bedroom Feng shui

we have lots of stairways in the Pacific Northwest try these Feng Shui hints

Making childrens dolls

Making a handkerchief clown doll

I have a fond memory. It is of little handmade dolls given to me as a child by the creative, loving people in my life. My parents built my childhood home in the 1950's. We lived in a motel, though it wasn't called that. It was a strip of little rooms all with kitchenettes but one shared bathroom. I remember riding my tricycle on the walk way in front of the rooms. A very kind lady there made several little toys for me and my sister. I still have one of them and remember her kindness. My Grandmother on my dad's side made several cherished dolls for me and my mom made a little clown over and over for me as I loved it so much I would wear it out every few years. I still have one. In the next few blogs I will show you some of these quick toys. They are made with very few supplies and little work but mean so very much to a child. I've never forgotten mine!

1) Any square of fabric will work. A handkerchief will work, one with flowers makes a nice girl doll. You can made a quick hem on a fabric square.

2) fold the square corner to corner as in diagram A.

3) put a small ball of fiber fill or a scrap of fabric made into a ball, or for me a spinner I'd put a ball of wool in for the head. Tie tightly a bit of thread or yarn around the ball to form the head. diagram B

4) Diagram C Here is where it gets a Little more tricky. Just remember it's a clown and they have loose, full sleeves etc. Treat each point of the handkerchief as one of the clowns limbs. You can follow the photo above. Pull the right hand up and let it be the top. Then pull the left leg and let it be the top. You will sew in little whip stitches the arms (you don't have to start at the top of the hand as we tie it later). Start at the wrist and sew until you see that you can not sew further without getting into a leg. So the pattern is sew from wrist most of the way to the body. Sew from point of foot to most of the way to the body.

I left one foot open to show you what it looks like before you fold it in and sew it.

5) You will now have arms and legs sewn but the tummy will be loose and open. It can flip any way the child moves the clown or you can tie a colorful yarn, or piece of fabric around his waist.

Stitch or paint or use crayons even and make him a colorful face. They sell tubes of a puff type paint that makes a cute nose. Tie a colorful thread or yarn around each wrist, remember his toes are sewn at a point so do nothing with those. You can take yarn, but not too much or it will weigh his head down, and make some bit of hair to stitch to his head top.

Now wasn't this easy and fun? This came from a book so old I doubt we will ever see it again. So enjoy this cute little clown.

Berries, still

poisonous!

I thought we were all finished with my berry collection. Alas on the way to feed our goat I saw this familiar vine going up one of our barns. Yes it grows up buildings and fences and it is a night shade called bittersweet night shade. This time of year the colorful berries could attract anyone. We taught our kids about them and later our neighbor girls were taught to keep away. I grew tired of always tearing them out when we saw them so now everyone must learn "NOT TO EAT" just any berry you see. Do remember that seeing the flowering plant is a BIG way to know what you are looking at. The Bittersweet night shade has little purple reverse star burst type flowers with bright yellow in the center. They are pretty and you will notice them.

I went hunting so you could have more information than I have in my head and here is a helpful web site from my area. It has loads of information!

http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/animalsAndPlants/noxious-weeds/weed-identification/bittersweet-nightshade.aspx

Let's draw Halloween

click each photo to enlarge for details.

When my kids were little we got a fun magazine called Cricket. One issue had a page of Halloween creatures you could draw no matter what your age. This is when we fell in love with Ed Emberley. We bought his orange book and not long after his green book. The kids loved to draw animals, creatures, buildings and cars from these fun books. Is it any wonder our son became an artist! So now some fun. The books start with easy to draw and grow in complexity. I am putting in three levels of the orange book. I hope you can find these older books. You just might be raising another great animator like ours! Try checking Ed Emberley's web site below: http://www.edemberley.com/pages/main.aspx

Next we have some great Spiders!

Step one learning the shapes to make!

