Ping, ping, ping. There is something about the sound of sleet hitting the ground. It makes me feel quite cozy in our warm and happy, imperfect home.

The sleet falls as tiny marbles of ice, many times melting soon after landing. This particular visit from the sleet lasted longer than usual since it lingered for several hours.

The penny gives you an idea of the size of the tiny, cold marbles of ice.

Speaking of pennies . . .
I was just three years old. Momma was driving Bre and I to the library (we were in the backseat). My sister Breezy decided to show off and said, “Hey, watch this!” So, little me watched.

She popped a penny into her mouth, showed it to me on her tongue, then shut her mouth. I was shocked at what she did next: she made a big, dramatic gulp. When she opened her mouth the penny had disappeared. She had swallowed the penny!

Shutting her mouth again she gave me a mischievous look and reopened her mouth. There sitting on her tongue was the same penny. Wow! So, I asked for a penny and decided to try it myself.

In went the penny with a big gulp. My intention was to bring it right back up just like Breezy did, it couldn’t be that hard. But the penny didn’t make it all the way down — it got stuck.

That was definitely not the smartest move I have made in my life.

It was stuck in my throat.

Bre, in a nonchalant manner, told Momma that I had a penny stuck in my throat. Up to that point, Mom hadn’t realized what we had been doing — if she had, the “penny eating” would have been stopped before one even entered either of our mouths.

Dearest mother immediately turned around to look at me and see if this dreadful news was true. It was. She turned back around said something about going to the hospital (which was near where we were headed).

Momma instructed Breezy to hold her hand in front on my mouth to see if I was breathing. I was breathing, but I couldn’t talk.

Frantically, Mom drove to the hospital, all the while looking in the rear-view mirror. About five minutes later, right before we arrived at the hospital, I said, “I swallowed it.”

Bre and I explained what had happened, which was followed by us getting in trouble.

The penny was retrieved the next day. What lessons we learn!

So, my tip for you:
Do not put pennies in your mouth, and even more importantly — do not swallow them.

Have you ever swallowed something that wasn’t meant for swallowing?

Filed In: Seasons, Stories, Tips, Weather | 13 Comments »

Daddy read this quote aloud to us this morning, and I found it very inspirational.

“People do not drift towards holiness.

Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate towards godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, or delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance;

Toward disobedience and we call it freedom;

Toward superstition and call it faith.

We cherish the non-discipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation;

We slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism;

We slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

- D. A. Carson

May the Lord give me a heart that desires to be holy, godly, prayerful, obedient, faithful, and a heart that delights in the Him! In Him alone is my strength, how weak I am apart from Him! Glory be to God, our sovereign Lord!

Filed In: Encouraging, Inspirations, Living Biblically, Prayer Requests, Quotes, Seasons, Thankfulness | 7 Comments »

This is the last A Homemade Christmas post of the year (though today is the first of 2009) — AHC in review.

I received this darling notebook from my dear sister, Breezy.

It has a lovely composition of cut out scrapbook papers, what a feminine design!

Along the bottom of the front are old portraits of ladies in hats. I thought this quite sweet since hats are one of my favorite little (sometimes not so little) items from the past.

Breezy also decoupaged the inside. In the bottom left corner she added a little surprise. How I enjoy the appearance of a good vintage post card!

Every Thursday I posted about homemade Christmas gifts and decorations, what fun it was to have so many others post along with me! Thank you to all you joined me, what a blessing it has been to do this! Lord willing I might do it again next year! If you would like to post another homemade Christmas post, feel free to sign Mr. Linky below. I thought it would be nice to get to see the gifts that you had to keep secret until after Christmas, and maybe even the ones you received! Have a wonderfully blessed new year!

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Crafts, Femininity, Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Vintage | 4 Comments »

. . . is this door located?

Please leave a comment with your guess. I know that some of my visitors have been there before. If you can’t guess I might add another photo as a hint.

– EDIT: The Answer –

Yes, there are probably doors in this world that look like that, but this one in particular is located at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Cincinnati. It represents fallen humanity living in fear apart from Christ. For more photos of our visit to the Creation Museum, click here.

Thank you for guessing!

