Starry Sky Ranch

Back into the swing

Slowly but surely.  The cpu is reformatted and I am starting to reload favorites and finding new ones. Guess that is one perk. ; ) Thought I would share some new discoveries:

Tie One On If you liked the apron links you will enjoy this blog. Consider it Apron of the Month club.

Hop Skip Jump is a both blog and shop. I think these soft toys (pic'd at left) are adorable! Gave the girls and I lots of ideas for projects. Like we needed that lol!

Why did we not need more ideas this week?  Because we picked up a copy of Martha Stewarts Handmade Gifts at the checkout. SO many ideas we would love to try - felt slippers, paper ornaments, scarf stockings, sock toys....  Take a look while you are waiting in line next. It isnt difficult to find craft project ideas. It IS difficult to find ideas for classy projects.

I hope Thanksgiving treated you all well. We have my mother-in-law and niece here this week. We spent the day quietly - ok, as quiet as a day with 8 children and 3 adults can be! The meal came off with just a few hitches. All is well. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we hit the ninth month of this pregnancy. Yep. 36 weeks! It's hard to believe we got this far already. Now to just finally shake this head cold. BLECK! I swear one's immune system just quits during pg.

What else is tomorrow? We are renting a buck. He will be visiting our does for a couple weeks. Ahh the adventures never end! <g>

Hopefully in the next day or two I can upload Alannah's tiny creations. Last sewing class they made little sock people - she has an angel and snowman thus far. They are adorable!

Hello again!

Just wanted to send a quick note explaining our absence. The computer hard drive glitched last week and we are in the process of reformatting - minus a LOT of data files and bookmarks. Sigh. We have my mother in law and niece here for Thanksgiving as well. We hope to be back up and running in a few days.

Meantime, check out Louise's adaptations to the template downloads for her children's notebooks! She added a thematic watermark to the background before printing the template. Very nice!

And dear friends, PLEASE begin to send me your favorite bookmarked sites! Losing all my favorites is the worst part of a cpu crash for me.

The Illustrated Page

Notebook pages! Journaling pages! Pretty stuff. : )  We are trying to do more notebooking this year and it is taking various forms. Obviously the Home Journal took precedence for mom but I am also trying to make more regular entries in my nature notebook. I was way inspired by some illustrated journal sites online. I doubt mine will ever look that good but it freed me to make pages that weren't perfect - neither perfectly planned nor perfectly executed. Only perfectly pleasurable.

After a phone call this morning I took several pics of pages made with the templates from the Home Mgt Journal posts. Hopefully these will help you think outside the box(es) on the templates when helping your kids make their journal pages.

First of all, the templates work for any type of notebook page - history, religion, science, lit, etc. Printing on cardstock makes for a sturdier page. Don't get into a color rut. Printing paper comes in lots of colors besides white and they make for considerably punchier pages. Those are notebooking "upgrades" that don't cost time or money.

When planning a page consider whether it will contain mostly text or mostly images or a mix and then pick a template that works best. Narrations can be typed into the text boxes before printing or you can type in gray lines before printing as writing guides for handwritten narrations. Likewise net images can be imported before printing or cut and pasted afterwards. The text boxes also work great for bible verses, poetry exerpts or copywork. Bullet headers are acceptable at our house. Not everything needs a lengthy narration. We are just shooting for pegs to hang the information on to aid retention.

Anything can find its way onto a page. Coloring pages are trimmed and saved, leaf samples, charts, diagrams, you name it. The boxes serve as 'containers' to house these treasures neatly and bind them into easily stored books. (vs stuffing them into hidden corner of the house ; ))

I will try to upload more pages as we go. Please shoot me a note if you have pages to share!

