Catching Up

Love that all my bulbs I planted last fall came up this spring!

 Meg and I got together for a day of smashing.  I made 8 more pages in 365 Smashbook.  This book is all about the seasons and holidays.  I am having a hard time finding things to put in this book, but I am chugging along in it.

So proud of these two!  They are living out their faith and
becoming awesome servants in ministry.

 This one was an Instagram picture that Matthew took while subbing.  Those kids are sure lucky to have him as a teacher.

All my cropping buddies!  I can't wait till next years crop.

 I wanted to document the Olympics this year. Not my favorite page, but it's done!








I love my bird page!  I can spend hours snapping pictures of our backyard birds.  When it is snowing they all come out to feed.  This page already had a pretty bird printed on it, so I knew I would put my birds on it.

 We had a doozy of a winter this year. 

 I lost count of the number snowfalls.  

It was fun working with these ladies to create a
 beautiful evening for fathers and their daughters. 

The next two pages are from my

 "Things I Love" Smashbook.

I have learned to love these movies!
I watch them so many times, I can even repeat quotes from the movies.

Here are some of my favorite Apps from my I Phone. 

 I even got my hubby to get hooked on a game.

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a blessed day.

Cleaning My Dyson

 While I was surfing around Pinterest I saw a pin about cleaning your Dyson vacuum.  I said to myself, "You are supposed to clean them?"  I have emptied the canister and clean the hair off the bottom, but that is about it.

In the eight years I have had this vacuum, I will confess it has never been deep cleaned.  So one sunny spring day I set out to clean my Dyson. 

Now Dyson has many different versions so yours may not have the same parts.  But I think the concepts are the same. Remember not to force any parts off. 

Open your trap door on the bottom of your canister and then take off the screws.  Next gently pull off the handled top.   

 Watch out for the giant dust cloud that explodes all around you!  OK, it is a miracle anything gets clean with this thing, YUCK! 

I took a hose to all of these pieces.  I kept rinsing until the water ran clear.  Then I took them inside and scrubbed them with a soapy toothbrush  

 Next I found the filter.  Never knew it had one, but there are stickers on the machine telling me where it is. OOPS!

That filter is supposed to be blue.

 I brought it inside and rinsed it until it ran clear.  It was like squeezing mud out of that thing. Then I found out I am supposed to clean that thing every six months.  

 So next up is the roller brush area.  Yes, we all probably cut the hair and string off now and again.  But today I am taking the plastic housing off.  

My roller didn't come off all the way, so I had to work around the brush.  

 So I found a couple more parts that came off.  I rinsed and wiped all the parts.  I am leaving them to dry in the sun today.  Then I will let them dry inside for a couple of days.  You don't want moisture inside your vacuum.  

So there you have it!  One sparkling clean vacuum.  I thought it would be a simple task, but it took a couple hours to take apart and clean all the parts.  But now I have a "brand new" vacuum, that should last another 8 years. 

 Well, I hope so anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Organizing Stamps

I have quite the collection of acrylic stamps.  

They are great because you don't have the chunky wooden

 backs to store.  You only need an acrylic block to stick

 them too and your ready to stamp.  

Then when your done just clean them and put them away.  

Now putting them away became a challenge for me. 

 I stuffed them in little bags and had to dig through them to find the one I wanted to use.  So I decided to follow my DIL's idea to store them in baseball card page protectors.

 You can find them at Target or Walmart.  I think I paid 5 bucks for these.  Not a bad investment for my sanity.

 Next I cut out little white cards, to fit in each of the places.  I choose white so you can read the stamps clearly. 

I was going to put a set of stamps on each side, but it was too bulky.  So I decided to just use one side.  

So much better!  Don't you agree.  Now I placed them in a binder that I can carry to crops and classes.  No more digging for the right stamp, woo hoo!

Organizing makes me happy!

 I hope you found this little tip helpful.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a blessed day!

Young Lives, BIG Stories

Let me introduce to you three special people. These youngsters have grown up in the sub culture called, the military family.  Over looked by the majority of our society, these kids sacrificed along side their soldier parent for the duration of his career.  They moved on average every 2-3 years, attended 6 different schools, had to repeatedly make new friendships, say good bye to many friends and live with the uncertainty of their soldier parent coming home safely.A lot of military children take these changes in stride and some even thrive on them, but it is hard - kids have to rebuild their world every time and find their place in it..

Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger in 1986 designated each April as "The Month of the Military Child".  Recognizing the contribution the military child makes as their parent serve our nation.  So if you happen to walk past a soldier and his family make sure not to only thank the soldier for his or her service, but also their children.  

Military posts have many activities for the military family. They have youth services, where young kids can gather and hangout. The bases have pools, playgrounds, bowling allies and theaters. But they don't have mentors.  People that come along side these kids to be a friend to confide in and share their lives.  

Let me introduce this little guy......... Matthew.

You may recognize him from the above photo, but he is somewhat of an anomaly in this story.  He grew up and instead of choosing the path of businessman, family, white picket fence lifestyle, he choose the career of serving as a missionary to military children.   Along with his wife Sarah, they plan to travel and live on military posts in Asia and Europe.  They will come along side chaplins, families and their kids to minister to them.  

How you may ask?  They will be in the schools tutoring, holding backyard Bible clubs, teaching Sunday school, setting up AWANA and VBS programs and so much more.

