May 2014 - Yearning to Create

Western Surprise (Rice and Wiener Dish)

I invented a recipe!!! Well, sort of. It’s a combination of something my mom used to make called Western Surprise, and something I found online. And it actually turned out pretty good. Probably still need to tweak the recipe a bit so don’t blame me if you make it and it doesn’t work!

My family loves to eat rice. After spending two years in Korea and eating rice every day, you’d think my guy would be tired of it, but no. And with a gluten free daughter, rice dishes work well for us.

Hope you can read my writing – I just didn’t feel like retyping it!

I guess the first line should say “1 package wieners – thinly sliced” – I don’t think you can find a package of thinly sliced wieners!

The part I like best about this is the “throw it in a pot and let it do it’s thing”. I’m so lazy in the kitchen!

And they all liked it!!! (That orange thing looks like a piece of carrot – don’t think I put any carrots in, but you could throw in anything else you wish. Just remember, if it’s dried, you may need to add a little more water to allow for reconstitution.)

There’s my Mac in pony tails for the first time – kicking back enjoying her lunch, dog waiting for crumbs to fall and sick sister on the couch in the background. A typical day!

Our Time to Shine – Daughter #2 Graduates from High School

Here are some photos of our Grad decorations with beautiful people in the pictures too!
(See the no-people pre-Grad decoration pictures here, including the banquet tables.)

This is my second daughter Min and her date Clay – don’t they look fantastic!!!

Now, at this point of the evening, I was getting very frustrated because my camera batteries died, and my freshly charged ones didn’t work for more than a minute. My guy went off to buy more, and they kept dying too. Grrr! So the next few pictures are fuzzy because my camera died right as I was taking them.

The hanging frames were fun to pose in. Unfortunately, because of my camera troubles, we didn’t get a single shot of them with the photo booth props on the other side of the stage.

Remember the sneak peak I gave you back here? Well this is what we did with it.

And as for Min’s “shiner”, you’d never know she had one.

This is how her eye looked before big sister started doing her makeup for grad . . .

We were able to borrow some corrective cover-up based on the colour that her bruise was that day, and it worked perfectly! Thanks Barb!!!

The Star Archway.

Beautiful girls in their beautiful dresses hanging out with the blue moon. It’s a little hazy here because this was during the dance when they DJ was sending “fog” out onto the dance floor.

The proud parents!

Min had the honour of being her class Valedictorian.

Our seven beautiful daughters! One of them got a little creative with photo editing!

Back to the decorations . . .

Love the casual yet classy stance by the 2012.

The fabric on the walls did a great job of hiding all sorts of uglies – like the huge mats under the basketball hoop.

And the bicycle built for two!
For sure a much cuter picture with people in it!!!

It was their time to shine, and they sure did!

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Decorating for Grad – Our Time to Shine

I was one of six parents on the Decorating Committee for our High School Graduation this past weekend. Our job is to transform the gymnasium into something that resembles the theme the grads chose. That was one tiring week of decorating, not to mention the meetings and mental work before that!!!Their theme greeted you at the doorway. (I’m showing a few decorations here. This is Friday morning, a few hours before everything started – and we’re almost finished decorating. My next post will be after grad, with actual people in the pictures!)

Big silver sparkly numbers made from MDF. They stand about five feet tall and the kids could move them around and pose with them.

This picture shows the star lanterns hanging from the ceiling. They were pretty and had a remote control to activate the LED light inside – pretty smart!!!

All set up for the banquet. That was a late night of setting tables – didn’t get home til almost 11:00pm. The grads on the decorating committee chose the colours of teal and silver – very pretty.

Notice the huge star archway on the stage made from balloons. It’s the perfect size for a couple to stand under. To the left we had frames hanging for photo shoots, and to the right, we had all sorts of props for fun photo booth pictures against the black curtains.

We had some teal netting and flameless candles and stars as centerpieces. The theme “Our Time to Shine” was printed on the paper that was wrapped around a large candle. They glowed very prettily when the lights were dimmed. Aren’t the napkins adorable!

One of the mom’s made these for each grad and they looked so cute on the tables.

It had a Grad photo on one side, baby picture on the other – a lovely keepsake for the grads. The baby side says:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

That’s my guy up there in the Genie – he’s actually stuck up there. He’s hanging the moon and went up fine but the thing wouldn’t let him come down again. That’s why they got the ladder, and then found the emergency drop lever – glad he didn’t have to maneuver onto the ladder!