Scouts Honor

Our Aidan became a boy scout in October. We were blessed to join a large homeschool troop locally. My dear friend and neighbor Mary has been able to carpool to mtgs on the nights Allen has been gone so it has been working out well. He is absolutely beside himself with pleasure. He memorized his Bobcat badge requirements and got his first award already.  And did you catch that white bead on his necklace? That would be for 'best behavior'.  Yep - my kid! ; D 

On Saturday they went on their first field trip. Here he is with some of the other boys and the firemen from the station they visited. (A is third from right) Kieran went along for the ride but was less impressed. I asked him if he had fun and he said frankly, "Um not so really". Apparently there was no demo of the uniform or sliding down ladders involved. Darn.

Baby Feet

Rebecca at Babylove is collecting images of baby feet. Here is our first contribution. This is from Brendan as a newborn. If you have any pictures to share send them her way!

Lisa's Binder

Lisa just sent me a link to her newly finished notebook. She says she has never done anything remotely 'scrapbook-y' so take heart all!  This can be done very well even if you don't have any previous experience. Thanks for the link Lisa!

Tracy's Binder

Tracy just uploaded pics of her newly completed Home Mgt Journal.  check it out - its beautiful!

Loveliness Fair -homemade gifts

Dawn posted this week's Loveliness Fair, Homemade gifts. I didn't get a post up in time - there's something new, not. ; )  But thought about it enough recently that I figured late was better than never.

We just finished the Christmas chapter in Little House in the Big Woods. First, it was striking to us that they each recieved one thing. Parents and children alike. But they so loved what they got. Ma got a shelf hand-carved by Pa, which took a place of honor in a sparcely furnished cabin. The girls got mittens and candy, save for Laura who also got a ragdoll. This means Ma didn't kill herself over Christmas.  It also means that everyone had a proper respect for a gift. If you make one you know the time and effort they take. If you don't have Walmart and the mall nearby and gifts aren't an everyday occasion then they are appreciated even more. With all that in mind we are giving less and thinking more. We are also taking care not to toss things into the carts throughout the year but to save those items for special occasions.

The baby's quilt is the number one handmade project we have going right now.  There are only so many gifts of that intensity that a person can churn out in Nov. But there are lots of smaller, less complicated options that still mean a lot. Here are a few ideas:

Albums from Shutterfly. They start cheap, they aren't technically handmade but they are personal. And hey, you took those pics yourself right?

Pomanders. My family loves the smell of cinnamon and cloves. Even a smallish child can press cloves into an orange. Use a thimble or else start the holes with a thumbtack or you will hate me later. ; ) .

ornaments.  The net is teeming with ornament directions. I LOVE ornaments so am guessing many others would appreciate one as well. It takes as much time to make a classy one as a tacky one. Choose wisely.

Stationary.  If you have stamp sets or clip art online you can make a nice set for someone. An altered composition book is inexpensive and begs to be used. Dawn has some on her blog. Altered cds are great coasters too. Way nicer than the average coaster <g> If you scrapbook and have bits of patterned paper laying around let the kids make a collage on scratched cds.

Tiny framed pics or verses. You can often pick up small frames at the dollar store or Walmart for a small expense. You can handwrite or type a poem, prayer, or Scripture verse that hold special meaning to you or your recipient. Double frames can hold a verse on side and a child's pic on the other. Or frame a small person's handprint for a grandparent.

I have seen a lovely gift of a personalized votive candle. Take a small glass votive holder and monogram it with a classy sticker letter. A Times type sticker font works well. A text box printed from the cpu works as well. Wrap in tissue or tuille and tie with a ribbon.

Bookmarks.  They can be made with verses, stitched with a backstitch (less time than a cross-stitch pattern) over a freehand pattern, made from holy cards, old greeting cards.  You can also have a child blanket stitch around the bookmark. I still have a lovely bookmark made by Jen years ago from pressed flowers. To stitch on paper place the cardstock over a thick towel, take a sharp point like a needle or tack and make your holes along the design. Then its as simple as a child's lacing card. Or skip it entirely and use scrapbooking stickers. : ) 

In a fast food world I still think a homemade loaf of bread or batch of fudge cannot be beat. We can't possibly make all the different types of Christmas goodies every year. It is a treat to receive another family's specialty to add variety to our cookie tray. 

