I Love My Front Porch Chalkboard

This is mostly a picture post. I just wanted to show you how fun it can be to have a chalkboard on your front porch - with a table in front of it to fill with all kinds of stuff.

I find designs for the chalkboard online (usually with the help of pinterest). Then I redraw them and adapt them to what I like and need.

Sorry about the crop on this. I am learning. And I am a slow learner.

I added snowmen and snowballs and scarves and mittens to the table for January. The ten-year olds from my church class thought I was talented to be able to copy the bear. Ten-year olds are so easy to fool.

Here is the chalkboard with the whole table thing going on.

If I were to give tips on how to write on a chalkboard they would be these:

• Draw up your design on a piece of paper - or print what you want from the internet.
• Draw on guidelines using a straight edge first - very lightly. Remember the blue striped paper from elementary school? Do those lines. Remember you will have ascenders and descenders on letters like y and g and l and b. Leave room for them. 
• Count how many letters and spaces in each line of letters. Start in the middle and work both directions if you want something centered. (example: willy nilly = 11 letters and spaces. The middle of the chalkboard, then, would have the space straddling it and I would write nilly normally out from the gap. Then I would write ylliw, in that order, writing from right to left leaving that center gap. Make sense?
• Write the words and drawings lightly at first. Start first with just writing them in normal handwriting. Then fill out the shape of the typography. (For instance, I first wrote D  A  Y in big block letters with lots of room between the letters. Then I filled out the larger shape of the serifs and bodies of the letters to DAY.)
• Use a damp cloth to erase what you don't love while it is still lightly drawn on.
• Get your chalk lightly wet and darken your lines and fill in the shapes. It will not look heavy as you use wet chalk but it will dry bright. Honest. And it will stay put better than dry chalk.
• Most important - remember that this is just an exercise in fun and whimsy. Enjoy it and its imperfections. It doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, if it is perfect you might as well just print it out on a computer. And that would just not be right.

Doesn't Take Much to Brighten a Corner

Well, now we start to get to the really embarrassing posts. The ones where I show you how we actually live. Sigh*

We finally finished most of the basement a few years ago. The hub did an amazing job on the walls and built-in bookshelf under the stairs. The kids helped paint, put in a wood floor, baseboard and trim, and it was looking great.

And it hasn't changed much since. I am a lazy bum.

Here is a photo of a lonely corner down there. It is attached to a wall we leave intentionally bare so we can watch movies on it, but I had no excuse for leaving this one bare for so long.

So I gathered up some interesting things I had around: a game board a good friend made for me, a game board my hub made, and a couple of stick tic-tac-toe boards and their rocks. I placed them carefully and artfully along the oak shelf (well, I just leaned them up - centered) and then put in one nail to hold a print of a painting that my Grandma did of my Grandpa for their engagement.

Took about ten minutes.

Boy, it is hard to find the time to decorate a house these days . . .

The kids may be a little careful about what movies they choose to watch now too. With Grandpa looking at them like that.

Cilantro is Gross; Avocado Salsa is a Wonderful Substitute!

Well, hope that the title didn't offend all of you. You can like cilantro if you want to - but really?

Thankfully neither the hub nor I enjoy it - too minty maybe? - so I can substitute things that are actually good when I make dinner.

I got a recipe from a friend for AMAZING pulled pork burritos that has a cilantro dressing topping. Not for us. Nope. We substitute a wonderful avocado-tomato salsa that is superior to top them.

You'll thank me.

The start of this recipe was from a cookbook I bought for a dollar on clearance. It was written in the UK and is mostly full of things that look really awful - salmon jello and eggplant slime on toast kinds of things. But this little treasure survived with some tweaking.

I can't cook without tweaking. That gets really irritating to friends who want my recipes. I am a little uneven in my work. And it is hard to tell you what I did when I just dump and pour. But this one I think I have down enough to pass on. I think.

Avocado and Tomato Salsa

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons lime juice
2 Tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1  4 ounce can diced green chilis
1/3 of a medium onion, diced finely
1 ripe avocado, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 ripe tomato, cut into 1/2 inch chunks (or use 1 cup cherry tomatoes cut in half)

Mix everything together and let the flavors blend for about half an hour before you eat. Serve it over pork burritos, quesadillas, or eat it by itself as a side salad.


If all you can get are cardboard tomatoes from the grocery store, opt for cherry tomatoes for a little brighter flavor. But there is nothing that can beat garden fresh tomatoes. Nothing.

Sunday Sermon - Virus Database Updated

Sunday Sermon #1

It was quiet. Very quiet. Our whole congregation sat reverently during the very last moments of the administration of the Sacrament of Our Lord.

