summer reading

My mom owns a lot of books. She has so many that I almost never buy a novel or a memoir for myself, I just borrow hers to read. She has pretty good taste so it works out well. :)

Last week I asked her to collect five or so of her favorites so that I can work on reading them over the summer. She came back with 10, unable to pick just 5. So now this stack is sitting on my dresser, waiting for me and I'm loving it there. Every time I pass by I think of reading them during lazy weekends in the backyard, sunny days on the beach, chilly mornings in the woods, and late nights with the crickets chirping. What would summer be without a good book (or 10)?

I already sped through Water for Elephants this week, staying up far too late and being a bit groggy during the day because of it, but it was worth it, I thought it was very good.

Anyway, I don't exactly know what most of these books are about, or whether I'll like them or not, but I figured I'd share the list here in case some of you were looking for something new to read this summer:

- For One More Day, Mitch Albom
- Durable Goods, Elizabeth Berg
- Revenge of the Paste Eaters, Cheryl Peck
- A Million Little Pieces, James Frey (I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about this book, and that it is really mostly fiction. I'll probably give it a try though, but it may be last on the list!)
- The Good Good Pig, Sy Montgomery
- A Three Dog Life, Abigail Thomas
- Jim the Boy, Tony Earley
- With a Hammer for my Heart, George Ella Lyon
- She Got up off the Couch, Haven Kimmel
- Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

knitted bunny

Is it too late for bunny crafty things? (I don't think so..) Here's one I recently finished. I got the pattern from this book.

Remember this post? I gave myself a challenge to make at least 4 things from my older craft books and 2 things from my newer ones before I can buy any new books. Well, that didn't really work, because I have since bought even more (oops). But I'm still working on that little challenge, and this bunny is the 4th project from this book (The other ones are a bit boring and not really worth showing, but I did post a photo of the drawstring pouch in this post).
So, isn't he cute? The directions were pretty simple; I didn't use the two circular needles like they recommended, I just used a set of double pointed needles and it worked out fine. And I added a pom-pom tail, because what kind of bunny doesn't have a little puffy tail?

pleated beauty handbag

Here's the bag I mentioned last week, the pleated beauty handbag from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. I decided to leave the linen plain and not embellish it like the directions say to do. I also made the lining fabric different than the outside of the bag (I didn't have enough linen). I like the bag a lot but it might be a little too big for everyday use, although I like that I can easily fit a journal, camera, or some knitting (or all three!) in there.
I had more problems than I thought necessary on this bag.
I think Bend-the-Rules Sewing is a cute book, but there was some important info left out on a few different occasions and the directions in general weren't very clear. I had to do a little guessing (Is that why it's called "bend-the-rules"??).

Another thing I changed a bit is I sewed up the middle of the pocket to make two smaller ones. The size of the pocket in the directions was huge. And I meant to include some small magnets in between the lining and the outside fabrics but I completely forgot! It seems ok without them though.

bees abuzzing

My favorite... the bees. The best for last. :) I hope you've all enjoyed this little book as much as I have!

I've been wanting this Christmas season to mean a little bit more.. all of the obnoxious blow up decorations, the excess, the spending... well if I'm not careful it can make me a bit of a Scrooge. And that's not good. That's why I'm so glad I rediscovered an amazing charity the other night: Heifer International.

You purchase animals (the type depends on how much money you donate) and those animals help families that need it. From heifer.org: "Heifer projects around the world help families achieve self-reliance through the gift of livestock and training. Gifts are passed from recipient to recipient until entire communities are transformed." How wonderful. How simple. You can spent as little as $20 and give a family a flock of chicks, ducks, or geese. Or spend $30 for honeybees. :) Or whatever you can afford. I just love this idea and I haven't stopped talking about it to my friends and family. :) I plan on giving a family some bees.

I know this is just one organization and there are tons of wonderful ones out there but this one got me excited. And here's a great post I found from the Handmade Homeschool blog, encouraging everyone to "Do what you Can". Great ideas on ways to help if you just don't know where to start.

Edited to add: I found a few other neat charity sites to check out: Changing The Present, Redefine Christmas, and The Jane Goodall Institute. Please share your favorites as well!

handmade ideas

So.. how is everyone doing with their Christmas crafting? I, um, sort of just realized that there is only two weeks until Christmas. And although I finished my shopping yesterday (yay!), I still have quite a few projects I'd like to finish before the big day. And worse, there are still a couple of people that I don't know what to make for them. So if you're in the same situation that I am here are a few sites that will hopefully help you out (or just add more things on your to-make list. sorry).

· Organized Christmas - Here you can download and print checklists, planners, calenders, figure out your budget and loads of other ideas so you don't find yourself going completely crazy.

· A huge list of Advent ideas can be found here, from Uncommon Grace. *sigh* I can't wait to have kids of my own to share this season with.

· A post from Spoonflower that has a nice list of ideas for crafting for boys.

· Great ideas for handmade gifts (for young and old) from Handmade Homeschool.

· If you're a knitter, the comments from this SouleMama post are full of ideas.

· Northpole - This site's just fun. (Check out the cookie list!)

