GIVEAWAY!!

Hey there!
It's giveaway day over at
http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/
Hop on over there and say "hello" to Sachiko and tell her what you are thankful for.

Also, head on over to http://j-a-girl.blogspot.com/ and say "hello" to Chris. She is having a party over there. Lotsa ladies have linked up to her party. Everyone is sharing some great homemade gift ideas for Christmas giving.

Have a great day!

A retreat....

I am off to a Ladies conference with our church. I will be posting several projects next week to start off some handmade holiday gifties I will be making for family and friends.

Have a great weekend!
Cheryl

The gift revealed

Blogland has some creative, talented women out there. The ones I have come in contact with are friendly to boot. They are willing to share how they did something and help you along the way if you have questions.

Although I have never personally met any of my bloggy buddies, I would call them friends. Susie over at http://www.susieharris.blogspot.com/ is the lucky bloggy friend to be the recipient of the gifty I made.

I am not quite sure how I found Susie's blog, but I am glad I did. She inspires me all the time with the projects she dreams up.

She recently revealed her cottage makeover where where she has created a wonderful place to paint. She mentioned in her post that she had a sad looking chair and that it needed something. I asked her if she would like a pillow and she said yes. So I set out to make her one. She also shared that in her post that her sad little chair is the very place where her children come home and plop on after school and share their day with her. I stenciled "LIVE LOVE LAUGH" on the canvas side of this pillow because it's where she will forever share memories of her kids telling her about theirday. Laughing with them and loving them.

Here it is Susie, I hope you like it.

I used canvas drop cloth on the front and for the piping. The piping is what gave me a fit. Not the actual making of it, but putting it on. Had to rip out seams once . I also had to recut the ticking fabric once as well. Black and creme ticking are on the flip side of the pillow. It still looks like it needs something though. Maybe buttons??

Here is a close up of the piping. I really enjoyed making it and now that I know how to put it on properly I plan on using it more in future projects.

Have a great evening and thanks for bearing with me on posting it.

Edited to say:

Sewing to gift

Hello ladies!



I've been sewing to send a little gifty to a sweet bloggy friend.

I have a few things to get done in the morning, so will post my gifty for my bloggy friend mid afternoon.

No teaser pics. So stop by tomorrow.

edited: to say that I am doing something new in sewing that I have never done before and it looks like I may not be able to post the pic of the finished project until way late this evening. My apologies to my bloggy friend. I know she is excited to see the finished project. I will share all my woes in making this.
Have a great evening!

Pinwheels, soup, yarn and more....

Good morning!

How is that for a blog title? This is a little bit of everything post.

Okay, first of all, be sure to scroll down to yesterdays post. I shared a great autumn soup recipe. I am actually baking the butternut squash now. I will be sure to let you all know how it tastes. Here is a teaser pic for you.

Photo: Taste of Home

Remember over the summer I should you how sad our deck looked? Here is a before pic. Not so pretty.
and here are the after pics.


We had to replace the old storm door, but didn't want to put one on both sides of the french doors on the outside. Too expensive. We have an odd size opening and it would of had to be cutsom done. So, we opted to replace the storm door with the screen and reapaint so it would look fresh. Here is the after pic for the deck.




What do you think of the two tone look? The seating was sealed with a clear coat for decks and the part you walk on was a hunter green deck stain. We originally said we were going to do the seating white, but after seeing the seating stripped, liked the look of the natural instead and went with that. Here is a back view.

You still with me.??? Sorry for the long post.

Next up is the progress on the pinwheels. I still have eighteen more to sew up! And what is up with four of those pinwheels looking larger than the rest of them?? LOL, I know why. I started the other ones before I caught a Fons and Porter quilting episode on PBS. She was showing how to get your pinwheels to lay nice and how to sew and iron them. I plan on having a white block between each pinwheel and then white border around the whole thing and then bind it.

Here is a close up. I really love this Glace line.

Sorry for the not so great pics. I took them early this morning. Not enough natural light or anywhere to lay them out either. I layed these out on the floor to take a pic.

I am starting my slipcover project for my wing chair in my living room this week and I have two winter projects I plan to work on. Crocheting up this blanket is one of them. I love the texture of it with all all the popcorn stitches on there. It will be a nice project to work on in my fave chair with a crackling fire nearby.

The other winter project is to make roman blinds. Oh yeah! I found the absolute best tutorial and she makes it look sooo easy. Go check out Jen's tutorial. You will want to make roman blinds for your whole house. She is a sweet lady to boot. I had a question for her and she was sweet enough to reply and be so very helpful.

http://jenduncan.typepad.com/whats_new/2008/11/roman-blind-tutorial-in-20-pictures-or-less.html
Don't forget to scroll down to the next post. I posted a recipe for the corn and squash soup.

Okay all, have a blessed day in your part of the country .

Autumn....

It's one of my fave seasons of the year...the other is summer.

