ducky house

smoke detector batteries

2012-01-19T13:47:47-06:00

January is a hard month in these parts with the brutal cold arriving. I find myself spending increasing times indoors staying warm, drinking hot tea, reading books & earlier bed times. Why fight it right? I've also dubbed January "organization month". I'm inside for endless hours so it is a good time to catch up on unfinished things, declutter & tackle those monotonous projects that need to be done but always seem to be forgotten.

One project that pops into my head throughout the year is changing the smoke detector batteries. It's one of those panic thoughts where I often find myself thinking "when did I last change my batteries" and then when I finally check, I can never actually remember the date change. Well I wisened up this time, pulled out the masking tape and voila: battery dates are labelled. Next time my brain goes into smoke detector battery panic mode, I will simply flip them open and note the last change date.

As for frequency, I've read two opinions that batteries should be replaced every 6 months or once a year. Please read though your manufacturers recommended date to determine your time frame for battery replacement. Oh and don't forget to test your batteries once a month to make sure the detectors are functioning properly (replace if necessary). Happy home and health to you. xox

volume vintage

2012-01-16T15:00:51-06:00

I did a shop update last night and it was a biggy. 35 new-to-my-shop vintage prints are now joining the existing prints that are in my shop. That's a lot of sheets and whole lot of laundry, ironing, cutting, photographing, editing & uploading. It's been a long time coming and folks I finally have pink in the shop and of course gorgeous blues, greens, yellows & oranges. It's all good.

pinks, oranges, yellows:

blues, greens, purples:

yellow, oranges, pinks:

Go here

twirl & dance

2012-01-12T07:00:00-06:00

Last week I had a chance to spend time with my sewing machine, just the two of us. Being out of the sewing loop for so long, I found it difficult to pick a task to work on. My need-to-sew-pile is pretty big and there are of course quilts in various stages, but working on quilts requires a certain degree of inspiration. Instead I opted for the sew pile with a quick start & stop project, perhaps the best place to begin on days of uncertainty.

It's been awhile since I cut this fabric out, it is a repurposed print that I found in the thrift shop in excellent condition, a standard of mine for thrift purchasing; plus sewing with repurposed fabric gives me opportunity to work out the bugs in a design without wasting costly designer fabric. My initial intention was to make hostess aprons but that idea has since entered the nothing box of my brain (a catchy phrase my MIL used over the holidays) and is now unretrievable. I am keeping with the apron theme though and have cut a bit more fabric, a top portion to be exact, as well as muslin to make this bad girl fully lined. Finished product is a full body apron with enough fabric for the two little bakers in my life. The girls have been shadowing me in the kitchen over the fall and are really taking an interest in baking. But with only two aprons in the kitchen & three of us baking, a solution was needed.

Enter the apron, it's basic with rounded lower edges, I added a couple pleats on the bib portion to provide shape and deal with fabric excess which help to make the bib proportional to little girls. The fussiest part was pattern matching, as this is a busy fabric (good for spilage when baking), the three pieces had to be lined up for this. Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult and I think it went pretty successfully. All in all this was an excellent project to work on having been MIA with sewing; I spent one evening making the design/sewing the first apron, the next evening I whipped off a second. The only thing left was girlie approval which is based solely on the aprons twirl and dance factor.

FCSP

2012-01-10T07:00:00-06:00

sneak peek of my FCSP (first completed sewing project) for 2012. I am happy to be back in the studio and actually SEWING!! yes I am shouting it out loud :)

I have quite a few photos to upload from my camera so bare with me as I get organized, it's our first day back at homeschooling and I am distracted. I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the sneak peek.

ps, the shop is open once again!

happy new year 2012

2012-01-09T07:00:00-06:00

I trust my new year greeting finds you well? Maybe even a pound of two heavier, it's all good right? We had a wonderful Christmas with family guests in our home during the holidays. The hubby's parents came to stay with us and our boys graciously gave up their space for the grandparents. It was no trouble I was assured by both boys intent on seeing Nana & Papa. I love my flexible family (did I mention that the girls are sleeping our room again as we are working on a project in theirs...more on that later).

While I dearly love Christmas time, decorating & all that, I also equally love packing it up. There is something wonderful about heading into the new year with things decluttered & re-ordered. The slate feels clean & my heart is ever so optimistic. Do you feel the same? I'm not sure what you do in your home but in ours I like to enter the new year with family theme or phrase. It's nothing life shattering, just trying to get a little family unity going in the same direction if you know what I mean. The past couple of years our theme was something like "work hard", with the following year being "work harder". Boy I'm glad those years are behind us because this year is totally different: "be positive" is the theme for us and boy am I ready for it. I think most of us could use more positive feelings & thoughts in our lives on a daily basis don't you agree? Whether you found your theme or are still trying to figure it out, why not join me in this space for some inspiration, reading & plain ol' catching up.

ps: don't forget the warm drink, see you soon, xoo.

december windup

2011-12-29T11:59:21-06:00

...in photos because some things need no explanation

Hoping your Christmas was merry and your New Year is bright! xo

cranberry bread

2011-12-16T11:56:26-06:00

The girls and I have been busy in the kitchen making cranberry bread, The recipe is from the book Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende & Harry Devlin, which we studied & made lapbooks of during the thanksgiving season.

