Feb 142013
 

Since we’ve been feeling so sick lately, I’m a bit behind the ball on planning the “fun” stuff.  Since it’s Valentines Day, I wanted some fun and easy crafts for the kids to work on if they wanted to.

Pinterest’s always saves the day when I’m stumped for ideas.  Check out the great blogs below for some quick and easy ideas!

 

Dec 172012
 

Oh my, I can’t believe how close Christmas is getting now!  The weather men are actually saying we might get snow on Friday.  That would be wonderful, or at least the kids think so!  Christmas just isn’t the same when there isn’t any snow.

What have you been up to this week for building family traditions and crafts?  With another round of tummy bugs hitting our house, there hasn’t been much going on.  But we did get out for our yearly light drive.  Everyone enjoyed that very much, especially our youngest ds who is 4.  He was just soooo excited over all the lights.  He really loved the moving reindeer to!

I can’t wait to hear about the things you’ve been working on.  Please link up or leave a comment below!


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Dec 072012
 

Ok everyone there are just a few more weeks until Christmas.  :) How are your homemade gifts coming along?  Have you taken time to DO things together as a family?  We are planning to soon take our traditional Christmas light drive.  We all love that so much.  Each year near Christmas we pick a night when the weather is nice, fill up on hot chocolate and take a slow drive through the local towns.  The light displays are just amazing some years!

 


Nov 232012
 

It’s time for the third Handmade Christmas link up!  I can’t wait to read about what you’ve been making, I can always use some more wonderful ideas! :)

Our weather here has been more spring like for the past week.  Just lovely!  But later today the rain is to turn to snow and it might actually start looking like Christmas!  Our kids were starting to worry about a green Christmas.


Nov 162012
 

Goodness it’s been a busy week here.  I’m glad to finally  have a little time to sit down and share!  It seems that every fall as winter approaches things just love to break down. (sigh)  Our “new” stove that we bought from a friend this past summer finally died for good.  We’ve had some trouble with the oven on and off, now it wont regulate at all.  It was less then a year old when we bought it and had hardly been used, since our friend bought it for an apartment he was renting out but then changed his mind.  After a bit of research it seems that Hotpoint ovens are prone to this problem.  Hubby has been talking to the repair shop we use and it could be one of three problems.  It could be the oven thermostat, or a computer part inside, or possibly a loose wire.  He’s going to have to rip it all apart and check the wires, then if that doesn’t fix the problem he’ll take both parts into the shop for them to check.  So it’s added to the list of things to fix.

Last weekend the weather was really nice!  Sat. we spent visiting with a dear friend on her birthday.  Then on Sunday the temp jumped up to 17C!!  It felt like spring outside.  I took advantage of that to clean off the front porch and wash down the front doors.  Our door on the deck had little painted hand prints all over it.  Hmmm  Then I started decorating a little bit.  I started with some garland around the door, then today I added some red bows.  I’m going to paint the edges of some pinecones white then wire them on to the garland as well.

Front door Christmas 2012

This week I also became inspired to start cleaning out my sewing/craft room.  Oh my that is quite a job!  I have it about half done now.  I also found some nice warm corduroy material that I wanted to make skirts out of for the girls.  I brought that out and measured everyone then got to work.  I managed to finish all four in one afternoon.  Ok, so I added the elastic waists in the evening, but still getting them all done in one day is a record for me!  I love this fabric, but I thought it was BROWN when I bought it!  Looking at it at home it is a very dark purple.

Skirts

I’ve been playing around with some crochet stitches and came up with a granny square snowflake.  Now I need to try and recreate it and write down what I did!

Snowflake

Another project I’ve been hoping to get done for some time, is to get more bookshelves in the house.  Hubby finally had time on Wednesday to help with that.  He put up two long book shelves on the wall above the piano.  Then he built a new hutch for my desk.  We decided to go with ruff wood to save money right now and just get it DONE.  With stacks of books and papers everywhere I just needed the shelves ASAP!  So I’m still working through stacks of books and trying to organize them.  I’ll share some photos of the new shelves soon, but the scary thing is I’m almost out of space already.   Hubby mentioned that maybe we should buy a library.  Yes that would work, but we might have to add on to it. LOL!

The down side to all of this building and moving things around is my back is hurting.  So I’m trying to do just a little at a time then rest it.  It’s hard though, because I really want to just get it all done!

What have you all been up to?

Nov 092012
 

It’s that time of year again.  The lawn is covered in early morning frost, and we’ve had a few days of snow already.  This fall has been early and colder then normal, leaving me with the desire to start planning for Christmas!  Really, if dh was in for it I would have had the tree up already! lol  But soon!

I’m going to run Gifts From the Heart ~ A Handmade Christmas blog hop again this year, and I can’t wait to see all the wonderful ideas you are all coming up with!

