Who Does That?

I do. That's who!! My MN sisters and I met in the exotic location of Sioux Falls, SD for a weekend of shopping, laughing and fun. Heather brought a beautiful subway art print for us to frame (instant craft gratification). They turned out so beautiful.
Then we pulled out the big guns! Yes. We brought a sander to the hotel!!
We had a hankerin' to make this oh-so-cute craft that we saw on Pinterest. I used my trusty saw to cut the wood before I left and brought some paint and paper and other paraphernalia to get it all done.

(source)

We painted and laughed.

We sanded...and LAUGHED!
We mod podged AND LAUGHED!!
Then we let it all dry....over night.
In the morning we put the vinyl letters on and sat back to asses our genius.
We are such different women, it makes sense that our projects would turn out so differently. We had such an amazing time. There was so much more to the weekend than this....I will fill you in on that later. Let's just say that we laughed until we triggered Renae's asthma (more than once) and talked until we were hoarse. It was some much needed therapy. I love these girls.
Joy x 3 was born. More on that later. I hope you are able to find some joy in your life. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

My Tree

It's that time of year again. I know some of you are more traditional and wait to spring your Christmas decorations from their place in the storage room until after Thanksgiving. But as you may know...I adore Christmas. I love the music, the lights and especially the Nativities. Last year I couldn't find a box filled with some of my favorites and I was in a panic! I eventually found it (hiding in plain sight) in January....but I was so sad. This year we decided to retire our old, faithful, well used artificial tree. It was getting pretty sad. I bought a new tree from Hobby Lobby (half off!!) It's a 9' slim design tree....no lights. LOVE!!
It was so easy to set up. We have two strings of our favorite twinkling lights. These lights have eight different twinkle settings. I am always on the hunt for more strands. My kids love them too.
We all have our favorite ornaments and my kids get their own ornament every year so when they move out they will have something to start their own trees.
My Mom has given me a few ornaments over the years. They are so precious to me. Mostly they reflect her love of me and also her devotion to the after Christmas sales!!
This pic isn't great (at all) but it shows a few of Kevin's s'mores snowman ornaments. He loves them all.
Kevin made this in kindergarten. It is a little sad. He is missing a few parts, but he is a treasure.
I think Miss Jo had some help with her first grade ornament.
So stinkin' cute!! Ah, my baby!!
So there is our tree this year. Is yours up??

A Quick Rant

We have come full circle, my Mom and I. Many of you know that she is no longer with us...but here we are. Full circle anyway. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Not yet, but I'm going to." Chances are is was uttered by a teenager who was just asked if their homework was done. Or maybe the question was, "Did you clean your room?" NOT YET, BUT I'M GOING TO A seemingly harmless reply...but one that (as a Mother) I am finding very frustrating. My Mom hated it as well. I know she did. When I was older and out of the house we would joke about it. And when my pre-teen children started using it I am sure she smiled (to herself...because my Mom never took the opportunity to say I TOLD YOU SO...and she had many chances to use that on me). I have one child that uses it a little more than the other, but they both do it. Today I'd like to punch NOT YET, BUT I'M GOING TO in the neck.

Thank you for listening. I will post pictures of my tree all decked out and pretty. I am very happy to say all my Christmas stuff is out and shinning!!

A New Way

I am quite fond of giving gifts. I love to find that perfect something to give to a family member or friend. I was at T.J. Maxx the other day and found the most perfect something....and there was three of them. You know what that means....SISTER GIFT!! Now that I have to ship presents to my sisters I am always looking for new ways to pack them for the bumpy 1000 mile ride to Idaho.
I'd like to introduce you to my paper shredder. Now I realize that she is a little dusty....but she is a workhorse all the same. I ran some packing paper through her grinding teeth first. That will go on the bottom to protect the precious cargo. Then I shredded some Christmas scrap book paper (double sided really would work better, but I used what I had).
I put the packing paper in the bottom of these really cute boxes. Two will be going in the mail. The other two will just need to withstand being under the tree for six and a half weeks!! (Yes, I am setting up my tree TOMORROW!!!)
Then the fragile gift and the shredded pretty paper go into the box.....I'd show you what it is but my sisters will read this (at least it's in their "Good Sister" contract....so they'd better) and I don't want to spoil the surprise.
Here it is....all covered with pretty paper bits. I hope it is enough cushion. I put them (and a few other things) in a big box and added some of those air-filled plastic pouches that I get with some of the things I order through the mail. That ought to do the trick.
A pretty way to pack this gift. That makes me happy. I hope the girls like what's inside as much as I liked finding it, packing it and imagining their faces when they open it!!

Mostly Finished

I have been working on my kitchen chairs for forever now. This is what the original chairs looked like. They were very nice for a long time. But they had one major design flaw. The back two legs sat at an impossible angle. It worked fine on carpet or even vinyl flooring. But then we moved to a house that had hard wood floors in the dinning room. Without anything to dig into for some grip the legs would slide out and eventually break....leaving the sitter on the floor and quite embarrassed. (Think Goldilocks)
Enter The New Chairs via Craigslist. We found these chairs at a pretty good price. One major flaw....wrong color. Not that they were terrible or anything. But I knew they'd see the wet end of a paint can before long.
I took off the cushions and cleaned them really well. I thought about sanding them....for a second or two. But decided that was more work than I wanted to invest.
If you remember, I couldn't decide which color I liked better. So I ended up with four white chairs and two black chairs. I really like the way it all turned out.
I put the cushions back on because I had yet to find fabric that I was loving.
Here is the white chair...and Darla. She is kind of a picture hog.
After months and months of searching I found some fabric (in the Christmas section of all places!) But again...I couldn't decide between the red and the aqua. So I got some of both. The white chairs got the aqua fabric and the black chairs got the red.
As soon as it warms up again the table top will be sanded down and re-stained. No more orange-y oak for me. It will be a nice dark shade of something fabulous. I can hardly wait!!
I am linking to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Friday, Metamorphosis Monday and Motivated Monday. Stop by and check them out!!

