crafts that i have been making

This was a really ugly lamp shade that I made funky and cute...but be careful turning on the light, as my husband brought to my attention... i guess i need to trim the inside wooden picks... he tried to stick his hand in to turn on the light and got poked...ooopps! Here is a sign that i made for my kitchen... i copied it from craftgossip.com which is my new favorite craft site... a conglomeration of crafters and their cool ideas..... love it!!!

And a trivet that i made for my brother at Christmas, who is going to culinary school.

Have a crafty day!!!!

Make your own laundry soap??

I have been making my own laundry soap and I LOVE IT... i have finally found one the i really like and love the smell of it... so clean smelling!

Grate the bar of fels-naptha with your cheese grater... DO NOT LET THE KIDS MISTAKE IT FOR CHEDDAR... because is does look like it, and it almost happened here.

Add 1 cup washing soda , 1 cup baking soda and 1 cup borax.. I store it in a plastic Tupperware container and use about 1/8 cup per load... it does not get sudsy like normal store bought detergent... but it gets the job done for a fraction of the cost!

P.s. I start the washer and put in the soap and let it fill up about 1/2 way before i put the clothes in, that way the soap can disinagrate first.

Prickly Pear jam!!

I noticed the abundance of prickly pear fruit on my neighbors cactus, and decided to mosey on down and ask if i could pick a peck! And my three year old noticed the heart... so many things us adults look over!!

So my children and i picked quite alot of pecks... what is a peck anyway? Here they are, boiling in my canning pot, then I squeezed all the juice out of them

and got all the juice out, and made some prickly pear jam.. and it looks GOOD!

Great Christmas presents!!

i think its time for a blog post

Focus, focus, focus... come on I can do it... I know i can... I can post on this blog more than once every 6 mo. to a year.... I must...here are just some random pics of.... I sometime this past summer... some yummy pizza I made with some homemade pesto that I grew in my super small non-producing garden. A yummy squash and tomato tart with Parmesan cheese, that i made sometime this summer. (wish I could remember the recipe)

Here we are pickling...130 jars... crazy!!!! it took 4 days and i bought every jar in the Verde Valley... well it seemed like i did!!

The artichokes THAT I GREW no joke... that is the only thing that I could really grow in my garden. We harvested about 30 of them. Amazing!!!

The rewards!!!!! I have pickles everywhere, in every nook and crany of my house.

We had a great summer, and on to fall!!! Its finally starting to cool off here in sunny AZ. I actually had to put on socks the other night. Yippee!!!

More to post tomorrow... I'm going to do it!!!!

Family, fun, food...but NO fireworks

4th of july...fun,fun,fun....very small parade, yummy food, friends, running in the sprinkler, popsicles, ping pong.... good day!! Happy birthday America

the only thing we missed is the fireworks...here in the desert, we are not allowed to do our own fireworks...i mean not even a sparkler...so we did not get to see any...boohoo. I remember as a kid we always did little fireworks on our street, but i guess its just to dangerous here...which i totally understand, i would not want to be the cause of burning down my neighborhood....even though i do miss the sparklers.

fathers day fun

YES!!! Arizona does have a little water, and it seems that everyone seeks it out on those 100 degree days. Fathers day was very fun spending it with my wonderful husband and sweet kiddos. This place is a hidden gem and you feel like your in some tropical island for just a minute... until you remember.... its a million degrees out here...and oh oh don't trip on the cactus!!!

rug making

this post is a long time coming...where does the time go! i mean years go, they just fly by, kind of scary. i guess we all need to embrace the moment. here is what to do with all those stained up t-shirts that the thrift store won't even take (because your a horrible launderess)and you already have enough rags that you have cut up from them, and you just don't want to add to the landfill.....

so i just cut up all those stained up t-shirts and crocheted them to make a cute rug. good times!!!