Calling All Crafters: 31st edition

Welcome to Calling All Crafters! 

A place where you can share your craftiness!

 This week I am loving...







Easy Peasy Grandma's
Sweater Weather
(Another adorable, she had a great one a few weeks ago too!)

AND

Saved by Love Creations
Thanksgiving Printable


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Here are the "rules":

I want YOU to stop on by, and share what you are up to, cooking, cleaning, crafting, you name it!

If your not a follower, please become one, this let's me easily find and visit your blog too!
Don't like to follow? Prefer Facebook?  Like Us! 

Tell your friends!

Come back next week to see if your great idea has been featured!

Organized: Routines

Remember I wanted to get into a routine?

Well, for certain parts of our day I didn't want to have to verbally remind Carter one million times what he needed to do. So I made some visual reminders instead!
Super simple chart I designed on the computer, printed on yardstick!
The cardstock holds up really well, and if you are feeling extra motivated you could laminate it too!

Last night was the first night we used the bedtime routine visual, and he was hooked. 

He had to keep repeating what we did, and needed to do. 

I felt like it made bed go a little more smoothly ( read that as, no jumping on mommy and daddy's bed)

So Today, Carter and I whipped up this one. A meal time routine. 

And yes. He needs to be reminded twice to sit. 

What routines do you have at home? What works? What doesn't? 

Caring for two little boys has created a organizing monster ( more so than before) and I feel labels and visuals are good for not just Carter but also helps Daddy reinforce what we have done all day!

Dyeing Cotton T's with Kool Aid

Do you know how hard it is to find a simple long sleeve plain onesie? How about one that's a solid color? All I needed was a dark red onesie, no ruffles  (it's for Wyatt) no designs, just plain. 

Wow. Harder than I thought. 

So I picked up a pack of onesies, and some Kool Aid 

( where I was didn't have dye, I thought I would save myself a trip),

To Dye with Kool Aid, I decided to use my crock pot. I saw this tutorial on how to dye yarn so I thought it would work with a onesie too. 

And I found this tutorial with what flavors make what colors.

First, I put my T in my crockpot and turned on HIGH.

Next I covered the onesie with water, and walked away for an hour. 

I wanted the onesie to not have any dry spots for the Koolaid to not adhere to.

After the onesie was wet and warm, I added in my Kool Aid. Because I wanted a red and not pink, I put in more than one pack of Kool Aid.  At first I put in a Tropical Punch, and it was very light, and I knew in my gut it would be pink. So I then added TWO Black cherry packets.  

Then I walked away for 2 days! I would turn the crock pot on an off periodically.

Here's what I got. 

Yawn. By looking at the onesie in the Kool Aid I really thought it would be darker. Bummer.

I guess the moral of this story is: 

 If you want deep dark colors go with dye.

If you don't care what color you come out with and if you are getting kids involved. 

Try different fabrics.

 I thought Cotton would be the easiest. I guess not. 

Peas, Eggs & Sauce.

                         

There I said it. It's one of those weird recipes that was handed down from my grandmother that I LOVE.

All you do is pour your sauce ( home made or jar) into a pan, put some peas on ( we grew up with canned peas, but I use frozen now) and then crack some eggs right on top. Cover and let the eggs "poach" right in the sauce. 

You can eat this as is, or add a piece of toast underneath. Or even some pasta!

 Either way it's so yummy and a quick dinner!

Eye of Newt...

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

          -from Shakespeare's MacBeth

Each year I like to create one or two things for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here is what I made for my Halloween addition!

Cute? No?

Easy? Yes!

Let me confess something, I am a jar hoarder. Doesn't matter if its a nice old Ball jar, or a simple jelly jar from the store I keep them. And in my defense you never know when you will need one!  Today is an example of when you might need an odd shaped jar.

 The beginnings of  My witches' apothecary! 

I have a ton more ideas, and want to incorporate more but this is what I was able to make with what I had on hand!

Here's just how easy they were!

I spray painted all my lids black, let dry.

Next I started to look at my jars and found this ugly code on one of them.

