Ahhh, there were lots of inspiring talks at Conference!!! Can’t wait to attack my copy of the Ensign with a highlighter, looking for special quotes that touch my heart that I can turn into a craft!!!
And yes, I got lots of cross-stitching time in! Took breaks only to stand up and sing the rest hymn and to nurse my baby. Here’s how it looked at the end of conference . . .
Getting lots of background done – it goes so much faster as lots of it is only a half-stitch.
Can you remember how much was done before the weekend? I can’t!!!
Oh wow – I got lots done!!! Good for me!
Look at all those stitches!!! It’ll be even more clear when I outline it someday with a dark backstitch.
And now I might dig it out and stitch a little for a day or two, but mostly it will sit until the next conference in six months. And just think – then I’ll be doing it in my new house!!!
I think Christmas has more traditions for me than the rest of the year put together!!! Righteous traditions are wonderful and necessary things for our families. The Service Star is a tradition we start on the first day of December. We actually have two of these little wooden stars with our Family Motto (another tradition!) printed on it. One stays on our Nativity Tree (another tradition!) and the other star is put into action.
So we draw names or do rock, paper, scissors etc. to see who will activate the Service Star. That person has 24 hours to do a service for someone in the house and leave the star at the place where the service happened. So dad emptied the dishwasher for Lee and left the star in the dishwasher for Lee to find when she came to do her morning chore. Lee walked the dog for Jo and left the star with the leash. Jo found it and made Jen’s bed and left the star on the bed for Jen to find, and so on, and so on . . . We added a new twist this year: if you haven’t done a service within the 24 hours, you get to give everyone a back-scratch! Unfortunately, we didn’t get any back-scratches!!!
This is just a view of some of the ornaments on the Nativity Tree. In order to be on the Nativity Tree, the ornament must remind us of Christ somehow. I love this gold one and it’s tag that says Keep Christ in your Christmas.
I read about this idea somewhere just before New Years 2010. The idea is to choose a word for the year and let that be your theme word and your motivation. I loved the idea – so much more likely to succeed than New Year’s Resolutions!
So my word for 2010 was . . .. . . PATIENCE. And yes, I’m still working on it and probably always will be!!! I need reminders, so I decorated this little wooden block with my word, the year, and a scripture. It sits with Mason on my bedside table, reminding me every day of the year about PATIENCE.
My word for 2011 is . . .. . . DELIGHT. The scripture says “Let thy soul delight . . .” and that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do this year. I’m finding it quite DELIGHTful as I look more for the positive in things and what causes me DELIGHT in this journey through life.
My word is just printed off the computer and then mod podged along with scrapbook paper onto the block. I’ll be able to fit four years worth of words on every block. What a collection I’ll have at the end of my life – by then I should be absolutely perfect at everything!!!
My daughter kicked me out of the kitchen the other day – do you have any idea how much I LOVE that!!! She wanted to make supper all on her own. So while she was going about making Shepherd’s Pie, I realized that it was indeed Monday night and since I didn’t need to worry about supper, I could spend time making a treat. Impossible Pie popped into my mind simply because, it’s completely easy and I LOVE it!!! I dug out the recipe and when Jo realized what I was going to make, she kicked me out of the kitchen again (literally shooing me out with her hands) because she wanted to make it! (love that kid!)
If you love coconut and custard, you’ll love this. To make it you simply throw all the ingredients in a blender and mix it up, then pour it all into your pie plate and bake it for an hour.
Let’s examine the layers: the coconut rises to the top, the heavier custard forms the crust, and the middle is kind of a mix of coconut and custard. Tastes great warm or cold – and we’ve never felt a need to serve anything with it – like ice cream or whipped cream.
Jo made this a gluten free version simply by using gluten free flour instead of regular flour. She didn’t need to add any xanthum gum.
My mother-in-law wrote this out for me. She introduced me to Impossible Pie when my third baby (Jo!) was born. She came to help us for a week and made this one day and it was love at first bite!!! I’ve made a few adjustments like the salt and sugar. We could probably even go down to half a cup of sugar.
I find that the edges always get pretty dark because you have to cook it until the center is firm. It has such a nice dome top when it comes out of the oven, but it flattens as it cools.
