In His Grip

Three Word Thursday

Color up north . . .

Autumn Nut Brittle

I found this great Autumn Brittle recipe on line and could not wait to try it out.  Beings as my Mom is a big peanut brittle fan I thought she would enjoy trying a new recipe with me when we were up at her house.  With all of the nuts in this recipe it is not cheap to make, but, oh, is it worth it.  I learned a couple of things while making this that I thought I would pass on to you.  When cooking the sugar mixture, the temperature goes from soft crack to hard crack fast so you need to be on your toes or it will burn.  I burnt the first batch and was not about to mess up all of my precious nuts for something that tastes burnt.  So I started all over again.

I love the look of all these nuts together. I think that they look so autumny.  I spread them out in a 9 x 13 inch pan, but when I do it again I think I will use a jelly roll pan that is bigger.  That way the pieces don't end up as thick and would be easier to bite into without some kind of dental work later.  

Before the brittle was totally hard, I scored the entire thing with a sharp knife so that it would break easier once it was cool.

I will be making this again real soon.  Not only is it wonderfully good, but it is so pretty.

Bowl of Twine

This is my most current creation.  A bowl of twine.  I made this similar to how I made the globes of string for Ryan and Paula's rehearsal dinner decorations.  As I began to dream about a natural kind of Autumn decorating, I wanted to have some containers that looked natural and did not cost any money.  This limited my choices to making something with things that I already had on hand or were super cheap.  This led my mind to this idea of bowls of twine.  I already had the fabric stiffener from the rehearsal dinner globes, so the only thing I had to purchase was the twine.  I knew we had some somewhere but could not put my hands on it, so shopping in the good old Wal-mart one day, I purchased a couple of balls for $2.19 each.  Cheap right?

I chose a large mixing bowl from my cupboard and covered it with plastic wrap. For the globes, I used different sizes of balloons.

Using the twine, I cover the whole bowl with the stuff.  Making sure to not to leave any large spaces and changing directions often.

This is the messy part.  You will need to cover the surface that you are working on, and this opened up plastic grocery sack is not enough, believe me.  I covered the twine with the fabric stiffner that I had watered down a little bit.  This helped the stiffener soak into the twine.  I really think that you could use school glue for this and it would be cheaper, but I used what I had on hand.  This will need to dry completely which will take at least 24 hours.

Once the bowl is completely dry, I used some kitchen shears to cut the top off.  This is hard work as the twine is pretty tough.  You don't have to be that careful as you will trim it again once you get the mixing bowl out of the way.

This what it looked like once I trimed it nicely.  You could leave it just like this but I wanted my bowl of twine to have little more finished look.  So I glued several rows of twin around the top to give it a more finish look as well as a little for stability.

This is just how I had it pictured in my mind.  I love it when things turned out how I plan.  There are a couple more ideas cooking up in my head, so I am thinking I will make a several more "bowl of twine" designs.

I am participating in the followng link ups:  Between Naps on the Porch, The DIY Showoff, Boogiboard Cottage, Its So Very Cheri, Sew Chatty, Dittle Dattle, Sew Can Do, Keeping It Simple, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings, Today's Creative Blog, Sugar and Dots, My Girlish Whims, The Thrifty Home, Blue Cricket Design, Sew Woodsy

Three Word Thursday

Believe you can . . .

Trust for three?

This past Sunday in church we were each given three playing cards.  Coming from a baptist background, my pastor, grandfather would be quite disturbed by the fact that we had playing cards let alone drums and guitars in church.  But that is a whole other story. We were to assign each card something we value most in our life; family, job, security, etc.  Once we had done that, we were asked to give them over to Jesus.  Giving him total control and trusting him for the plans of each of these things we hold so dear.  During an extended time of worship and prayer, when we had given these things over to Jesus we were to lay them face up on the floor in front of us.  I have been a Christ follower since I was 12 years old and grew up in a Christan family believing that I was able to give it "all" over, but I have to be honest with you I was unable to lay these cards down.  I want to be able to trust Christ for everything, and there have been times when I think I have come close, but as soon as I would lay it down, minutes later I would pick them up again.  Daily, if not hourly, I have to force myself to allow Christ to have control in areas of my life that I want him to and areas where I struggle to give up that control. Needless to say, I still have my cards and have not yet laid them down. The desire to trust fully is there it's just the lack of control that I have trouble with. 

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.  Isaiah 26:4

I do believe this, its the application that I can't seem to manage.  Have a great day and "trust" in the Rock eternal.

