Old School

Here's a little sneak peek at some of my Christmas gifts this year. And they do look very reminiscent of our grandmother's gifts in a jar. That would be because they are. And they're awesome.

I can't give up the goods on what loved ones will be getting in the mysterious jars, but I really enjoyed putting them together and they are a great budget Christmas gift. I found this remnant of an adorable folksy print flannel at JoAnn's and it was perfect for topping off the jars. The labels (which give instructions on how to use the mix inside) are printed on paper and then wrapped around the jars with packing tape - surprisingly finished look.

I even got to recycle the mason jars I've been hoarding. Some of those jars are so cool I just want to create a grouping of shiny empty jars on a shelf somewhere in my house. In college I used a set of mason jars for my drinking glasses, passed them onto my sister and she used & loved them...now that I think about it, we have fewer and fewer intact drinking glasses in the cupboard. Might be time to buy a new set. Putting it on the list.


But enough of my infatuation with mason jars. If you get the itch to repurpose some jars and make some very sweet Christmas gifts, TipNut has a great compilation of sites offering free recipes for all kinds of gifts in a jar: http://tipnut.com/free-gifts-in-a-jar-recipes/ Pin It

Done!

I finished the red queen size quilt today (my paying gig)! Yeah! I had given my friend's mother-in-law a finish date of 12/4 and I am officially ahead of schedule for once. It took me 3 weeks from the time I got the materials, and I actually lost a week of work time because the backing turned out to be too small and she had to get me a different piece of fabric. I'm not sure I've ever finished such a large project so quickly. Cash is apparently a great motivator for me. :) And I have to admit that I pushed hard to get it done early since Christmas gifts are nagging at me.

Here are a couple of my favorite parts of the quilt...

front

back

The quilt was made up thirty 11" squares, each of them different. I ran two rows of stitches along every border strip between the squares and then quilted a unique design inside each square. It was a beast to do but I learned a lot. And if anyone out there ever gets the urge to do this, please please please get a free motion foot first. I could not have done it without mine.

front

back

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The 30's deserve some celebrating

My girlfriend just turned 31 and I actually made a gift in advance! Shocking. Not so shocking is the fact that it is going in the mail tomorrow although she had her birthday on Thanksgiving Day...darn it. But I made her this scarf and then warned her not to check the blog until she received it in the mail. Love this tutorial on Hope Studios (http://hopestudios.blogspot.com/) and the scarf is so wonderfully soft with such a great ruffly look. Mmmm...

This brings me to another dilemma: I'm making all these crafty Christmas gifts and can't post them because family and friends read the blog. Not wanting to ruin the surprise, I'm keeping a lot of gifts under wraps. I may post some teasers because I simply won't be able to help myself. We'll see.

Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving filled with great food and lots of love. Pin It

Project: Homemade Laundry Detergent

My sweet husband is the research buff in the house (recall the large amounts of blind faith mentioned in the last post?) and my little laundry detergent experiment gave him a new project. I thought the fruits of his labors might be helpful to others wanting to make detergent.

Here are the highlights:

1. Oxi-Clean is similar to Washing Soda, but it's a diluted version of it. So, for maximum bang for your buck, the real Arm & Hammer Washing Soda is the way to go.

2. Ace Hardware has Washing Soda on their website. You can order it and have it shipped to a store near you for no shipping cost. It arrives, you pay the price + tax and don't hassle with a massive search.

As soon as ours comes in and my current batch of detergent runs out, I'll be making a suped-up Washing Soda batch and will report back.

That's it for today. No cute pictures - sorry about that. But hopefully it inspires you to make a mess in your kitchen, too. :) Pin It

Rub A Dub Dub

Our laundry detergent ran out yesterday! Yay!!

OK, that might not be exciting to many people, but I've been waiting for the detergent to run out so I could try making my own. I've read about it on other blogs and wanted to try for awhile. This morning I put my food processor to good use and whipped up some powdered detergent. There are lots and lots of liquid detergent "recipes" out there but they are generally for huge batches and look pretty messy. I didn't want to use a ton of materials without knowing if it works, and we make enough messes without a laundry detergent factory in the kitchen. Therefore, I am a homemade powdered detergent kind of girl.