And there’s Jordy enjoying her Impossible Pie!!!
You can shoo me out of the kitchen anytime!!!
PS – As I write this, my ten year old daughter is making pancakes for us (from scratch). She just came and asked me what granulated sugar meant. I explained that it was the white sugar. To which she replied, “Oh good, I put my three cups in of the right sugar!”
To which I replied in alarm, “Cups? It’s supposed to be tablespoons!”
Hahaha!
And this is how they learn . . . so that one day she will shoo me out of the kitchen too!!!
About five years ago I was the Activity Days leader in our ward for girls aged 8 and 9. I came up with this wood craft because
1) I love wood crafts and,
2) because I wanted the girls to have something that could sit in their rooms and be pretty, but also remind them to have Faith In God. It needed to be something that wasn’t too challenging or messy!!! And because I could only fit eight around my table at once, we did it in two shifts. I think the biggest challenge for the girls was choosing their three colours and button centers.
I cut the wood and made word stencils. All the girls had to do was their base coat, sanding and stenciling. I handled the blade for etching the flowers, and did all the staining.
Embroidery thread in the button centers looks extra cute too.
Aren’t they adorable? I got lucky – had two daughters in my group so they each got one, and they still proudly display them in their rooms.
Today my heart was touched as I attended the funerals of two fourteen year old girls in my town. There, on the table amidst all of Jorden’s pictures, awards and memories, were her Faith In God blocks that she had made in my Activity Day group so many years ago. Hers were light purple with pink words and white flowers. Their message stood out loud and clear on the table they were displayed on:
Faith in God.
And now that is what their families cling to – their faith in Heavenly Father and His great Plan of Happiness. And they know that they will see their beloved daughters again.
Building a house is a great way to accumulate scrap wood! I made these reversible blocks from building our last house, simply by painting 2×4’s in various seasonal colours and free-handing the letters. I outlined the letters, leaves and leaf veins with a blade before staining it (helps make them “pop”). The more banged up and distressed they are, the better they look (in my humble opinion anyway!).
These are great in a window or on a ledge because you can see words from both sides – just be sure to put the letters in the right order so the words are actually legible from each side!
Notice that these letters are raised higher than the Autumn ones? I was actually thinking ahead and realized that they needed to be higher to be completely visible. They sat in my window, and I wanted the full letters to be seen from the outside, over the window edge.
A few years ago I was asked to do centerpieces for our family Thanksgiving Dinner. We must have had a huge crowd that year because we held it in the Seniors Center with six round tables. Let me add that I much prefer doing centerpieces than preparing food!!!
I wanted to focus on the “Thanks” part of Thanksgiving so I made up six little scripture placards to sit in the middle of each table. They had a sprig of fall leaves behind them and loose leaves sprinkled around.
So here are my six top favourite scriptures about “Thanks” . . .
I simply printed them off the computer onto paper and glued them onto cardstock so they would stand. Oh and there was a little antiquing the edges and a leaf sticker as well!
And I think this one is my personal favourite:
Wonderful little messages to reread every Thanksgiving!!!
I have a bathroom scale! Got it for a wedding present almost 22 years ago. It’s getting old, and dirty, and there is a crack across the glass, but hey, it still tells me my weight every time I want to know. It’s been gauging my weight gain with me through seven pregnancies and my weight loss after seven pregnancies. My scales and I have a great relationship.
So one day I was perusing through an old magazine and found this picture . . .. . . of a bathroom scale remodel!!! They did it with fabric and painting and lots of other steps and it sounded really complicated. And honestly, I didn’t really like the finished look, although I’m sure it was lovely back in the 90’s when the magazine was published!
But it got me thinking about a modern day version of a scale update, using some of my favourite things – scrapbook paper and mod podge!!!
So the first step (and the one that took the longest) was to choose some scrapbook paper!!!
This was difficult because we’re in the process of building a new home and I don’t know what colour my bathroom will be yet. So I chose a neutral kinda vintage newsprint type paper that would probably look pretty good with anything. And if it doesn’t, I can redo it!
I should also mention here that I did clean my scales a little before this big makeover!
