A Dozen Quilter's Quilt Group

My friend Melissa over at Lilac Lane included me in a quilt group called, A Dozen Quilter's. When you go to her blog notice the little apron tutorial on the side. Adorable! She is a Moda girl now!

It has been really different for me. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone as far as design, color and style. I love it that everyone has their own taste and I am learning to appreciate that. Usually when I do a quilt it is two color. I just love cream or white and a color. I thought it would be fun to let you see what I have done so far. Each lady has a month. She will pick a design and fabric preference. Then the 11 other ladies go out and buy or use their own stash to make what she wants. I usually talk to the lady that is in charge of the month to see if she has a certain idea and what she might prefer.

My month to decide what I would like will be this spring. I have been dreaming of what I would like. Any idea's ladies?

Debbie wanted turquoise and red. She had always wanted a house block. So I did it.

Carmen wanted soft pinks and sage. This was harder then what I thought it would be. I like it!

Christy wanted Amy Butler fabric. This did turn out pretty don't you think?

I am working on a new block for Gayly for January. She wanted something with a star block. She gave us a site called Quilters Cache , this had lots of star blocks to choose from. Hope you can find something you might like! There other blocks beside stars. You will find everything there. Be sure to go to the home place and you can find other designs also. Tell me if you like it!

From our Home to yours,

Linda

Our 2009 Grammie and Poppa Snowman Camp

"WELCOME TO OUR GRAMMIE AND POPPA SNOWMAN CAMP"

All our grandchildren showed up in the afternoon. Sleeping bags, warm clothes and pillows filled the front room. Lots of happiness was going on for sure. We have 6 grandsons and 3 granddaughters. The boys talk more and louder then the girls hands down.

They laugh and keep the party going.

Before they got to the farm, I had the table and house all decorated with snowmen. My friend Mary blessed me some years back with lots of snowman gifts. Everything you could think of, she gave. I have collected snowmen over the years and have received some from my kids and honey. I decorated real simple with evergreen branches. I also sprinkled pretend snow on the branches and snowmen. It looked like a winter wonderland.

Everyone got situated with their stuff in designated spots and then it was time for supper.

Our evening meal was spaghetti, corn and herb bread. Mr. Phil bought me new snowman dishes (plates, salad plates, bowls and mugs) for the snowman party. Thank you honey! The kids loved them. We put the food on the plate and told them they had to eat it to see what design was on the plate. My momma always did that when my siblings and I were little. The children seem to enjoy it when I do it for them. As the kids ate we listened to what had been going on in their life. That is probably one of our favorite parts of the party.

Games and treats!

After our meal we had some games, puzzles, popcorn and hot cocoa. I found so many games for only $1.00 each at WalMart, Dollar Store and Target. There was lots of laughing and conversation between the cousins as they played together.

It was getting late and time to get the crew ready for bed. Ha! We had kids under the dining room table and girls with Grammie. Poppa had all the boys. YES! That was a sight. Before bed though Poppa read the CHRISTmas story. It never gets to old. One message that stuck out and the children memorized was “nothing is impossible with God”. Now when you break that down. Nothing means there is not one thing that God cannot accomplish. It was a sweet time for Poppa and myself to listen to sweetness from our grandchildren lips. They are learning to love our God. We trust as they watch us love God they will also. As I get older I realize what a huge responsibility that is on our shoulders as our grandchildren’s watch and listen to their Grammie and Poppa. I was not raised in a Christian home. They loved me, they just didn't know the Lord personally. When Mr. Phil got saved, we started going to a Bible teaching church that was on fire! We went everytime the doors opened. We loved our new church family and we started to grow. Our little family was young and we were so hungry to know how the Lord wanted us to live. I am so thankful that we can teach our grandchildren now.

The girls went to sleep first and it took the boys about 2 hours to finally get calmed down. Poppa took good care of that. smile.

The morning came soon. They all enjoyed pancakes for breakfast. Really easy to make snowmen pancakes with the gel decorating tubes. I used black and orange. The kids loved them. After the children ate their breakfast they went outside to play with their forts. The day was warm and they had a total blast. They drug stuff from everywhere on this farm to make their forts their own. The girl made their fort into little houses. It was so cute to watch them all. I was in the house getting the house ready for the party. I am giving you some of the instructions to some of the things I made. I will also link you to some other blogs that other bloggers told me about. I hope you can use some of these ideas if you ever have a Snowman Party.