10 tree toads leaping

Just a quick post today.. I have lots on my to-do list!!

grandma's cookie cutters

My sweet, sweet grandma used to make dozens of different kinds of cookies every year for Christmas and she would give them to neighbors, family and friends in shirt boxes lined with waxed paper. I used to go over and help her decorate the sugar cookies and make the spritz cookies. I have such good memories of the time spent with her (and of my grandpa peeking into the kitchen every once in a while too!). She had just one rule: if you break a cookie, you have to eat it. :)

When she started getting sick she stopped baking around the holidays and she gave me her cookie cutters. She's gone now, but I've started to bake lots of cookies for Christmas (although not nearly as many as she used to make, I swear the woman didn't sleep). I love pulling these cookie cutters out every year and making the same shapes I remember as a child. But two cookies I never saw growing up were the angel and the reindeer. I tried them a couple years ago and found out right away why she never used those two cutters: the angel’s wing almost always breaks off and the reindeer’s leg breaks off! lol

On the 8th day

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I mixed up nine different kinds of cookie dough on Friday and Saturday, and it's all tucked away in the freezer until it's a little closer to Christmas. Whew, I'm glad that's done! It snowed all day on Saturday, and I finished decorating on Sunday so it's starting to look like Christmas around here! Next weekend I think we'll get the tree.

And since I feel like I'm blog cheating with this book, I found a few other fun things for you all. :)

- Cute holiday tags for baked goods from every little thing

- Christmas decoration ideas from the red thread

- An adorable free embroidery pattern from orange you lucky!

- This really cool notepad tutorial from Sarah & Abraham

- And another cookie recipe that I mixed up this weekend: Icebox Shortbread. I made these last year with orange zest and cranberries (very good) but went for plain this year. I really love plain old shortbread.

7 spiders spinning

Aww.. makes me want to watch Charlotte's web. :) I love that movie.
(The package there for the 8th day says "use no hooks")

on the 6th day...

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend so far!


See Mrs. Mouse up there sitting on a jar lid? When I was little, my best friend and I found these cute little gray mice (they were actually cat toys) and we made houses for them with various small boxes (like the boxes checks come in, chocolate boxes, etc). We taped them together and cut doorways into the sides. We then made little beds for them (tiny boxes and tissue "blankets"), tables (empty spindles and bottle caps), even a kitchen complete with a refrigerator and stove (and lots and lots of cheese!). I loved it so much.. I wish I still had it.

I think my fond memories of that little mouse house is one of the reasons why I love this book so much... :)

cookie time

Just a quick post today...Today I'm making cookie dough!!
I freeze the dough and then thaw it and bake the cookies later on, and it works great. And today is the first day in a long time that I have completely to myself, so I'm pretty excited!

Here's a few of the recipes I'm making this year:
Black Forest Cookies
Almond Fruit Bars
Chocolate Chip (of course!)
Molasses Cookies from Mom's Best Desserts

Have a great Friday!!

simplify the holidays

I get emails every once in a while from The Center for a New American Dream (these are the same folks that had the Break the Bottled Water Habit campaign that I posted about here), and the last email I got had a link to a little booklet that you can download titled "Simplify the Holidays". I read the one from last year and it was really good. I haven't read this one yet, but I plan to. It looks like it has more info and updated statistics.

You can download it for free from their site, you just need to sign up as a member (for free), and then you can get it. They don't send tons of emails or anything, and they have other helpful things to download, like Tips for Parenting in a Commercial Culture and Good Times Made Simple: The Lost Art of Fun. Good stuff! Oh and don't print them out unless you need to! :)

three thistle dusters

Oh, I'm loving these mice... :)

This year I'm really trying to reduce my waste for the holidays.. I do it throughout the year but for some reason I haven't really tried to be more environmentally friendly at Christmastime until this year. I guess I just assumed I needed to use wrapping paper to wrap gifts? So it's a process. :)

I found this cute little book at the bookstore a few weeks ago and I've been reading it when I can.. it's pretty good so far, but I think I'm just getting into the fun stuff now - like decorations, packaging, etc. So I'll check back with how I like it.
They had this one at the bookstore too, but it's HUGE! I don't know if it's printed on post-consumer recycled paper or what, but it just seemed like a waste. And it looked like it had lots of photos.. (I was looking mostly for information).
And when I searched on Amazon for those books, I came across this one for children. Looks cute!

Oh! I almost forgot, today one of my fabric bookmarks is the "Etsy Item of the Day" on the Etsy Item of the Day blog! Thank you, Jackie!!

On the second day of Christmas...

Today I wanted to share an adorable little book I found at an estate sale earlier in the summer. It's titled "A Firefly in a Fir Tree" and it measures a mere 3 1/2" tall. It's sort of falling apart but I couldn't pass it up.. it's just so cute. I'll post a new page every day until the 12th of December. I understand the 12th of December isn't the 12th day of Christmas, but I'm doing it this way anyway. :)

Oh, and the photos with the yucky orange cast.. I took after it got dark, sorry!

Birthday Cheesecake

Cheesecake was requested and I was happy to oblige.. when I made the apple pie from this book, I noticed the recipe for this cheesecake. Wow, so good. It has a cookie dough crust. How can you go wrong with anything with a cookie dough crust? And does all cheesecake have lemon zest in it? Because this one does and I love that.

The only bad thing is is I'm afraid the poor apple pie will be forgotten about in the fridge! (I think I'll freeze some of it..)

Happy Birthday, Brian! I love you! And thanks for waiting so patiently while I took this photo! :)

Giveaway Winner & Pie

Congrats to Bitter Betty, the winner of the giveaway!! And thanks to all of you from the party for stopping by my blog, I had fun! Hope you all visit again! :)

I made apple pie the other day, sooo tasty. I used the recipe from this book. It's a really good book if you love desserts like I do. I love that they include a short history for most of the recipes and the book includes pretty much every dessert that's worth making. Careful though, you'll want to make them all. :) Everything I've made from it so far has been very good.. and you can't beat that price.

Fairy Tale Illustrations

Here's that book I found last weekend. I love the simple line illustrations.