http://front–porch.blogspot.com/

See you there!

xox

So I’ve moved my front porch to a new home!  Check out my new front porch and my latest post:

http://front–porch.blogspot.com/

See you there!!

Kathy

Make your own banner buy cutting letters out of various scrapbook papers.  Back them with another coordinating/clashing paper.  Punch holes, thread string, voila!

(Sorry, the backlighting was really not helping my photography skills – even with the fancy camera!)

And easier yet!  Fill a glass jar, vase or bowl with all your horns, noisemakers and confetti as a super easy centerpiece.  They are bright and shiny and all ready to go when the clock strikes midnight!

Happy New Year!

Once we can clear some obvious things from our schedule, we need to figure out what our goals are.  After they are carefully formed, we can better prioritize what we should be spending our energy doing.  We may find more things that we can cut out when we see how low they are on our list.

Here are my goals in no particular order.  You can help keep me on track.

• 1. Spend quality time with God, Chris, the kids (need to ADD more to these three) and friends.
• 2. Volunteer in some capacity at church (need to cut back from 2 things to 1)
• 3. Volunteer in some capacity at my kids’ school (need to cut back from 4 things to 1)
• 4. Take time to create – art class, studio time (aka play in my art closet), home projects
• 5. Cook healthy meals
• 6. Exercise regularly

Things outside of your goals may need to be put on the back burner for now.  No, I can’t mail fundraiser envelopes to my neighbors. No, I cannot join another committee.  No, I cannot hand make my Christmas cards this year.  No, I do not need to take on this house project right now (hard one for me).  Just because there are whole stores devoted to the craft, I can choose to NOT scrapbook!

It is also important to make sure that there is margin in our days so we have time to breathe or time to take care of something unexpected.  I remember there being a time a few years ago when I had worked things out to a point where I had some extra time in my days (what happened???? Oh right, I started saying ‘yes’ again.) and during that time we discovered that we had a neighbor who was in need of help – physical care, grocery shopping, house cleaning, etc.  I remember going to the grocery store and thinking how I actually had time in my day to give to this woman.  It felt awesome.

So as I look at my January calendar I am going to try to schedule some quiet times.  And HEY!  Listen to this great idea! I am going to attempt to schedule sick days every once in awhile.  Whether or not you are employed outside the home, take a day to just relax.  Not a ‘sick day’ where you run errands and visit the doctor and the dentist (although those days feel great because you are getting things accomplished) but a day to sleep in, read a book or magazines, watch a little TV, go for a relaxing walk, get a massage (but that requires leaving the house and talking to people…..).  Turn off your phone or at least screen the calls for emergencies.  Stay in your pajamas and rest.  How often could you realistically work this into your schedule?  Once a quarter?  Once a month? It could be done on a weekend if you can’t make the time in your week. Let your family do the chores and cook dinner! It’s so weird how sometimes I WANT to catch a cold.  The kind where you feel just bad enough that you stay home on the couch (but you aren’t miserable).  Am I crazy?

This will be a REALLY hard discipline for me because I am a doer – I like to accomplish things.  But maybe if I had a day like that my shoulders wouldn’t be aching like they do right now.

Would it prepare us to be better at what we need to do the next day? What do you think????

Here are my Oprah moments for you to enjoy (sorry I can’t make them bigger….) Breathe in and out through your nose while you view:

Then the holidays came and I got all caught up in the craziness of that – and basically hit the wall a couple days before Christmas.  Now I am slowly getting myself back together, energized by the purging, redecorating (after I take down Christmas I like to put my house all back together in a different way) and organizing that comes with a new year. I want to ‘get things under control’ so I can be a better mom, wife, and friend.

Are you energized or exhausted by the idea of simplifying, organizing and home projects?

I can be energized for all of us!  Over the years I have helped many people clean out their basements, organize their craft rooms, sort through years of kids art projects, and one of my favorites: setting up the kitchens of new homeowners.  After a day of work with in a clients home I leave and get all excited to go sort through something in my own home!