This is the recipe I found on both TipNut and Intructables:
2 cups of grated bar soap (Ivory, Fels-Naptha or Zote)
1 cup of Borax
1 cup of Washing Soda

I figured if it was used by more than one site, it would probably be trustworthy. No fact-checking here, just blind trust.

For the bar soap I used Ivory. Washing Soda is an Arm & Hammer product that is hard to find and I wasn't about to special order it. Other sites mentioned that Oxi-Clean is essentially the same thing as Washing Soda but with peroxide added for whitening. Because I'm a little lazy and too trusting, I again did no fact-checking on this but instead ran with it. I already had Borax and Oxi-Clean so I only had to buy a 3-pack of Ivory for less than $2.

I shredded the Ivory in the food processor. If you try this, just put 2 1/2 bars in rather than measuring it after the fact because I found out the messy way that 2 cups of packed grated soap is equal to about 2 1/2 bars. You can take my word on this and avoid the mess. Then I poured in the Borax and Oxi-Clean and ran the processor to combine it all. I have to say the finished product is a wonderfully uniform, fluffy powder that smells awesome (if you like the smell of Ivory).


The best part? You use 1 tablespoon per load or 2 tablespoons for heavily soiled loads and it works! I ran a load right away to check if it got the clothes clean and it did!

So I just made up to 64 loads of detergent for about $1.80 or for about 3 cents a load. Holy Cow!

As an added bonus, my food processor has never been so clean as after this little project.

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The Countdown Begins...

"Oh, Frog," said Toad, "I am so glad to be spending Christmas with you."
Toad opened his present from Frog.
It was a beautiful new clock.
The two friends sat by the fire.
The hands of the clock moved to show the hours of a merry Christmas Eve.

-Frog and Toad All Year

I'm starting the feel Christmas closing in while my mental gift list has a lot of unfinished projects on it. Tick. Tock. To keep myself on track (or to induce anxiety...we'll see) I added a little Handmade Christmas Countdown to the blog.

I know, I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet. But it can't hurt to start early. For example, I've already made some gift tags. There probably is something wrong with me now that I read my own advance planning in black and white as I type. Oh well. Maybe someone else can benefit from my neuroses.

If you're so inclined to make your own tags, they're super easy. I cut cardstock into rectangles measuring 3" x 2" and then embellished them with Christmas themed scrapbooking doodads. Then I punched a hole in the corner of each (I prefer a 1/8" hole punch, but of course any would work) and they're ready to be strung on gifts...as soon as I finish said gifts.

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Paying Gig

I may have just embarked on a totally crazy mission or the beginning of a really great thing. I can't quite decide...

A dear girlfriend of mine referred me to her mother-in-law for some machine quilting and I took her up on the offer. Today in the mail I got a box full of what you see above. Now I have all the makings of a queen size quilt and am suddenly very worried that I won't complete it to her liking. It's wonderful to get paid for what you already love doing (I really like that part), and this quilt really will be fun to do. But it's a little intimidating when someone hands over their priceless handcrafted project and says "I trust you. Do what you think is best."

I hope she'll love it. The quilt top itself is beautiful and the colors are super fun but I really don't want to disappoint. Wish me luck... Pin It

The best yet

This was the best Halloween yet with kids. Such great ages and lots of anticipation. The magic of holidays is such a wonderment when seen through your kids' eyes...

Here are my boys trick or treating hand in hand...melt my heart.

And when my 3 year old found out that our favorite neighbors (sort of like adopted grandparents) were going to give him and his brother candy, he wanted to make sure they got treats too. So he picked out some of the Halloween cookies we made, along with some candy from the candy bowl. Then he collaged a paper bag with Halloween magazine cutouts. Such a tenderhearted little man.

Here is his handiwork.

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween! Here comes Thanksgiving! Pin It