April 2014 - Yearning to Create

Best Johnny Cake Ever (and Gluten Free)

I love Corn Bread and this is one of my very favourite recipes because it’s so moist. Corn bread can be rather dry at times!

Here it is before going in the oven.

Wow! Corn bread with corn in it!

(Just wondering, why is corn bread often called Johnny Cake?)

Johnny Cake

Mix together:

2 cups corn meal

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

Stir in 4 eggs.

Then dump in:

2 cups Sour Cream

1 can Cream Style Corn

1/2 cup oil

Mix it all up well and pour it into a 9×13 pan. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes – or until it looks like this . . .

I usually make corn bread when we’re having soup for dinner, and hope there’s some leftover for lunch the next day. It’s especially great for my daughter who needs GF food.

If you’ve never had Johnny Cake before, I like to slice it horizontally through the middle so I have two thin slices. If I’m eating it with soup I just butter it, but if I want it as a treat I’ll put honey or jam or pancake syrup on it too (butter and honey being my first choice!). And of course you’ll want to eat it warm!

Update: I googled it and learned that they were also called journey cakes because they could be carried on long trips in saddlebags and baked along the way. Some historians think that they were originally called Shawnee cakes and that the colonists slurred the words, pronouncing it as johnny cakes.

Menu Board/Message Board

In searching for ideas for our RS Super Saturday about two years ago, I found a menu board idea at Melanie’s Musings that I just had to copy. It seemed like such a great idea – and it is!!! And let me tell you, on days that I menu plan and write the meals on the board, life is so much easier!

We colour photocopied the inside page that I made, for ladies at the Super Saturday. Then they just had to take care of the framing. On the right is a list of possible menu ideas. I usually have that in a pocket glued on the back of the frame, and the clothes peg holds my shopping list.

Anyway, I love the Menu Board so much and it’s working so well, I decided to make something similar to become our family message board. I thought it would be very handy to have all the messages in one spot and not be losing little papers with phone messages written on them! And it is!!!

First item was to find a matching frame – thanks Walmart! I like the document size frame as it is slightly larger than an 8 x 10.

Then I centered the stickers saying Message Board. To do this, I marked the center of the glass (see my little black dot) and then worked from the center out to the edges. And I wrote out the words I was spelling so I wouldn’t mess it up!!!

Now, I used to have a burgundy and maple kitchen and this Menu Board matched it wonderfully. But, in the new house we’re building, I’m not going to have any burgundy on the main floor, so I needed to redo the colours of my board.

Pretty cute eh? By the oven mitt it says Quality Time. I really feel that supper is an important family bonding time. I believe that what our children really want for supper is us!

The next task was to design the Message Board to match the Menu Board because they will be side by side in my new house.

This is what I came up with . . .

It says “Family” there on the green paper.

I made five of these little message slots, and the long one across the bottom says “Notes”. The only rule we have is that the message can only be erased by the person who it’s for. And it’s so easy to erase – just a swipe of your finger across the glass (or you could use a kleenex!).

And there’s my two boards! I only attached a dry-erase marker to one of them because they are so close they can share. But I’ll probably add a clothes peg to the Message Board to hold things like birthday party invitations.

It’s working great – the family have all learned to look to that one spot for their messages!!! Wish I’d done this years ago!

Easter Display

Easter is a wonderful holiday! What a wonderful thing to celebrate – the Atonement and Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

But I’ve never been too thrilled about the idea of the Easter Bunny bringing things. Now don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate just as much as any other normal woman out there, and love any excuse to buy it. But, a rabbit bringing treats – I don’t get it!!!

The Easter Bunny doesn’t visit our house. On Easter Sunday my family woke up to find a display up high on the piano (away from little fingers of course!).

There were pictures of the resurrected Christ and bowls of Easter treats.

Eggs symbolize “new life” and so does “resurrection”.

Completely perfect for our family!

And now an Easter picture of my reverent daughters!!!Happy Easter!

Easter Treats

This is how Easter treats happen at my house: I provide ingredients and a recipe and inform my girls that they get to make Easter treats for the family! Isn’t that great?