Filed In: Vintage | 11 Comments »

Filed In: God's Creation, Home, Portfolio, Vintage, Weather | 10 Comments »

Filed In: Bently, Family, Holidays, Seasons | 3 Comments »

Welcome to the tenth A Homemade Christmas! This is week Ten of Ten (you don’t have to enter in each one). I hope you’ll join us in sharing about homemade gifts that you have received or made — past, present, and future!
You can click here for the Introductory post.

It is a tradition in our family to make these cookies every year at Christmas time. Oh, these are so delicious! Every year Momma sought out to find the best sugar cookie recipe, and this is where her search ended.

Vanilla-Butter Sugar Cookies

PREHEAT: 350° | BAKE: 10-12 minutes | YIELD: 7 dozen

Cookies:

1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
2 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Frosting:

1-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
Food coloring, optional
Colored sugar

In a mixing bowl, combine sugar and butter; beat until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Stir together dry ingredients; gradually add to creamed mixture until completely blended. Chill for 30 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to a 1/4-in. thickness. Cut with holiday cutters dipped in flour. Using a floured spatula, transfer cookies to ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

For frosting, combine sugar, butter, vanilla and milk; beat until creamy. Thin with additional milk to desired spreading consistency if necessary. Add a few drops of food coloring if desired. Spread frosting over cookies and decorate with colored sugar.

We have so much fun decorating these as a family around our dinner table! Some turn out pretty, while others are so ugly that we have to eat them right away before anyone else sees them. Ha!

I hope you have a wonderfully happy Christmas as you celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Announcement: There will be one extra week of A Homemade Christmas. On January 1st I will post a wrap-up AHC where you can post about the homemade gifts you received and the ones you were keeping secret until Christmas. I’m looking forward to it and I hope you’ll tune in and post about yours, too!

Have you made or received any homemade gifts? If you’d like to make a post about your homemade gifts, you can sign Mr. Linky below. You can add one of my Homemade Christmas icons to your blog by clicking here. Each Thursday (until the end of December) there will be A Homemade Christmas post! Hope you’ll join in the fun as we learn, inspire, and encourage one another!

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Cooking, Foods, Holidays, Homemaking, Inspirations, Recipes, Seasons | 11 Comments »

There are things we do every year, and there are things that we do only once in our lifetimes. I, personally, really like tradition — the things that happen the same way every year — year after year. I thought it would be fun to share about a few of the things we do each year.

A few of the things we do every year:

String popcorn and cranberries — This is kind of like a sewing project for the whole family. Pop popcorn, grab a bowl of cranberries, have lots of thread and a needle, and we’re set! Oh, and sometimes a nice Christmas movie helps. Wrap these garlands around the tree, and instantly the tree has extra beauty!

Listen to Christmas music — To hear the carols adds so much, I’m not sure what this time of year would be like without it.

Decorate the stairway — Simple, yet sweet. We hang garlands on our banister, with white twinkle lights. It is so cozy to walk down a softy lit stairway early in the morning.

Go to grandparents’ — A week or two before Christmas we go to Grandpa and Grandma’s and on Christmas day we go to Granny’s house.

Sugar cookies — Momma found the perfect recipe many years ago, and they are delicious! We cut them out in different shapes (bells, trees, little people, stars, hearts, etc.) and then we sit down at the table with wax paper all around, decorating them with a most delicious homemade frosting.

Christmas Eve — That is when we celebrate Christmas here at home. We eat a lovely dinner. Daddy reads aloud Luke 2. We praise God. Presents are opened. In the past our presents have been numbered, but this year they are labeled with literary names. What is fun about this is that we never know which present is for whom until we are ready to open them.

A few of the new things that we are doing this year:

Getting a real tree — This year we bought a real tree for the first time (at least for Bre and I). It is so sweet to have a real tree, and what a happy one it is! We mainly put homemade ornaments on our tree, since many of the others were too heavy for the real little branches to hold.

Set up a card tree — This is the perfect place to display all of this years incoming Christmas Cards. In the past, we have set the cards up on bookshelves, but they were continually falling over. With the card tree we have been able to hang them by ribbon on branches set up in a vase, and it looks quite artsy.

What are some of your traditions? Are you doing anything new this year?

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Crafts, Family, Foods, Holidays, Home, Homemaking, Inspirations, Memories, Music, Seasons | 4 Comments »

This is the picture that accompanied our Christmas cards this year.

Left to Right: Me, Bently, and Breezy.