SNOWMAN CANDY HOLDER INSTRUCTIONS

Needs: toilet paper tube, black and rust marker, white tissue paper, red ribbon

string and small candy

1. Toilet paper tube

2 Cut tissue paper about 1 1/2" bigger on each end and enough to cover the tube tight.

3. Tuck tissue into one end of the tube (this will be the bottom).

4. Twist the top and tie ribbon and make a bow

5. Open the bottom end up again and stuff the tube with candy.

6. Draw two little eyes, nose and mouth.

SNOWMAN INSULATED WATER BOTTLE HOLDER

This is not my pattern. I just came up with making it into a snowman. I have permission from Kathy the designer of the water bottle holder to put it up on my blog. You will have to go to her wonderful website to get the pattern, for this insulated water bottle holder. Look around while you are there, she has adorable things to look at. Pink Chalks Studio water bottle carrier I used cream flannel for my water bottle and some snowman fabric for the lining. It was some fabric I designed so our grandchildren can have something of Grammies. If you can't find the flannel cream fabric, I can sell you some.

1. Trace nose to paper backed fusible webbing. Iron paper to rust fabric. Cut the nose out. Set aside. Click here for placement and pattern for Snowman Face Pattern

2. Iron paper backed fusible webbing to black fabric

3. Use a 1/4" paper punch and punch out 7 circles. I was so excited when I tried this and it worked! I wasn't sure how I was going to cut those little circles out with them being so little.

4. Cut a pice of cardboard 1/2" by 4"long. Lay a 5" red piece red yarn on the bottom edge of the cardboard.

5. Wrap yarn around 30 times. Keep the 5" yarn piece from getting in the way.

6. Tie the 5" yarn tight around the yarn in a double knot. Cut the yarn away from the cardboard on the other end of the cardboard to make a pompom. This is soo easy to do. Shape the pompom by cutting all the stray ends. Make it into a little ball. Set aside.

7. Take the paper off the back of the nose and eyes and mouth. Look at picture for a reference on placement. Iron in place.

8. Measure any kind of ribbon for the strap and sew to each side of the water bottle holder.

9. Glue pompoms to each side using a glue gun. It is finished. Now I like to put my water bottles in the freezer for about a half hour. Then put them into the Snowman Water Bottle Holders. With the insulation in the inside it kept the grandkids water very nice and cold for a long time.

The spoon was found on an adorable blog called Homespun at Heart. Scroll down to January 19th, 2007, when you get onto Monica's blog I love her heart, it is precious. You will have fun at her blog site. My friend Sharon at A Merry Heart Journal told me about Monica's snowman party. Thank you Sharon. Monica gave me permission also to put this up. I used a black and orange permanent marker to put the faces on the spoon, but I just read that it is not safe. oops! You can find EASY WRITER food decorating pens here:

http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/coloring/pens.htm. You can also find them at the store. Monica uses edible food markers. They come of when the child eats with the spoon. Thank you Monica! So appreciate your help here.

For dessert I made little strawberry shortcakes in little mason jars. I made angel food cake using all my chicken eggs. I cubed up the angel food cake and layered with strawberries/sugar and whipped fresh cream, using powdered sugar instead of sugar when you whip it. Then put a big dollop (I like that word) of whipping cream on the top. Make the cream flat with a spoon

Use the orange and black decorating gel to put on the face. Put a lid on the jar, so that when they open it up, they have a little snowman staring at them. Hehe! Surprise!!!!! A snowman looking at you!!

After we ate we had a fun time, making some crafts. The children made thank you cards to their Momma's and Daddy's for blessing them with a wonderful CHRISTmas. The highlight was the snowman race though. Do you see 2 cute little wind up snowmen in the picture above? Well, we would start at the end of the table with two children and they would race. Each child would wind up a snowman and we would say, "ready set go". We laughed and laughed at what the snowmen would do. One time they came together and went round and round in a circle. We raced till every child won a prize.

Each family took a little gift home for their parents. It was a very special time fo everyone. They are still talking about it. I love having them all in my life. God is so good to me. I am such a very grateful Grammie for all that the Lord has blessed me with.

I bought a storage tub for our snowman party. After the CHRISTmas sales I was able to picked up some things on sale for next year. I just think this tub is going to be so useful for me to keep everything organized in one place. I am amazing myself! smile

As I have been writing this post I have been thinking about some of you Grandmothers that would love to have a party, but don't live close to your grandkids. Well, I had this great idea. Why not have one already made up and send it in a box? You could get a cookie pail and fill it with goodies just like we made here and paper plates, cups and what ever. You could write out the instructions for the games, the stories to be read and what ever else you come up with. Be sure to send a love note about how much you love them. This is getting me excited. I think that you still have time beings it is still winter and all the snow is coming down all over the country. Please tell me if you do something. I would love to hear about it.