And they get all excited!!!

Okay, I’m not completely lazy – I did have an important thing to do:

I was over at the new house, drawing my kitchen cabinets on the plywood, to see if what I’d designed on paper would actually fit in the space my guy provided for the kitchen.

Here’s my design on paper. It was out by about two inches on one wall. See, that’s what I needed to know before I start getting quotes! So my time was well spent!

As I walked in the door, the girls said “We just finished the nests! Come and see them!”

Great work girls – they look delicious!!!

I’m happy, they’re happy, and we have some yummy treats, so dad is definitely happy!!!

And if you want to make your own, bring the syrup and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter and then the rice krispies. Form into nests and decorate with jellybeans.

And that’s how Easter treats are made at my house!!!

Countdown Blocks

We made Countdown Blocks a few years ago at a Super Saturday. I decided that I wanted to be able to display my blocks year-round, and not just for Christmas. So I used non-themed paper. My kids like to countdown to lots of things, like school starting and ending, birthdays, all holidays, gramma and grampa coming home from their mission, and so on.

So, what’s in 11 days?

My birthday!!! The big 42 is creeping up in May!

These blocks are just mod podged paper and die cut numbers/letters on wooden blocks. The base is a 2×4. Pretty easy! And actually, a third block would be handy just to have extra numbers for counting down from high numbers. For example, I can’t make the numbers 33-35, but I can make 36-39. Just something to think about if you wanted to make some!

And what is coming up in 13 days?

Why, Mothers’ Day of course!!!

Family Birthday Board

My guy doesn’t ask for much in the way of crafts (yeah, a shocker I know!) so when he suggests something, I listen. He requested that somewhere in the house we have a birthday list so he can see when family members’ birthdays are. I thought that was a fabulous idea!!!

My friend did a craft class last week and she was doing magnetic boards as calendars. I knew that would be the perfect thing to change a little and make into our Family Birthday Board. I just printed up four pages with three months on each page, to cover the family birthdays for the year. My guy and I both come from large families and we’re adding five more babies to the family in the next few months – the families are growing at alarming rates!!! And very hard to keep track of (facebook certainly helps though!!!).

Start with a piece of metal – it’s about 9 x 14.

Its edges are nicely turned under so it’s not sharp.

Then you mod podge the paper onto the metal – both under and over the paper. And don’t worry – the air bubbles disappeared when it was completely dry. I like to do a cross-hatch pattern in my mod podge – kinda gives it a look of canvas when it dries.

Two little mini clothes pegs are holding on my sign and picture. And I love that strip of lace going through the middle – adds a nice texture to the board.

Stamped this with a dollar store alphabet set and then mod podged over it all for protection (it is in the kitchen after all – water fights have happened before!!!).

This picture was the right size so it’s doing the job right now, even though it’s missing the baby. In the future, I think a sepia photo would look lovely!

My cute as a button magnets!!!

I glued magnets on the back of mine too so it sticks to the fridge, but you could also hang it with a ribbon.

Lovin it!!! Lovin it!!!

And when new members join the family through birth or marriage, I’ll just write their names in the appropriate spot in black ink and then update the charts on the computer when needed. And I suppose I could even add anniversaries if I wanted to.

So do you want to know what my guy thought about the craft he inspired?

He loves it too!!!

DVD Holder

There’s gotta be a cute way to store DVD’s right? I asked my guy to build these little DVD houses for me, and he did!!! I think they’d look even cuter with little chimneys.

See that pink section – those are our Barbie movies!!!

These looked really cute in our last house. They sat on the ledge around the family room with little pine trees and other cute doodads around them. Now, during our building house/transition time, they just sit on the floor – not looking as cute, but still doing their job.

My baby really likes them this height!!!

She pulls them all off many times each day!!! We put some of her baby books in front of the DVD’s to distract her. Yeah – great plan! But it didn’t work. She just sits there longer, reading books between yanking off more DVD’s.

Thanks Mac – you know, I’d rather be creating than cleaning up your messes – again!!!

