Some random things...

I just planted my pots outside and can't wait until they look like this!

Just in case any of you thought my growing season is ahead of yours. It's not. These pictures are from last year and my plants are still quite small, but they are planted. (Hopefully we won't get any more late snow storms.)

I felt a little bit of summer yesterday and it was great!!

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I need to thank Lindsey at House Made Home for passing this award along to me. You will have to check out her blog by clicking on her blog name. She has some great ideas about painting your chandeliers and some great design tips. So, Thanks Lindsey that was very kind of you.

I am going to share seven random things about myself.

1. I am the grandmother to 8 little boys and three darling granddaughters. I love visiting them and having them come to visit me!

2. I am an Operating Room nurse (circulator) and work part time in the operating room. I have been doing this for many years and still love going to work! I enjoy meeting new people and helping them when they need surgery.

3. I sometimes laugh hardest at my own jokes, mainly because I always mess up the punch line.

4. I enjoy doing any kind of new hobby or craft and if I haven't done it, I am most willing to learn and try something new.

5. I love basketball, football, and baseball and I even understand how they are played and the rules of the games. After growing up as a coach's daughter, I grew up in a gymnasium and learned to love all aspects of the game.  I then married  my favorite athlete of all time and had 6 athletes of my own. My most favorite thing do to is watch them play! Now, I have some grandson's to watch too!

6. In the summer you can find me out in my flower garden. I love flowers and digging in the dirt.

7. I am as old as the dirt. (well sometimes I feel like it) I have been married to the same man for 35 years and each day I love him more!

I am going to pass this award on to several more of you and I love reading your blogs and here are some of my favorites in no particular order!

Night Owl Crafting

Pity pat Paperie

Love actually

Live Laugh Make Something

Creations From My Heart

Craft a World

A few of my favorite things

Jenny Matlock

Lucky Star Lane

Mommy Time Crafts

Project Create

Seven Thirty Three

Le Mond de Erika

Our Life in a click

Shady Creek Lane

Thanks again for the award and have fun checking out all of these fun blogs!

Medicine Bags!

We are getting ready for Girl's Camp which will be held at the end of June so my crafting has been focused  pretty much on that. We decided we will have  the theme "Daughters of Helaman".  With that in mind we decided that we would focus on Native Americans and some of the traditions and customs that they have. One of the items we decided to make was a medicine bag.  From what I have read these bags were used for the spiritual leaders in the tribes and small items were placed inside of the bags that were used for healing and maybe small items that reminded the person of those things that  were precious in this life. The person then wore this around their neck and kept it close to their hearts. With that in mind I tried to figure out what a medicine bag would look like. I found that it could be a pouch with a draw string, a bag with a closure of some type, and the bag would have a long enough strap to slip over their head. I had vision in my head what I thought they would look like and drew up a pattern. Then I duplicated it 26 times! ( I am hoping all of the girls will want to come!)

This is how I started, I cut the pattern out of recycled leather and then tried a leather punch but my hand tired quickly so I reverted to the good old brad punch (used for scrap booking). I used straight pins to hold it in place.

I used this hemp cord to sew the two sides together.

I then fringed the edges with my sharp scissors. ( These are now hidden when the grand kids come, I have found they can do some major damage!)

Then to make the leather look a little more authentic, just wet the leather and twist the fringes and then let it dry over night.

You can also do this with the straps.

I then decided I might need some beads on the flap.

I did learn to use a bead needle, ( it is quite small, in order to fit through the tiny holes of the beads.) A trick to this is to use a safety pin to make the hole through the leather so you can put the bead needle through the hole.

I then made two punch holes for a small loop of leather to make the button hole. I used a bead that looked like a piece of bone for the button.

I had the leather cut out and punched and then each girl made their own. I didn't get a picture of all of them because some of them wanted to take theirs home to put beads on them. While we are at camp we will have the girls put the items in their bags that are special to them.

It was a fun project and the girls are excited for camp. Next week we are planing our menus and passing off some camp requirements. It's going to be a fun summer!

 I am linking to Tidy Mom Friday!

Bottle cap jewelry

We had a YW class activity on Tuesday night and I wanted to show you how creative these girls are. They decided in one of our class planning meetings that one night a month they each wanted to take a turn to teach the rest of us some type of creative skill. This month Karlee taught us how to make bottle cap jewelry. I had never seen this done and thought it was so clever and they turned out so very CUTE!

You start with bottle caps and cut out scrap book paper (so the designs you can make are endless.) WE found that a quarter was just the right template for the size of the bottle cap.

