Prairie Scraps

I hadn't realized that it had been November of 2009 that I had redone my couch pillows, but when I went back to my old blog to check, sure enough, it's been four years!  You can check out my  Goodwill Redo HERE  if you would like to see how I turned a tablecloth into new pillows.  Well, these pillows were really starting to look bad (and I was getting embarrassed having our CARE group over every Wednesday to sit on them!), so I decided to recover them. Of course, the only material I happen to have on hand in my  Scrap Stash  that would cover four big pillows, was some ticking that I got at Walmart for $1 a yard (they were clearancing all their bolts of material).  I bought the whole bolt, in fact. For this project, I actually debated just doing two or three of the pillows and changed my mind about the material several times.  I finally decided to just do it, and I could change them in a few months if I didn't like them.  If I had read my original post, I wouldn't h

This week, we had a speaker come and talk about Potty Training with our MOPS Group.  I wanted to tie in a craft to go with it, so decided to include a Potty Training Chart.  I went on a search on the trusty internet, and found lots of ideas and a free printable for a Potty Training Chart.  I found quite a few, and one I really liked, but it was blurry when I saved it on my computer.   Here is where I got the Potty Charts from.   I printed these off at the church we meet at on card stock for free, so this cost me nothing.  I had a pack of self laminating sheets on hand that I figured I would just have MOPS reimburse me for, that was until I priced them out at Walmart and discovered that they were $14 for just 10 of them!  Needless to say, I donated most of the cost of these and would recommend using a laminating machine and the sheets end up costing about $.28 each. Here's what you will need for this project: Ribbon ($.99/roll - we got 2-3 out of each) 1/4" Grommets ($4

I have to say - "Ouch!  That had to hurt!"  As we were discussing our newest find in the chicken coop and trying to decide how in the world a hen laid such a big egg, one of our younger children piped in that the rooster must have laid it because he's the biggest one out there!  We cannot seem to convince this child that rooster's don't lay eggs.  So far, I'm not sure if it's twins or what, but I'll give an update when we get enough eggs to have a meal.  It will be an egg-citing celebration for sure!

Coop and in upper right, you can see those buckets A couple of weeks ago, we got some chickens for free (You can go  HERE  to read about that story).  We had a chicken coop attached to the barn, so were excited to move the "new-to-us" chickens in.  It came equipped with 5-gallon buckets for nesting, but I had my suspicions that it wouldn't work for them.  Of course, our chickens were molting, too, so we weren't sure how long it would take before they would lay in a new place and finish molting. This weekend was beautiful, so Mr. Right and my Oldest set to work at making a nesting boxes for the hens.  Mr. Right salvaged some plywood that was laying around at work for years to build them.  He even split a log to hold the nest in down the front of the boxes.  Isn't it just wonderful?  Now, Mr. Right and the boys have been visiting the coop regularly to see if the hens have made any eggs for breakfast! Mr. Right even added an extension to the nests, f