I cut the paper to fit my scales and then used a scrap-booking corner rounder to make the corners match.
Then I used my exacto knife to carve out the scale part. It easily cut around the grooves.
Don’t worry if you make a mistake like I did. Once it’s all mod podged down, you’ll never notice!
Ooops!
I did a thin layer of mod podge under the paper and let it dry overnight. The dryer the underneath layer, the less likely it is to get bubbles, especially if the paper is pretty thin.
This picture shows the top coat of mod podge. I do it in a cross hatch pattern to make it look like canvas. And I always choose matte finish over gloss.
When this coat dried, I did another coat over top just for extra strength. After all, we are going to be standing on it!
And there are the newly remodeled bathroom scales!!! How fun and easy is that?
My guy really liked this project. He thinks they look SO much better, and they do. Now they need a place of honour in the bathroom – not just hiding away in some corner.
There’s only one problem . . .. . . the extra weight of the paper and mod podge now make the scales weigh about five pounds heavier!!! 😉
This is how my “Conference Project” looked at the end of eight hours of stitching through Conference. I’m almost ready to take it out of the ring, so progress is indeed being made – slow progress!!!
Even added a new colour – purple!!! Little purple flowers are in the east south east corner.
This tree part I’m working on is really hard, and I’m going to tell you why (whether you want to know or not!).
Take a look at this pattern (which is actually about double the size of the pattern I’m working off) . . .. . . do you see all those horizontal three’s and eight’s? They are making me go cross-eyed as I try to follow them and count them. So I’ve done all the easy parts of the tree and now will try to fill in these two colours that are so similar you need good natural light to be able to tell the difference. Which makes me wonder why I’m so concerned with getting it right. Because seriously, who’s going to notice if I mess up some leaves in the tree?
Anyway, I love General Conference. I was wondering though, where Pres. Monson was in the first session. Doesn’t he usually do a welcome address? I was hoping he was okay. And then they announced him as a speaker and I felt so happy. “Oh good! He is here!” were my thoughts. And then he got up to speak with the cheeriest “Hello!” I’ve ever heard. I love our prophet!!!
We moved into our new home two weeks ago, and didn’t have our big screen set up yet (the family room wasn’t finished yet and who wants to get sawdust on their TV and couches). So we had nine people sitting around the computer in the office watching the broadcast on lds.org. Mac would disappear from time to time and it was much easier to watch conference (and cross-stitch) when she wasn’t around trying to climb onto my lap. Anyway, one time she came back into the office and pushed her way past seven people to get over to me by the window (need good light for cross-stitching that tree!). I looked down at her and let out a yell! She had decided to be creative too – using markers and her face, hands and arms as the canvas!
My thoughts were (in this order) “Oh no! I wonder what our new walls look like!”. Followed by “I sure hope that’s washable marker!”. And finally, “We gotta get a picture of that!”
Fortunately the walls were fine, the markers were washable and we got pictures! She cleaned up nicely – all the way to her ears. The worst part was: I can’t remember who was speaking and what they said! Luckily that’s easy to fix: re-watch it or read it!!!
Looking forward to April when the Conference Project continues . . .
I call this my “Conference Project” because I usually only work on it about twice a year – during General Conference! I think focusing on the Savior is a great thing to do at Conference!!! And I know that I listen better when my hands are busy.
I started this in February 2006 so you can see it’s taking awhile. It’s called “Lost No More” by Greg Olsen. It’s the most intricate cross-stitch I’ve ever done. I’ve never had to mix strands of colour before, and all the shading is very hard to follow so I better get it done before I need bifocals!!! I really love this picture, maybe because I have a fascination with sheep and goats – must be that NewZealand part of me!!!
This is how it looked at the end of last year.
And this is how it looked a few days ago . . .
You can see the little sheep now!!! And a lot of the background is only half stitches so it goes twice as fast – that was exciting to figure out!!!
I’ll post a picture after Conference and we can see if I’ve made any progress after about 8 hours of stitching and listening to the words of the Prophet and Apostles.
Getting lots of background done – it goes so much faster as lots of it is only a half-stitch.
Oh wow – I got lots done!!! Good for me!