Pull up a chair on the porch, take a cup of coffee or lemonade depending on what time of year you are hoping it is, and let’s talk about simplifying our busy lives. I am reading through the book Living the Simple Life by Elaine St. James and want to share some of her thoughts along with my own.  And I would love to hear your comments and/or questions regarding slowing down and simplifying life.

The first thing I ALWAYS do when taking on an organizing project is to purge what I do not need.

So what could that look like in relation to our busy lives?

◊ Spend less time on the phone. Tell your family that you are taking a week off from chit chatting.

◊ Stop watching TV?

◊ Do you have a stack of magazines that you don’t have time to read?  Recycle them or give them away.

◊ Choose to have frozen pizza or cereal one (extra) night of the week.

◊ Can you delegate some household chores to your family?  What is ONE thing each of them can do?

◊ Kindly step down from a committee or two.

◊ Turn off music and don’t use your phone while driving in the car.  Force yourself to be quiet during that time.

What drags you down? What depletes your energy on what is otherwise a good day? How can you get rid of that?

What else can you give up? If married, spend some focused time discussing this with your spouse who may have insight into your busy schedule.

Let’s all think about what we can give up.  Share you ideas.  Ask a question. See you tomorrow!

But I have to say that I LOVE the days after Christmas when we clean up the wrappings, put away the Christmas dishes, and take down the decorations that have exploded all over our house.  All the trees and trimmings, nativity scenes and advent calendars, pictures and books and ribbons and jingle bells – EVERYTHING has to be put back into storage.  This is (as my mother in law always says) like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

I have a not-so-secret love for clear storage containers and they have always been my answer to storing all kinds of things.  You can see through the boxes and if you get all the same brand they all stack up nice and tidy in a closet, storage room, or garage.

Here we go, friends!

Load up your goods into the container.  I pretty much pile it all in, knowing that I just bring them down to my basement and carefully stack them up.  If I were going to put them on a moving van and drive across the country I would have these treasure wrapped in bubble wrap and tissue.

I prefer to label my containers with a piece of paper tucked inside the box.  This allows me to change the contents without having to relabel the box.

Safe and sound until next Christmas!

Upcoming posts:  Simplifying, Organizing, Favorite healthy foods!

I already showed you an idea of how to display them but here is an idea to do with some really special photos. And of course it uses my favorite art medium……Mod Podge!

You can make one for yourself, of course, but how about making this for a friend using the photo of their family?

First, I photocopied our Christmas photo (no point in wrecking the original) and I obviously lucked out and it fit my 4″x4″ canvas perfectly.  If it doesn’t, you can change the size when you copy it – or find a different size canvas. You could also give it a cute paper boarder!

I painted the edges of the canvas brown and picked our coordinating paper (this was hard – which one or two would you choose?)

Then I Mod Podged it all onto the canvas and have a happy little memory of our Christmas card!

Wrinkles are common and okay but my first attempt at this gave my two older kids huge jaws because the wrinkle went right across their chins.  I ripped it off and started again.  Another reason to photocopy your photo and not use the original!

This is a fun project for Christmas break!

Merry, Merry Merry!

Oh, and if you know me pretty well and DIDN’T get this Christmas card in the mail it’s because I RAN OUT!!!!  Sad day.  But here is the photo and here is my message: In the midst of the fun, glitter and sounds of the season, I hope we all remember the simple, quiet but most extraordinary gift of the birth of Jesus. Merry Christmas!

We had a family birthday party tonight to celebrate Katie’s birthday and I wanted to jazz up the decorations just a bit.  I pulled out some loose photos from all ages and stages of Katie’s life and taped them to colorful paper.  I put a photo on both sides of the paper.  I also used my circle cutter and made some circles with ’16′ on them.  There were 16′s on both sides.

I punched holes and strung some wide ribbon through and hung them from our chandelier and a happy birthday banner.

