Prairie Scraps

Meet our new baby lamb, Cocoa!  We are so excited that he has come to our flock of American Black Belly sheep!  It's going to be hard to take these cuties to market! My son left to work for a few hours today, and we had no babies, and voila! when he came home, we had a very exciting new addition to the family!  We got these three sheep a couple of months ago for free.  Well, of course they cost money to feed, but they came pregnant.  We knew that they should be due in December, so we've been anxiously awaiting!  The great thing about this breed, is that they need very little assistance lambing.  We had no idea it was going on.  You can see the happy family here.  Yes, I am aware that the dark sheep is fixing to have a birth soon!  She stopped while we were watching, so we'll be checking on them frequently.  We decided on Cocoa for a name and we know he's a boy, because of where he was peeing from!  He is very tired, but...

Getting ready for the craft show has kept me pretty busy, but I still wanted to make my Christmas cards.  I think that it's a nice touch to make my cards each year.  I know, most people are going to e-cards, or not even doing them.  I have revamped who received cards though.  Those that send a physical card receive them.  Simple. I used to send them out to everyone I knew, but decided it wasn't worth the cost.   Here's one of the cards that I made.  They vary, because I used double sided paper and the pack had several different patterns. I did the cards in steps, so here's the piles of partial pieces waiting to be assembled in my living room.  I even got Mr. Right involved in the process!  I had the pieces that I sliced off the papers to make the back ground fit.  I made a mistake on one of the cards, and to cover up the smeared stamp, I used one of these strips to cover it up and try again.  Then I realized that I like...

 Whew!  Our craft show was a success!  I will warn you know, this post is picture heavy, but hey, our booth has so much stuff, it's hard to take it all in!  We had a late start and overslept our alarm by two hours.  Fortunately, I had everything packed the day before, so it wasn't much more than showering and getting a breakfast packed (which my 7 year did for me!)   On looking back at the pictures, we were stationed outside of the art room, so it's got a very busy back ground.  I'm already thinking about what to do to fix that for next year, because we really like this spot.  We were right in the entryway of the craft fair (the unwanted spot).  Granted, it was chilly, because it was only 8 degrees outside, but we got people coming in and leaving. Overall view  After entering the doors, our booth was on the right side and then you could go to the right or left down the halls to see other booths and then also straight ahead t...

We are experiencing record lows at zero degrees outside, but the crafting is in full swing getting ready for a craft show on Saturday!  We even had to move our painting projects indoors with a very large paint cloth down!  Praying we don't spread the paint mess! I'm sharing some photos of some of the things I'm really excited about!  In fact, many of them I don't want to sell!  All the proceeds for this sale are going to my daughter's 4-H trip to Japan, so this seems more important than ever to sell, sell, sell!  Sorry, not much writing or how-to's, I have too much to get finished. Christmas Metal Basket Burlap covered chair with "socks" Sweater Jar Pillows in hound's-tooth, wool, and sweaters - I have just one more to make!  One of the burlap wreaths, finished. Chalk Paint Jars   Now for the pricing and  getting it all together and set up at 5am on Sautrday!  Let me know what you think! 

I'm sorry I'm not giving much more than a glimpse of some  the things we are busy making right now, but we are so busy getting ready for our craft show that this is all I've got.  I'm trying to use up my Scrap Stash and raise some money for my daughter's upcoming 4-H trip too Japan.  I have lots of burlap, but I also love the texture and look of it too. This wreath isn't completely done, but I can't make up my mind on how to finish it off. We made two sets of Silent Night pillows.  Is it bad to want these for myself and hope they don't sell? What do you think?  Should I use a simple bow or a large ribbon to hang the wreath?  Thanks for your suggestions.

I have to give a shout out my very awesome Mr. Right!  He spent his Sunday canning!  Yes, you read that right!  When Mr. Right asked me what my plans were for the day, I said that I wasn't quite sure what to do first, since I had so much to do, he volunteered to take care of the canning, so I could do more craft fair projects.  He got 14 quarts of pears done and 17 quarts of apple cider.  (We spent the day yesterday with friends making 50 gallons of apple cider, so we have to pasteurize and can them this week.)  While Mr. Right was busy in the kitchen, my daughter and I got a few more things finished for the craft show.  Here's a star ornament that we made.  It is double sided, so when it hangs on the tree, it will look good from all sides. Now we are trying to figure out prices, oh, and will be canning the rest of that apple cider this week! I'll be sharing with all of my favorite blogs listed in the right hand column.

