We started making our own meat stocks years ago and let me tell you, we will never go back to buying store bought stock or broth again. The difference in taste and quality are amazing. Not to mention, they are very inexpensive to make; especially chicken and turkey stock because you’re using the bones leftover from roasting the bird (for chicken…
I didn’t get the table runners done, but I did manage to get the little clutch purse finished. Earlier in the week, when I was cutting out the pattern pieces for the purse so that they’d be ready for Friday night, I decided I should take some scrap fabric and make a test of the pattern. Good thing I did…
I was going through all the pictures I took last week and realized that I had forgotten to post about the fun surprize in the form of a squishie that was waiting for me when I got home from Canada. While I was away getting our youngest settled into his second year of college, I got an e-mail from Impera…
I’d like to welcome readers who are visiting from Emily Isaac’s fun article Top 10 tea inspired homeware on the website Brew Drinking Thinkings. Back at the end of July, Emily contacted me to say that she was writing a Top Ten list of teapot-inspired interior ideas for the home and asked permission to link back to my blog as…
Cut a length of ribbon 50”. Find the center of the length of ribbon and place a pin there. To determine where to place the ribbon, measure down 7 inches from the center of the top edge of the bag and pin the center of the ribbon at that point.   Measure down 7 inched from center of each grommet and…
Place a pin in the center of the front of the bag. Measure 2 ½” from either side of the pin and mark a dot with a pencil. Measure down ½” from the top edge, place grommet piece against edge of ruler. With the pencil, trace inside of grommet. Using the punch that came with the grommet kit, punch hole…
With right sides together, match bottom seam to side seam. Pin and sew. Repeat for other corner of bag. Sew the bottom of the lining in the same way. Trim seam to ¼”. Turn the outside of the bag right side out. Insert outside of bag into the lining. Pin and sew around the top of the bag. Gently pull…
Tired of paying for gift wrap year after year? Do you cringe when you see that pile of paper on Christmas morning that you know will end up in the landfill (most gift wrap can’t be recycled.) There’s a simple and very elegant solution! Sew your own collection of gift bags. The initial cost may be a little more but…
Earlier this month I wrote a post about an activity that Dave and I call memory builders.  For this month’s Christmas on a Budget post, I will be discussing turning memory building activities into traditions. As a military family, we rarely lived close enough to family to have the traditional Christmas of visiting Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house on Christmas Day…
On Saturday, I got the third hot pad quilted after a quick trip to the fabric store to buy more thread. Free motion quilting takes a lot of thread! Then there was another stop in the sewing action while Dave worked on figuring out why the potted motor of my 15-91 was leaking oil.   He ended up having to take…