Get Your Laura Ingalls On Party

Well the day is here! I decided on something really simple. Like bread and butter simple.

Over the weekend we visited my folks and enjoyed another installment of Ally-take-your-stuff-home-you're-almost-30-why-do-we-still-have-some-of-your-stuff???? Thankfully, she also offered me this cookbook that I remember from when I was a kid. It's an old Discovery Toys cookbook. When I saw the "recipe" for making butter, I thought it would be cool to try. Here are my tools:

All we did was put a tablespoon of whipping cream in a baby food jar and shake it. The book has more activities to go along with it but they were a little advanced for Ava. In fact, she wasn't sure at first:

But then she at least picked up the jar:

I tried some of the butter on bread. It was kind of like fancy whipped butter that you get at weddings. But it was also one step away from being whipped cream, which kind of weirded me out. But it was pretty good. Not exactly churning Laura Ingalls-style, but whatevs.

I've also been making bread. I started a few weeks ago with regular bread, but we're trying Ava on a dairy-free diet to see if it clears up her eczema, so now I'm making dairy-free bread. From this recipe. Here's the yeast chilling in the soy milk:

A picture of my adorable mixer. (Thx,Fatmessers!)

Rising dough:

And loaves! I actually really am enjoying the bread baking. The kneading, the rising, all of it!

So I can't get logged into Linky Tools, so let's not overthink this. Just post a comment with a link to your post! Looking forward to see what you came up with!

Pump Up the Jam. And the Pillows.

Hey all,

So kind of a silly project. At least I feel silly for caring, but c'mon look at these pillows! Flat as pancakes. Not very inviting. Just sad, sad pillows. I mean, in the swing of things not a big deal, but I just wanted fluffier pillows! So I took the cases off:

One was from Ikea, one was from Kohl's. Circa...2005. Maybe pillows just get flat over time. I tried fluffing them by hand, but I decided to bulk them up with some extra batting I had after taking apart a quilt.

Here they are in their new pumped up state!

Silly? Yes, but I like it!

Don't forget--Get Your Laura Ingalls On party tomorrow. Link up! I'll have instructions on how to do it on the post.

Multitude Monday

Hey there,

I decided to join Ann Voskamp and some other ladies in the simple act of counting and naming our blessings. They do this on Mondays. It is a way to remember the goodness of God. Sounds so simple, but I miss it so often. So here we go:

#1. Second chances. Third, fourth.....

#2. A heavy crocheted blanket to huddle under (man, it's cold out today!)

#3. A financially saavy husband

#4. Going back to the start.

#5. The quiet of naptime.

#6. Bras that fit. A little TMI maybe, but to a post-nursing mom (or nursing, or pregnant, etc.) this can be such a big deal!

#7. Getting a break from sharing my body (see above.)

#8. The anticipation of a visiting friend.

#9. Busting a move on the dance floor.

#10. Celebrating with a family who needed a good celebration. Congratulations, Jen and Alex!

It's been a real wild week. Ava is teething and we're experiementing with different kinds of milks which seems to have led to some gastrointestinal fun as well. She's just not herself these days, and that has had it's difficult moments for Mr. Wonderful and I. All the more reason to recognize the ways God is amazing.

I wanted to note as well that the Get Your Laura Ingalls On party is not just for experts! I hope you'll link up even if it's just something that you're trying for the first time, which is what I plan to do. I'm off to make the most of the rest of naptime... :0)

Toweling ON.

Ever since finding doe-c-doe , I've taken quite a liking to embroidery. It hits me right in my rather retro sensibilities, I guess. So when I saw this book in the library I picked it up. It gives a pretty good play by play for a lot of different projects. I found a plain flour sack drying towel in our stash and decided to embellish it with the adorable apple on the front cover. But I didn't want to use fabric, so I just used the embrodery around the fabric.

The instructions said to trace the design on tissue paper. I figure there is probably fancy craft tissue paper, but I just used some from our impressive stash of gift tissue paper.

