Summertime on Harth Farm

My Photo Collage

This summer we spent a week at my Aunt's farm in Minnesota. I was enthralled with farm life and took tons of pictures of everything around me. I decided to make her a picture collage of my favorite photos from her farm. Brooke gave the pictures a vintage look and feel and Bridget gave me the idea for the small plaque on the bottom. I love how it turned out. I hope my Aunt loves it just as much as I do.

Recycled Crayons

Recycled Crayons!

Crafty Dasies has a great tutorial on making recycled crayons. I already had a box of crayons that had an unfortunate accident,

and even more crayons that are the the larger (aka baby) size that my daughter won't use anymore. Perfect for making recycled crayons!

1. Using an exacto knife (or a 3 year old), take the wrapping off all of your crayons and break them into 1/2" to 1" pieces.

2. Option 1: Put "like color" crayon pieces into a mini muffin tin and bake at 275 for 6-8 minutes.

3. Option 2: Put "like color" crayon pieces into a microwave safe cup/mug and heat for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on how many crayon pieces you have in the mug. When it's melted, pour into a cute shaped ice cube tray or candy mold. I found my snowman and santa ones at Deseret Industries for .50 each. Don't use ones that you love or paid a lot of money for, because mine broke when I pulled it out of the freezer.

4. After the crayons come out of the oven, let them sit on the counter for a while, and then put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. They should just pop out of the molds and you've got some great recycled crayons for little artists!

Put them in a gift tin with some tissue paper and you're ready to go!

Aren't these snowmen so cute!!! I love them!!

For the snowmen, I found a tin that fit the 8 colors perfectly and had some room to spare for a few sheets of blank paper (rolled up and tied) for coloring. This one is for my nephew :)

Here's just a couple of "crazy" santas we did with the extra melted crayons.

Cleanup was pretty easy too. We just soaked our mugs that we melted the crayons in, for about 30 minutes, in hot soapy water. The crayons cleaned right off the mugs!

Quiet Book for Church

My Sister's Quiet/Busy Book

When my (very active) sister was little, my mom made her this cute quiet book to keep her busy at church. Now my sister is all grown up and has a (very active) son of her own. I decided to refurbish her quite book and give it to her son. The plastic bags were ripped and falling apart, so I ripped out the stitches, and replace the bags. Then I put some fun activities and crayons for her son to do. It's so nice to still have this great book that my mom made. Hopefully it will be in the family for quite a while!

Here's the double stitching to hold the bags in place.

Here's a quick tutorial to make the book.

(I'm sorry this is a horrible tutorial, I'll make a better one when I sew my own bag. With lots of pictures!)

2 pieces of fabric 8 1/2 x 20

1 piece of lightweight batting 8 1/2 x 20

2 lengths of ribbon about 10" each

5-7 ziploc bags (Glad quart zipper bags work the best and look the nicest)

Optional: Sew ribbon, ric rac or lace to the front of the top piece.

Pin ribbon to inside of the fabric on the 8" ends about 4" up. One ribbon on each side, baste if needed. Place fabrics wrong sides together, with batting on the outside of one piece. Sew (seam allowances 1/4") all sides together, leaving about 3" on a 20" side for turning. Clip corners and turn right side out. Press and either top stitch edges or slipstich 3" opening closed. Fold and press bag so that it measures 9.75 x 8. Slip 5-7 bags into folded bag and double stitch on folded end, about 1/2" in. Fill with crayons, paper, snacks, etc.

Emergency Pocket Kit

Emergency Pocket Kit

Cost for unfilled kit - $1.24 each + tax

1 Wal-Mart Potholder (2 pack for $1.50) - .75
8 Snack Sized Ziploc Bags (100 for $2.68) - .24 (.03 each)
1 yard of ¼” or 3/8” Ribbon - .25

This is a cute little emergency kit that I saw in an Etsy shop. It was such a cute and simple idea that I thought I'd make a few for Christmas this year. It was easy, except that the Ziploc bags are really slippery!

1. Take tag off potholder.

2. Tape 4 bags together, and then another 4 bags together. This picture is just 1 set of 4 bags. You will need 2 different sets.

3. Overlap ends of bags together about 1/4" to 1/2", alternating sides.

4. Pin bags down to potholder (see photo). The pins work just fine if you just stick them straight down into the potholder. Just like you would use a thumbtack. Be careful, pins do leave holes!!

5. Sew Ziplocs onto potholder down the center of the Ziploc.
6. Attach 18” of ribbon (folded in half) to one side of potholder.
7. Optional: Sew ribbon down center of Ziplocs to cover stitching. Here are 2 examples. One with the optional ribbon and one without.
8. Fill with items of your choice (Band-Aids, wet wipes, medicine, Kleenex, safety pins, cough drops, toilet seat cover, etc)

Santa Bag

Our Santa Bag

This is a cute Christmas bag that I made about 10 years ago when my boys were little. This is another bag that I received for free from one of my Dad's medical conferences. It works perfectly as a Christmas bag since the top is green. I love the drawstring handles that makes it look like a peddlers sack.

Here is the up close detailing. I put very lightweight batting under the applique and then zig zag stitched around the edges. I didn't think it looked "finished" enough, so I stitched on some of the black outline, so that the design would "pop" more.

Here's one of Santa's boots. I think this might be my favorite detail :)

Here's the inside of the bag. Can you see the faint outline of the medical logo/design that I covered up?