Burlap Table Runner for Fall

One of the things I really love to do is to change the look of my home for the seasons.  I don't really decorate for Halloween any more as I don't have little ones at home, but more of a fall harvest theme.  That way my decorations can stay up clear through Thanksgiving.  Last year I made these great birch bark pumpkins and wanted to display them with a more natural look so I decided to make a burlap table runner for the dinning room table.  Burlap is cheap, cheap, cheap, but kind of icky to work with.  It is so scratchy and makes me sneeze. 

I cut my table runner the width and length that I wanted.  In this case it is about 17" wide by 72" long.  Next I stitched a row of stitching all the way around about 1" in.  This will stop the fraying once I start making the fringe along the sides.  I used masking tape to outline a stripe a couple of inches in and about 1/2" wide.  Then using a stencil brush I painted the stripe a soft black with acrylic paint.  

Once the stripe was dry, I cut the words "fall harvest" out with my Cricut machine using the adhesive vinyl and place it about 1/2" above the line and painted it as well.

Once the lettering was dry, I began pulling the threads of the burlap to create a fringe all the way around the edge. (Don't look at the mis-matched chairs, one of my chairs broke beyond repair so until I find a replacement this little old thing will have to do.)

I love the way this turned out and how it works so nicely with my birch bark pumpkins.

I am participating in the following link ups: Between Naps on the Proch. Dittle Dattle, Sew Can Do, Its so Very Cheri, The DIY Showoff, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Today Creative Blog, Fabric Bows and More, My Girlish Whims, Goodbye city, Hello suburbs, Blue Cricket Design, Sugar and Dots, Sew Much Ado, The Thrifty Home, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Gluesticks, Momnivore's Dilemma, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Sew Woodsy, Its So Stinkin Cute, Primp

 

Wedding Post #4 -- Just Married

Several months before the wedding Ryan made one last request of his dad.  Could he and Paula use his "lil' red truck" to drive away in?  If any of you know my husband you know how much he cares about his "lil' red truck" keeping it in tip top shape. This request came with a number of problems first, the wedding was in Lincoln and we live in Kansas.  And then they really had to have a "Just Married" sign on it too, right?.  This was Jeff's only assignment of the entire wedding.  He has a great friend that loaned him a car hauler so he could tow the truck to Lincoln rather than drive it and get road dirt on it.  Yes, really, this was a worry. First problem fixed.  The next obstacle was to figure out how to get a sign on the truck without adhesive or anything that could damage the paint job.  This required Jeff to take a trip to Hobby Lobby.  He is not a big fan of the store, but he would do anything for his kids.  He found foam in the necessary colors and made his sign out of foam and tying it onto the tailgate with ribbon.  Problem solved.  There was concern about rain, but the weather cooperated and the "lil' red truck" did not get a drop, whew!  The "lil' red truck" was a great get away vehicle.  I cannot wait to see the photos.

Three Word Thursday

Be the Change . . . 

Blooming in September

Sunflowers are something I look forward in September.  Here in Kansas they grow wild everywhere. For some reason sunflowers seem to be a happy flower, unlike a violet that looks like it has a scowl on its face.  Don't get me wrong I do love a bunch of pretty violets growing in the cool early spring, but they don't seem very happy about it.  There's something about a field of sunflowers, wild or planted, and how their faces all face the same direction.  I love that.  Especially when I happen to be on the side they are facing I imagine that the whole field is watching me pass and applauding.  Not sure if they would applaud  just to see me or to see me pass by, but I'll take the applause where I can find it.  Today the weather has been beautiful so I went out for a walk and found some September blooms.  

First of all I do not have a big fancy camera, but I do a have a little fancy camera that I love and I think takes some pretty wonderful pictures. (Can I say that and not sound braggadocious?)  I use a Canon PowerShot S95 and I carry it everywhere I go just in case there is a good photo opp.  There are very few times that I post a picture to my bog without some kind of editing, but today everything must have been just right because these turned out so clear, and the color is out of this world. There has been no editing to these photos.  Cool, huh?

I went for my walk not thinking that I would go off the path, so I just had on sandals, but had I known that there was such good pictures to be taken I would have worn some boots.  As it was, I went off the path anyway and now I am all itichy but the results were worth the suffering.

I did not even notice all of the bugs on this plant until I brought it up on my computer and I was a little creeped out.  These puppies had to have been everywhere because these flowers/weeds/plants are everywhere. 

I like looking at things through the lens of a camera and have found in my hobbiest kind of way that you can even make a weed look pretty.  

Pumpkin Topiary Redo

Autumn is just around the corner and I have been planning what I would do to update my porch for the change of the season.  I have been admiring the ghost pumpkins that have been out the past couple of seasons.  So I decided to update my pumpkin topiaries.  You can see what they used to look like here. I thought that a neutral theme for the front porch with a splash of orange would be different and give me a chance to give my topiaries redo in the process.  These topiaries have been on our front porch for over ten years and they have had several make overs.  So I figured a little spray paint might just give them a fresh new look. 