Be sure an follow the little shape at the bottom and add it to the drawing you have started. This is a step by step lesson but you are drawing one spider! Click on drawing to enlarge for viewing!

Dressing up for Halloween..................BOO!

Back in the 1980's I taught some classes in making your own Halloween outfits from what ever you could find. It was a lot of fun. I'm putting the class notes here to inspire you. Our grandson is going to be Thomas the train. His mom is making it from diaper boxes and "stuff". So good luck, there are no rules, use what you have and make it fun and simple!

Oh and please enjoy the fact that the handouts from this class were hand typed on a type writter. Amazing how far we have come since then! Note: I had to laugh when I looked back at these instructions. Guess there wasn't any spell check in the 80's also. If something isn't clear please ask I can explain it in language of our day....he he

/a>

Make that nice liquid soap last longer!

Money is tight but even when it wasn't I didn't like to toss out a bottle of fragrant soap that still had some in it. You get to a point in those soap bottles where they won't give you more.

Use my hint and get every little squirt of soap out of the bottle. It's all about hydraulics and truly I can't explain it very well I just know it works. Been using this for years. When your soap is too low to pump, very slowly add some water. Take the water up about 1/3 the height of the bottle. We are NOT trying to mix the soap and the water. The soap will be heavier than the water and it should lay on the bottom waiting to be pumped up. It is best to use a measuring cup to pour the water in slowly. Most faucets are strong enough to mix the water into the soap and that is not what we want to do.

This raising the height in the bottle will allow you to use the rest of the soap. One day you will get to the water and then you know it's time to toss the bottle. The first pump after putting the water in, will take several pushes. keep pushing and soon the soap will be in your hands, once it is back up the tube you will not have to pump hard again.

Enjoy your left over soap.....I do especially the coconut soap!

looking back to October 7th 1972

Oct 7th 1972

It seems so very long ago! starting from the left

Mike, (bleach boys best friend), Jan (my friend from institute, we shared a secretary job there), Francie (my childhood friend), Georgia (my sister), Me & Bleach Boy (freshly back from Korea), raelynn (friend of both of us), Christine (my sister), Sue (my sister), Jimmy (bleach boys youngest brother)

The photo is faded and old but the dresses were in lovely fall colors, some lined in yellow, some in gold, some in orange. Weddings were very simple back then. I made a lot of the dresses for the families, we all made the baskets and hats, my aunts made the luncheon. It didn't cost much to do and we have these great photos my cousin took and made into a nice album for us.

Could it be I have been married this long? yes, you do it one day at a time, one challenge at a time. You grow, you learn, you struggle, but most of all you honor your promises, you work on loving one another and you keep your marriage first!

Life is so very complex......and Seasons....

Again it has happened. My computer has crashed. Seems to happen when I go away a few days. Who comes in and plays with my computer while I am away? I picture those creatures from a Stephen Spielberg movie of long ago. You never feed these monsters after dark (or something like that) or they get just plain "BAD" and I picture them tearing up my computer in my absents. So this will be my third mother board, in only4 years. YIKES.

Why tell you this sad tale of Evil creatures and computers? Well It makes it really hard to keep up a blog in light of this. I'm on my laptop which I finally have figured out how to get some speed on the key board. I don't have a scanner to give you nice things to read and look at. I'll work on that for tomorrow. You'll have to endure Internet pictures.

I was thinking of several things related to seasons this week. When I lived in Northern California we had real seasons. Four of them. I marveled at each one, my life spun around them. It felt so good. The smells of the pears and grapes at harvest, the deafening sound of the rain in the winter (tell me 70 inches in 4 months isn't a lot of noise!), the beauty of the green hills and oaks in the spring, the lambs to tend, the tent up all summer without fear of rain, oh each season was wonderful. I miss them. The Pacific Northwest has one season, maybe two.....cold rain and warm rain.

