Sign your Name?

In my quest to make cool Christmas presents that are cheap, useful and Wanted...... I decided to make Signs. I used old wooden pickets and cut out letters that I printed on sticker paper , used a little spray paint, sandpaper, fabric scraps, elbow grease and Ta-Da! Presents for all of my co-workers.

Crunchy the Otter....

My daughter requested a new cornbag for Christmas this year, her old one is getting stinky :( She also has a new found love of otters. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I call this little guy "Crunchy" because thats the sound he makes when you hold him. He is sure to keep her warm and happy.

Re-inventing the Christmas Cookie

This is experiment #1 in re-inventing Christmas cookies at my home this year. I used my Grandmothers basic cut-out cookie recipe and substituted Whole Wheat flour for the White and I substituted half of the butter that it called for with applesauce. The dough and the cookie had the same flavor as the "untouched" recipe just more texture, well worth the convertion. The thought of bringing any of that evil white refined sugar into the house did not appeal to me so I decided to try a differant kind of "frosting". I pureed frozen cherries in my blender with a small amount of the slightly lesser evil brown sugar and smoothed it on my creation, grated a little Chocolate on top and Wa-La. Okay, so it doesnt taste completely like the old Christmas cookie Grandma used to make, but since Grandpa died of an artery clogging stroke and Grandma's in the nursing home with alzhiemers, maybe it is okay to rethink how we feed our families. I think Grandma would approve! Change is never easy.....but I am willing to try. P.S. the family loves the cookies.

Donkey Ornaments-Hee Haw

This was kind of an off the cuff project. The best kind in my opinion :) In the process of coming up with a nativity project for the wee ones I came across a great donkey ornament and decided to have a try at making my own. This is my version of Mary's donkey, much cleaner than the one that she had to ride. Could you imagine, riding a donkey while you were pregnant? Not to mention the dirty stable birth and all. I used fleece for the donkey, very easy and as luck would have it I had a great wool skirt waiting to be cut up into little tiny blankets. Note to self, save , save , save those hand-me-down-come-my-way-free-cloths! The skirt was far to short for anyone to ever wear anyway. Re-purpose

Cloth Napkins

I have a new blog I have been following sewmamasew.blogspot.com and found this great idea under their eco-friendly Christmas Gifts. I loved making these, I made two sets for my secret sister and can't wait to have some extra time to make some for myself.
Napkin Set Tutorial http://http//angharadhandmade.blogspot.com/2008/04/napkin-set-tutorial_06.html

Whole Wheat Bread

It not very often that I get excited about my "Baking Day" this time I could not wait. I went to the Amish store and got my first 50 lb. bag of Prarie Gold whole wheat berries. I had an audience for the grinding process. Everyone including me wanted to see if my Thriftily found Grainmaster would put on a good show ...and it did. I put my wheat berries in a large plastic tub, and the kids couldnt help but to sink their hands deep into the pile as I would ask them to scoop some out. It just feels so good, so natural, so raw, so right. After I ground the wheat I couldnt help but to feel it myself, it felt warm and alive and the bread that it produced was a testament to that. It rose higher and tasted fresher........

Favorite Cookbooks

These are two of my favorite cookbooks. The Ideals whole grain cookbook was my Grandmothers and I use it for alot of my basic "sweet tooth" recipes. My chocolate chip recipe below is from this book. It is packed with great recipes as well as poetry and proverbs!
The " 500 fat free recipes" I borrowed from the local library and could not give it up so I bought one used on Amazon.com The recipes are delicious!