Heart party!!

This year Jefferson's 1st birthday was heart themed. He had a rough 1st year but he is amazing and so tough! 

I melted the red candy melts from joanns and used a piping bag and drew hearts for decorations. Turned out pretty cute. 

I need to prefect my cake decorating skills though. I suck at frosting cakes 

J didn't care he loved it! And that's all that matters

Here's his invites. I had a friend make them for me. Turned out super cute too!

We sure do love our little heart baby!

Lotion bars

I had a bunch of wax from 2013 and 2014 honey harvest, so I decided to make up some Lotion bar to hand out for Christmas.

I used a recipe from doterras blog and it works great! I love this recipe and it doesn't leave your hands greasy after. 

Here's the recipe 

2/3 c beeswax 

1/2 c coconut oil 

1/2 c cocoa butter

1 ts vitamin E oil

15 drops ( I used more like 35 drops) serenity and lemon (1/2 and 1/2) or you could use citrus bliss, peppermint, anything you like really. 

Here's my beeswax I filter and melt into cubes 

Pretty eh?

You melt that all (add essential oils right before pouring in molds) in a disposable container because it gets super messy and I used the silicone molds.

Turned out perfect 

I ended up selling the extras for $3 each! 

Pop up trailer Reno

 Last year we bought an old pop up trailer. I wanted to clean it up a bit so it didn't look so Old. The curtains were faded and half the clips were broken off the curtains and the table cushions, I didn't dare sit on because heaven knows what's on those things. So I decided to attempt a reupholster job. 

(I haven't gotten to the seat cushions yet but those will be done this summer!)

I didn't plan on recovering the beds, I just have a memory foam mattress topper and mattress cover and sheets all on them to cover them up. So I started with the easiest, the curtains. 

I stayed with the real theme from the bed colors and went with that. 

Here are the colors I chose 

These two are for the curtains and..

This awesome stripe will be the cushions! Back and the bottom is a royal blue solid. 

Here are the before curtains 

Super gross right?

So I attached the floral to the top of the curtains and did the solid teal on the rest.  Is isn't want to go too dark because I don't want it to be too hot, I thought this was perfect. 

There was a valance over the old curtains, and I don't like ruffle valances so I just used the old clips from the curtains and valances and hand sewed them onto the new ones. 

Here they are up 

I used they same floral for the straps to tie them back. 

I think they turned out awesome! 

Next is the seat cushions!! 

Here's the original ones.. Nasty! 

Pinwheel mobile tutorial

Hey yall!

Life has been super duper crazy the past year.  Seems like forever since Jefferson came into our lives and now he keeps us all on our toes! 

I wanted to just put up some projects I have done as well as the two birthday parties we had for my kids. 

So again sorry it's been so long, like anyone actually reads this. But here are my updates

So before J was born I made a mobile for above his bed. I decided on a pinwheel mobile and here's what I came up with. 

I started with a square piece of paper and drew an X from corner to corner 

Then cut on the lines about 1" from the center 

Then I just used pins that I use for sewing to hold them together. 

I attached them to fishing line so that they were hanging. I also added to the mobile J's initials.  I think they are pretty sweet, because it just so happens to be my dads initials too. Here's how it all turned out 

Here's Js view 

If an fan or his heater is blowing in his room it makes them spin too. I think it turned out pretty cute! 

Canning Stewed Tomatoes

*recipe is not usda approved this is my own recipe

I will admit, this is my first time canning my own stewed tomatoes.  It was easy, not as easy as whole tomatoes.  But there was lots of chopping, lots of crying, (from the 6 onions I chopped), lots of peeling, coring, and chopping of tomatoes, but they turned out great.  

Here's the recipe I used:

4 - 5gal buckets chopped, peeled and cored tomatoes

1 c chopped celery 

1/2 c chopped onion

1/4 c. Chopped green pepper

1 tbs sugar

2 tsp salt

Cooked till ingredients were all mixed and it smelled yummy! Ladled into hot jars and processed my qts at 13lbs of pressure for about 15 mins. 

I pressure cooked them.  I will be honest, I used about 1/3 Dixie Gold tomatoes which are less acidic, so I hope that doesn't affect the acidity and storage life of them. 

It's so colorful with the Dixie Gold tomatoes. I love it!!

I canned stew tomatoes, the ground cherry chutney and bottled all my 3.5 gallons honey in one day.  Here was my haul...

Trying something new

Ground Cherry Chutney

I love ground cherries.  If you don't know what they are, they are in the same family as a tomato but look like a small tomatillo. 

They are sweet, nutty, very different flavor than a tomato or tomatillo.  I love them and they come up voluntarily now all over my yard and garden.  Aunt Molly is the variety I grow and it is an heirloom, so the plants that pop up on their own I can harvest from them too.  

Well I have grown these for the past couple of years now and I have been meaning every year now to make a chutney.  So this year I finally did it.  It was time consuming shucking all of them, harvesting is pretty time consuming too, but worth it! 

Recipe is here... 

1 c sugar

2T water  - Carmelize with sugar 

1/2 c minced onion

1/4c apple cider vinegar

1 c ground cherries 

Salt and pepper to taste 

I thought adding thyme and sage would be good with this too. 

Water bath for 15 mins

Aren't they so pretty?!

It's pretty amazing on a roast!  You should growing these next year.  I bet you will be pleasantly surprised at how good they are! 

Canning Spaghetti sauce

I have yet to run out of sauce, thank goodness.  But that means I have to make a lot to make sure I don't run out.  I have posted my recipe here before.  I will say I added more brown sugar to this recipe because it was super acidic.  I was a little impatient and I didn't let it cook down as long as I should have, but it still tasted delicious!! 

My mother in law got me this old fashioned grinder for Christmas last year because I was always borrowing hers to make my sauce.  She found it at a vintage shop last year.  I was looking on it, it was made in May of 1900!! That means this sucker is 114 years old and still works like a champ!  Thanks Marsha I absolutely love it!! 

I love the smell of cooking tomatoes.  Even better is the sound of the POP as the jars seal! 

I love canning season!! I live for it! 

Happy canning y'all!!