All ideas are welcome from recipes and crafts to family activities.   If you have a blog use the link up below to link to your post.  Please make sure to use the link for the POST and not to your blog home page.  This makes it so much easer to find the post you want to share.

If you don’t have a blog and would like to share your creative ideas, I’d love to have you join our community and share your ideas and photos there.  Joining is quick and easy, just use the “Register” link in the gray menu bar at the top of the site.

I’m going to be posting a new link up every Friday from now until December 28th.  I know there might be projects your working on that you don’t want family and friends peeking at yet.  That last link up would be a great time to share them, if your worried about that.

There is a Handmade Christmas button in the right sidebar, simply copy the code into your blog post will link back here for everyone to share in the fun!

I wanted to share one of my favourite Christmas songs,  C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S. by Jim Reeves.  My Grandmother loved his music and I remember hearing this one often when I was little!

 


Oct 202012
 

It’s amazing how fast time goes by isn’t it?  I’ve been so busy AND sick that I just haven’t had much time to sit down here as often as I would like.

The past few months I’ve been fighting some crazy virus, when I think I’m over it I get hit again.  Poor hubby has been fighting it as well.  Thankfully the kids are over most of it now!

We have our new wood stove all hooked up and I love it!  We had an old cook stove in the summer kitchen, but it took up so much of that little room you could hardly move around.  Our new one also has a flat top so I can easily cook on it if need be.  It’s an older wood stove, Canadian made to!  The brand is Lakewood and I’m amazed at how well this stove works.  I would have to say it’s the best wood stove I’ve ever owned.  We stumbled on to it about a month ago on the way to town.  Someone had it at the end of their driveway for sale.  I can’t believe how heavy it is to.  I could NOT lift it no matter how hard I tried. lol  Poor hubby had to get that monster into the house all by himself.  It is very solid compared to the NEW stove we bought about 5 years ago.

Our weather has been pretty cold since early September, and we have been burning one or both stoves every day.  We have had a few nice days recently and need to finish getting the yard work done.  It has been raining so much that we haven’t been able to finish cleaning up the gardens yet.

We are getting close to finishing off that huge pile of fire wood.  It seemed like it was the never ending pile. lol  I think we will have it finished by the end of the weekend.  This is the huge pile we had delivered this year.  It’s now down to a small pile at the far back.

Since our weather has been so cold, much more like November then October, I’m more in a Christmas mood then a fall one.  I’m eager to start decorating, but making myself wait until at least the start of November.   Hubby jokes that I’m pushing his Grinch button. lol  Silly goof.

So while I’m waiting a bit to start decking the halls, I’m working on ideas for gifts and craft projects.  I’m planning to crochet some snowman this year and maybe a gingerbread house.  I’m not sure what else yet.

Has anyone else started their Christmas crafts?  What are you working on?

Dec 132011
 

To make the double crochet stitch, wrap the yarn around your hook.  Skip the first 3 chains, remembering that the loop ON the hook does not count as a stitch.  Insert the hook in the center of the 4th chain stitch.  Wrap the yarn and pull it back through the chain stitch.  You now have 3 loops on your hook.

Wrap the yarn around the hook and pull it through the first 2 loops.  Then wrap the yarn once more and pull it through the remaining 2 loops.  Continue working down the chain, working every chain stitch.

When you reach the end, chain 3 and turn your work.  Wrap the yarn around your hook, insert your hook in the next stitch under both of the top loops.   Wrap the yarn around the hook again, pull through the stitch.  You now have 3 loops on the hook.  Wrap the yarn around the hook and pull it through the first 2 loops.  Then wrap the yarn once more and pull it through the remaining 2 loops.  Continue working the pattern until your piece is the desired length.

 

Dec 132011
 

To form the single crochet stitch, insert your hook through the center of the second chain from the hook.  Remember the loop ON the hook does not count as a stitch.  Wrap the yarn around the hook and pull it back through the chain.  Wrap the yarn around again and pull it through all the loops on the hook.

When you have reached the end of your first row, chain 1 and turn your work.  Insert your hook under both loops of the first stitch, wrap the yarn and pull through the stitch.  Wrap the yarn again and pull through all the remaining loops.  Continue working this way until your piece is as long as you like.

 

Nov 282011
 

Handmade decorations and gifts have a special place in my heart.  Each year as we get our old favorites out to hang up, we remember when we made them.  The fun the children had together creating with glitter, and paint.  Yes I do have a few special store bought ornaments as well.  But they are special because of WHEN I bought them, not who made them.

I’m going to be posting often, daily I HOPE up until Christmas, recipes, crafts and gift tutorials and ideas.  I’m also going to revive my Christmas blog hop, Gifts From The Heart ~ A Handmade Christmas.  I will post a link up each Wednesday and I’m looking forward to reading all your Christmas posts!

I stumbled on to this old video the other day.  Boy did it bring back memories!  I know I’ve seen this before and likely read the books as a child as well.  I hope you enjoy!

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