Another food gift is chocolate spoons. Simply pick up the cheap packs of spoons at Walmart (6 for a dollar!) and dip them into melted chocolate. You may wish to add a few drops of peppermint tot he melted chocolate or dip the wet spoons in sprinkles.  They are very nice presented in a holiday mug. (dollar store!)

There you go. Lots of options that neither tax the bankbook nor your time. Send me pics if you try these!

What is She Making?

  "Seeing a woman wear an apron lets you know she loves to create. Her creations may be pies or paintings or pottery, but she also produces an aura of comfort, ease and curiousity. You just naturally think, "What is she making?"

I picked up a copy of Mary Jane's Farm catalog/magazine at the store this week. The current issue, Artists in Aprons, is devoted to readers' stories about aprons including several patterns (free and for purchase). The article by Jeannie Pierce exerpted above spoke to me for some reason. It articulated what being at home means to me. Being at home isn't a frivolous luxury, nor is it degrading or limiting as some would like us to believe. It is a rare opportunity, in our age, to fully explore the creative, nurturing, lifegiving aspects of womanhood. Her thoughts led to more of my own. What are we making?  A life.  A good life.

I love that the whole issue embraced what aprons represent in the most positive light. Truth is the apron, once a staple in a respectable woman's wardrobe, is nowadays just as likely to provoke scowls, scoffs and scorn by our sisters along the way. To them it represents oppression and shallow pursuits. What a shame. There is such liberty available to a keeper of the home. Your day is your own as are the choices you make about how to fill it. You can indeed fritter it away if you so choose, which is also a shame. But you have the ability to soar to great heights artistically and intellectually. You answer only to your own agenda rather than that of an employer. You can make something. Something good. Something irreplaceable. Something only you can. To me this is what those aprons represent.

I loved the stories and the pictures like I said. Very inspiring. But on a practical level I have not found the specific apron pattern 'I' would like. Seems most aprons on the market today are neither unique nor particularly useful. The barbeque style apron prevails and frankly it doesn't do the trick for catching my messes. Pleasant View Schoolhouse featured a perfect style a while back. It went all the way around the skirt which is especially helpful if one was tempted to run to the barn or garden in a good dress.  Or if one might possibly be ambushed for a hug from behind by a sticky faced child who just couldn't wait. : )

I surfed for such an apron with no luck. Then the Vintage Homemakers list was discussing a company called the Paisley Pincushion. Their site wouldnt pull up for me but many vendors seem to carry their patterns. Granted I am a sucker for a watercolor illustration and could be tempted to buy just about anything so displayed <g>.  Truly though these look GREAT! As though you could not help but be inspired to 'make something'.

Some more apron articles to peruse:

Vintage aprons at about.com

hillbilly housewife apron evangelism

appeal of aprons (has patterns)

Now to finish stacking the book boxes so I can reach the sewing machine......  On that note we DID unpack, sort, and repack THIRTY boxes from our storage area this week.  Woo hoo!!

The Bank Game

Meredith asked for directions for the bank game Kieran was playing in a previous post and I figured I would post them here as well. Montessori World has directions for the decimal system activities that we have used. Shu Chen Jenny's Math album has a similar set of instructions for golden bead decimal work. the bank game is basically what they call the addition and subtraction work. The tray with all the blocks on it is the 'bank' where the student can trade in ten ones for a ten rod for instance. 

I substitute base ten blocks because they truly are the same thing - just square. I can live with a variation like that. ; ) They are also very easy to come by locally. If you don't feel up to making all the exercises yourself then an inexpensive workbook like Spectrum Math can be used for practice. You just use the blocks to present the concepts vs the book.  That is what ours are doing they are able to compute much larger numbers than their ages and grades would suggest.

Hope that helps!