Filed In: Animals, Bently, Family, Holidays, Memories, Seasons | 10 Comments »

Every year, two little girls hung their small mailboxes on the Christmas tree.

The mailboxes they hoped would bring daily delights.

Every morning they checked their boxes to see whether the mail had arrived yet, and inside a tasty treat was waiting for them.

What sweet memories! The tree mail is still a tradition at our home and brings little happinesses to each day.

Filed In: Foods, Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Stories | 12 Comments »

This little pouch I created is simple to make and easy to fill. It is the perfect size to hold little treasures found on adventures, such as pebbles, fossils, pine cones, berries, leaves, buried treasure, or any other little thing found while exploring. It is also the perfect place to store goodies (candies, cars, doll clothes, ribbons, toys, sewing supplies, etc.).

Supplies:

• Burlap or Course Muslin - material for pouch (I cut a folded piece of muslin, with the cut dimensions 6.5 inches wide, and 7.5 inches tall)
• Needles - small for sewing, large (very large) for pulling twine through material
• Twine - for draw-string (I used two that where each about 20 inches long)
• Thread - embroidery floss will work well (I used 3-ply)

Directions:

1. Fold about an inch of the top edge inward. Knot and sew (with the straight stitch) across, making a nice hem. This will be seen from the outside when the pouch is finished, so make the stitches the way you would like them to look.
2. Sew the straight stitch about a quarter of an inch from the raw edge. Knot and and cut thread.
3. Hem both ends in this way, making sure to fold them down on the same side of the material - what will be the inside of the pouch.
4. Fold them together, front pieces facing together. Sew about 3/8-inch from the edge all the way down to the bottom.
5. When you come to the bottom where the material is folded, knot securely.
6. This type of finish will make the bottom corners of bag to appear like this when folded right-side-out.

7. For different corners that give more room at the bottom of the pouch, here is a variation. Sew just like before, but add another step. Flatten the inside corner of the pouch to make a triangle, and fold the seam to one side.
8. Sew straight across triangle about 3/4-inch from the tip.
9. When turned right-side-out, the corner should look something like this.
10. The inside of the pouch should look like this.

11. Turn pouch right-side-out. For the draw-string, take a very large needle and thread the twine through it. Poke needle through the first layer of the material at the top of pouch, but not through the second piece. Poke the needle back out through the other side at the edge. Now, this is a little stressful, but if you have strong material it should be alright. Pull the needle through the first hole that was made, dragging the twine through the hole with it. Pull the needle through the second hole on the other side as well.
12. It should look something like this.
13. Do the same on the other side of the hem to where you have something that looks like this on one side,
14. and two pieces of twine on the other.
15. Do this again, just on the other side. When you are finished, each side should have a small line, and a set of twine ends.
16. To keep the twine in good condition and from sliding through the casing, tie knots in the ends of both sets.

If this pouch is for a little lady, you can embroider any type of decoration you would like (e.g. flowers, verses, etc.) for extra beauty.

I keep my sewing supplies - needles, thread, etc - inside of my pouch, and have found it quite handy. I hope you enjoy yours!

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Announcements, Crafts, Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Sewing, Tips, Vintage | 6 Comments »

Welcome to the ninth A Homemade Christmas! This is week Nine of Ten (you don’t have to enter in each one). I hope you’ll join us in sharing about homemade gifts that you have received or made — past, present, and future!
You can click here for the Introductory post.

An adventure pouch is the perfect thing to take on a walk or while searching for little treasures. The size is just right to hold special small things that don’t want to get lost.

As a gift you can place some tasty little treats inside, or even another homemade gift.

Early tomorrow morning I will post a step-by-step tutorial on how to make one.

Announcement: There will be one extra week of A Homemade Christmas. On January 1st I will post a wrap-up AHC where you can post about the homemade gifts you received and the ones you were keeping secret until Christmas. I’m looking forward to it and I hope you’ll tune in and post about yours, too!

Have you made or received any homemade gifts? If you’d like to make a post about your homemade gifts, you can sign Mr. Linky below. You can add one of my Homemade Christmas icons to your blog by clicking here. Each Thursday (until the end of December) there will be A Homemade Christmas post! Hope you’ll join in the fun as we learn, inspire, and encourage one another!

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Announcements, Crafts, Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Sewing, Vintage | 14 Comments »

My Auntie Lou posted a picture of this sunset from her home. I thought I would post a couple photos of the same sunset, just from our home.