In thinking back to my mothers generation. Their lives seemed to go around like the seasons. I knew my grandmothers days to bake bread were Tues and Fridays, laundry had a set day to be done, There was the morning chores, the afternoon chores, the evening chores. It flowed like they knew just what to do. We have lost that. We struggle to have a time for each needful chore.

I always keep a weekly chart of what I needed to do on certain days. It helped me enjoy a feeling of accomplishment. Carla, my neighbor, likes a list that she can cross off each day. This is not what I was thinking of so much but it is fun to see a finished list. I was thinking more of the feeling of each day as if it were a season, knowing what to do and producing the finished results of that day.

In visiting my grandson this week-end and seeing all his energy I remembered how hard it was to keep them busy. Two year olds can use a seasonal movement to their day. What happens in their mornings? What do they do mid-morning? Can you change it to keep them busy? I offer some ideas below.

idea #1 Have activities that children know will happen on certain days....Monday we get to finger paint, Tues is make-believe day, wed is library day, Thurs is computer day, Friday is bake something day etc. It could be you arrange your day in a seasonal rotation. What happens in the morning? The mid-morning? The afternoon? A morning chore, an evening event that can be counted on? Did you plan in some free time for yourself? That is when you put them in front of the TV with their favorite movie. Prepare your thinking for moving from one time period to the next. A day is never so long as one that has nothing planned. Give your children a feeling of connection to the whole theme of time.

idea #2 House work is more fun if you know what you will do on which days. Divide things into portions that work for your families situation. But know what is coming, look forward to the Springs of your life. The perfectly beautiful times. Be ready for the falls, master the winters. Schedule the flow of your life. This is your chance to play "Mother nature" and create a season in your home. Things for comfort, for fun, for interest. You can make your own household seasonal pull or you can follow Miss nature in her plan. Change your colors, or put out something different, do a chore that's planned just for that time. I just washed my summer sweaters, I'm happy to do fall chore, it reminds me that summer will come again and I will be wearing clean sweaters!

A planned life doesn't come out perfect this takes practice. Try one format and if that doesn't work test out something else. My favorite was from the slob sisters (I think I loaned the books but I'll try to find a web site) I learned to put chores on colored cards and rotating them through. I got so much more done!

http://shesorganized.com/sidetracked-home-executives-book-reviews

I loved having learning stations for my kids. I'll share some of the charts for chores, the stations I used etc once I can scan again. I loved to have the kids do chores and advance on their charts. I think children can see us work and they can work (on their level) and know that we all contribute. It's good and healthy.

In my favorite housekeeping book "Home comforts" She said Monday was always wash day as it was so much hard work that it was good for after, the sabbath, the day of rest. I remember my mom washing in a outside sink and running the landry through a ringer and then putting the wet clothes up on the clothes line. I learned my alphabets in the dirt under the clothesline. I learned to count gathering eggs for my grandmother. Life needs a rhythm to it. You have been robbed of that great feeling of seasons because of the speed of our lives. It would be nice to have that back. Try making a rhythm for your life. I welcome your comments and thoughts to pass along to others.

parting is so sad....

It was a shock to leave Friday morning at 11 am and start on our 3 hours trip to battle ground, for the special birthday, only to get behind an accident and spend 7 hours sitting on I-5. You'll never know how nice those portable restrooms were when they finally showed up! This wait was even made harder knowing that our 2 year old grandson had been waiting for us all day long.

We made it in time for cake which is good because it was in an ice-chest on the back seat of our car! We've had a lot of fun with the family and enjoyed the two grand kids a bunch. Here are just a couple of photos. I thought family and friends might enjoy them. The cake, which is for a more advanced baker is chocolate and orange. Each layer has a coating of orange marmalade, California style, and chocolate butter cream.

Tomorrow we will try the 3 hours drive North in a bit more style than the 7 hour trip south. I think a bit of snack food will surely be better than the 2 apples we had on the trip down.