I also couldn’t resist the turquoise lanterns from Party City.  It was all a little over the top but that’s what you do with a big deal birthday, right?

I finished it all off with the traditional table setting of a birthday plate made by awesome Aunt Julie and some little birthday trinkets that we have saved over the years.  Does anyone remember that little bear?  My mom bought it for me when I was in junior high from Rainbow Balloon.  Please tell me you remember that store with stickers (LOVED the pizza scratch and sniff), shoelaces with hearts and whales, and cool printed pencils.

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl!  We love you with all our hearts.

A few days ago I wanted to make some gifts for a gift exchange and in the craziness of the season that little bottle called from my disasterous (but organized!) art closet. So up I ran and down I sat, pulling out my Christmassy papers and finding combinations that I liked.  I found some 4×4 canvas blocks and decided to make monogrammed ornaments on each one.

Here is the art closet and beginning stages of creation…

I cut squares that fit just inside the front edges, circles for the ornaments, and letters for the monograms.  I also cut strips of paper for the sides of the canvas. I played around for a while until I found the combinations I liked best.

Many papers are made in coordinating sets so it is easy to pick out patterns that go together.  I am pretty sure I got these at Archivers in the last few years. There is always something new and tantalizing!

I found some gold paper (that I used when I was a kindergarten teacher 16 YEARS AGO!!!!) and cut out a simple shape and a ring to use as the metal piece at the top of the ornament.

Next I mixed some red and a tiny bit of black paint and painted all the edges that will peek out after I apply the paper.  As you can tell this is worn and scratchy looking – not meant to be perfect.  Next, I applied the Mod Podge right on the canvas and stuck the paper on the appropriate side.  Then another coat goes right on top of the paper.  So the Mod Podge is the adhesive AND the ‘varnish’, or the base coat and the top coat.

You can use matte or glossy Mod Podge (I use matte) and wrinkled paper and brush strokes are a part of the charm so if you have a green thumb in art, you can still totally succeed at this craft!

It will be all white and you may fear that you have ruined your project – but never fear!  It always dries clear!

After the first layer dries, I apply a second layer.  This should be enough unless you are using chunky paper or bits o’ stuff.  You can always add a third layer to make sure it all sticks.

This is a fabulous activity for kids over Christmas break.  It doesn’t have to be a Christmas theme and if doesn’t have to be on canvas. Try a glass plate (not to be washed but good for cookies!), or a votive candle holder, paper mache forms ( boxes, houses, hearts,letters etc from craft suppliers).  Once you start you just can’t stop!

Craft away, friends!

About 10 or so years ago we invited her over to our house to make candy with us and eventually she passed the big pot, candy thermometer, and the aluminum tray on to us and we have been making our annual batch of Christmas Candy ever since.  A new Pope Christmas tradition.

Yesterday was the day! We assembled our ingredients:

3 3/4 c. sugar

1 1/4 c. light Karo syrup

1 c. water

1 t. pure flavoring (We buy these teeny tiny bottles in the baking aisle of Byerlys.  Bottom shelf in a teeny tiny box)

food coloring

1-2 bags of powdered sugar

On medium high heat, boil the sugar, syrup and water until it hits 290 degrees.  Patiently.  It takes quite a while – maybe 20 minutes or so.

In the mean time, pour a bag of powdered sugar onto a large aluminum pan and flatten with hands until firmly packed down.

When the temperature reaches 290 degrees, remove from heat and add flavor and color (we did Butter Rum with no color and peppermint with red). Pour over prepared pan slowly until pan is covered.

There will be some bubbles that you can pop with a toothpick or snip with a scissor.  Wait for a bit for it to start cooling, then start cutting strips from the edges.  It will be hot and gooey but just start cutting what you can into strips, then cut the strips into little bits and let fall into a pan (we use a 9×13).  We have 3-5 people working on this and when you are about half way done you need to start working quickly before it gets too cool to cook.

Let it all cool in the pan and then fill up your jars and give as gifts to teachers, friends, and neighbors!