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...