"Your virus database has been automatically updated!" screamed a laptop or tablet somewhere in the silence. A few snickers followed, as the Sacrament was finished.

For me, though, it was a warm teaching moment from the Father Himself. I partake of the sacrament weekly to remind me of the sacrifice and atonement of the Son of God. As I partake, I pray that I can always remember Him and act in accordance of His plan for me. I focus on His flesh, His blood, knowing that through His sacrifice I am saved. It makes me whole again after a week of being beaten down by temptation and burdens.

I was able to picture, at that moment, the protection of the weekly sacrament in my personal life - a protection so much more profound and thorough than that of the virus checker in the computer. And I need it's protection as much or more, than the machine needs a virus checker.

Please, Lord, protect me from the world this week as I remember Thee. I have been updated.

I Am the Gardener Here - Sticks and Stones Crafts

Well, it is the February thaw. Time to prune the fruit trees and roses. I love doing it. It makes me happy. And why not? I am outside, working with my hands, using my brain, and thinking about the promise of spring and harvest of sweet, juicy fruit and beautiful, fragrant flowers.

With every clip of the shears I repeat, "I am the gardener here," in my head. That quote comes from an analogy by Hugh B Brown. He was pruning a very overgrown currant bush and it seemed to cry and talk to him as he cut it back. It was an experience which helped him handle disappointment ten years later. Here is a wonderful youtube video of the story - music by Jon Schmidt. It is awesome and well done.

Hugh B Brown - I am the Gardener Here Audio/video

Hugh B Brown - I am the Gardener Here  text only

Nice, distraction, huh? But on with the post.

I have a hard time just trashing or even composting all those perfect sticks that I so carefully cut off. Maybe my currant bush could live on in another form, too, before it is composted? Yes, I think so.

Here are a couple of projects to use some of those sweet sticks. And maybe when you see your stick projects in your house you can hear "I know what I want you to be" in your head. Or maybe not.

Tic-Tac-Toe Boards for the Patio

 

 I first made these tic-tac-toe games for a wedding reception that was held at a local park. We made lots of yard games that we spread around the venue.

Materials -

Bases: Find some old board ends that are fairly thick and in decent shape (very weathered wood won't hold a nail - find something solid). Mine were a piece of 3/4" pine and a rough-sawn 1" red oak scrap from the hub's furniture cutoffs. They were 7 inches square and 8 inches square.

Sticks: The sticks I used were well dried (not just pruned or they will shrink and twist) sand cherry sticks. Try to choose very straight and flat sticks.

Brads: 1" to 1 1/4" brad nails (Use the longest ones you can without going through the back of the base board)

Waterproof glue

10  one to two inch River rocks

Acrylic paint (outdoor formulation would be best for outdoor use)

Bases: Layout two sticks from top to bottom on a square, wood base. Cut the sticks 1" smaller than the board. Position the sticks 1/3 of the base in on one side and 1/3 of the base in on the other side, centering top to bottom . (You are making the down lines on a tic-tac-toe grid; you know how to do this.) Put some glue on the back of one of the sticks and put it, glue side down, onto the base. Then nail it down with two brads - one, 1/3 of the stick up from the bottom and the other, 1/3 down from the top. ( _._._ ) Repeat with the other stick.

Now piece by piece, fit and cut six stick pieces to the grid to make a #, gluing and nailing as you go. Cut the pieces to fit tightly to the other sticks and keep your outer border on the base empty (leave space on the edges). While the glue dries, make the markers with the river rock.

Because we were taking these to a park, I made little bags out of leftover painter's canvas so we wouldn't lose the rocks.

Markers: Paint an O on five rocks in one color. Paint an X on the other five. Let dry.

When the boards are dry, paint with several coats of outdoor polyurethane making sure to get it smooshed into the nooks and crannies. Poly will brighten the stones too, if you like (I did not).

You could paint different things on the rocks to go with different themes for parties - hearts, or crowns, or initials, or animals, or leaves . . .

Rustic Pedestal Candle Holders

These candle holders use your bigger limbs.

These were from the cherry tree, which loves to grow taller than I want it to. My limbs were 2 1/2 inches across (largest holder) and 2 inches across (smaller, taller holders).

Simply cut varied lengths of limb on straight angles. I cut mine to: 3", 6" and 9".

Next, clamp your wood piece tightly down to something. Use a 3/4" spade bit on a drill to bore a half-inch deep hole into the top of the piece, centering it.



Have fun pruning - both real and figuratively.

