Winner, Winner Chicken dinner!

 I know what you are all here for!  You want to know the winner of these very beautiful earrings.

First I want to give a huge shout out and THANK YOU to Leslie at Simply Sleek for offering up her amazing talent to all of you.  Also a reminder that you still have a couple of days that you can get the 20% off everything in her shop by using the code XMASINJULY.  So if you don't win you should head over and check out all of her beautiful creations. 

Second I want to say a huge THANK YOU  to all of you who entered the giveaway.  I would love to give you all something but I can't so.......

 Now it is time to tell you who won!!!  I wish I had a drum roll playing!

#19 Rebecka

Congratulations Rebecka.   I will be e-mailing you.  This was so much FUN  I can't wait to do it again. 

Thanks for hagin' out.

Sweater bag

I am sure that you have seen all the sweater bags that were floating around blog land a while ago.  So, I may be a little behind the times but I made one of my own.

I started with this turtle neck sweater.  I bought it for the color.  I never did really like the shape or the way it fit.  It has just gotten worse over time.  It is boxy and unflattering.  So it was perfect for this project.

Here is what I started with.

And here is what I ended up with.

 It is fully lined.  I used the body and sleeves of the sweater to make the "body" and handle of the bag.  I also used the turtle neck part to make the pocket.

Then I put some burlap roses on it.

Originally, I made it for Abba to use as a library bag but.......

while she loved it and was excited to use it.

 Once we put books in it, it really hug low......

in short it is to long for her to use with books in it.  She couldn't even walk, but bless her she tried!!  I however can use it just fine. So, I now have a cute new sweater bag, and had to add making one for her to my to do list.

Thanks for hangin' out.








I will be linking up here and to the other fantastic party's in my side bar. Please check them out if you get the chance.

Wordless Wendsday #2

When I was in Utah my mom, my sister and I made aprons.  My niece helped us model them.  From left to right my mom, my niece, my sister, and of course me.  We have been sewing all day if you can't tell.  Now every time we wear them we can think of each other!

Dry your own herbs.

Because I have so much beautiful basil, but no dehydrator, I have had to figure out how do dry it in my oven.  It is super simple.  I have dried basil, dill, sage, parsley, and mint this way.  It has worked very well for all of them.

Start by pre-heating your oven to the lowest setting it will go to. For mine that is 170.

Next wash a big pile of basil (or what ever herb you are drying).

Now you want to get your pan ready.  I have found the best way to do this is by using a cooling rack inside a cookie sheet.

This way your herbs wont burn as they are drying and the pan heats up.

Next you are going to strip off all the leaves from the stems.  You don't have to wast much, any bad leaves and the thick stems.

This is all I wasted from the big pile I had.

Now you will lay out all the leaves on the cooling rack.

As you can see the very tops where four or five of them are together I just left together and put on.  If you take them apart the little leaves wont stay on the rack.

*A note about other herbs.  If you have a herb, like basil, with big leaves it is pretty easy to lay them out.  When I did dill I left the the stems together. Then pulled them apart after they were done drying.*

Put them in the oven.  Mine usually take any ware from 1 and a half hours to 2 hours.  Depending on how humid it is and how wet your herbs are.  If you live in a very dry area you might want to check them after and hour.

This is what they look like when they are done.  Very dry and crunchy (yes that is the technical term!).  They should break easily when you pick them up.

Now put them in your cute, crafty, fun container that I know you all have on hand just waiting for something to fill it with.  Just like me.......

Or if you really are just like me you will just put them in a sandwich bag until you can come up with a better container.  I did two pans and got almost a full bag.  It is a very good idea to write what you put in the bag.  Some of the herbs look very similar after they are dried.  I'll admit it, I have had to taste them to know for sure what I was using.
Thanks for hangin out.








 I will be linking up to these fantastic party's and others in my side bar. Please visit them if you get a chance they are all so great!

An Award!

Thanks so much life with twins and a drama queen.  For thinking of me when giving out awards.  I am very surprised and grateful.

The Rules:

1. Link the person back who awarded you
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Answer the following questions below
4. Award this to 15 7 bloggers

I am not very good at this kind of thing.  I tried to think of things that you maybe wouldn't know about me from reading the blog.  Here are 7 things about myself:

1.I have 5 of the cutest, greatest kiddos on the planet. My nieces and nephews are amazing too!

2.My mom and sister are my best friends.

3. I have driven a 10 wheeler potato truck.

4.I grew up on a spud farm in Idaho.  See #3.

5.I don't think of my self as creative.

6.My hubby calls me a voracious reader.

7.I can never remember how old I am. I have to ask hubby.