We put a little stool behind the moon so when you sit on it, it looks like you’re sitting on the moon. And no, the moon corner is not finished yet!

We used gossamer along the walls to hide the bleachers – making it look much prettier than a gymnasium. We had white Christmas lights in behind, just sitting on the bleachers, adding soft lighting. I must mention that it was disappointing to come back on three mornings and have to re-attach some gossamer that fell during the night!

Some of the grads felt very strongly about not having any plants used in the decorating. They wanted a more vintage look. So there is not one bit of greenery in the whole gym. The old doors and bicycle built for two was our “vintage” corner.

The doors were really cute with snapshots of the Grads throughout the year.

It turned out lovely and represented their theme well. Great job Mary and everyone else who helped!!! (And may I say that I’m glad I don’t have another Grad until 2015! And I’ll probably sign up for the Decorating Committee again – it’s a lot of work but I love seeing the gym transformation!)

(Edited to add: here’s the link for seeing the decorations with dazzling graduates in the pictures.)

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Crafts for the Sabbath Day – Primary Birthday Gifts

I look forward to the Sabbath – a day of rest. While attending Church and fulfilling church callings often makes for a busy Sunday, it is certainly different from the regular routine of what I do each day.

I love to make crafts and create things, and have had a craft business in the past and hope to again. So crafting for me is “work” and therefore I don’t do it on Sunday. The Sabbath is a day for me to rest from my labours. So if that crafting bug hits, I’ll only do it if it relates to my church calling.

So last Sunday, we had a craft fest of making Primary birthday gifts.

I became the Primary Secretary in January. These cute little birthday printouts were already planned and I know they came from online somewhere, but I don’t know where so I can’t link it. I didn’t create them, I’m just assembling them!

Lee and I in our living room work station. We were planning to put a “church movie” on from our lovely shelf of appropriate Sunday visual entertainment (there are a ton of great and inexpensive ones from the Distribution Center), but we just chatted instead – always the best thing!

That’s a tub of Ring Pops for the children and a bag of Lindor Chocolates for the teachers.

The scripture marking pencils are from the Distribution Center at $0.25 each.

“I Know the Scriptures are True” is the theme for this year.

Stick the pencil through the tag . . .

(I write the name and date of the birthday person on the back so we know who they belong to. Then they go in a little mailbox that gets opened during birthday time.)

and then . . .

. . . attach the Ring Pop with ribbon and curl the edges – Primary colours of course!

Teacher ones – glad I’m an adult!!! Seriously, do you know how hard it is for me to not eat these Lindors while I make them? I’ve only had one so far and that was because my baby got ahold of one (that was already attached to the card of course!) and started chewing it without removing the wrapper. Well, it was damaged now so I had to sacrifice myself and remove the wrapper and eat the damaged chocolate! The ring pops, however, hold no such temptation!!!

Aren’t they great? I’ve made 74 so far and that takes us to the end of October and then there will be 14 more after that. I made a big batch because we are going to be busy finishing up our house (at least enough finished so we can move in) and moving in the summer. Now they are all being stored in the Primary cupboard and that will be one less thing to think about and move.

So that’s how I craft on Sunday, my day of rest. Or sometimes I work on my Conference Project! I don’t blog on Sunday either, unless it’s my family blog because I consider that Family History and keeping records – it’s my journal writing with lots of pictures thrown in!

We encourage our children not to do school work on Sunday either. They are students, so homework and studying is their “work” and they need to “rest from their labours” as well. I know they have been blessed for their obedience to this commandment, especially during exam time when it is so tempting to study.

No one ever said obedience was easy, but it is always the right thing to do.

Towel Wraps

Aren’t these towel wraps the cutest things ever?

I saw them over at Sassy Sanctuary and knew immediately that I needed these . . . because . . .

. . . my towels are never where I need them to be!!! I need them to be hanging from my stove. And of course it’s not me that moves them!

I’m not showing too much on how to make these because Krystal at Sassy Sanctuary gives such a great tutorial with measurements and everything, that I really don’t need to!!! (That and the fact that I was so excited to make them that I forgot to take many pictures!)

Basically you’re sewing a tube and putting velcro on the ends. I wasn’t too careful about how I sewed my velcro because it’s on the back and no one sees it anyway! One piece is on the inside and one is on the outside so it wraps around and sticks nicely.

I love this blue plaid fabric! It speaks to the “country” in me!

