2 Freebies!!

Wednesday was the big day but don't worry!  You didn't miss out!

I am talking about the 2 freebies being hosted by the Homeschool Freebie of the Day! 

Yes, Warfare by Duct Tape is giving away The Throwing Axe Booklet and The Shield and Buckler Booklet!!  Just hop on over there and get your FREEBIES!!  (Scroll down to the bottom of the page.)

We are also giving a 20% discount on all titles of the ebooks for Jewels by Julia AND Warfare by Duct Tape!  Good only until 9/17/11.  So don't delay!!   Use coupon code HSFREE22  .

One of our customers, Stephanie, said, "Thank you Mark and Steven for sharing your creativity (and mom Gloria for the ebook)! We downloaded the FREE Shield and Buckler ebook and my boys, 8 and 4, and 35 year old husband have had so much fun. This really helped spark their imagination, enhance their love of learning and most importantly created memories.
I just purchased The Battle Book and looking forward to what it brings our family!   I'll be back for more!!"

So, go make some memories,

Seven (days) of Skirts

Here are my last two modest skirt samples. 

 Skirt: Handmade pink and white gingham check.  This is a basic A line skirt with an elastic waist. 


Shirts: Cherokee brand t-shirt from Target in pink and the white shirt is an Liz Claiborne eyelet blouse that I cut the sleeves off of.  I just love this blouse!  It is one of my favorites.

Hairstyle: Braid, done by Julia my wonderful hairstylist! (again!)  This is a better picture of it so you can see the top part.




                                               
 I really like pink so I often wear it.  I tend toward pastels as a rule anyway.

The other outfit:

Skirt: Handmade basic A line skirt with a cute ruffle. 

Shirts:  Jones of New York blue blouse and a white Land's End t-shirt.

Coming soon: The fashion industry's way to crush the innocence of our girls.....

Stay tuned,

Seven (days) of Skirts! Day 2 & 3

The days are flying by!  We went as a family to the river yesterday for some sun and fun.  It was a great time and we even saw some friends there.  Needless to say, after being gone for 4 hours I spent the rest of the day catching up so yesterday and today's skirts are here in one post. 

Day 2:

Skirt: Handmade culottes, split skirt or gauchos, whatever you want to call them.  Pattern online, see below.


Shirts: Cherokee brand t-shirt from Target in lavendar and the white shirt is an Izod from a thrift store about 6 years ago.

Hairstyle: Braid, done by Julia my wonderful hairstylist!

Shoes: Velcro sandals, Wal-mart.

The overshirt idea came from some Mennonite friends that I met recently.  They often wear a sleeveless blouse over their dress.  I love the idea because sometime I feel just a t-shirt is not exactly what I want to wear alone and the over blouse makes it feel just right!

I actually cut the sleeves off of this blouse right before we left.  Here are the steps if you want to make a sleeveless blouse for yourself.

 First, cut off the sleeve leaving about 3/4 inch from the seam.  Turn the shirt inside out so you see the inside of the shirt.  Turn under the edge and then turn under again.

 Stitch close to the fold.  It should look like the sleeve hole was top-stitched when you look at the outside (right side of the shirt).

The culottes I made from a pattern that I drafted to fit my measurements.  It was pretty easy and didn't take too much math!  ;-)  I bought the pattern online from Patterns That Fit You.  It is included in the Skirts patterns.  I just love this pattern.  I have used it many times. 

Day 3:

Skirt: Liz Claiborne, found at a thrift store for $8

Shirts:  Plaid white and lavendar Land's End, thrift store $1.25 and a sleeveless white t-shirt Liz Claiborne also a thrift store find for $1.50 (which you can't see).
Hairstyle:  Basic ponytail
Shoes: Comfy sandals, same as yesterday!

Bob and I headed into Civilization to do some errands and meet someone for business.  I love this denim skirt because it is so comfortable.  I love the style of the skirt, it is fitted not gathered at the waist, but not tight.  As you can probably tell, lavendar is one of my favorite colors. 

So there you have it. Until next time,

Peaches!

It's that time of year again when my favorite variety of peaches is ripe.  At our local peach farm, the Ruby Prince variety is in season.  So we all went down there and gathered the culls (the rejects) and came home with a pile of peaches, about 125 pounds!  The culls are only $5 for a 25 pound box.  So it is easy to get a lot, maybe too much?

 We got those 3 boxes plus 2 containers.  Here we are scalding the peaches to remove the skins, then cutting them off of the pit. 

 It is a messy, sticky, time-consuming job.  All of the family pitched in to help!  We put the peaches in water with citric acid, lemon juice, to keep them from turning brown.  Thankfully, Julia took some pictures.  My hands were way too sticky to pick up my camera.  She was a great help too, you just can't see her in these pictures. 

 Then I made peach jam.  I also canned peaches for desserts and smoothies.  Some peaches went into the freezer but most were canned.  This in only half of the peaches.  The rest are waiting in the outside frig to be made into tasty jam. 

I really love making our own jam.  I don't buy any jam from the store but make all of our own every year.  It is a lot of hard work but the benefits last all year long! 

What have you been up to lately?  Please feel free to leave a comment, I would enjoy hearing from you!

Strawberries!!

Oh, I love strawberries!
I went strawberry picking with my 3 children and we were able to get 57 pounds of berries in about an hour the picking was so good.  I wish I had a picture of the berries before we cleaned them.  They were huge!!

 They were so sweet and juicy we were able to make 72 1/2 pint jars of jam!!  Yum! Yum!  That will sure taste good when the cold weather comes again.

