Cowboy Cookies Tutorial

Another yummy recipe from Mary's Nest traditional foods kitchen.

Cookie recipe to print.

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Tips for Decluttering when You Are Emotionally Exhausted from Dana White

Here are some helpful pointers on how to deal with areas that need help even when you feel emotionally exhausted. Life has been "too much" on so many levels the last couple years that it can make us freeze up on things we see as non-essential. But, over time that can mean that cluttered or problem areas can get out of control and just add to our stress. These tips can help us at least make progress without making emotional decisions.

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Make-Ahead Healthy Cake Mixes Tutorial

Here is another tutorial from Mary's Nest. This one is for cake mixed you can store in your pantry or freezer. I would personally put mine in the freezer since we don't make cakes all that often and I can't tolerate foods that have gone even a little rancid. Also, I recommend using the usual canning lids and rings if you store yours in canning jars. I have not found the white plastic lids designed for use on canning jars to be a good, air tight seal. 

Here is the link to recipes on her page. This is where she gives the instructions on how to make the cakes later, so you will need this to print out the instructions to go with the mixes. I recommend keeping them with the mixes, as she does. Mixes Recipes and Instructions.

I am curious to see if her recipes can be used with gluten-free 1-for-1 flours. I may try a couple of them out in single cake proportions. But, then again, I may not. My life is full of good intentions that never quite make it to real life. blah. :-)

Also, as she mentions, these mixes could make nice gifts for people who bake desserts. This could be in keeping with the post from November 14th on changing your gift giving this holiday season - and, hey, why not all of next year?

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Tutorial for Cabbage and Kielbasa

Here's a nice winter recipe for the northern hemisphere from Mary's Nest. However, this can also work well in summer because it doesn't take very long to cook it all up, meaning less heat in the kitchen. 

Enjoy!

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Homemade Tomato Soup Tutorial - Video

Here is a tutorial for homemade tomato soup from Mary's Nest. (Although she lives in the Texas Hill Country also, I do not know this Mary.) :-)

My sister and I have made cream of tomato soup from scratch and it is really good, but this is not what this Mary is specifically making although she tells how to make this soup into cream of tomato soup at the end. Let me say this, it can be hard to get the cream to mix in nicely without curdling. There is a trick to it. So, if you want to make that I suggest looking up some instructions on how to mix in the cream with the least risk of curdling. Or, you could use sour cream or softened cream cheese to make your cream of tomato soup. Because these two products are already soured, they are less likely to give you grief. (Also, if you cream does curdle the soup is still edible, it just doesn't look as nice.)

She also talks about adding basil at the end and making this into a tomato basil soup with parmesan on it. Another yummy option you can try if you like Mexican is to add some cumin and then sprinkle it with grated cheddar and chopped black olives. This would be delicious served along side quesadillas. 

Tomato soup is a good lunch or supper staple for cold weather, but it can be good any time. If you don't want to make it and serve it the same day you can make it ahead and store it in the fridge for a few days. I am not sure if it would freeze well, but it would be easy to reheat from the fridge. If you are making cream of tomato soup I recommend waiting till you reheat it to add the cream.

Enjoy!

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Tutorial for Sharpie Tye-Dyed T-shirt

Photo property of Happiness Is Homemade.

Sharpie Tye-Dyed T-shirt

One Bed Garden - Successive Plantings

Here is a video showing how much food can be grown in one small bed over the course of a growing season by making successive plantings (reusing spaces). This could be done in even a small back yard (garden).

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Happy Floral Watercolor Greeting Cards Tutorial

Here is a tutorial for some bright cheerful floral cards from Sandy Allnock. You do not have to use the same greeting stamps that she did. You could use whatever you already have, or you could hand letter them with black pen or ink after you paint them. By the way, the flowers she calls snapdragons look more like celosia (cock's comb) or astilbe to me.

Super Easy Watercolor Greeting Cards Tutorial

This tutorial from K Werner Design is for a couple of easy watercolor cards. Aside from the watercolor paper, she really doesn't use any fancy products that you can't make do with simpler things. Watercolor paper is recommended, though. I will say that. I tried to paint on ordinary paper years ago and it didn't go well. But, you can try it if you like. :-)




These don't have to be "thank you" cards. You can put any greeting on them that you like. If you don't want to mess them up, put the greeting on a separate piece of white card stock and then glue it on. These are simple backgrounds that can be use a variety of ways, and you could also fold the cards from the side rather than the top.

How to Get Up Off the Floor - A Tutorial

Here's a useful video on how to get up off of the floor if you fall when you are alone. This will not work in every situation. Lack of strength or carpeting would make it much harder. I do recommend having a chair in every room of your house if there is space for that since it would make this easier.

My mom fell around 6 times last year. Because of her limited mobility we had to call the emergency services a number of times to get her up when my husband wasn't home. I really encourage trying to keep some muscle tone and flexibility through intentional exercise as you go into your mid to later years of life. I want to work on this more myself after watching my Mom's difficulties with this. Anyway, it's something I think about because I never know when I'll get the next call that she's down nor how bad it will be. Her last fall was quite bad because she hit her head on a side table.