I made two for variety, but I can see that I just might need to make some for all the holidays!!!

This one used the rows that I took off from my table runner because I sewed them smaller and the squares didn’t match up. (You can read about that here.) So now my towel and my table runner will match!

The cute little button was the perfect finishing touch for this wrap.

And there they both are – love them! Can’t wait to see if they’ll do their job and keep the towel in one place!!! And obviously I’ll only have one out at a time!

There are my towels – I just bought plain bathroom hand towels. And now the towels and wraps are packed away, waiting for their new place of honor on the stove we purchased last weekend, that will be in the house that we’ll be moving into at the end of July (well, we might be living in the camper for awhile!). And that will be a new adventure!!!

Magnetic Family Picture Frame

I love this family magnetic frame, but it needed an update.

For one thing, see the part of the star that’s bent and lost its paint?(Thanks to our dog who got under the bed to eat all the chocolate that was all ready to go in everyone’s Christmas stockings. In her chocolate frenzy she broke the star that Santa was so thoughtfully planning for my stocking. And yes, the dog lived.)

So first I spray painted the star and sanded the edges so some of the beige could show through.

Then I glued some black buttons onto my plain magnets.

Better, but still needing something.

(Isn’t that a great picture? It’s in our new back yard, just days before we broke ground to build our house.)

That’s what it needed – scrapbook paper for the background!

Mac came by and we had to go through the lineup of who everyone was.

Much better! Family loves you for who you are.

Preparing for High School Graduation

This is my Min and she is having her Graduation Ceremonies on Friday. This is not what you want your eye to look like five days before Grad!!!

Wonder what colour it will be by Friday? Gonna have to get creative with the makeup!!! Although right now it kinda matches her red Grad dress!

I had two girls in a softball tournament on Saturday. In the final game, Min (on the pitcher’s mound) took a line drive to the face. Luckily it hit her glove first so it got slowed down before it hit her eye. It’s not very pleasant to be watching and suddenly see your child bent over, holding her face, staggering around in pain. The coaches of both team and the ump went running over to tend to her. She was still on her feet though, and I was very relieved not to see any blood when she took her hands away from her face. Ice was quickly produced and while she iced her eye, the coaches stood around her talking and laughing – giving her time to see how she was doing, making sure she wasn’t going to keel over or anything. She switched spots with first base and a coach stayed near her – just in case! But was able to play the last few innings. She said she felt fine – no headache or anything – but said it was really weird to be able to see her eyelid protruding from the swelling. This picture was taken about 18 hours after the hit – the swelling is gone and now it’s just the lovely red.

As for Grad, here’s a sneak peek!

That’s all you get right now! I’m on the decorating committee and will be spending the next four days transforming the gymnasium into something representing the theme they chose: “Our Time to Shine” (Hey – that theme works great for Min with her “shiner”!)

Stay tuned because you know I’ll eventually be posting pictures!!!

Click here to see the grad decorations.

Click here to see Min at grad.

Pencil Caddy Makeover

I’ve had this pencil caddy for years – think I got it for about a quarter at our band garage sale. It quietly sits there on the ledge above my computer, never complaining, just doing it’s job, and getting all dusty (yes, that is indeed dust!)

But it’s not very pretty is it?

Actually, when I first got it it had all these stickers along its sides and ends. So you see that I was thinking about doing something to it, just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

But then . . . I follow this crafting group called . . .

Wood You Like to Craft?

Their project for this month is toolbox/caddy type things. So after seeing all these other cute ideas, it gave me inspiration to give my little green pencil caddy a long overdue makeover.

Check it out here.

The first step was to sand it down. Alas, where is a sander? When you’re living in transition you don’t always have what you need nearby. My guy kindly brought me home a Black & Decker sander which really gets the job done, but my hands felt like they were about ready to fall off!!!

I didn’t get rid of all the colour because that would have been pretty much impossible! But I sure smoothed it down and got rid of all the sticker glue residue. It looked so much better already – why didn’t I at least do this much years ago?

Then I painted it – just with a craft paint called Tan (how original!). It took two coats to completely cover the green. On the inside I only painted the very top edge, for two reasons actually: 1) the pencils don’t care what colour the inside is, and 2) I’m too lazy!

Then I sanded it again. Some of the green still showed through but I really liked the way that looked – phew!!!

Then I stained it with a Minwax wood finish stain called Provincial. I always love this step – the way the stain makes it look and feel so good (but not smell so good!)

