Getting Back On The Craft Horse: Homemade Journals

After a few weeks of vacation from life and crafting, I am finally back in the crafting groove. It feels so good! I literately spent 5 hours in my craft-room yesterday re-organizing and crafting, it was wonderful.

This week I will be easing my way back in to crafting (don't want to rush it, now!).

That is why this first post is an easy craft that anyone can do.

I have kept a prayer journal since 9th Grade. Here is proof:

Yep, I have saved all my  journals since that time. It been great to have those and go through them at different times in my life to see how my relationship with God has changed over the years. Its a blessing to have them. In college, my good friend Kelsey first got me into making my own journals, and I am now finally attempting to do this craft all on my own. :-)

I followed these simple directions at curiously crafty.

Anyone can do this. I did end up substituting card stock for cardboard and craft paper for fabric in this because I wanted to only make a thin journal for a new bible study that I am starting this week. (For those of you who want to know it is a bible study based off of the book "Satisfy My Thirsty Soul: For I am Desperate for Your Presence" by Linda Dillow - so far it is wonderful, that woman is amazing).

Here is the end result from today:

I can't wait to start using it this week!

Vacation in Delaware!

I just got back from my two- week vacation, so no crafting post today. :-(

But on my vacation to Delaware, I was able to visit some of my favorite spots:

[caption id="attachment_271" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Bellevue Park"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_272" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Bellevue Park Free Concert!"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_274" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Classic Kohr Bros Softserve!"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_275" align="aligncenter" width="384" caption="Rehoboth Boardwalk!"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_273" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Crabbing on the Bay"][/caption]

Now that I am back from a great vacation, it is time to get crafting again! ;-)

Kitchen Benches - Part II- Cushions

This past week was piping week for the cushions. I  was not feeling very motivated to sew this weekend so I only got the piping on one and half cushions. The rest will have to wait until later.

Luckily, the day before I started to do this, one of favorite bloggers had a post about how to do piping. Check out Pretty Handy Girl's instructions here!

First I had to cut 52.6 feet of fabric in two inch wide strips (What a bunch of fabric!)



Then  it was time to sew. I did not pin, I simply put the robe on the floor and the strip on my lap and fed the sewing machine using my hands and folding the strips around the rope. It looks great!

And then I pinned it to the top of the cushion fabric.

And then sew it back up, and I was done.



This was  my second piping experience, and its not perfect. But the last project took a lot longer to figure out and has many more mistakes, but it looks great!  Our last project was re-upholstering our couch from the Goodwill. Upholstering has a steep learning curve! :-)

The next step is finishing the cushions and finish putting the benches together!

Check out Part I to see the progress we made last week!

Pasta Sauce III - Canning

Last week I finally had enough tomatoes to make Pasta Sauce again. This time I used 30 tomatoes, mostly Roma - which are known to make great sauce and are meatier than other tomatoes. And it worked.

After dinner, I had enough to fill three quart jars. So over the weekend, I got a chance to try out my canning gear I have had since the fall. I used the process from pickyourown.org. 

Here are some of my pictures from the process:

[caption id="attachment_252" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Getting everything sanitized and ready for the sauce"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_253" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="And they are in....."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_254" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="All Done!"][/caption]

I can't wait to use them in the coming month. To see the recipe click here, and to see how amazing it looks as dinner check out this post.

Braided Homemade Head Bands

I was browsing a bit back on some blogs and I found these super cute headbands. They are made our of T-Shirts= AMAZING & CHEAP.

I knew I had to try it. So that day when I came home from work I grabbed my old t-shirt box, pulled one out and started slicing.

I went from this:

To this in about 15 minutes! YAY!

I think I am going to start making some more. Once the braiding technique is down, its a breeze to do. Head on over to make it and love it to see how to get these headbands for yourself!