So this happend ...

Yup that is my 10 month old boy with a busted lip.  Poor thing, he went to bed normal and when I got him this morning this is what he looked like.  I don't know how he did it or why he didn't cry.  I would have cried!

And you should always include a pic of the big brother.  Here he is concentrating very hard on helping me fold some laundry.

And this is my newest work in progress.  It is for my oldest nephew.  He picked out this chart.  I hope he continues to like pitbulls as he gets older because it will be awhile before he will be getting the finished product!

Happy stitching!

A new Signature

I now have my signature (well not mine a computer generate one) at the end of my posts and if you would like to learn how to put one at the end of your blog posts go to Funky Junk Interiors.  She has a tutorial on how to do it and I made mine in about 5 min.  She also has lots of other neat things and I have been pinning her stuff like crazy.

DIY Battery holder

My junk drawer is a disaster.  I have a bad habit.  I like to save things, such as, napkins from take out, rubber bands, twist ties, bread tags etc.  None of those are really bad things to save in my opinion but my problem is I just chuck them in the junk drawer, forget about them until I need one, which by that time they have migrated to the bottom/back of the junk drawer never to be seen again.  The same thing was happening with the batteries.  My oldest got a kids digital camera for Christmas.  He has not been able to try the camera out yet because we didn't have any AA batteries, that is until I cleaned out the junk drawer.  He now has 50+ pictures on the camera.  

About a week ago I actually took the drawer out of my cupboards and put it on the kitchen table.  There, now I had to do something with it.  I started, then realized I need little dishes to organize all this stuff, so the drawer went back into hiding, until today.  I had to do a load of dishes in the dishwasher and used the last Cascade pack which had come in this great dish.  I have been eyeing up this dish every time I start the dishwasher.  Today as I emptied it out it came to me, that should fit in a drawer and it is big enough to hold my batteries.  

So out came the scrapbook letters and ModgePodge and away I went, with the help of my 4 year old this is what we did.  We put the stickers on, then 2 coats of ModgePodge.

 I tried to peel the stickers off the side but they were just ripping in little tiny pieces so I may just wrap some pretty paper around it or I may just leave it.  When it is in the drawer all you see is the top anyway.  

It fits almost perfectly.  See the bottom long green sticker?  See the left hand side of that sticker?  That is the almost part, the drawer and I had a little fight while getting dish in.  

The Prairie Schooler 2011 Santa Finish

I am finally in the home stretch with my ornaments.  I don't think I will ever do 7 of the same thing again.  I really had to push myself to get these done.  About #4 I was through with the whole thing, but somehow I think I will actually have all these done in time.  I will show you how I finished them into Christmas tree ornaments.

This is the finished cross stitch and a piece of black felt that I used for the back.

 I folded all the edges to the back.

 This picture shows the front with the side tucked in behind.

 Next I cut out the corners.  I just used the lines that were made when I folded the excess material.  I stayed close to the fold lines but not right on them.

 Then I folded down the corners and then folded them into a point.  The next 2 pictures will do a better job of explaining that then I did.

 I then used stick pins to hold it all in place and repeated with the other corners.  Some of my corners ended up not very close to the green line of stitching after folding, so I had to make another cut closer to the green stitches right in the corner to get a better fold.

 I lined up the black felt on the back and then stick pinned it in place.

 I used a piece of ribbon to make the holder and sewed it in-between the two layers.

 I then just stitched the whole way around.

 And here is the final product on my tree.

Next year I will not be doing all the same ornament or I will be starting in January and spreading them our over the whole year.  Happy Holiday every one!

Chocolate Stirring Spoons

I seen these stirring spoons here, and I loved the idea.  So my sister and I set to work.  We did milk chocolate and white chocolate coconut.  In the post it says she spooned the chocolate into the plastic spoons, but I thought that would be too messy so I used a ziploc bag and trimmed off one corner.  That was a semi bad idea, the chocolate is very runny when melted and it poured out of the bag like water but if I had thought of that before hand I would have been better prepared.

I forgot to take pictures of the milk chocolate but both bars were Lindt.  Also it really is important to prop the end of your spoon handle on something (gingerbread house tray in my case), it keeps the spoons level and the chocolate in the spoons instead of all over the table.  I melted the chocolate in a double boiler (nothing fancy just a pot of simmering water and a bowl that will sit on top of the pot but not in the water.  My sister claims she uses a metal bowl but you would probably burn your fingertips off if you forgot what you were doing so I would go with glass.  You will still need oven mitts but if you forget and touch it for a second you will still have the use of your fingers for the rest of the day).  Once you get the melted chocolate into the spoons you just decorate away.  In the dish on the far left below is mini Rolos.  If you use something chocolate like that you should wait a few minutes until you chocolate cools a bit before you put the in so they don't melt.  I put the spoons in the fridge to set up, I used a plate with a dish towel on it to keep the spoons level.

 Here is the final product.  I got small "Sucker" bags at the Bulk Barn and tied them on with ribbon.  They turned out so well.  I might do these again next year for gifts.

Here they are ready to go to their new home.  

Pampers toy box

With a 9-month old in the house, we go through diapers like nobody's business.  I hate to throw the boxes out because they are a great size, sturdy and why not recycle, so I came up with this idea then put my mother to work.

I asked my mother to sew a cover for the box and this is what she came up with.  All I asked her was to make it removable just in case I needed to wash it.  Thomas has claimed this as his toy box and I spend a good part of the day putting the blocks back in just so he can turn it over and dump them back out.  

I would like to figure out how to add a lid and use them to store DVD's and allow them to be stack-able.  I will let you know what I come up with.  

Christmas Tree Day!!

We got our Christmas tree on the 1st.  The earliest we have ever got our tree.  Brayden picked it out and we were on our way back home in 10 minutes.

Here is Brayden checking the water level. 

 

I have also decided to start a new tradition this year, Christmas book advent calendar.  I have seen these all over the internet and I love it.  Every day instead of starting the day with chocolate we start it with a new book.  This is definitely something I will be doing again next year.   

 Here is Brayden wearing his "Baby's first Christmas" sock.

 I am almost done of the ornaments I am giving for Christmas presents, about 2 1/4 left.  I hope I get them done in time.  I will try to remember to take pictures while I am finishing one.  Happy Holidays everyone!