Then I antiqued it – another favourite step of mine. Next picture shows the only tube I’ve ever used to antique and it works great. I put a small dollop on the newspaper and then rub a smidgen into my rag and then rub it on, lightly at first, where I want it to look aged. (See my rubbings on the newspaper?)

Burnt Umber – you can see the tube is hardly dented – you use such a little bit.

Then I wanted to cover up the handle because honestly, I don’t really like the handle!

The thought came to me to wrap it!!! I wanted to use a hemp type twine but all I had on hand was this string. I don’t have time to run to town for things. So I got this much done and realized that I didn’t like it so I pulled it off. Now what to do?

I decided to wrap it in fabric. The piece on the right is the one I used – sorry the colours aren’t showing up too well. That worked out much better – and now the handle matches . . .

. . . one of the little fabric flowers I made to decorate the front. They are just made from a long strip of fabric rolled up and glued once in a while. The green leaves blend with the original green paint peeking through.

And it’s finished!!! And I’m lovin’ it!!!

Jen purged our pen/pencil collection – isn’t it amazing how many pens we keep that don’t work? Or is that just me?

So little pencil caddy is now back at work and doing a marvellous job!!!

Now, I look up from the computer and see something so much cuter – yay!!! Maybe it won’t even be a pencil caddy in my new house. Wouldn’t it look cute in the bathroom with wash clothes in the slots? and greenery around it? or in it?

And always the perfectionist, I’m still looking at it wondering what else I could do to make it even better. I think I’m gonna tie some fabric on each each end of the handle – just short and knotted. It’ll hide the ends better. I think after that it will be about perfect!!!

Corn Chowder

This is seriously one of the best soups ever!!! Our family loves it so much that it is even requested for birthday dinners sometimes, along with the best ever corn bread that you can read about here.

Corn Chowder

4 slices of diced bacon

1 medium chopped onion

1 can of corn

1 1/2 cups diced raw potato

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

3 cups milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Saute bacon and onion together in a large pot until cooked. Drain excess bacon grease.

Add everything else and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer until potato is cooked, but stir it once in a while!

That is the basic recipe, but I usually quadruple it. For example, we use a whole package of bacon, and way more potatoes. We go through so much milk so if I can use something else in cooking, I do. So I usually cook it all in water and then add some cream at the end to make it creamy. I like it even better with the cream than with the milk.

I hear it’s supposed to rain and snow again this week. This will be the perfect meal for that day – and I hope it’s just one day! I always love to hear the happy sounds my kids make when they read Corn Chowder on the menu board (read about that here).

Twig Vase

Daisies are the best!!! I’ve always loved them, so when I saw these cute daisies at Walmart, they literally jumped into my shopping cart! I bought 3 of them at $1 each, but I think I want to go and get a few more, because they’re nice – they look real! I want a bigger cluster in my vase.

Now the job was to find the perfect thing to put them in.

I wanted a natural looking vase to house my daisies. So my mind started wandering to what I’ve seen around lately. Since the snow melted, the backyard has been loaded with little twigs from the winds of autumn, winter and spring.

I’ve had my girls gather them into piles, and they play “camping” in the yard with their “campfire”.

Anyway, I have a birthday coming up and I told Kat that I had got her a present that she could give me for my birthday, but first she had to help me make it. She was all excited about this, and so was I, because it meant I could stay inside while she went out and brought me in some twigs!!!

Perfect! Thanks Kat, now go and play while I play with the sticks!!!

There’s my $2 dollar store vase that will soon be covered in twigs. I just broke the twigs to approximately the right height. If they were thick twigs, I scored them with scissors first where I wanted the break to be, and then snapped them easily.

I used my hot glue gun to glue the thicker twigs on first – and I only burned my thumb twice (both times in the same spot of course!).

Then I filled in the gaps with the smaller twigs. I kept going around the vase until all the glass was covered.

I saved a few skinny forked twigs to put between my daisy stems. Then in went the daisies! Now it just needed a ribbon tied around the twigs to finish it off – and help hold any loose twigs in place! Went to my ribbon stash and decided on this sagey green coloured one.

And there we have it – didn’t Kat do a fabulous job on my birthday gift!!!

Ahh, beautiful daisies – they always make me smile!!! As Meg Ryan said in “You’ve Got Mail”, “Daisies are the friendliest flower. Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?”

(And my family knows that when I pass away, I want a casket spray full of daisies – with eight red roses among them to represent my guy and my seven daughters!!! lol)