Beginner Watercolor Greeting Card Tutorial

Here is a tutorial for a simple watercolor card done by Sharon Cullen. One way to make this easier would be to use watercolor greeting cards that are already pre-cut and folded and just paint directly onto the card, skipping the torn edge look. Also, you could do this with cheap watercolor paints and still get an acceptable result. Be adventuresome and mix your colors for more interest.

This project is easy enough that some kids would enjoy trying it. If you don't have a stamp to use for the greeting on the front, these cards will look pretty without, or you can write one on a bit of card stock and glue it on the front.

As I like to mention as a reminder - I do not have any control over the ads that may show up on these videos, or over the "suggested" links offered at the end. :-)

Berry Fun Friday - Strawberry Pincushion Tutorial

Here is a tutorial for a cute and easy strawberry pincushion brought to us by the Gourmet Quilter of New Zealand. A simple hand sewn running stitch can be used to do the gathering around the top. Another option would be to zigzag over a bit of string, yarn or fishing line.

I used a different pattern to make similar berries. Instead of using felt for the tops I made yo-yos from green fabrics and sewed those over the opening.

This would be a great way to use up scraps of reds and pinks.

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Tutorial for Making Paper Snowflakes

A simple tutorial for making paper snowflakes. To copy the various designs shown pause the video.
Enjoy! :-)
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Job 38:22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, 

Snowflakes are beautiful,
Pure and white,
And like God's children,
No two are alike.
- unknown

Sew Happy Wednesday - Tutorials for Making Your Own Shopping Bags

Here are two tutorials for making your own shopping bags. One is a soft bag that would be comfortable to carry on your shoulder perhaps in a farmer's market. The other is a large sturdy tote for carrying large amounts of groceries home from the store.

Photo: Sew4Home.com

Soft and Stuffable Cotton Shopping Bags

Photo: Sew4Home.com

DIY Re-usable Grocery Bags

Watercolor Painting with Three Colors - A Tutorial

Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors are my favorite student grade watercolors. Probably this is because they are the almost the only ones I have ever used. :-) They are what I started with and they helped me learn quite a lot about watercolor and to realize that I wanted to proceed to the professional paints. As this artists says, it is not necessary to buy a large set. It is probably better not to if you want to learn to mix colors.

Working with three colors is a good way to learn to blend and mix colors - something good for water-colorists to be comfortable with. I did some tiny paintings using just three colors earlier this year and it was very interesting and satisfying.

Because these paints are not very expensive, they are also good for the hobbyist who wants to paint some simple greeting cards. They will give you better color saturation than many of the really cheap student paints. Of course, for good results you will need to buy watercolor paper.

Sew Happy Wednesday - Two Quick and Easy Quilt Tutorials

These tutorials are not as in depth as some, but the information is enough to make the quilts if you already have some quilting skills. :-)

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Sew Happy Wednesday - Easier Granny Square Qtuilt

Just a friendly reminder that I'm only posting three days a week right now, so I've made this a Wednesday post instead of the previous "Sew Happy Friday."
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Jenny Doan of the Missiouri Star Quilt Co. shows an easier way to make the Granny Square Quilt.

Note: I don't recommend buying lottery tickets - even if you're having a "lucky day."  :-)



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Sew Happy Friday - Disappearing Pinwheel Tutorial

Here's another fun quilt tutorial from Jenny Doan at The Missiouri Star Quilt Co. You could use this pattern to make a very scrappy quilt with leftover 10" squares.

Enjoy! :-)

Sew Happy Friday - Scrappy Jelly Roll String Quilt Tutorial

This quilt is a version of the jelly roll race quilt. It's a great way to use up scraps. If you enjoy making this type of quilt but don't like cutting all the 2" strips at one time, you can cut the strips ahead of time by cutting up your scraps from other projects as you do them. You might store the strips in containers by color. This way you can later select a pleasing mix of colors, or if you have many from on color group you can make a quilt from one color as this lady does in her demonstration.

If you don't want to do all the trimming of angles, you can make this quilt by just sewing the strips end to end. However, if you do that be sure to trim away any selvage edges first. Also, the angle cuts are what give the interesting points in this.

Sew Happy Friday - Quilt As You Go Blocks Tutorials

Here is a tutorial from the Gourmet Quilter in New Zealand. She shows us how to use up scraps of fabric, batting, and strips of fabric to make quilt-as-you-go blocks to make a quilt or tote bag or whatever project you want to make. These blocks could also be made over a period of time using up scraps, then making a very scrappy quilt at some future date with all your blocks.

NOTE: Beware of ironing blocks with synthetic batting. I have melted synthetic batting before when ironing a project. It will go "very flat" as she says. I prefer to use 100% cotton batting now because it doesn't have this limitation.

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In this second tutorial she shows how to sew the blocks together into a quilt or project. If you want to see the instructions for the borders and the rest of this specific project, please check out her YouTube page. I am mainly interested in the basic blocks and joining them. The edges can be bound in any typical quilt binding method you prefer.

One thing you can do to break up the "string" blocks is to make some blocks to mix in that are just a solid square on each side in the same size as your other blocks. Make a sandwich of the three layers and then machine quilt them however you like. She made some with applique stars on them, as you can see in the video.