Here you’ll find posts about crafting, creating, memory keeping, sending love, making cards, sewing clothes and toys, and other crafty endeavors that keep me busy when I’m not busy. {smile}
Family Road Trip Journal Using Smashbooks…Free Printable Travel Journal Page
Did you read that we’re going on a family road trip? Yep, and we’re excited about all kinds of great family moments. (And probably a few squabbles that we’ll live through just fine as well.) My normal operating mode would be to make each of the kiddos their own travel journal to fill out along the way and fact sheets and worksheets for them to do while we go along. There are tons of great free travel journal printable ones on Pinterest like this one, this one, and this one. And … Continue Reading…
DIY Personalized Travel Sticker for Family Road Trips
Have you seen those cute, vintage luggage and travel stickers? I don’t mean luggage tags (we have those already!) I mean the tourist-y collectible stickers with bright images and place names on them. You slap them on your suitcase, or your laptop or notebook, and share your adventures with the world! They’re also a great little souvenir or memento from your travels. It seemed like a fun idea to add to our spring break family road trip plan. I like the way it takes the idea of a “family vacation” to a … Continue Reading…
Easy DIY Luggage Tags
As I wrote last week with our Summer Camp Packing lists (did you download your FREE copy?) our kiddos have been adventuring away from home a lot this summer. They visited my sister, my mother-in-law, and now church camp. This is Speedracer’s first year at church camp and we’ve developed several little rites of passage for the first year. One is that they get their first toiletry bag (or shaving kit bag for the boys) and one is that they get their personalized luggage tags. This is an easy and … Continue Reading…
A Simple Garden Gift Box Tutorial…Sending Love from the Garden
It’s the season-of-many-cucumbers around here. And while we’ve already made cucumber sandwiches, cucumber cream cheese wraps, cucumber salsa, and now creamed cucumbers, there are still so. many. cucumbers. Also suddenly an abundance of green peppers, blackberries and raspberries, tomatoes, and parsley. (Why did we plant so much parsley?!?) Much like our sudden spring abundance of eggs, we like to use what we can, and then share the garden goodies. So we’ve been sending out boxes of fresh, backyard goodness to co-workers, family, and customers. Here’s a quick, easy, and frugal way to … Continue Reading…
New Babies, New Jammies, New Year…the Daily Farm Adventures {96}
As you may have seen on Facebook, we started off our Christmas holiday with a new calf on Christmas Eve morning! The Cowboy found him out there with his Momma while doing the morning chores. Molly is such a good momma that she’s never needed any help–and always has boys! Good for the freezer, but I wish she’d throw a heifer because we’d definitely keep her. Her calves also always start out such a lovely fawn brown, but eventually turn gray like our bull Chester. We spent the rest of … Continue Reading…
Thoughts of the End of Summer…the Daily Farm Adventures {62}
I came across this quote on Pinterest the other day and just loved it… I’m still struggling a little with keeping my camera in hand this year. But I find that my eye is still…trained?…prepped?…to see things that I would have missed before. I find that this farm life has shown me to appreciate things I wouldn’t have thought to like before. To see with new eyes. To be inspired by things I would have completely passed by. Like buzzards… I always associated them with death before, and that is … Continue Reading…
Organizing a Smashbook Box…and More Journaling Pages
I mentioned last year that I was really enjoying the new “smashbook” form of scrapbooking and journaling. It works for me, my style and my time limits. Well, I’m still crazy about it. I have one journal filled, and I’m working on two others. I’m moving in a generally chronological order with the family books, and I’m fitting about 4 months into a book. But they’re not restricted to that. Some pages are more personal journaling if I find an old picture I love, or want to tell and old … Continue Reading…
Real Life Homeschooling…Learning by Adopting a Soldier
Real Life Homeschooling is about busy momma’s sharing ideas for how you can be intentional about teaching at home, even if it doesn’t look like traditional school-at-home. Last month I talked about how down time can play a key role in developing a supportive learning environment in your home. This month I’d like to talk about another activity our family participates in that has opened wide doors of learning for us…Adopting A Soldier. I mentioned our recent “adoption” the other day while taking about care packages. This is the third time … Continue Reading…
Sending Love…the Mail Out
I mentioned earlier this week that we are working on some special “sending love” projects and I would share pictures before we mailed them. Here ya go… The idea of Valentine’s-in-a-box was so fun! I flipped through my craft stash (which is actually starting to get a little low!), used a few coupons, and hit up our Dollar Store. Not everything was “valentines” but everything was pink and white and red. {smile} We included some red fruit snacks, some pink soap, and lots of cut outs for decoration! You’ll see … Continue Reading…
Sending Love Projects
I used some of our recent snow day time to get help from the kiddos working on some “sending love” projects I’ve had on my To-Do list lately. We all made Get Well Soon cards for Mr. Fix-It’s grandma (we call her “Bea”) and printed off some pictures to send with them–because who wouldn’t feel cheered up seeing pictures of my adorable kiddos? {smile} I made a birthday card for my Grandma Koeller and sent it off. Grandma Koeller has come to visit us several times the last couple years … Continue Reading…
Homemade Cowboy Birthday!
As I mentioned before, we don’t do birthday parties every year. But this year everyone gets a party. And the Cowboy wanted a cowboy party. Naturally. I think we were able to pull it off pretty well. Pinterest was a bit of a help to me–but honestly, in this case it was also a bit overwhelming. I’m…speechless…at the lengths some parents are going to for birthday parties. Especially for 1, 2, and 3-year-old who won’t even remember it other than the pictures in their scrapbooks! But I digress… Most of … Continue Reading…
Nature Study Display Frames
We love nature study around here. It’s one of our favorite real life homeschool topics and can fit in to pretty much any moment of the day. But it also means that we have quite the conglomeration of feathers, rocks, skins, twigs, beetles, moths, and other cool finds. We use nature journals to save pictures, drawings and notes (along with the occasional leaf) but our adventures to the Virginia Living Museum inspired me to create nature study display frames to put on the walls in our newly painted playroom. It … Continue Reading…
Costumes and Cows in the Chicken Coop…Thankful Thursdays #5
Boy, I’m thankful that lamb harvest for the year is over. We just reduced the amount of mouth to feed over the winter by about 50%! And everyone seemed satisfied with their product and how it went. (Except for the Cowboy who is totally bummed that he missed it all just for school!) And I’m thankful that the weather seems to have cleared up. It’s still a bit soggy, but nothing to complain about since we had a week of steady rain! I’m also thankful to Mr. Fix-It for taking … Continue Reading…
Less Clutter, More Grace…Thankful Thursday #2
So…I’ve been simplifying around here. Meaning–getting rid of lots of stuff! I’m tired of coming home to a messy house that takes hours to clean–we have too much stuff if we can’t keep up with it in a half-hour a day during the week. (“Deep” cleaning can wait until the weekends!) And I’m a major clutter culprit here! So I’ve been pitching stuff and donating stuff left and right! Today I’m thankful for… 1. A patient husband! Yes, he complains about the clutter sometimes, but he’s been awfully good about … Continue Reading…
Quick 1 Minute Mini Envelope Tutorial
I love sending my kiddos lunchbox love notes all through the school year so that we can all stay connected while we’re apart for the day. So you know I had to come up with something for the Ladybug while she was away at camp for a whole week! I sat down to make up little notes to stick in her bag and remembered something genius I saw on Pinterest at some point. Mini envelopes made of hearts. Yep, jackpot! Quick, easy, versatile. I made up about 10 of them, including personal … Continue Reading…