Today we will talk about autumn though. It has gotten quite chilly here in Illinois. I had to pull the sweaters out from the back of the closet. I also have been making lotsa soup. I was recently at the taste of home website and they have a whole page dedicated to autumn recipes. Everything from soups to pies.


Here is what I will be making tomorrow night for dinner. We've never eaten butternut squash before, so hoping this is a keeper recipe. It looks like it's delicious from the picture. See for yourself.

If you are interested in making this soup or any other autumn recipes go check out Taste of Home site. Here is their link http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Corn-and-Squash-Soup and here is the link to check out other autumn recipes they have. http://www.tasteofhome.com/Autumn-Recipes

With things being pretty tight this year it looks like gift giving will be handmade or homemade from the kitchen. My daughter and I saw a yummy recipe that we intend to make to give as gift this year. Sandy from http://www.reluctantentertainer.com/ did a guest post over at the Inspired Room. You have got to go check out her how to for apple pie filling in a jar. It looks heavenly. Here is the link. http://theinspiredroom.net/

I will be posting lotsa pics tomorrow. I have pics of what I have done so far for my pinwheel blocks and a pic of the finished deck. I also have two new projects that I will be starting and hope that I don't get too frustrated to finish them.

I will be back on Monday to post.

Just a couple of reminders....

Hello ladies!
Hope everyone is doing well. Hugs out to everyone that commented on my last post or sent me an email. You all are very sweet.

Today I want to take the time to remind you of two things.

First, it is breast cancer awareness month. So be sure to get your mammogram done if you haven't already done so this year. Being proactive about this can possibly save your life. Here is a site to help you with doing monthly self breast exams if you don't do this already.
http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/about-breast-cancer/breast-self-exam.aspx


Second, this week is fire prevention week. When we homeschooled I loved doing fun things with this week. We would always schedule a trip to a local fire department and get a tour,etc. One year the fire department we picked gave a great tour and talk. The chief even asked if anyone would like to come up and try on one of the fire suits they wear when they actually go fight fires. Noone raised their hand....but me! I gotta tell you , if you have never tried one of these coats and overalls and the hat on, you would never know how heavy they are. I put the the overalls on and the boots and then the coat and the oxygen tank and then the chief topped me off with the hat and I thought I was going to fall over. I know I have a picture in the house somewhere. It was a sight to see, but I digress. I want to remind you to replace all the batteries in your smoke detectors and make sure that your check your carbon monoxide detectors if you have those as well. If you don't already have an escape plan for your family, this would be a great time to make one for your family as well. If you have a fireplace and haven't had your chimney swept since you don't remember when, that might be a good thing to do as well.

Here is a site from the National Fire Prevention Association
http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1438&itemID=34420&cookie_test=1

Below is a link that has a safetly checklist and a pdf for a template to printout to make your own escape plan.
http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=271&itemID=17418&URL=Safety%20Information/Fire%20Prevention%20Week%202009/For%20kids%20and%20families&cookie%5Ftest=1

Stay safe and have a blesssed day!

I have a heavy heart...

Sorry I haven't been posting a lot lately. I do have several things to share, but haven't been up to sharing.

I found out recently that my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. Praise the Lord it was caught early. As it was in stage O...precancerous. She just had surgery to remove the rest of the cancer and will start chemo soon. I think by pill. Not sure on that one.

This is all very hard for me as she is my only sister and we live very far away from one another.

I also found out some dear friends of ours found out that their youngest daughter...eight years old has a very agressive form of cancer. She has had two surgeries to remove two big tumors . One from her abdomen and one from her neck. She has a very long road ahead of her.

The only thing that is getting me through it all is knowing that God is the Great Physician and he can heal anyone.

Have a blessed day.

An autumn recipe to share

Hello All!

Today I popped over to V's blog and she had this wonderful pic of her carrying these lovely zucchini's. She has a gracious plenty and they are big.

I told her I wished I lived by her so I can take some off her hands. So, V, this is for you hon. You will love this bread. It will make the house smell so good.


Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups shredded peeled zucchini

In a large bowl, beat the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until well blended. Combinethe flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and baking powder; gradually beatinto sugar mixture until blended. Stir in zucchini. Transfer to two 8-in. x 4-in.loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes oruntil a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

Yield: 2 loaves (12 slices each).

P.S. You can shred and freeze some zucchini and be able to make these loaves during the winter.

Enjoy!

Pottery Barn knock off with a twist

Remember me talking about this Pottery Barn accessory?


Well, I have found a wonderful blog with a very creative lady named Michelle who was thinking along the same lines as me , but she had a better way to go about it than I did. She shows you step-by-step how she achieved this look, but with a different subject matter than the horse. She has my creatives juices rolling and I have all the necessary supplies to put it all together.
Check out her link and giver her blog a browse.

http://windhula.blogspot.com/2009/09/sneak-preview.html

I will be back Monday and will for sure post pics of the deck and update you on my progress of my pinwheel quilt. My dear son needed a little TLC while recovering from his surgery.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.