crafty moments

You could say I've been on a "crafty kick" the past month or so, and it continues! I'm loving it! Here's what I've been making.

1. Taggie Blankets- apparently, little babies enjoy finding the tag to their blankets and then that's their favorite part! The idea behind these blankets is that there are MANY tags to CHEWS from. ;)

Here's the link I based my pattern off of-
melissa sews


My friend made one of these and I knew I wanted to make 1 too! I've since made 5 and have plans for more, but these are the 1st couple I made.

I decided I like then as 12" finished squares, which means I cut them to 13" square. I use 32-40 ribbons, each cut @ 4" lengths. Depending on the width of the ribbons you may need more of less; More skinny ones = more ribbons needed, and vice versa.

2. "Hooter Hider" aka Nursing Cover
 I'm very excited to put this creation to use. Where were these 3+ years ago? (Of course they've been out there for years, but I didn't know about them until AFTER I was finished nursing baby #2.) They're brilliant!

I based my pattern off of these two links-
little birdie secrets
made by the mama monster

3. Fabric-wrapped Rope Basket

I've been all over the web and cannot find anything like this to compare mine to OR to show instructions of how to make them. Sorry.

Just trust me. They're SUPER easy and mind-numbing and only requires about 6 hand stitches, a glue stick, 12' of rope, and about 40 strips of fabric. Total work time was probably about 4 hours. Thank you Sister Matthews for sharing your endless talents and supplies with all of us! We love it!

Happy Craftin'!

mmm mmm good

A couple weeks ago I did some serious canning.
I forgot how MUCH you need to do so little. It makes me crazy.

This fall, I started with canning pears. I had 55 pears and only got 11 quarts from them, so I had to buy another bushel to can a total of 24 quarts. Sheesh! We'll have to be on rations with these, seeing as we can down a whole quart in a day, if we each have 1 serving. What can I say? They're heavenly and we can't resist!

A few days later, I helped my mother-in-law can applesauce. They have 3 apple trees in their backyard and my father-in-law picked at least 3 bushels of apples for us to can.

*The links of "how to can pears or applesauce" are not the links I used, but give you a general idea of how it's done if you don't already know.

After you wash the apples you cut out the horribly bad spots, throw them in a huge pot and cook them until they're mushy. Then you scoop them into the blessed Victorio strainer and it does all the hard work, separating the peel and core from the yummy fruit. From there you just add what sugar you want, put in your jars, and can to seal them. We ended up with 70 quarts! Wow-ie! It was a long afternoon, evening and night but it feels great to be done!

I guess I didn't take any pics of the pears I canned but they look like they did from last year's post, only more in a jar.

What an accomplishment! Feels great to be done and see them sitting on the shelf!