My girls are ever willing and capable in the kitchen these days, they always want to help & make and I'm all for that. On this particular day I set out the ingredients, they round up the tools. We work slowly and try to stay the course of the recipe all the while they chat up my ear. I'm happy to have them so interested in making even if baking with kids twins can be daunting. Patience I tell myself, one day they won't need my help anymore.

They carefully cut up the cranberries, measure & mix the ingredients. Help me pour it into the dish and let me put it in the oven, there have to be some rules in the kitchen. The recipe itself was a nice loaf loaded with fruit, we reduced the sugar & substituted raw honey into the mix, we also substituted the oil with coconut oil. The first time around we made the bread as one large loaf and recently made it again as mini loaves for teacher gifts (aside: fruit should be reduced for the mini loaves, in my opinion).

my rating: recipe was good

time with the girls: priceless

a pinteresting lunch

2011-11-18T12:19:13-06:00

Yup, I'm addicted to pinterest you know, but I'm getting better now. I don't "need" to pin everyday but on those days when I do visit, there are so many yummy things to see and pin, it's inspiration at your fingertips. But I'm not just a pin and look sorta girl. I've gotta try things out you know. And so I gave this recipe and go and my review is: I liked it, my kids however did not - too tarty and limey for them (keep that in mind if you do not like lime, I however adore all things lime). Between you and me I'm not very sad that they don't like it because there is never quite enough of this stuff to share when I do make it.

Now go and do likewise: don't just pin, make :) Happy Friday, xo

sure fooled me!

2011-11-07T07:00:00-06:00

This fall we started our school year on the right foot with an organized and dedicated space for our resources. Let me tell you how happy I am to finally have this space in place for all these items. Most of which have been sitting in banker boxes until needed and then we go on a mad hunt for such and such, you know the book about "... blah, blah, blah"

The planning for this little area started way back with these renovations. I knew it would be a long while until I saw this area complete as this is an open concept shelving unit in a central part of the home and I didn't want dusty construction from ongoing projects wrecking havoc on our education resources.

With the hallway & stairs newly completed (more on that later), the hubby started his work on a custom build-in shelving unit. Let me first say that carpentry is not his fortay, but he does a fantastic job at it none-the-less. In the early days it did take a fair amount of convincing that diy is the way to go and a typical conversation would go something like this:

me: "honey, it would be great if we could build something in this area (of the hallway) since it will be dead space"

him: "umm, I'm not a carpenter..."

me: "I realize that but we can't afford to hire a carpenter for every little thing that needs to be done and by the way, who was the first carpenter anyway?? someone had to start somewhere." When I sense he isn't biting, I throw in a desperate attempt aimed at his spirituality : "Jesus was a carpenter" ...at this point his eyes are rolling and he just wants me to stop already.

him: "alright already, but this will take some planning" I think that is code talk for stalling but I am immune.

me: "great! I already have the plans drawn up"... as I hand him a drawing of what I would like.

him: sensing the lost cause of it all he succumbs to my insatiable desire for project 'organize this home' "k, I'll need to make some measurements and then we need to go to home depot..."

Once the unit is built, we jam it into place, fill holes and cracks - I'm dangerous with the caulking gun, add a few coats of low VOC paint and a water based varathane to seal the deal. I let the unit cure to a solid hard finish for about 14 days, overkill I'm sure but at this point I don't want any mistakes.

AND didn't mr. duckyhouse do a fantastic job? he may not be a carpenter, but he sure fooled me!

The shelves were sorted and organized, baskets (from Costco) were filled with hands on learning items as well as crafty kid stuff. Our texts, current books, binders, dictionaries, etc all live in this zone. It's our go to place for everything education. I love having it central and readily available. I'm sure the kids find the visual aspect much easier as well and I couldn't be happier!

cantaloupe??

2011-10-18T16:10:53-05:00

Accidental gardening has to be one of the best surprises of life. We do a fair amount of composting in our home, our kitchen waste includes fruit & veggies skins & seeds, as well a few other non-meat items - don't want rats ya know.

Back in early September I was working in my tomato garden and noticed a crazy vine growing out of my compost bin. It looked very similar to a cucumber and since my cukes did nothing this year I thought "great!" As it continued to grow it flowered an amazing amount of blooms which then turned into a small round green ball of sorts. At this point it was losing it's similarity to the cucumber and my intrigue was greatly increasing. I sent the message out to the grass cutters of the home "beware and do not cut near the vine...", everyone got on board and we watched this plant grow.

I kind of forgot about the crazy vine, until last week when my attention was turned back to the yard, as things are getting a bit cool here. I checked to see what had become of the little green balls when I realized woah! the little green balls were now quite big and were...

...cantaloupes!

Now, it is really late for anything to be growing in these parts and even during the heat of summer our zone is not known for it's cantaloupes, but hey if mother nature is handing it out, I'll take it.

Now that the cool weather is upon us, I have at least one homegrown cantaloupe ripening in my kitchen. I sure hope it tastes good!