So cute!!

Amy Epley's friend has a craft blog (and I think she is the Creative Activities Leader for her MOPS) and has posted this really cute idea. I intend to try it out, intend being the operative word. :) If you do, please let me know so we can post pictures of your cute nativity here!

Apple Crisp

So, I totally forgot to take a picture of my apple crisp fresh out of the oven, but hopefully you got to see firsthand what it looked like after you cooked your own on Thursday night. It smelled so good, I doubt I could have got my family to wait for pictures, anyway. My kids learned new vocabulary: apple crisp. And they tried a new food and loved it: apple crisp. Isn't apple crisp a wonderful thing? :) So educational.


If you need the recipe because you missed the meeting or lost your little paper, here it is. I would love to give credit for it, but I have no idea where the original recipe came from.

Apple Crisp 

4 cups tart apples (4 or 5 med. apples -peeled and thinly sliced) 

3/4 cup packed brown sugar 

1/2 cup plain flour 

1/2 cup rolled oats

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter 

1/2 cup pecans (optional) 

Butter 8' square pan or 11 x7x2 pan. Spread apples on the bottom. Mix remaining ingredients with butter until crumbly and then spread over apples and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes or until apples are tender. cool slightly on wire rack and serve warm or at room temperature. Can serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Sew, Mama,Sew! Handmade Holidays

Check out Sew, Mama, Sew!  For the month of November they are featuring tutorials for handmade items you can make for Christmas gifts. And October was Scrap Buster Month: ways to use your fabric scraps. And if you don't sew, you can buy many of the items on Etsy.

Sweet! Potato Pancake Recipe

I have to share this recipe with everyone. I found it at That's Not What the Recipe Says. These pancakes not only contain healthy sweet potatoes, but were yummy, fluffy and cooked without burning (that last one could just be that I found the sweet spot on my stove dial, I'm not sure).

I had 1.5 cups of sweet potatoes so I made 1.5 times the recipe. It made A LOT of pancakes, so if you are feeding an army (or growing boys), this is the perfect amount to make. And if you haven't yet discovered medallion-sized pancakes (use your tablespoon measure to pour them), they are "just my right size, Mommy!" as Lily says.

I like cooking with whole wheat flour, but I was afraid to ruin such a huge batch of pancakes by substituting too much, making them dense and soggy, so I did 1.5 cups of white and .5 cups of whole wheat flour. They turned out great, like I said.

Oh, and I added some nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla, because they seemed a little blah without some kind of flavoring. It's up to you whether you do that, and how much. I thought they were delicious, but then again, I am partial to the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg cooking. Smells like holidays and home.

The caramelized bananas added a nice touch to them and I didn't need syrup. The kids didn't quite catch on to the whole eat-it-all-together thing, but at least they ate some of the bananas, which frankly shocked me.

Crafty MOPS has a New Look!

I am experimenting with a different template. I felt that the other one lacked...personality. Let me know if you have an opinion about this new look.

National Novel Writing Month

The goal: 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Did I say great words? Did I say Great American Novel? Nope. The goal is just to get the words onto the paper. You can fix it later if you want to. Or not.

I did NaNoWriMo last year for the first time. And in case you are gathering your thoughts to come up with excuses, let me just say: if I can do it while living with my in-laws in a conflict-heavy situation and only having access to the computer for a couple of hours in the evening, then so can you!

If you have a story idea or unwritten novel inside you (and honestly, I think a lot of us do), I say GO FOR IT! It was a lot of fun and a decent challenge. It wasn't impossible by any means, but it was enough of a challenge to make me feel I had accomplished something by the end. Which brings me to another reason I loved NaNoWriMo: As a mom, I don't get a lot of chances to accomplish something as momentous as writing a novel. My greatest life's work (my kids) is always in progress, and it felt REALLY good to finish something so challenging.

If you've already decided you might like to try this crazy thing, go to the website and sign up. Be sure to register for Charlotte as your home region so you can join the discussion boards and see the calendar for the write-ins and parties that are planned. Also for moral support.

Because the people around you, while they may be supportive, will not understand your struggle to reach your 2500 word goal for the day. The message boards are a great place to go to find others who not only understand, but themselves are struggling to keep up. And to find people who will encourage you and tell you that yes, you can do it!

One last thing about NaNoWriMo. I would not have made it last year without Write or Die. It is a little free program that plays an annoying noise if you stop typing for a certain amount of time. You can set goals for yourself and set it to different levels of strictness. Here is a link: http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html.