Easy solution! I used black paint to make lines up the side to measure my blood! 

I made some tags for the jars using stamps and cardstock, tied them on with some twine and I am done!

What kinds of things would you expect to see in a witches apothecary?

 I'm thinking after Halloween, I will pick up some Vampire Fangs, and Spiders for next year.  Maybe find some plastic mice or frogs in the dollar store?  

Calling All Crafters: 30th Edition

Welcome to Calling All Crafters! 

A place where you can share your craftiness!

 This week I am loving...






Sassy Sites'
2 x 4 Pumpkins

AND

Pressed Down, Shaken Together's
Mini Pumpkin Pie Croissants 


Want a button?

<center><a href="http://allthingsfee.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/5588365611_b3055bb44c_m.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Mondays @ All Things Fee!" /></a></center>

Here are the "rules":

I want YOU to stop on by, and share what you are up to, cooking, cleaning, crafting, you name it!

If your not a follower, please become one, this let's me easily find and visit your blog too!
Don't like to follow? Prefer Facebook?  Like Us! 

Tell your friends!

Come back next week to see if your great idea has been featured!

Hopping on the yarn web wagon!

Carter and I made these spiders last week. 

They are just foam, and we added the eyes and black puffy paint.

And there that sat in their odd suspended glory. 

This morning, as an effort to get decorating ( I did go in the basement to grab the decorations, so hopefully today) we made a spider web, just like I've seen all over the web. ( Yup. Had to.)

It's a little better.  Hopefully by the end of the day, it will feel like fall and Halloween in here. Hopefully. 

Preserving: Baby Food

I know it's a little early to be thinking about Wyatt eating baby food, but with my garden coming to an end it's a way I can preserve some of the homegrown goodness!

I made all my babyfood with Carter, it saved us money and I knew exactly what was going into his little body. I plan on doing the same for Wyatt.

Making baby food is easy! 

Think about how you cook your food, and most times you do the same thing for making baby food.  

I grew acorn squash this year, and typically you roast it in the oven. So that's what I did. 

I roasted the squash in my oven at 375 for a little over an hour. You just want it nice and soft. 

Then you scrape it out of the skin, and puree.  

If you need it now, put in a container in your fridge. If you need it later  ( like me) put it in ice cube trays, freeze until firm, and then put in a freezable container.

Organizing my fabric stash...

Three times in the past week or so I have been able to sit down with my fabric stash and sort through it!

I don't have a designer stash, just fabrics from here, there and everywhere it seems.  In an effort to store it more efficiently I decided to "square up" my fabric, and what didn't become square was cut up into small rectangles for my dream quilt. Swoon. I started cutting fabrics before Wyatt arrived. The quilt is no where to be found online, but it is the Now and Then quilt from American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.

So here is what my fabric stash looked like before: 

These were pieces that were relatively small.  More for embellishing, not full projects. I have a large basket with big pieces.

Once I "squared" them up, I tucked them  neatly into a basket. ( I ironed them before folding too!)

Any pieces that were not big enough to get a 3 x 5 rectangle ( for a quilt) went in the trash, if it was big enough I trimmed to size. I used an index card to judge if there was enough fabric, then I used a ruler and rotary cutter to cut.  This way I could see quickly if there was enough fabric.

Once the fabric was trimmed down it went into a different basket with the pattern!

It was nice to dig through and visually see everything again. When it was in the bags sorted by color, there were colors I  never looked at. Now I can see what I have and estimate how much, most fabric was just stuffed into the bag.

Another perk of digging through my fabric?  I found a couple fabrics that I can use to for Carter's Halloween costume, which I hope to share next week! If not all of it, some. But I am shooting for finishing his, and starting Wyatt's. Wish my luck. My first year with two costumes to complete!

What's your favorite way to store fabric?

Halloween Cupcake Toppers

I can just see lot's of cute cupcakes going to school, and Halloween Parties!
Not making cupcakes? Think about printing on sticker paper and using to close treat bags!

for $4 in the shop! 

Pay once, print as many as you want!

Become a follower of the shop to be the first to know about FREEBIES!

Enjoy!