere. 

This will be our first go of it in the deep south, so pray for our harvest!

Merry Christmas to Me

Because since we moved in, our bar had been calling out to be dressed up -TSC style.

Thanks, Honey :)

Secret Ingredient

I am pretty sure that not many people I know would guess what this is.  Probably only a handful -and they would be within my own family ;)  These bottles are one of the best gifts around, in my book.  It threw me for a loop recently, too.

I was making bread for my family, which I don't always do, but this day I wanted the smell of "home" ....er, OK,  I did not want to have to drive to town to buy another loaf.  SO I went to getting my bread machine ready and found that I had run out of  agave nectar....and honey.  The next thing that caught my eye was this.  I knew it was sweet.  And this bottle was a pretty light variety.  So, in it went.   And  can I just tell you that this bread was Divine!  Just as good as any other loaf.  It smelled terrific and tasted the same.  It worked great for sandwiches and no one knew the difference. And I am delighted that I have plenty of it on hand, since the price of honey and agave is not at its best right now.

I bet you still don't know what it is, do you?

It's old fashioned cane syrup.  Not to be confused with modern day "syrup."  I was raised on this stuff, y'all.  It can't be beat.  I had never tasted "pancake syrup" until I went north on my own.  Honestly.  And this stuff....it just says 'down home' to me! -and it makes great bread, too.

Organized Simplicity- My Kitchen

I recently downloaded a free book on kindle called Organized Simplicty and am working through it with the ladies at FIAR . These are my (way too tall for me) cabinets in my kitchen that are being used for pantry storage. Our new house has no pantry but plenty of cabinet space. My challenge in using this space well is my own height vs. cabinet height. I am only 5'4". The ceilings here are 9 or 10 feet and the cabinets extend to about 1.5 ft below that. I cannot really use the top two shelves of most of my cabinets for anything that I would need on a daily basis. So, this is what I came up with.

Reminders of Time Past

While trying to carve out a small space in our closet ( it still needs a lot of help, but I'm getting there) I came across this award.  The frame/box was broken and it was just laying there.  It felt so sad.  All that was given, sacrificed and suffered and this token was just laying broken.  I took hold and repaired it the best I could.  There was no way I was leaving it there, though.  So I had to hang it.  It was the first thing my husband commented on when he came in the door that day...and he had a smile to go with it. 

That year...so hard, so many lessons learned, strength gained,  emotions all over the place and then the reunion.  Delightful.  We've all grown so much since that  time and I am more proud of my husband as the years go on. 

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Sounds of Love

I cannot begin to describe the annoyance the creaking sound of this rocker makes.  Nervewracking, really.  No matter how tempted I am to involuntarily rock once my body relaxes in a rocker, I cannot force myself to do it in this one.  This rocker is not pretty.  No one in the house claims it as his favorite.  But the sounds that come from it come with love.

I sit and read to my littles in this chair, as many have done along the way.  As a child, I loved to twirl this rocker around in circles, knowing that my grandmother was going to get on to me-and good .  Many children have read and been read to in this chair.  My own children try to twirl it, but not so much anymore as it won't give much.

This chair is upholstered in a itchy wool plaid fabric.  Itchiness worsening with age.  So, I happened upon some heavy duty denim and did my own job of recovering it so as to recover the lovely moments with my little blessings as it had given others.

There are chips, scrapes, scratches and the crookity-ness when it even tries to rock.  This is no sight to behold.

But,

The infants rocked in this chair....more than two handfuls, I believe...and entire generation.
The stories read in this chair.....classics repeated over and again.
The fabric of this chair.....handpicked to please the one who loved greatly from its fibers
The arms of this chair wrap my grandmother's love around me gently once again.
The rhythms of this chair rocking soothe like the beating of a mother's heart next to her baby's chest.
The sounds that come from this chair......love well.

Scones

I recently had a long time friend over and these were a delightful morning treat. They were so easy to make and quite delicious. The fellowship of a friend who knows my heart was far more comforting, though.

A Constant in Our Home: Room Time

The majority of our school work is usually completed by early afternoon.  After lunch, I let the crew go out and run off some energy by whatever means necessary (within civil limits, of course) and then we are on to room time.  We began doing this when our babies were just babies.  When they were small, it was also an opportunity for them to learn to play alone and to pick up behind themselves.  You can see from the picture above that they have mastered that quite well, no??

 They have always had room time and we all need it!!  By that point in our day, I need a breather and they do, too.  Now that 3 out of the 4 are reading, it has turned into reading time.  But for nonreaders, it is playtime and/or reading time but they know it is quiet time for all to regroup.  I take care of drink/bathroom/toy/book needs before this time commences so that it truly is peaceful.   We all benefit from a peacful moment after the morning hours of productivity.  We have no intention of dropping this time just because they are older..this is kind of a forever thing here!

Leave me a comment and let me know some of the "forever" things in your home.