I still had ideas that I wanted to do, but just ran out of time. I may post about them at a later date, but thank you so much for coming by and seeing what we did. It was a lot of fun and I just want my grand-babies to remember their Grammie as one that loved them very much. If you all have any idea's of other parties we can do let me know. I love designing things. We have had so many different kinds of camps. I will continue to record for you when we have our Valentine Camp. Blessings!

From our Home to yours.

Linda

Do You Knit Or Crochet? A Few Projects For You!

I wanted to get this up before CHRISTmas and just didn't. So here it is now. It is still winter out and sounds like we are getting more snow. Yea for me! For those knitters out there here is an adorable pattern. Free! I love free. This is one of my favorite patterns for mittens. You can find it at Knitting at Knoon Designs - Kathy's Mittens. I am not the best knitter, but I did get these made. I used a nubby cream all cotton yarn, that I get in a shop up in Lawrence Kansas. Love it, because it makes up so nice. I made 9 of these mittens for each one of my grandchildren. I put them up every year on a garland between the dining room and the front room. They one day will be their ornament, but not right yet.

Here are another two patterns for washcloths, that I found over at two very pretty blogs. The first one is from Yesteryear Embroideries. I have not crocheted it yet, but I want to after I get a few things wrapped up here at Prairie Flower Farm! I just think this is soooo cute! You will enjoy her blog also.

Photo used by permission from Yesteryear Embroideries (thank you)!

I saw this some time back as I was blog surfing and Kathleen gave permission for me, so I could show you what I want to do.

The other washcloth is from Homespun Living. This dishcloth is knitted and beautiful. It is real easy though. You do have to concentrate on the rows at the beginning. At least I did. My first dishcloth was turned around at times. You can get the hang of it real soon though. I am interrupted so many times in a day, so I use a counter. Fix up a bag with all that you need in it to make some washcloths, so you are ready when you have some sitting time. I always have something ready, because I just can't seem to keep my hands still. Smile You enjoy your stay at Homespun Living. It is also very beautiful. You will be right at home. Leave both the ladies little comments if you don't mind and tell them I sent you. :< ) this is a raggedy annie smile.

photo used by permission from Firefly Farm (thank you)!

If you start any of these projects you can start filling your CHRISTmas box with gifts and not be like me trying to get gifts made at the last minute. What a wonderful idea Linda, I think I am going to start a CHRISTmas box! When I am working on an order, I can make a few extras and they will go in the box! Great idea! Now, if I can just do it.

Blessings and I would love to see if you have any knitting or crochet patterns. Let me know or leave a comment and link, so we all can come to see you!

I wanted to add that I like to use Peaches and Creme 100% cotton yarn. You can find it at craft stores all around. It is really soft and has lots of colors available. I like to get the big cones that are available in white. Just thought this might help if you are going to start knitting or crocheting.

From my Home to yours,

Linda

Bible Study, we are using David: 90 Days with A Heart Like His

My girls and I are going through this book called "David: 90 Days with A Heart Like His (Personal Reflections Series)". If you are interested it looks like there are some books that are used books for only $4.68. That is a very good price. We have been gleaning a lot of history from it and our hearts are being encouraged. I love my time with my girls. Trust that the Lord is preparing our hearts to be servants for the Lord. They have their own personal study, but this one we are doing together everyday. We open our Bible and read the word first. Then Beth gives questions and study. It has been really good so far. I am asking the Holy Spirit to teach us together. My Tressa is 18 now and Tay is 15. Where has all the time gone? So thankful and grateful they are in my life. They encourage me so. I love being their momma. God has been so good. Having 3 boys first and then 13 years later getting one girl and 3 years after that another girl!!! They are my delight! Boys are wonderful, but girls are more relational, so that is really fun for me.

I am still working on the snowman party. I had more things come up and need to work on those things first. I am still working on tutorials for the party. It will be fun for you to use if you choose to have a party during this winter.

Are you doing a study we might be interested in? Please comment and let me know, if you have a minute. If you can't leave a comment on my blog just use the email that comes to you (if you subscribe) and just reply back. That works. You can also email, which is at the top right of my blog for your use.

Blessings and so thankful you are in my life!

From my house to yours,

Linda

Starting The Year With My Heart On JESUS!

We watched the movie The Nativity Story and again my heart was turned to the price that was paid when this little baby named Jesus, came into this world to save me from my sins. I think it is hard for me sometimes to really realize that there was a real baby Jesus. Maybe because I never saw Him born. I never saw Him die. Maybe? Watching the movie put it into perspective for me though. To think that Mary and Joseph had to make choices and had they not followed the instruction of the Lord, life would be very different for us all. I read His word and read that He was born and He "did die". I believe in faith that it is true. I want to continue this year to be one of His followers. I am so thankful for a husband, that is a leader in our home. He helps me to keep my heart close to the Lord, as He washes me in the Word. I am thankful for children who are like their parents, who find themselves as sinners and yet have the freedom to come for forgiveness from the ONE who knew no sin and can be forgiven. All because God chose a momma who would choose to have her baby, named Jesus. I am so thankful on this first day of the year. My prayer is that God would take our family this year and that we would be brave to tell the good news of the special little baby long long ago, who came to change the world forever.