If you look closely, you will notice that the pumpkins are slightly different color.  I used Krylon khaki (for the bottom), pebble (for the middle), and almond (for the top) all had a satin finish.  I used spanish moss to cover up the wire of the garland that has all the little berries on it as well as between each pumpkin.  Besides, spanish moss will cover up a myriad of imperfections not only from the age of the pumpkins but my amateur floral skills.

 I have more ideas for the rest of my porch and as soon as it is complete I will share what I come up with.  Go out enjoy the beautiful weather.  I love autumn.

I am participating in the following link ups:  Between Naps on the Porch, Boogieboard Cottage, Dittle Dattle, Pinkopotomus, Its So Very Cheri, DIY Showoff, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Today's creative Blog, Truly Lovely, Simply Sweet Home, Its a Blog Party, Its Fun to Craft, The Shabby Nest

Three Word Thursday

Whole Wide World

Uniform Fashion

I don't normal care much about sports, but there are some things I do notice when watching a football game and that is the uniforms.  Okay, and, yes, the cheerleaders. The Oregon Ducks usually take the prize of the worst dressed football team, but this year Maryland can easily take the award.  Really? This is one uniform and these guys are on the same team. Whoever designed this mashed up flag uniform cannot be a real designer.  It is my own opinion, but I think that a standard solid color jersey with a contrasting number is best.  I would have loved to hear how these players really felt when they were told this was their uniform and they were going to look like mid-evil court jesters.  Ha, ha. 

Repurpose Light Bulbs

Over the weekend I had some time to catch up on inspirational blogs as well as Pinterest.  I just needed to do something creative that would give me immediate gratification.  After looking at some sites of hanging canning jars with candles in them I decided that I wanted to do something like that too.  But as I was changing a light bulb in my studio I had an idea to use the light bulb for a small bud vase, similar yet different than the canning jar idea, but that's just how my mind works.  One idea leads to another and another, and so on.  I did a Google search on how to make a light bulb into a vase I found this great tutorial.  Needless to say, I found a total of three burnt out light bulbs in the house.  It was not that hard to do and I love the results for the amount of effort involved.

I immediately went out to my garden and cut a bunch of Zinnias to put in my new light bulb vases.  Normally, every Spring I plant a huge patch of Zinnias so that I can have cut flowers all Summer and well into the Fall.  With the Spring being so wet every weekend and then the temperatures zoomed up into the 100s I never was able to get my Zinnias planted.  Happy day, I had a bunch of volunteers show up unexpectedly.

Here I just used clear water in them, but I'm thinking you could add a drop of food color to the water and make a whole new look.  Matching the water to the flower for a monochrome design.

So, so cute.  I tried a flood lamp light bulb, but it broke in the process.  You need to be super careful as the light bulb glass is so stinking sharp.  But the next time one burns out I will have that shape as well. I also think that adding wire to the top and hanging them like my original plan will be awesome too. 

I am participating in the following link ups: Coastal Charm, Domestically Speaking, Today's Creative Blog, Momma Hen, Blue Cricket Design, My Girlish Whims, Sweet Peas & Bumblebees, Goodbye City, Hello Suburbs, Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Woman who Do It All, Seven Thirty-three, Someday Crafts, Tea Rose Home, Lil' Luna, Sugar & Dots, Somewhat Simple, Alchemy Fine Living, Paisley Passions, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Momnivore's Dilemma, Tales From Bloggeritaville, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Simply Sweet Home, Its a Blog Party, Its Fun to Craft, The Shabby Nest, Tidy Mom, Chic on a Shoestring 

Wedding Post #3 -- More Details

Ryan and Paula took so much time and effort in the details that I just cannot leave any out. It was these details that made this wedding special and so much their own. One of their artist friends took the chalkboard that Paula found on sale for 60% off (see I told you she fits right in with the Sturmans) and made this wonderful sign to greet the guests as they entered the church.  My favorite thing that Paula chose to do was the pictures down the center aisle instead of expected pew bows.  She purchased frames from the Dollar Store, spray painted them all gray, and placed black and white prints of their engagements pictures in each.  We had to get a bit creative to get them to hang straight on the pews, but nothing a little hot glue won't take care of.  Yes. . . the hot glue just peeled right off later no need to think we defaced the church.  The string globes were a last minute addition to the guest box/book table. I had made dozens of them for the rehearsal dinner tables so we just reused a couple of them to dress up that table as well.  If you are getting bored with my wedding posts, I think there will be only one more so stay tuned.

 

Three Word Thursday

The new Sturmans

Photo by: Abby Zoellner