Family History activity for children who can't read yet

 This idea came to mind when I was thinking about how to combine flowers with family history.  An adult who can read would need to help the child follow the prompts. You will want to will want to print it double sided and flip on short edge. I designed this to be a little booklet. You will need 2 sheets of paper to print the booklet. The order of the pages will look a little funny but they do all line up when you stack and fold them up. I hope this helps those who want to help little ones do their family history who cant read yet.

Here is the link to the booklet

My Family History in flowers

Easter Drawing

 I have been struggling with how to have Christ be the focus during Easter. There are so many fun activities that are planned, like the egg hunts for example. However, these activities have nothing to do with Jesus. 

 A friend on mine shared with me an activity that her family did where there were twelve different items inside each egg and each one tells part of the story about Jesus Christs Crucifixion and resurrection. Here is a drawing I did inspired by that thought.

Designing a Prom dress

How do you design a Prom dress that is exactly what you picture in your head? This can be a hard feat to accomplish. Its even harder when you are trying to figure out what is someone elses head. 

This is the obstacle I ran into this last month with our oldest daughter. She had drawn out some thumb nail sketches for me after verbally describing them to me, I had not clue what she wanted. I have seen this happen many times in the past when one person is a seamstress and the other person doesn't know sewing terms or fabrics.

So how did we resolve our communication difficulty. I drew up a Croquis with my daughters measurements in mind. If you are asking what is a Croquis? It is a quick sketch of a fashion figure. There are many good tutorials out there on how to create them. Taking the time to draw them is absolutely worth your time and effort.

After drawing a croquis of our oldest daughter, I took a blank piece of paper and laid it on top of her croquis. I sketched out different versions of what I thought she was saying she wanted. Each design was on a different sheet of paper. I also added a few extra drawings in different cuts that I thought she might also like but since she doesn't know enough about sewing yet might not think to ask for in her design.

This method made it so much easier to communicate about what she was picturing because she could say things like, I like these lapels, those buttons and could see where the skirt would hit her legs without having to cut or sew anything. This is fantastic because as usual I am on a time crunch and don't have enough of the final fabric to do several versions of it. 

Here are some of the sketches so you can see what I mean.

I hope this helps you save a lot of time.

Alternative plant poles

I love gardening! It's exciting to watch a plant sprout and gain strength. My family loves eating the fruits and vegetables more them watching them grow. The down side to gardening is the expense.  A few dollars here and a few dollars there and there is only so much money to go around. 

Last fall I was planting peas and wondering how I was going to stake them? I was out of poles for the peas to climb. As I was thinking about this need I was looking at our yard and I noticed some of our flowers. We have these plants that have long stems that bloom flowers all along the stem and I thought those stems are as straight as dowels you buy at the store.

 I started wondering if I cut these stems off the plant after they were done flowering if they would be strong enough for a plant to train or curl up them. What did I have to loose, cutting off the stems wouldn't hurt the plant and if it worked I would have the poles I needed for free.

So we took our tree lopper and cut a whole bunch of these stems after they were done flowering and laid them flat to dry. It took about a month and a half . And sure enough the heavier stems were sturdy enough to use as poles for the plants to climb up. Now I don't have to keep buying these. I can just cut and dry them out every year and I will always have plenty of poles for our plants without spending any money on it.

Step#1

Cut stem after all flowering has stopped and lay on a flat dry surface to dry out.

Step#2

Wait till it is completely dry.

Step#3

Stake the plants you need and watch them climb.