Easiest Quiet Book – Ever!!!

Made this quiet book for Kat when she was almost two, and now it’s being enjoyed by another child. We personalized it for Kat, but Mac doesn’t seem to mind that at all – she just enjoys looking at sisters book.

It’s the easiest thing ever and you can get your other kids involved in helping too.

First you have to buy an album – dollar stores are great for this!

This album is the size that fits one standard size photograph per page. My album is pretty thick (80 pages) because I wanted lots of original pages for her to look at. Hopefully we’d be half-way through church before she was finished it!

And now for the fun part – get creative and make pages! Dig out photographs, chop up old books, magazines, calendars, use the computer to prints pictures, phrases or quotes. Add coloured papers, stickers, stamps, die cuts. Tons of fun!!! I’ll share some of our pages to get your creative juices flowing . . .

You can see that she decided some artwork was needed inside the covers!A page autographed by Daddy!

I love the four cousins a few months apart!!!

Warning: Animal pages can be noisy if your child starts barking in the middle of church!!!

Or meowing!!!

Sisters in the various seasons.

Pages for all the colours. I chopped up a kids sticker book after they had finished it – had great clear, coloured pictures.

A page for each letter of Kat’s name.

I hope that gives you some ideas. We made this book and gave it to Kat for Christmas.

And if you want the truth, this Quiet Book keeps more than just the baby occupied in church!!!

My “Word” for 2013

It’s New Years Day!!! Time for me to craft my “word” for the year onto a block of wood that will sit beside my bed.

You can read more about what this means in last years entry (find it here).

It took me longer this year than it ever has before to choose my word. Usually they just jump into my mind, weeks before New Years. But this year, I even had to ask my FB friends for suggestions, and here’s what I got:

Rest, Joy, Love, Peace, Fun, Bacon, Stand, Create, Faith, Trust, Cleave, Cherish, Chocolate, Quest, Discernment and Laugh (hmm . . . this one’s from my daughter!)

Lots of great ideas! I was leaning towards the words Cherish, Love and Treasure (although Bacon and Chocolate ranked right up there too). But I also need to have Fun and Laugh more too! So when I found this word this very morning, it was like a lightbulb going off in my head!!!

So without further delay, my “word” for 2013 is . . .

. . . Savor! (or “savour” depending on your spelling preference!)

The verb means “to appreciate fully; enjoy or relish”, and this could apply to anything – like each day, or people, or events, or life. So to me it basically means to find joy in everything and love and cherish everything.

The noun refers more to flavour, like in the scripture Matthew 5:13 “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”

When I chose “savor” I was thinking more of the verb, but I love how the noun ties into the bacon and chocolate words, which are indeed some of my favourite things! And I think that when I’m eating a Lindor chocolate, I’m experiencing both the verb and the noun!

I included this quote by John Wooden on my block because I think it’s a good reminder. Whatever happened yesterday, today is a new day – make it a masterpiece; savor it all.

And to remember my past words (yes, I’m still working on them!) . . .

2010 – Patience

2011 – Delight

2013 – Courage

2013 – Savor

One other thing that I especially like about the word “savor” is that it looks a lot like the word “Savior”. When I glance at my block, it not only reminds me to savor everything and everyone each day, but also to appreciate fully, enjoy or relish my Savior, and all He has done for me.

Conference Project Time Again!

I love General Conference weekend, and it’s almost here! It’s an opportunity for us to listen to our living prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, and other Apostles as they lead and guide us in these latter days.

Do you remember “my Conference Project”?

This is how much was finished after the last conference six months ago. I love to work on this cross-stitch called “Lost No More” by Greg Olsen during conference. I find that my brain listens better when my hands are busy. When I’m looking down at this picture of the Savior, rather than at the distractions of what others around me might be doing, I absorb the messages of our church leaders better. But that’s just me! I’ve never been able to master the art of taking notes – I miss what they’re saying while I’m writing what they already said!

Anyway, I’m sure looking forward to this opportunity of attending Church with the whole world!