I worked on more burlap tonight and made a couple of burlap and ticking table scarves.  One wider (which I prefer), but then I had only a smaller amount of the ruffle left over, so I split it in two and made a narrower scarf out of the leftover.  I just love the ticking with the burlap.  I sold several of these last year, so am hoping to sell more.  I found the twine!  In fact, Mr. Right found the twine out in the garage in a box of gardening supplies, so I am back in the pennant making business.  I finished up this one that says snow.  I even added a little lace between the letters to add to the stitching across the top of the letters.   Will I get ready in time?  That is the question!  Let me know what you think...

We are busy getting ready for our yearly craft show again.  I've been slow to start this year and even wondered if I should do it, but my daughter really needs to raise the funds to go to Japan for 4-H this summer, so we are doing it.  I have been making a little progress and wanted to share my Joy pennant. I know that making burlap pennants aren't new in bloggarland, but hey, I've been meaning to do it for awhile.  I've got a bunch of these cut out and prepped and am trying to decide on what words.  Oh yeah, I'm trying to find my twine too!  We moved, and everything is still boxed up.  I'm afraid to unpack it all, because I'm not sure if this is permanent, but I can't seem to find the twine!  Frustrating! Anyway, let me know what you think of my Craft Show Joy.  I think it's really cute and I need to make about a hundred more.  Whew!  Crafting is a Joy, but hard work too!

When we moved to the Idaho prairie almost two years ago, we had only dreamed of being able to own chickens to get eggs.  Well, it's been almost a year now that we've had our own chickens.  You can check out our first girls  HERE, HERE,  and HERE.   Well, now we've turned into sheep farmers!  I can hardly believe that we've gotten ourselves into this new adventure, but I have to admit that these girls are pretty cute!  We have a friend that found these sheep (I know, they look like a goat) for free.  The thing is that they may all be pregnant.  For now, we have three, two whitish and one darker.  They are an American Black Belly crossed with a St. Croix.  They are pretty hardy and able to lamb on their own.  The former owners had to get rid of them because the pigs they were in with had pushed them out of the barn.  We happen to have a small (horse) barn, so we borrowed some panels to pen them off in an area.  We ...

Now that you have gotten your budget in order, or at least made a plan of what little to so with your money that you do have (See my first post on this HERE.) , it's time to get down to the knitty gritty of making do while things are tight. Groceries are always my first concern.  I don't know why, but this is my biggest worry, that I won't have enough food to feed everyone in the house.  This is a perfect time to eat leftovers!  I know, most people really don't care for leftovers, but you can stretch your family budget some more by having a designated leftover meal day.  A look at my stack of leftovers today! Some ways to make your leftovers more exciting and taste better: Fry It - Ok, not the healthiest thing, but some things are great fried up in some butter, such as leftover baked or mashed potatoes, oatmeal, meats, etc. Bake It - unlike microwaving the food, this gives things a nice crispy edge and sometimes may take a little of the "staleness"...

Do you have more week left than you have paycheck? I know we often do.  I know, I know it is so important to make a plan and to budget your money, but believe me, on one income that greatly varies according to the work load, I know about coming up short.  Sometimes the best of plans don't work out, and in a time when many people may be on furlough because of the government shutdown, for the next few weeks, I thought I would share some tips on what we have done (and are doing) to make things last and survive a long week or two. My first tip is to have your money in order.  I'm no expert, and I can honestly say this is something we struggle with, but the best place for this in my opinion is to go to a Financial Peace University  (FPU) class in your area.  They have a Home Study version, but I will say that doing the class with other people, helps you to stay accountable to each other and to yourself.  I still will go to those peop...

We've had a pretty busy summer, and try as I might, I haven't gotten around to posting here and updating things.  For that, I apologize.  So with a little nudge from a good friend, I am starting with a new post today to share one of the things that keeps me really busy every fall. Since moving West, it's been difficult to change my concept of harvest time.  We had a great big garden in the Midwest in which I was busy harvesting and preserving.  In the West, I haven't been in a house long enough to actually grow a garden, but we have been greatly blessed with the great outdoors and some wonderful neighbors!  One of our neighbors here, shares their fruit orchard with us after all their family and friends pick what they need first.  I often feel like the old picture of "The Gleaners" when I go to clean the trees of the leftover fruit. Here's an excerpt explaining the picture from Wikipedia that describes the picture: "The Gleaners is an exampl...