Canning is something I absolutely love to do.  I only learned since we moved here and I just enjoy doing it!

 This is the first time in about 3 years that we got enough strawberries to put up an good amount of jam and we are so grateful!

Do you like to can, too?

Exciting Things

Some very exciting things are happening around here.  Our home is abuzz with activity and creativity. 
The season is upon us and we are up to the challenge.

Here is the first clue:

If you have read any of my other posts, (look back a little ways), you may know what is coming but then again you may not!!  When it is finished, we will have an unveiling!!  You'll be the first to know!

Here is the second clue:

Some of you know what Julia does really well so this may not be a big surprise.  But this has a new twist!  It is something that anyone could use.  That is all I can say right now but we will let you know all about it when this project is done.

Creatively speaking,

Freebie Today!! New Warfare by Duct Tape Website

There's a lot of excitement around here!  We started a new website called Warfare by Duct Tape so my sons can sell their ebooks on how to make duct tape weapons and armor.  Click HERE to see it. 

What is really great is that Mr. Jim Erskine of HomeschoolFreebieOfTheDay.com is hosting a FREEBIE today with an excerpt from our ebook, The Battle Book!!  Click HERE to get there. 

We are also selling The Battle Book at a discount during this freebie offer.  Normally $7.95, we are selling it for only $4.95. 













My son Mark has written The Armored Glove Book which we are also selling at a discount of $9.95, usually $11.95. 

Honestly, I am not pressuring you to buy anything.  I just wanted to let everyone know about the freebie to download and to tell everyone about our new website.   :)

God has truly been blessing our family and this is one of the fruits. 

I would love to hear what you think about our new website or any other thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment. 

Blessings,

 

Quick, Easy and Frugal Mittens

The weather has been very cold here lately.  It seems to have been cold EVERYWHERE!  The gloves and mittens have mysteriously disappeared, too!  We had some in the fall.  Enough for everyone.  Since my gloves got passed down to a child, I decided to make some more. 

I had this cashmere sweater that I had found at a thrift store in Michigan last winter.  I had already made some leggings from the sleeves so I cut out some mittens from the body of the sweater.   Using my sewing machine, I stitched these up in no time. 

You could use an old sweater.  If it is wool, it could be felted first.  Just make a pattern from your own hand.  Remember to add enough for a seam allowance and room for that seam allowance in the thumb, especially.  Otherwise it will be too tight.  Have fun!  Let me know if you make some.  It would be fun to see your creations, too!!

Have a great day!

A Great Giveaway!

Beautiful sunshine and warm sand....

Hello, everyone! I am back from my long hiatus! There has been a lot going on so if you want to catch up on the details go visit Julia's blog. She good at posting regularly! Basically, we went to Florida to visit Bob's mom, I haven't been feeling very well and the usual responsibilities of life were all I could handle. Julia has some great pictures of our trip to Florida so I won't repeat by writing a long post about it.

But here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what it was like.

Let me say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Hope you had a great time with friends and family. We spent a nice quiet day eating lots of good homecooked foods and fellowshipping as a family.

Now for the GIVEAWAY! Jasmine Baucham (Voddie Baucham's daughter) has so kindly offered to host a giveaway of Julia's jewelry and a custom blog header, made by Julia for the winner's blog. Two prizes for the taking!! To enter, simply go to Jasmine's blog and leave a comment. If you want more chances to win, look at the Etsy shop and let Jasmine know which item is your favorite, by leaving a comment. Also if you post about the giveaway, you get another chance to win.

Here is the necklace set that is being given away:

I would love to hear from you but you must comment on Jasmine's blog to enter the giveaway.

Have a blessed day!

The Craft Show ~ Fallfest

Here is our booth at the Fallfest. We got there early, around 7:30 am. You can see the pretty garland hanging on the edge of the tent.

This was my table of goodies. Julia made the adorable crocheted donuts and we decided to put them with the rest of the crocheted items.

Julia's jewelry table is eye-catching and pretty! It all looked so professional that people were stunned that this was done all by her. They often asked how long she had been displaying at shows and how many shows she did a year.

Overall, it was a good day. We did manage to sell some things. Other sellers said that they were slow, too. The good news was the weather. Rain had been forecasted for the whole day but the forecasters were wrong! Yay! Sunshine and blue skies ruled the day! It was quite warm, temps in the 90's. Except for the loud country music, the day went smoothly. I probably won't sell there again but it was a good experience and it was nice to see friends from town.

We will be posting many items on Etsy so if you were disappointed that you didn't make it to the Fallfest, just check out our Etsy shop and you can still buy these cuties! Just give us a few days to take the pictures and get them posted. You can find the shop here.


Blessings,

A Cute, EASY, DIY Garland

This adorable garland is so easy to whip up you might put it at the bottom of your "to-do" party list!! I got the original idea from The Purl Bee and you can find the site here. I modified her instructions to make it even easier!

All you need is a charm pack of fabric squares and a sewing machine. Mine are 5 inch squares. (Similiar to this pack. It's not the one I used for the garland but just so you know what to look for in the store.)

I started the sewing with a small piece of ribbon in case I wanted to tie the garland to something. Fold the squares in half with the right sides out to make a triangle and sew down the long folded side about a 1/4 inch from the edge. Slightly overlap them at the tips and just keep sewing until you have the length of garland that you want.

Using fun, bright fabrics, you could make these for parties, to decorate a nursery or even decorate for the holidays. Just get the charms in seasonal fabrics and away you go!!

Happy creating!