"Just in case food".

building Thomas the Train Halloween outfit with Papa

Is Logan testing to see if Papa is even close?

Happy Birthday Lyndy

This is the last family birthday for the year 2008

Lyndy is the last child born into our family

I've made a proper Happy Cake for the celebration

If only it will make the drive without problems.

Lyndy was the last one born in Ukiah

It's hard being youngest in a big family

I think it's wonderful turning such a nice number

25 feels like such a balanced number

I hope You enjoy your 25th year I think it will be a very good one.

Start planning the fun and I'll cook dinner when I get there and cross your fingers that

The cake arrives in all glory!

Happy Birthday!

Once Upon a Time.............

Once Upon a time Our oldest child got married.

I had a few months before the wedding and I started a quilt.

It was fun, my first really pieced large quilt.

I liked to applique quilts so did very little piecing.

I bought a lot of new stuff thinking it would make this quilt easier to make.

I tried the rotary cutter and cut a lot of misshapen pieces.

I had to use them, fabric was expensive even then!

A month was left and the Wedding quilt was pieced and ready to be quilted.

I had never done any machine quilting so I studied.

I started working from the middle

I did 1/4 of the quilt on the machine.

I hated it!

Machine quilting killed the best part of the quilt.

The wedding came and I still was un-picking the machine stitches.

Then I began what I know best.....

I started hand quilting in 2001 7 months after the wedding

I finished hand quilting in Sept. 2008!

I need to celebrate!

I know I will never quilt something this big again so it is a proud moment for me.

My wrists got so bad at times I would have to put the quilt down for 6 months at a time and then pick it up again.

Betty Miller got some of her quilting friends together to work the quilt for an afternoon.

Some of the stitches are not my own.

But most are and they are interesting.

I taught people walking by at fair how to quilt by lifting the heavy quilt up so they could see. Not the best way to stitch

I quilted in horrible light at times

I used a magnifier at times

The quilt went to Whistler several years of our vacation

I let two different friends work on it at fair when they had forgotten their projects for their appointed demo time.

I put the quilt in and out of the frame, in and out of big plastic bags,

and finally bought a lap frame to speed things along

I kept shooing cats away who wanted a cozy lap.

I washed the finished quilt two times for good measure.

It did just as I hoped, the quilted stitches hugged the quilt and it is beautiful

so for all it's imperfections it is perfect.

Made with tons of love

years of devotion

and a bit of my own blood! sorry about the stain I tried to cover it with the label those little needles can be sharp!

Hope you can wrap yourselves and your cute family in your brand new 8 year old wedding quilt!

Lots of love

mom

Logan loves Cars! This is for his lunch

Vrooom........

My sister Georgia likes to send me fun books and things I can use as a grammie. When we were having our children she would send me neat things to do with them. This came out of a cookbook called Favorite brand name Silly Snacks

Logan's bedroom is in cars, he loves the movie and this is for him!

Spaghetti

Spaghetti, spaghetti, all over the place,

Up to my elbow-up to my face,

Over the carpet and under the chairs,

into the hammock and wound round the stairs,

Filling the bathtub and covering the desk, making the sofa a mad mushy mess.

The party is ruined, I'm terribly worried,

The guest have all left (unless they're all buried),

I told them, "Bring presents, "I said throw confetti"

I guess they heard wrong..

'cause they all threw Spaghetti!

Fire building safety via fun food

Click on picture to make larger or print

This is for those of you working in Scouts. In Girl Scouts we loved to build fires. It was important we taught the girls the safe places and ways to do this. This fun food activity gave us all a fun way to discuss where to put a fire, how to build it and how to put it out. I've added fire building GS style but you may not need it. This is fun to do with families also. My kids grew up stacking several cords of wood each year!

Building a fire Girl Scout style

Click on page to enlarge

For my girls......?????

Alright, can you guess at where this is?

What memories does it bring back for you?

I have a few!

Enjoy thinking about it for a happy few moments

mom