Cute, no?

Thankfully I still had a hoop left over from our front entry project. I fit the fabric in:

It took me about 2 hours to stitch. It was a little hard to decipher the stitch from a book description, but I think I got it. And if it's wrong...well, I guess I've never heard of the embroidery police, so I guess I'm ok. My stitches are probably terribly big, ala Laura Ingalls, but again. No embroidery police.

After I was done I carefully tore away the tissue paper...

And here's what I came up with! It was a fun little project. I did it all in one extra long naptime.

I like the way it looks on our island!

Come to my Party? Please?

So, my friend Beth made a comment on one of my posts that gave me an idea. One of the things I have been doing as a stay-at-home mom is trying to be more self-sufficient. Buying less convenience foods, making or repairing things instead of buying. Making our tiny house work for us. Etc. It makes me feel like Laura Ingalls sometimes. Did you ever read those books? I did. I read the series maybe four times. No joke.

So I thought it would be fun to have a "Get your Laura Ingalls On" party. This might be a bad idea, since it's not like I have a million followers, but I thought it would be fun to hear and learn from you guys about ways you are more self-sufficient. Do you make your own amazing pie crust? Can you milk a cow? Knit? Construct? I'm not going to be picky.

So what you do is write a blog post (or find an old one) about your really cool ability, and sometime between now and then I'll figure out how to set up a McLinky. On the day of the party, you link up your post to my McLinky.

Now I'm going to set up an arbitrary date. How about September 24th? It's a Friday. I don't know how to make a button, but if you think this is a cool idea spread the word and we can all be Laura Ingalls together on Sep. 24th. Unless you want to be Mary, Carrie or Grace. Or Ma. Or Michael Landon. I'm not gonna judge. :0) September 24th: Get Your Laura Ingalls On Party. Be There!

LATDTC Recommends...

When I got married, I inherited a child. His name is Bizimana. Pete sponsors him through Compassion. Sadly, I haven't gotten to know him much, but Ann Voskamp's series of posts from Guatemala City have opened my eyes to how special it could be to do so. When I opened up this post, I was excited about some new project to try and make my house prettier. Reading it made me see our little house for what it is: a clean, safe, provision from God. Ann is a gifted writer, and we all need perspective. Happy reading!

Coffee Talk

As you may have read in this post, I have several unfinished projects around the house, nagging at the back of my mind and preventing me from starting some other projects I'm interested in doing. I was hoping to finish them this past weekend, but of course it didn't happen. But I did finish ONE of them. A big one.

I found this table in Mr. Wonderful's basement after we got married. I love the lines in the legs and the squares on the top. We used it upstairs for awhile. It worked great for playing games, but it is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too big for our 10x10 living room. It was also in pretty rough shape. It had a thick amber shellac on it that was chipping in a lot of places. So I decided to refinish it. If I had my way, it would have probably been painted. But Mr. Wonderful didn't want to cover up the wood, so I planned to refinish it, forgetting that I was 8 months pregnant and shouldn't be using poisonous chemicals. Preggo brain, right? So that didn't happen. It has been sitting in our garage half-done for 16 months.

Until now! I used chemicals, sandpaper, a sander, a profile sander, a Dremel, a drywall scraper thing and even a flat head screwdriver to sand, scrape, chip and wish that thick amber shellac away. It was not a scientific process. It was not always pretty and I'm not even sure I got it all. But here's what it looked like when I decided to just hope for the best. I actually kind of like it like this. It reminds me of old leather:

(check out the saw horses I got for Mr. Wonderful. $5 at a rummage sale. They saved my back some aches and pains)

Here it is after 1 coat of Red Mahogany:

I read in a post somewhere that vegetable oil gets oil based paints off your hands. It did a pretty good job, and I was thrilled to not have to put mineral spirit on my hands!

The table now lives in the man cave where it has room to run around. I love how the grain of the wood alternates:

I put two coats of polyurethane on it. I think it's improved and its DONE!