My Family is Different From Yours

My family thinks differently than yours. I am a dummy surrounded by a lot of smart and gifted people. That becomes more evident all the time. Here's an example -

When the doorbell rang one night, my kids hurriedly disappeared, as usual. Social, we are not. When I answered the door, it was my friend Elenore bringing a bag of freshly made peanut brittle for us. She is a sweetheart, for sure. 

As soon as the door clicked closed, my whole family swarmed in like killer bees. "What did she bring? Can I have some? Elenore is such a good cook!" Sounds pretty normal familyish, so far, right?

Now, I don't make peanut brittle so this was going to be a real treat for everybody. You'd think they would have just eaten it with a few oohs and aahs and yums and that's that. Not so!

My rocket scientist husband - really, a PhD in rocket science - took off his glasses, because unlike real old people, he needs them only to see at a distance, and examined the edges of the pieces for clues to how the candy cracked before he ate them. "See this?" he said, pointing to the edge of a candy chunk. "This is a stress fracture." And he did that with EVERY piece he ate. His oohs and aahs came before he ate the candy.

Then my son, a geophysics major - don't ask me, it is hard to explain - picked up some candy and on it's way to his mouth, he stopped and began examining it. "Mom, how do you make this?"

"Boil water, sugar, and butter to hard crack stage. Stir in some vanilla and peanuts and pour it into a cookie sheet." Remember, I don't make brittle, but I think that's basically it. Don't judge me.

"This doesn't have a flat side," he replied, still turning it over and over in his hand in a methodical, scientific examination. Now everyone was looking at their piece of candy. "Wouldn't it have a flat side if it was poured into a pan?"

That was the trigger and everyone's theory finger started jerking.

"Maybe it was still bubbling and oozy as it hardened, like lava, or amoeba." - the microbiology major daughter.

"Maybe she poured it from the top of the stairs to a bowl at the bottom and it hardened on the way down." - 13 year-old brainiac.

"Maybe she used a bumpy pan." - me. Told you I was the dumb one.

"Hey, and why is it so light colored? Isn't peanut brittle usually a warm amber brown? This is barely toasted ecru." - my fashion designer daughter.

That started a whole new examinational barrage. The crystal structure, the fat circles on the surface, the shapes the pieces broke into, how the candy part clung to the peanuts.

Normal families play with their food occasionally. My family doesn't play with their food. They work it from every possible angle.

My family isn't much like yours.

Gotta love 'em.

By Janet Hudson (originally posted to Flickr as Peanut Brittle)

Really Easy and Cute DIY Leather Flowers

Always seems to happen. I get the shopping and making of gifts done by the first of December and then I think, "Oh, I could make this little thing or that little thing." And suddenly my kitchen table and counter top are taken over by these little last-minute projects for the next week or so.

The table and kitchen in late December 2013

Well, this is one of those late 2013 projects. They really are cute, quick, and easy.

I made these Leather Flowers as pins and attached them to handmade elastic headbands for the 10 and 11 year-old girls that I teach in church. I (and my oldest daughter) also made some other fabric and ribbon flowers at the same time which I may show you how to make in a future post. I gave each girl a hairband and four varied, but 'matchy' flowers to pin onto the hairband, or to a cardigan, or to close up a scarf.


To make them, you will need:

• scraps of leather (I had some from covering our kitchen chairs, but you can buy small leather pieces at leather goods stores or craft stores)
• metal brads (brads come in lots of colors and shapes, too)
• pin backs
• glue (hot glue or e-6000 work well)

Also, scissors and a hole punch or awl.




Start by printing the pdf of the flower pattern. I included 3 different kinds of flowers on the pattern. Or you can just cut without a pattern, which is what I did. I like the randomness of freehand. (Of course, I do!)   

A link to a pdf pattern is here (but, really, you can just freehand this!)

leather flower pattern

Then cut three sizes of leather flowers from the scrap leather. Punch holes with the awl or leather punch tool in the center of each flower.

I wanted my flowers to be a little more 3 dimensional than they were looking, so I got them moderately wet, scrunched them up in my hands and then put them in the dryer for about 15 minutes on high heat. I got them out while they were still hot and scrunched some more until they cooled. You can do this step, or not.

At right, 3 cut out flowers with holes punched. Middle, flower with  a brad and right, flower with glued on pinback.

Put the flowers together any way you like - with the suede side up or smooth side up or a combination, lining up the holes in the centers.

Slip the shaft of a brad through the holes from the top to the back. Then open the two prongs out tightly against the back of the flower.

Finally, glue on a pin back over the ends of the closed brad. Let the glue set.

See. It really was quick and easy.