Questions:

Name your favorite color-

All of them! Mostly Orange and Teal Blue lately.

Name your favorite song-

I don't know.... I listen to a lot of kiddie music.

Name your favorite dessert-

Cheese Cake

What wizzes you off- 

Being lied to.

When you’re upset you-

Clean or take a nap. Depending on how mad I am.

Your favorite pet-

Black or white-

neither

Your biggest fear-

Can't think of just one.

best feature-

My eyelashes

Everyday attitude-

Learn/teach something

What is perfection-

My Heavenly Father

Guilty pleasure-

Chips and pop(soda)

I’m awarding these 15 7 blogs!! (I have seen it both ways so I amended it to 7) Because they are truly amazing, you should check them out.  Be prepared to stay a while at them all!

These Peas Taste Funny

Etcetorize

A Creative Princess

Crafty Confessions

Rindy Mae

Messy Mimi

Ivy and Elephants

Wordless Wednesday #1

I always love to look at other blogger's Wordless Wednesday.  I am excited to start participating in them.  It is a good way to put up some photos I would like to share but don't really fit in the realm of a craft blog.

They all love little Lotte!!!

 I LOVE her too!!!

Spider-Man Curtain

I have a confession.  I have lived in the same house for 4 years and have not made my boys a curtain for their room!!  I know I am a terrible mother!  For a long time they had mini-blinds.  Slowly but surely the got destroyed.  I started a curtain and couldn't quite figure out how to make it do what I wanted it to.  So while my mom was here she helped me figure it out.

As you can see a ton of light comes though this window.  It is a very big window as well.  I am pleased to say that everything for this curtain came out of my stash.  I got the spider-man panel when my oldest was 2 years old so that would make it 9 years ago.  I am glad I was finally able to do something with it.  I only lined the spider-man fabric because I didn't want to make it to heavy.

My problem with it was that I didn't want to cut it in half but I wanted to be able to "open" it.  So we added these straps with Velcro on the back of them.

The straps are out of the same fabric so they blend in a little.

Here it is all pulled up.  The straps blend and you can still see the spider-man.

The curtain is fun and colorful. The room stays much cooler and the boys LOVE it!!
Thanks for hanin' out.






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Garden Update

I realized this morning that it has been quite a while since I have had a garden update.  So I went out before it got to hot and took some photos.  I have said that it is hot here before,  but it just keeps getting hotter.  Yesterday when we were out running errands one of the billboards that tells the time and temp said it was 109 degrees.  That is just the temp people it doesn't include the heat index.  So we are under a burn ban.

This is why.....

It is dry, very dry!!!!  That is our sad little pool.  The water in it is to hot to swim in.  I think we might dump some ice in it so the kiddos can swim.

Amazingly the garden is doing ok.  I am grateful that I don't  have a bigger one to try to keep wet!

 Green peppers,

and tomatoes.

These are actually both in my in-laws garden. The gardens are right next to each other so we help each other with the watering and what not every now and then.

As we were weeding I noticed a large dirt clod jump way from me.  What, you say dirt doesn't jump?! It does when it is in reality a frog.

Can you see the frog next to the tomato plant?

Here Oak will point it out to you.

 Please don't look at the weeds just look at the frog.

Oak and daddy looked for and watched the frog. They had him jumping all over the place.

 In my garden the dill and basil have exploded!  I have so much basil!!  I have dried a bunch and have a lot left to do.

 The raspberry's are loaded and starting to turn.
 

We have a watermelon on, it seems to be doing pretty good.  We have had some problems with the melons getting rot on the end and splitting.  If any of you know how to grow melons I would love some tips.  I really am just winging it.

We have harvested one cantaloupe it was delish!!!  This one should be ready in a week or so.   Sorry about the very red weird looking thumb I don't know what happened there.

 I thought it might be fun to show you a before and after.  Here is the corn melon and pole bean end of the garden.  This is just after everything really started to grow.  I was just happy that the seeds produced plants.

Here is what it looked like this morning!!  I had to pull the corn out.  It produced enough corn for one meal.  Then either the heat or the melons killed it, maybe both.  I thought the beans would die but they have started to blossom again so we'll see if we get another crop.

The melon plants have started pulling down the fence but that is ok.  My mom showed me how to prune back the vines a little and they are blooming again like crazy!  I am amazed at how big it has all gotten.  We also have a family of lizards that live in the garden but I couldn't get a photo of any of them.  We call them our garden pets.  I tell the kiddos we don't need a pet at the house we have enough pets outside!!  I hope all your gardens are doing well.


Happy Gardening to you all.  Thanks for hangin' out,