Deciding what color and pattern to use was the hardest part of the night.

You can add any kind of scrap booking brad that you want or use a letter sticker for your own special monogram.

Decide where you want your brad to be and use a nail and a hammer to make the hole for the brad. Then to make sure the hole matches up with the paper put the paper circle on the bottle cap an poke the nail through the opposite side to make a hole in the paper.

Then use the number one staple for many crafts, you guessed it, MOD PODGE! First coat the bottle cap with a fine film of this great stuff and then hold it firmly in place and open your brad on the other side. Then give a coat  on the outside trying not to get it on the brad. WE found it doesn't look as cute if the mod podge gets on the brad.

Then if you want a little sparkle to your jewelry use just good old glitter polish. This adds just the right amount of BLING!

Then use a small round clamp to go through the punched hole in the edge of the bottle cap. If you were making a bracelet, you will need a hole on each side. Use 2 needle nose pliers to pry the circle open and thread it through the hole.

There is the hole!

Thread your chain through the circle.

Ta DA! isn't it cute!

The bracelets are adorable!

You can also make an interchangeable bracelet by putting a washer on the bracelet and then putting a small magnet on the back of the bottle cap. It is amazing how strong that little magnet is. Then you can interchange your bottle caps with whatever you want.

I think these are very cute too. What if you made one in each of the Value colors! Oh, the possibilities are endless!!!

These girls are just the best! and come up with the cutest ideas! We have so much fun every Tuesday night! Have fun making your bottle cap jewelry!

Knit headbands

These are some knit headbands that I finished over the weekend. I made the smaller one first and then decided I needed it a little bigger, so I added a few more rows and made another one. I was making it for  a friends daughter and thought the smaller one would be too small. It is really cute on but I didn't have a model, except myself so, you will just have to believe me that it is really cute on. I kind of made up the pattern and started with 6 cast on stitches and then expanded and decreased from there. I then crocheted around the edge with a contrasting color and crocheted a triple flower  and added a polka dot button for the center.

You know it was kind of funny that this knitted headband craze has not hit the East Coast yet. I see a lot of them here on the West Coast but my daughter who lives on the East coast said she had not seen any where she lives. Maybe it is just a Utah, Idaho thing! Maybe we will have to start a new fashion statement in the East. They look adorable on and I made these from cotton so you can still wear them here, I should clarify that it snowed today, even though it is supposed to be SPRING!!!

Thanks for the award!!

Thanks to Kami at Sweet Charli for this blog award!

I don't have too many followers but I do follow quite a few blogs so I am very honored that  she would think of me. You will have to check out her blog by clicking on her link above.

In order to receive this award you have to promise to share this with 10 other BLOGS that you think are Trendy too! It is just that simple.

Just post about your award in your blog

List your Top Trendy Blogs

Share with them and

Leave a link to the Trendy Blog Button (so they can grab it to)

Make sure you tell them the same, that they need to give this award out to 10 as well.

So here are my picks of Trendy Blogs that I love.
They are in no particular order so  click on the links below and check them out!

Along for the ride
Get Craftin
Brown Paper Packages
Sew Incredibly Crafty
Savy Southern Style
Restyled Home
From Junk to Funk
Whistle stop Cafe Cooking
Under the table and dreaming
Poppies at Play

I'm Back!

I'm back from the East Coast and my trip was fantastic, I was able to do so many fun things and visit with my grand kids! I was also able to see my son in law graduate from Penn State medical school!! Before I left I made my Mom her Mother's day gift  and sent it off in the mail since I wouldn't be able to be there on Mother's Day. I decided to make some leather flowers mixed with some beads that I had.

While I was making these I decided to experiment with different combinations, so I made a single flower with beads and then I  did a combination of beads and leather flowers on a watch band for my copper watch.

This is the one I made for my Mom and I also gave her a leather flower pin to match. She called me as soon as it arrived and she said, "She loved it!" Of course Mom's always love every gift they get, but I loved it too!

I tried it on to see how it looked, don't you love those veins! (Nurses always notice veins, and lust after big ones, especially when they are having a difficult time finding a vein to start an IV.)

Here is the single rose, it looks quite dainty on the wrist.

This is the watch band and I was able to wear it with or without the watch and it looks great both ways.

I'm glad to be back home but it was so fun to go for awhile and have some great times with my daughter and her cute little family!!

I am linking to these parties! Check them out!

Favorite things Friday

Hodge Podge Friday

Friday Fun Finds at Ko Jo Designs