If you decide to do NaNo this year, let me know! I would love to do this with someone I know.

Two Flower Crafts

I find so many cool craft ideas on the internet, and never have enough time to do them! So, I'll list them on here every now and then in hopes that someone can benefit from them. If you try them, let me know!

Here is a neat idea: some origami flowers made from baby wipes and paper towels and colored with food coloring. Very kid-friendly.

And here are some hair clips with felt flowers.

Yesterday's Craft and Blog issues

So I hope you enjoyed yesterday's journal making. I'd like to know how they turned out if you decided to close the sides at home. I decided to take the staples out of mine and stitched the whole thing on my sewing machine with a longer stitch (so the paper wouldn't have too many holes). It turned out great! Here is the tutorial I based the project on.

Several of you said you had commented on the blog for the giveaway, but there are only two comments on the blog. I'm wondering if I am having technical difficulties. Also, someone else said they had signed up as a follower, but I don't see her there. If you are one of those people, would you check the blog and email me if you see yourself or your comment there? That will help me a lot. Also, if a few of you could comment on this post and email me to let me know you posted, that would help, too. Thanks!

Our First Giveaway!!!

Congratulations to Amy Epley, who won the drawing for "Jesus Loves the Little Children!" Keep tuning in for more giveaways.

So I made this felt...what would you call it?...creation :) It's on a 6" wooden embroidery hoop. I called it "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

CCC MOPS, you can win it by posting a comment below by 11 pm on Wednesday Sept 30. I will announce the winner at MOPS on Thursday. If you are not there, I'll still get it to you.

Journaling

I started my first diary when I was 12, at the suggestion of someone at church. We were moving to France, I was about to be a teenager--what better time to start recording my life? I would have loved to show you my beat up diary with a teddy bear on the cover, but it is in a bin with a good chunk of my other journals, buried under a stack of other (heavy) boxes. About half of my entries ran something like this: "We had potato soup and cheese for supper. It was good." The other half were about a boy who liked me and the silly, mushy letters he kept sending me. As a matter of fact, maybe I should dig it out just to read some of those letters again! :) Then, over the years, I filled several volumes with more boy entries, none of whom wrote me mushy letters. Isn't that the way it goes? But the entries I really cherish are the ones I started after I met God at the age of 16. I kept track of what God was saying to me, through the Bible, through others, through my experiences. Those are the REAL journals, the ones where I recorded what was important. I have kept the habit of recording what's important to me, maybe not as regularly as some do, but I figure an irregular record is still better then nothing.  You can see by the picture above that I like all different types of  journals.

 And below are some photos of my most recent journal, which is mostly about being a mommy. I record things the kids do or say that I want to remember, but I also write about my life so that Lily (or Ian) can read it later and know that I struggled with the same things they do. Maybe they'll cut me some slack for the ways I mess up, too. :)

Anyway, I say all that to introduce our craft this month. We'll be making journals from cool paper, and I'll tell you more about that at our next meeting. But I wanted you to already be thinking about what you will do with that pretty journal. As you may have already noticed, I have links to some journaling prompts over to the left. You might look through those to get some ideas.

So whether you want to use your journal for just jotting things down, for recording your prayers, for keeping track of your kids' cute sayings or for something else entirely, it's yours, and it's there to be used. Don't let the pretty paper intimidate you into letting sit in a drawer unused.

Felt!

So I bought some little felt craft sheets at Walmart the other day, because I am always seeing felt crafts online. I don't know if they are nice enough for these projects, but I might try one of them anyway and see how it turns out. If you try one of them, let me know! I'd love to see what you come up with.

Where to get Shrinky Dinks

In case you would like to do your very own Shrinky Dinks projects, you can find them at Hobby Lobby, AC Moore, Target, I think, and at the Shrinky Dinks website: shrinkydinks.com. There are kits and different types and colors of paper.

Here are some project ideas I found online. Have fun!

Lots of ideas from all over the web.

Some Shrinky Dinks jewelry ideas.

Some Father's Day ideas you could use for other things, too.

Our First Meeting of 09-10

Welcome to MOPS! Or welcome back. We're so glad you're here this year. We have some fun stuff planned, and have actually already done some fun stuff for our first meeting. We made our "nametags," which are really the coffee cups we'll use for the rest of the year. We also made diaper bag tags from Shrinky Dinks (how retro and fun was that?!). So I'll post the tutorials for those who missed it and also for cooking your Shrinky Dinks.

First, the mugs. Easy peasy: just use permanent paint like the DecoColor paint pens we have and decorate your white IKEA cup. Please be sure to put your name, your kids' names and your last name on the cup somewhere. We'll have all the materials available for the first few meetings. 