This is through the window of our backdoor. I really liked the wet glass effect.

This is a combination of five different photographs to get the above wide angle shot. I also did one of the complete sunset, but I think I’ll just let you imagine what the other side looked like!

“The heavens declare His righteousness,
And all the peoples have seen His glory.” - Psalm 97:6

Filed In: God's Creation, Home, Inspirations, Weather | 11 Comments »

Welcome to the eighth A Homemade Christmas! This is week Eight of Ten (you don’t have to enter in each one). I hope you’ll join us in sharing about homemade gifts that you have received or made — past, present, and future!
You can click here for the Introductory post.

Pincushions are practical and the perfect place to store any stray pins.

This pillow pincushion is simple, yet quite lighthearted and cheery. This is the front, with a patchwork of four colorful fabrics.

The back of the cushion with a pink button for extra beauty.

The finished size of the cushion is 4.25″ x 3.75″. A pretty pincushion would be such a nice treat for anyone!

Have you made or received any homemade gifts? If you’d like to make a post about your homemade gifts, you can sign Mr. Linky below. You can add one of my Homemade Christmas icons to your blog by clicking here. Each Thursday (until the end of December) there will be A Homemade Christmas post! Hope you’ll join in the fun as we learn, inspire, and encourage one another!

Filed In: A Homemade Christmas, Buttons, Crafts, Holidays, Homemaking, Inspirations, Sewing | 12 Comments »

Not one snow flake that has fallen from the bright and beautiful sky is like another. Each one is different, each one is special. When one snowflake melts, that small beauty will never be seen again. It is unfathomable to think that since the first snow and all the ones since there has never been two matching flakes. God’s creation is glorious, and gives glory to His name!

Filed In: God's Creation, Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Weather | 6 Comments »

. . . to rake your leaves in the fall.

We didn’t rake our leaves, we just let them blow around in the wind.

On my birthday (the last day of November), I was walking our dog late at night when an idea came to me. I could make a snowman on my birthday!

Bently (our dog) was taking his time, so I began to roll the snow into nice sized balls. The snow was so wet that I didn’t have to pack the layers much.

One on top of the other I stacked them.

And behold, it was a leafy snowman!

I hadn’t ever thought of that as one of the cons of not raking the leaves when they fall in Autumn.

So, our November snowman was a very leafy one.

I named him Loric.

Filed In: Holidays, Inspirations, Seasons, Weather | 10 Comments »

This game began at Destiny of One, and lets help it get around the blogosphere! I was tagged by Rachel and Jessica at Young Homemakers with a tag where I list ten things that I do daily.

So, here is a little glimpse into my daily life.

1) At the beginning of the day I read God’s word and pray.

2) Spend time in the kitchen cooking and/or cleaning.

3) Listen to music or workshops from homeschool conventions or Vision Forum.

4) Talk with my family. Not much goes around in our home that everyone does not know about. News travels quickly in our family of four!

5) Declutter the home, making sure that it’s clean enough to be peaceful, yet messy enough to be happy.

6) Work on the computer ranges from website/blog design, blogging, graphic design, working with my photographs, etc.

7) Read books that range from school to encouragement to classical literature.

8) Play with our funny little dog. He has a never ending personality that seems to be making us laugh right and left.

9) Visit with my birdie throughout the day, and tuck him in at night - wishing him sweet dreams.

10) Think about God, my future, what I’ll make next for my shop, etc.

I find each day and each breath a blessing from the Lord!

“This is the day which the Lord has made,
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” - Psalm 118:24

We only get to live each day once, there will never be another December 8th, 2008. I cannot rewind my days and re-live to to change things or just enjoy them again. We only get one chance at today. May it be lived rejoicing and praising our Lord!

This tags rules are as follows:

• Post the six to ten things that you do on a daily basis
• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Tag five (or so) other people
• Leave a comment on the blog of the person that tagged you letting them know that have posted this to your blog.

I am tagging the following bloggers:

• Momma at Robin’s Egg Blue
• Maggie at Painter of Words
• Meg at Blessed Are The Pure In Heart
• Missie at There is an Appointed Time for Everything
• Jasmine at Joyfully Home
• Amy at Amy’s Artsy Articulations

Filed In: Daily Happenings, Homemaking, Tags and Memes, Thankfulness | 7 Comments »