Quote from their blog.

Serving Those Who Serve

"We are followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our desire is to bring a smile to His face! We are missionaries to the military children, we trust the Lord will use us to bring hope to their constantly changing world. The hope that they will never have to say goodbye to God, like they do with their friends every two years. The hope that God will never leave them or forsake them, He is a constant friend!"

 But in order for them to move overseas they must raise monthly support.  While they are raising their support they are active in their church ministering to children. 

Here is how you can help:
Pray that the Lord will place supporters in their lives.
Pray that Matthew and Sarah are able to convey their ministry and needs in a clear manner.
Pray that they will trust God for their provision.

Think about becoming a member of their team. 

The name of their mission board is Candence International.

They also have a Facebook Page

The young life of this military child is turning into a great big story for the Lord's glory.  Please share, pin, tweet, text, instagram, call, write.... whatever you can do to spread the word of this ministry.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

  

Does It Work????

 I have been doing some deep cleaning lately.  On Pinterest I found so homemade cleaners.  

This one cleans your tub/shower.  I have a textured bottom and no matter what I have tried (bleach, plain baking soda, scouring powder...) it just didn't come clean.  Then I found this site that claimed to have the cure to clean your stubborn shower scum.   

So I thought I would give it a try. 

The recipe calls for:

1/2 c. white vinegar

1/2 c. Original Blue Dawn Dish Soap

4 T. Baking Soda

Heat the vinegar in the microwave for about 90 seconds.  Let it cool a few minutes.  I began to add the baking soda a little at a time.  There was too much foam so I added the soap and gave it a stir.  Then I added the rest of the baking soda.

This made a bowl of foamy goodness.

Now I clean my shower every week and still have this gross looking bottom.  Don't judge.

 So I spread the mixture all over the bottom.  I had to make another batch to cover the entire area.

Now you let it sit for two hours.  When I came back and started to scrub it didn't seem to get all the crevasses so I smeared it around again and left it for another hour.

 I took a scrub brush and gave it a good scrubbing.  Some areas needed a bit more elbow grease than others, but it came clean.   

This made me very happy.  If you have a textured bath/shower.  Give it try!  

This next concoction is a grease cutter.  When I fist saw it I thought a grease cutter that uses oil?????  But it is AWESOME.  You can read the blog post HERE.

The recipe is:
1 part vegetable oil
2 part baking soda

Mix it in a small bowl and grab an old toothbrush.  The site claimed to get that greasy gunk off you cabinets.  Since I have light colored cabinets, pictures really didn't show a change.  But you could feel how clean the wood and knobs were after I scrubbed a bit.  So I was thinking maybe it would work on my stove.  

I have a stainless steel stove and it took all the little grease marks right off.  It is a miracle cleaner! It also took off the black grease around the burners.  It is a little messy but worth the extra clean up.

So there you have two easy cleansers that you whip up at home.  Happy spring cleaning!

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

House Keeping Tip

As many of you know we supplement our heat with a wood stove in the winter.  I love the smell and the flicker of the flames.  What I don't like as much is keeping the area clean.  I am constantly cleaning up ash and soot.

 After a week of fires the glass is covered in soot and I can't see the flames so much anymore.

When we first moved in (being a wood stove newby) I tried to clean the glass with glass cleaner.  Well that didn't work. So I googled "how to clean fireplace glass". I love google!

Well I didn't beilive the answer I found.  It said to get a damp paper towel and dip it in the ashes and then rub the glass.  

Really???? Ewwwwww

 

It really works!

 So if you have dirty fireplace glass, 

use this handy tip to keep it clean.

If you like this tip, please share it on Pinterest.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Where Have I Been?

Here is the reason I haven't been blogging lately. 

 I have been working at church to help pull 

together a Father/Daughter Dinner. 

 We had 200 in attendance.  

We transformed the gym

 into a special space for a memorable evening. 

Our theme for the evening was Psalm 139:14 

"I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul know very well."

We wanted the girls to know that the Lord made each and everyone of them unique and special!

Since the dinner was just a few days after spring, we thought the colors should be bright and cheery.  We made almost all the decorations by hand.  We had a great group of volunteers that helped!

The birdcages were from Hobby Lobby.  We attached a glass candlestick from the dollar store.  Then we distressed the cage with a variety of paints.  The table number was an embossed and inked circle.  Making it look like a piece of wood.  I added some raffia, flowers and you have a pretty focal piece.

We place the cage on a piece of wood and painted a little bird for each centerpiece.  A votive added just the right amount of light to illuminate the cage.

These poms were fun to make and hang as our dance floor chandelier.

 Each place setting had a hand dyed doily and tissue paper corsage.  Our party favor for the girls were little insta-grow pots filled with flower seeds.  We had nest shaped candy dishes with egg candies that matched our colors perfectly. 

For dessert we served cupcakes from this fabulous cupcake bar.  The ladies baked and decorated 300+ cupcakes.  They dived right in and loved it!

We had a fun photobooth area for them to get a picture taken.  It was a good way for them to remember the evening.

Here is a picture of the main coordinators of the dinner.  Left, food coordinator, middle, administrative/ craft helper, and I created the decor for the all the areas of the event.

It was a great experience working with these ladies and all the other volunteers that made this evening possible.  I am blessed that I can use my crafty gifts and talents to help create a special evening for my church family.

Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!