A New Family Favorite

It all started with a trip to a small apple orchard. See, the Flynn's in our ward (church congregation) here in Omaha have the sweetest little orchard. Every Fall they invite our ward members to come and harvest some apples to take home and some to make (on-site) fresh cider with. It is something that families look forward to every year. This year we took our Young Women to pick apples and make cider. The pie apples didn't have such a great year, but the Red Delicious were plentiful. I picked a modest sized grocery bag to take home to my family and then jumped in with the ((leaders)) girls, cutting and washing the apples to go into the apple press. We cut apples for what seemed like hours....not because we weren't having a good time chatting and catching up on each other's lives...but because after gripping that many apples to cut out worm holes and bruised spots (these are organic apples after all) my hands ached!! Whining aside we got enough apples into the press for all 30 some girls and leaders to get about half a gallon or so of cider. Success. While we were chopping and such one of my sweet friends told me about her family's favorite apple cake. They all like it so much that they even request it for birthdays! ((Insane, in my thinking....aren't ALL birthday cakes chocolate??)) She said she had made this apple cake using some of the fresh apples she got from the Flynn's little orchard and it was so good. Well, why not...So I asked her for the recipe. I read through it and was totally confused. It's a bundt cake and has a caramel sauce that goes over it. The recipe says to pour the sauce over the cake while it is still hot in the pan. In my mind I just could not figure how the yummy sounding caramel was to get to the top of the cake if you put it all over the bottom...I know...But that was my thinking. I was doing at least ten other things when the first cake came out of the oven. I forgot the instructions and inverted the cake on a cooling rack...cause that's what you do with cake....and finished the other things that were filling my day. By the time I got back to the cake it was mostly cooled. Rats....Not wanting to miss out on anything caramel AND apple, I went ahead with the sauce and poured it over the cool cake.....and scooped it up and poured it again, and again. Yep. I did that. My family loved it. We all did. It was that good. Well three days later (yes....three....don't judge) I tried again. This time it was 6:00 in the evening and we were looking for something yummy.....Caramel Apple Cake was whipped up and put in the oven. This time I was on top of the caramel sauce-on-the-still-hot-cake-still-in-the-pan. The only problem this time was the lateness of the hour. See, we are early risers around these parts and eating cake at 8:00 at night just isn't what we do (very often). As soon as the caramel sauce was on the second-attempt-cake (just because cake #2 just doesn't sound good at all) I put it in the fridge so it could cool faster....and we could cut into it faster. The only problem with that logic is that the caramel sauce cooled too fast.....Meaning, it stayed on the outside of the cake instead of soaking into the inner deliciousness of the apple cake. It still tasted fabulous....Oh my, did it ever. Fast forward a week to today. Sunday. I started earlier in the day and by 6:00 p.m. we had eaten half of the dang thing between the four of us. Yes, it is that good. I've never done an actual food post with pictures and everything....and today is no exception....But I will give you the recipe (including the changes I made for my family).

Apple Mountain Cake (the original name)
Caramel Apple Cake (what we call it around these parts)

3 eggs
1 1/2 c. oil (I substituted 3/4 c.oil for 3/4 c. unsweetened apple sauce)
2 c. sugar (I used 1 1/2 c.)
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
2 tsp. cinnamon ( I added 1 tsp nutmeg also)
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. chopped apples
1 c. chopped pecans (I leave these out because half of my family are haters.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix eggs, oil and sugar; blend well. Add flour, salt, soda and cinnamon to egg mixture. Add vanilla, apples and nuts. Pour into greased tube or bundt pan. Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes. While cake is still hot, pour hot topping over it in pan. Let cool. Remove from pan.

TOPPING:
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. milk
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine all ingredients; boil slowly 2 1/2 minutes. Pour immediately over cake in pan.

Here it is. It's a pretty easy recipe. But man-oh-man is it good. Jim has even asked for it for his birthday cake. I hope you make this cake....A big shout out to Marjorie....Thanks for the recipe. It has changed our lives.....*wink*

Spooky Wreath

It's been a while since I made a wreath. I love the sock wreath I made last year. It hangs on the inside of the door that leads to my garage. But I needed something a little bigger for the outside of the front door. I saw this little number the other day. I loved it SO much. I didn't want to fuss too much with it so I dumbed it down a bit. I started with a straw wreath form from the depths of the Project Room. I didn't want it to show through the tulle, so I covered it with some fabric from my stash.
Then I just cut some strips of tulle....I'll tell you...I used about 40 yards for this project. Then I started to tie them around the wreath form. I did double the tulle for a fuller look. I did five of one color and then five of the next. Simple...

I tried to keep the knots uniform and also the length of the tulle...but maybe it looks better with a few imperfections...At least that is what I'm telling my self.

About half way done and it looks like a head piece for a Vegas Show Girl. Funny visual for me....anyhoo....

When I was finished tying knots I laid it flat and lined the knots up along the sides a bit.

Then I glued a little thingie I got at Hobby Lobby onto it and there you have it!! I made it while watching one episode of The Biggest Loser. Quick and easy....my kind of project. And I know you are asking your self how many I have made so far.....

So far just two....so far......*wink*

I am linked up with Motivated Monday. Stop over and check it out!