Feel the Love!

YOU are an amazing beautiful creation of God. Perfectly created just the way you are. You are special, kind, smart, and very important. Don't ever forget that.

I had the amazing opportunity to celebrate this Valentine's Day with some beautiful perfect ladies. We had a grand time. It most definitely involved chocolate, carrots, and crafts! We like to keep things balanced and we definitely laughed a lot. It really was a fabulous evening and I'm so thankful for these ladies in my life!

 Our snacking spread involved these lovely brownies: Grain-free Zucchini Brownies. I was a little apprehensive about my zucchini brownies with little to no added sugar or fat, but the natural sugar of honey and zucchini came out nicely in addition to the almond/peanut butter combo I used. I also added 2 T. of cocoa powder to the mix.

My dear Jamie made this lovely chocolate concoction. It had a chocolate shortbread layer on bottom with a raspberry jam middle and ganache on top. The best part was definitely the chocolate red wine ganache layer on top. Delightful!

The fancy attempt didn't turn out too well.

Getting crafty. We made the t-shirt headbands described here.

Even getting out the sewing machine on our ladies night!

Love Love Love!

Crafty Creations

I have really enjoyed the greatness of pinterest and the ability to "pin" projects, ideas, recipes, etc. all in the same place for easy and convenient viewing at another time. I recently took the time to actually complete some of my pin project ideas. So exciting!

While out at the farm, I found my mother's collection of antique graters that were stuck in hiding. Absolutely love my new organized method of storing my earrings! So handy.

Additionally I was able to recycle some old t-shirt pieces that I kept from the t-shirt quilt that I made. I knew they could be used for something else and I decided to tackle the 5-braid headband. I almost felt like I was braiding dough for our 5 braid pretty bread loaf in the bakery. Almost.

Here is the complete tutorial.

I think that some of my lady friends are going to make more tomorrow when we gather and celebrate being beautiful independent singles ladies. Good thing I have a plethora of t-shirts to cut up!

But basically cut into five strips about double the circumference of your head. Then sew those together.

Get your five braid action going. Sew it together at the end and connect your ends. Make sure it's smaller than your head, but quite a bit because it stretches. I think my first band is too big. I'll make the next one smaller.

Love it!

Advent Craft

I found a really great crafty idea to make as an Advent calendar over here. I was super excited to find something that I could put together last minute for some friends. These replace the candy advents that we used to love growing up that usually had really cheap, not-so-tasty chocolate in them. Hello gum!

I glued together two packs of Trident gum, each with 12 pieces to form the 24 day countdown to Christmas. Then I cut some card stock and scrap-booking paper to wrap around the gum packages. Glued on the paper and wrote my little message. Numbered the gum and voila! advent gum calendar. I love it!

Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season!

Feeling Crafty with a Soapbox

This past weekend I pulled out a few projects that I've been intending to complete for some time now and I actually completed them. I'm pretty excited about my new message center shown below. This project included an old frame that I had. I attached a simple piece of chicken wire to the back and voila!

These are my favorite children in the world. Aren't they precious!

Next up includes a couple of pillows created around the same time my t-shirt quilt was created. I had extra t-shirts that didn't make it into the quilt so I decided they would work well for small pillows. I stuffed them with my used drier sheet collection so they are pillows that smell good as well!

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with some friends regarding shopping and the holidays. I try to convince just about everybody that they should shop local as much as possible. I also feel free to tell everybody my personal opinion of Walmart as simply supporting a sweatshop in China. I understand we can't get everything in small town America but there are still many options to get great gifts that actually support the American economy and not Vietnam and/or Sri Lanka. If we support our local people and stay away from their markets maybe they can support themselves as well. Just a thought.

Here's a few shopping ideas:

• Don't leave your own hometown. Shop local. Visit that random antique shop, jewelry store, or in our town amazing candle boutique. Keep your money in your own local economy. 
• Consider practical gifts like: pre-paid oil changes, grocery store gift-card, massage gift, gym membership, etc. Once again, supporting local economy.
• Visit Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade items including most everything imaginable. I even have a shop here, looks like I need to get to creating!
• Support those lovely ladies around your town that sell items directly. It seems like everybody is selling MaryKay, Scentsy, Premier Jewelry, Princess House, or Tupperware nowadays. I know that most of this stuff is still produced in foreign lands, but at least you are supporting local people that receive a living wage to bring it to you.
• Give a gift of time! This is my favorite, simply because studies have shown over and over that people are not happy because they have more stuff. They are happy because they have relationships with other people and feel love with others. Consider a dinner date gift or even a house-cleaning gift.
• Get out your crafty fingers and make something extra special for those special to you. You know homemade craft items always made your mom proud when you were in elementary school, I'm certain they still make my mom proud today!

There's my soapbox. Now get to thinking outside the box this Holiday season!

Crafty bag

Approximately one year ago I attended a bread and craft fair in Maine. There was one vendor that created amazing bags out of used feed, flour, dog food, etc. sacks. My first thought was that I wanted one. My second thought included amazement at the $20-$30 price tag for a bag created from waste. My third thought was that surely I can make my own! So I did, finally, a year later. 

I would like to create more and try my luck at $20 income from waste but my sewing machine does not really like sewing such things. The heavy duty thread that I used did not like to flow in my machine, so sewing proved to be a bit difficult. I'll also add that hand stitching on those handles was a little sore on the fingers, but definitely possible. I like it though I'm not sure how many more I want to make.