Ornaments

These are the ornaments I made for OLM's ornie swap.

These were for Amy's Bumble Bee Lane Ornie Swap.

 These ginger's are the ornies are for the swap on Prim Pals.


Blogger wasn't  letting me add pictures saying I'd met my quota. So it was pay up or delete pictures, so I googled and found a helpful post on This Blessed Life at Rootsong Farm.

Bumble Bee Lane Ornie Swap

I also participated in Amy's ornie swap and these lovely ornies came in the mail Monday. I had to see everybody else posting days before me with all their prim packages. It was so hard to wait. :-)

Candy Cane with mouse Cyndy from Crafty Stitchers
Pumpkin and crow on a spring ornie from Three Small Fry Primitives
Snowman ornie  from Michelle at Simple Pleasures
Prim house-- ball--- there was no name on this one

Michelle and I were in a swap not too long ago and I also received two different ornaments from her in both ornament swaps I was in.

I really need to get our tree up this weekend to hang all these wonderful ornaments.

Thanks Amy!

OLM Ornie Swap

My ornies from Olde Lady Morgans ornie swap arrived in the mail the day before Thanksgiving. It was very exciting to open the box and pull out all these lovely prims.

First up was the wooly ginger from Trace at Granny Trace Scraps & Squares 
a cute burlap stocking from Michelle at Simple Pleasures
Blackened Beeswax Santa from Amy at Bumble Bee Lane
Gingerbread Man from Theresa at Dulaney Woods Treasures

I can hardly wait to get our tree up to hang all my prim goodies!

Thanks Marie for hosting the swap and for our chocolate goodies!

Happy Thanksgiving!

          
Wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for so much-- family and friends, kindness of others, good food and Chocolate Meringue Pie!! I could skip the turkey and just eat the pie. We're going to Jim's parents today. I'm taking the dressing, cheesy green bean casserole, fresh green beans, my mom's apple salad, and strawberry spinach salad. Can't forget the honey butter.

Mom's Apple Salad
apples--grated (but this year I'm going to try chunks instead)
whip cream--we use the spray can
pecans
marshmallows

Throw it in a bowl and serve. I love it, I was a picky eater as a child and I knew if this was at the holiday meal everything would be wonderful. Now it's makes me feel that something about my mom is at dinner with us.

She also made a wonderful green rice and that is what everybody wanted to make sure she brought to family dinners. I use to make it on Thanksgiving but now just make it for Christmas, there was too much starch.

Green Rice Casserole2 cups of cooked rice
1 lb Velveeta, cubed
1 can cream of mushroom soup
10 oz chopped broccoli  cooked
1/2 chopped onion
2 eggs
1/4 oil
2/3 cup milk
Mix well.  Bake at 350  for  1.5 hours

My mom used instant rice but I used regular rice, I also tried to make it healthier, but it never tasted the same, so I went back to her recipe. I do make my own condensed soup instead of using canned soup.  

Green Bean Casserole
2 cans french style green beans, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup--- (I make my condensed soup) it taste better and less salty
2 tbsp butter 
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 onion minced 
1 cup of shredded cheese
pepper and salt to taste

Butter a 2 quart casserole dish. Drain beans and pour in dish. In a small saucepan, melt butter, blend  in flour and gradually  add milk. Cook over low heat till  until is bubbly  and thick, stir constantly. Add onion,cheese and can of soup. Pour sauce over beans and bake for 45 minutes. 

The green bean recipe is one I played around with after reading a recipe in a old farm cookbook and we tweaked it and almost everybody loves it. I was not going to make it this year and just go with fresh green beans until Kaitlyn said Mom you always make those.
 

This is a teaser::::: I received my ornie box from Olde Lady Morgan's swap yesterday! Thanks Marie, there is some wonderful prim ornies in my box!! I'll post pictures soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy 16th Birthday Melissa

Melissa -- one month 

    

It's hard to believe Melissa is 16 today. After I had her I was able to quit working full time. She has kept me on my toes. :-) Happy 16th Birthday Melissa!

Pinned it, Made it! Monday

My fingerless gloves from a wool sweater, I was inspired from this pin for repurposed fingerless gloves . Back in January  I bought a bunch of wool sweaters at a thrift store and used the front and back for my wool blanket and have sleeves packed away for future projects. These were easy to make, I haven't decided if I want to add a decorative stitch around the edge.   
I'm linking up with Tammy at Country Girl at Home, check out what everybody else is making.

Swaps-- How do you plan?

So when you sign up for a swap do you start planning in  your mind what you will make? I do and sometimes I make a list, I also spend time looking for ideas on the computer. Very rarely do I ever make what's on my list, I either changed my mind or started with a project and zigged when I should have zagged but still like the final product. Below our a few projects I made for a Thank's Giving swap. The rag table mat was what I planned to make, the center where I stitched Prim Blessings was stained darker with  my coffee mixture but I forgot that I needed to wash it to help with the ragging and it's no longer dark. :-) 

I'm pretty sure this is a Tennessee Ridge pattern, I've made it before and sewed lines for the ridges and only coffee stained it. This time time I used watered down orange and coffee stain.

This turkey is based on Simply Prim's turkey , Check out her turkey, I love the one she made, I was going for simpler. I spent a lot of time googling  prim turkeys and finally made a tail piece and sewed lines up and down the tail piece. Getting the tail piece to stand and stay the way I wanted was a little crazy. I used a piece of red felted sweater for the gobbler.

The stocking -- I started out planning on making just a snowman ornament from an old quilt but it turned into the stocking.

So what about you---How do you plan out your swap making?

Christmas early!

A couple weeks ago, a friend from church gave me a box of material she had cleared out from her stash. When I opened  it at home, I was so excited!! Look at all this prim goodness.  It was like Christmas morning for me, she also threw in some prim patterns.  Debbie of  Barefoot Primitives is a blogger and has a prim store with some wonderful stichery's and more.  Thanks Debbie!

Pinned It, Made it Monday

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Source: Plain Chicken --Baked Spasanga

We had this wonderful dish the other night, four out of the five who ate it liked it, I will definitely make it again. I did make a few changes and as you can see my picture below looks quite different from the above. I only used a 16oz pkg of spaghetti, less cheese, no cream cheese or half and half, half the amount of meat.

I had cottage cheese so I used that in place of the ricotta.  This is a picture of it half devoured. 

I'm linking up with Tammy at Country Girl at Home, don't forget to check out the other Pinned It, Made it Monday.

Robin Hood

We enjoyed another wonderful play at Trilogy today, it was Robin Hood and Amy wanted a picture with Maid Marian.

I bought this old quilt at a garage sale years ago, I love the colors. We had a beautiful day in Kansas City. The weather was warm and you wouldn't imagine it was November, looks like cold weather is headed our way soon.

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy and fun night, we started at our church's T&T,  and ended the night standing in line at Chipotle's for our $2 Boorito.