I am going to keep this up until Easter. I will remind my grandchildren of the baby who came for them, if they would only believe.

Romans 10 9-13 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame."For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Just for fun

Here is our New Year Granola Recipe. Enjoy!

My honey bought me this little roaster for our granola recipe. I think it is just the cutest!

I sure will enjoy using it when I have to make granola.

I use my flour grinder to grind our wheat, that we grow on our farm.

It really grinds up fast and I use it in my recipe for our granola.

I like to gather everything that I am going to use before I start.

10 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups shredded coconut

2 cup slivered almonds

1 cup sesame seeds

1 cup flax seeds

1 cup salted sunflower seeds

brown sugar

1-2 cups cranberries

Add all the ingredients except brown sugar and cranberries to the roaster.

In a small saucepan cook ingredients below on low, until the butter melts.

3/4 cup water

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 tea. vanilla

Pour liquid mixture over all the dry ingredients.

Bake at 325˚ for an hour and a half. Check every 20 minutes.

Add cranberries or raisins after it has been cooked.

Let it cool before putting it into a container.

My honey is happy. He is all set!

This would make a wonderful gift for anyone to bring in the New Year.

I am so thankful for all of you!

Blessings, Linda

Blessings To You This NEW YEAR!

Blessings to you this New Year! This is a pond close to our farm.

It was such a beautiful day a few weeks back and had to take this picture.

I can't believe we will be in 2010! Where has the time gone? I am excited to see what the Lord has for each of us. I do thank Him for all of you who follow my blog. Can't believe how many precious friends I have made and for that I am truly thankful!

I am still working on the post for the Grammie and Poppa Snowman party. I was gone for 2 days to Lawrence and it did cut into my time on getting it up. I have to do a few pdf's for your use if you want and I need Tressa to help me on that. She is leaving for two days so maybe the first of the week.

I would love to hear of one special blessing that you received this last Christmas or maybe a way I can pray for you for the New Year. I love you all bunches!

From my home to yours,

Linda

CHRISTmas Memories

The REASON FOR THE SEASON! LOVE WAS BORN ON CHRISTMAS MORN.

You can see that I used an old wash bucket for the bottom of our tree. It really looked cute!! I think this will be a must for every CHRISTmas from now on. I also tied white sheer bows to the end of the branches.

We all sat with only the light of the tree as Poppa read us the CHRISTmas Story. It will never get old hearing my honey read. It is such a story of grace and mercy. What a Heavenly Father we have!

This little mitten had a sheet of paper with all the names of the family that was

present at our 2009 CHRISTmas dinner.

I had lots of these little angels all over our tree. I bought them with the gift certificate that Stutzman's Greenhouse gave me. They looked so sweet!

I like it when I can find "Merry CHRISTmas" decorations. It helps keep our focus on the one we are celebrating for.

Found the cross and sconce on mega sale! Thought it really added to my CHRISTmas decorations. The cross is a reminder to us of why JESUS came as a little baby. Oh my, what a price he paid for us who want His salvation.

JESUS has the key to my heart!

This last CHRISTmas was so special for our family. I can't believe all we have left are memories. I tried to make my decorating so simple this year. Stutman's decorating classes really helped me. Like Larry said, if you just gather what you want to use and have that all organized before you start decorating, you will save time. I tried it and it worked. Using mostly white this year also helped. I loved decorating and going to all the classes, that I was able to attend. I learned so much. As you see I really had a white CHRISTmas. I liked it.

I am saying goodbye to another CHRISTmas, but not to all the memories. This Momma and Grammie has tucked "all her memories" in her heart. Just as Mary pondered those things, so have I.

If you have some memories of this CHRISTmas, would you please just take a minute and encourage us all with some of them? Thank you ladies. You are truly a blessing!

If you have any pictures on your blog of your CHRISTmas tell, so we can all come over. I will anyway, if you comment. Smile! I love looking at your blogs. It is my treat to myself every day.

LET THE PARTY BEGIN!

LATER TODAY ALLLLLL MY GRANDBABIES WILL BE COMING TO THE FARM.

WE ARE HAVING OUR "SNOWMAN PARTY GRAMMIE AND POPPA CAMP!"

Blessings,

Linda