NOTE: We will leave the cups at the Foundation between meetings, which means your table will need to rotate the job of washing and storing them every meeting. While you are washing the cup, why not pray for the mom?

OK, now for the Shrinky Dinks. Here is a link to a detailed tutorial. Keep in mind she is doing bottle tags, so you don't have to use the same dimensions. My tags started out as 5.5" x 8.5" and 4.5" x 8.5. The sheets are 8.5" x 10".

Some tips: Don't use dry erase markers like she suggests. It doesn't come off very easily and now I have a big blob of it on the front of mine. If you want the shiny side to be the front, either pick a design that is easy to draw backwards (like block letters) or write your child's name in dark marker on a piece of paper and turn the paper over and draw it backwards on the back of the paper. 

Keep your edges curvy and soft. Anything pointy will just get pointier and harder when you cook it.

For Cooking your Shrinky Dinks: Preheat your toaster oven (preferred) or conventional oven to 325. Place the Shrinky Dinks colored side up, at least an inch apart, on foil or a paper bag or parchment paper. Place on a cookie sheet and put in the oven. Watch your Shrinky Dinks for 1-3 minutes.  (If your oven, like mine, doesn't have a window, keep the oven closed but check on the tags every few seconds.  If you leave the door open, it will be too cool and they will not finish.) DO NOT FREAK OUT when they curl and shrivel and look generally messed up. They will do that until they flatten out. If one of your pieces sticks to itself, gently pull it apart. (Yes, put your hand in the oven!) Once they flatten out, let them finish up for about 30 more seconds. Pull them out of the oven, slide the sheet off the cookie sheet and place a cereal box or other paper on top to keep them from curling. Now you have your very own Shrinky Dinks masterpiece!

Our No TV Day, part 2

Well, the Fish game went so well that when Lily came to me with her broken "instament" from church (from which she had long ago spilled the beans) and said "Fix it, please," I was inspired. We went into the kitchen and I turned into crafty Mommy (No TV is apparently good for me, too!) and pulled things together, and next thing you know, we had colorful maracas!

You need:

2 clear plastic cups

scissors

colorful beads

colorful tape (duct tape and clear tape work the best)

Step One: Pick your beads! This was by far the most fun--and messiest!--part of the project.

Step Two: Cut the cups. This is a job for Mommy! One cup should be taller than the other so they can fit together.

Step Three: Tape it together. This can be a bit tricky, since the cups are       angled. Don't expect perfection or beauty--these are disposable cups, people!

Step Four: Enjoy the noise! (I don't recommend this activity if you have a  headache.)

Our No TV Day

So I decided that we weren't going to watch any TV today... so now what? I was tired of cleaning up paint and glitter, and the kids were tired of crayons. I remembered that Robby had given me a great book by Disney's FamilyFun (see the link on the left) called Best of FamilyFun Crafts & Boredom Busters a long time ago, so I ran upstairs to get it. Within just a few pages, I found this easy Go Fish game that kept the kids' attention for at least half an hour, including the minimal creation stage (which you could really draw out if your kids are older and understand the concept of cutting out shapes and drawing). And they had fun showing Daddy how they did it when he came home.

All you need is:

4 sheets of construction paper of different colors for your fish

4 sheets of blue construction paper for the sea

12 paper clips

string and magnets for the "fishing rods"

First, cut out the fish. I made three

from each sheet of construction paper. Depending on your kids' abilities, they can cut, color and/or decorate them. I thought about using the scraps from these to make fins, but decided it wasn't worth it since the kids will end up destroying them pretty quickly. And I wanted to let them do as much as possible, regardless of how they turned out. In that spirit, I let Ian have a pair of scissors, and here is his fish. :)

The second step is to attach a paper clip onto each fish's nose. I did it this way, and they stayed on fairly well, but you can poke them through so they dangle from the fish's mouth if your kids play vigorously.

Third, tape the four sheets of blue construction paper together to make your sea, and put the whole thing on the floor.

Attach the magnets to the string and let your little fishermen loose! My magnets were the little round/flat ones and they kept falling out of the string. Finally, I figured out the trick at left for keeping them together without compromising the strength of the magnet. It's just a scrap of cloth I had lying around.

Lily had a special

technique she used to catch

the fish...not exactly regulation. :) And please excuse Ian's diaper--my kids are solidly anti-clothing (Lily makes occasional exceptions for her princess dresses and her Disney Princess swimsuit).