Bye for Now...

I have had an unexpected family illness. To have blogging friends you must invest time and I don't appear to have that right now. I'll try to visit some of you. Not sure when I'll post... Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Niles MI Apple Festival

Dear Hubby and I went to an Apple Festival about a month ago. There were food vendors, crofters, and rides. A good time was had by all. I picked up this frame for my little girl Alison. The little words are magnets and they hold the photo in place. Cute idea!

While Surfing the Net

I was researching how to winterize roses and grape vines, and I found the most informative site. It has a wealth of articles submitted by readers, just like you and I. Some of the articles have nice photos. Here are a few:

I know I'll be going back. It's called eHow.Have a good Monday.

Show and Tell Friday

Stop by Kelli's blog and visit show and tell Friday. Her link is on my sidebar. It a lot of fun. Bloggersall over link to her blog and share something that is special to them. Kelli also has an awesome on line magazine called Seasonal Delights. She featured a banner in her premiere issue that motivated me to make one for the fall season. Thanks Kelli, now I'll have to make one for every season, gosh...LOL It came out okand I'm enjoying the bit of color it adds to the opening in my kitchen. Here's a set of Autumn Leaves stamps. I used on the white circles. I really like these stamps. They are clear and stamp a sharp image.

Here's a close up of one of the circles.

Here's a close up of the rest of the opening. We put the "window" in the wall when we moved into our home to help open up the kitchen. It's a fun little spot to decorate for the seasons. Thank you for stopping by. (I got the cute little pumpkins for $1.00. Gotta love a bargain.)

Thank You Pea

Here's a test of my new signature. Thank you Pea for your help and the addy. I've listed it as a link on my side bar.

Unusual Weather and My Garden

It has been so hot in Norther Indiana. We really haven't had any fall weather. Well, maybe two days, but that's been it. Dear Hubby and I can't sleep in a warm room so our air hasn't had a break. It's suppose to cool off in the next two days quite significantly. I took some pictures of my garden this weekend. Can you bleive it, I'm still getting roses? I shocked how good things still look. Please enjoy. The rose is sure fitting for autumn.

Thank you for stopping by. I have a question, do any of you know how to add a fancy signature to the end of a post? I've seen them on other blogs and they look so nice. Thanks for the help, if you know.

Fall Florals

I taught myself to arrange flowers back in my 20's. I couldn't afford premade things and just has a willingness to make my own. I'm not quite sure why I lived with this... like this... for so long, two years, but I suddenly had to change it. No doubt you can see why... Here it is...a wall hanging I purchased from a home party business. I love the concept, but the greenery really didn't do anything for me.I took pictures of my creative process, maybe it will be helpful to someone in blog land. Here's how I store my silk flowers. The large plastic containers allow room for the stems and they don't crush the flowers.Once I decide what I am going to do, I cut apart all the flowers from a bush and separate them according to type and color.

Now the creative process begins. I start with a middle flower and work from that, adding until there is a pleasing flow form top to outer edge.

At this point I forgot to add moss and added it...

And finally wall decor I can be proud to display. I plan to do arrangements for each season.Also, I added a few Fall picks in between the pots, to add a little Fall detail. Thank you for stoping by.
Trudi M.

Show and Tell Friday

Good golly it's been a long time. I seem to be getting back in the swing of things. Yikes, it's been a busy start to school. Finally a post for Show and Tell Friday, I've missed all of you!
Dear hubby and I went to a neighborhood garage sale this spring. We were less than excited about out trip until we went to this one home. There we found the buy of the year for us. Since I teach, I'm always drawn to pictures of school rooms. We were fortunate to find three pictures that would go great in Junior's room. (He moved to supported living last October and his room was in need of some redecorating.) I had painted and put up a Coke border one year ago, however he took most of his things with him to his new apartment, so his room was in need of decorations. My husband and I have always loved the artists Hargrove and Carson. They have similar styles and were reported to have studied together. I can't find much about them on the Internet, but have found their prints on EBay. I already had a school yard print by Hargrove... We were so pleasantly surprised when we spotted in a driveway three paintings. However, there were no price tags. I was sure they would be too much. One was of a school room, one of a soda shop, and one of a toy store. All of them had the perfect colors for the room and they were prints Junior could relate too. They would make a nice addition to his room, plus allow me to make it into a guestroom too. The smaller one we had of the school yard.

The larger one is the picture we found:

Here's the soda shop:
And finally here's the toy shop:

This is the best part, several of them are number and signed by the artist. Their retail value in the early 90's would have been over $300.00 for the three of them in frames. Drum roll please..., can you tell I'm still excited about this??? They were only $5.00 each. Yes a total of $15.00. Yikes that's a good buy. I couldn't have gone anywhere and gotten pictures like this for $5.00 a piece. Are you familiar with these artist? Please let me know. Have a good weekend. Thanks Kelli, for hosting Show and Tell Fridays. Such fun for all.

Hi All, Happy Fall!

According to the calendar it's Fall, but around here it still feels like Summer. I can't believe it, but I have my first set of parent conferences this week. Gosh time flies when I'm having fun. I've started to decorate for fall and have taken many pictures. I'll post soon. Have you done your decorating yet? Before we know it...Thanksgiving will be here and we'll be talking about Christmas. How do you manage your time? Please share. I work, want to craft and blog. HOW? If you haven't purchased it yet, the new Martha Stewart magazine is great. Good Martha, Bad Martha. A girl can't have too many magazines. I'm getting the scrapbook bug again too. I'm thinking about joining Jenni Bowlin monthly club. She's very talented and I love her style. Have a great week and I'll get some pictures posted soon.

My Classroom Crafts for Fall

Good golly, I haven't posted forever. So sad... I'm having a really hard time with my time management right now. *sigh*

This weekend dear hubby and I went shopping and boating. We had a quiet, but nice weekend. I'm so ready for cooler weather. It's suppose to be in the high 80s for the next two days and then there will be a cool down to the low 70s. I so enjoy the seasonal changes in the Midwest. I'm also ready for a slower pace as the weather gets cooler. We don't seem to be as busy in the fall and winter as in the spring and summer.

Schools off to a good start now and that's a good thing. We have started our craft business. The school system use to give us plenty of money to educate the students in the community. Now the budget has been cut to less than one third, yes you read correctly, one third. Not only that, but we don't even know when the money is going to come in for our use. Grrr.

So to off set the expenses of taking the students into the community for shopping, eating out, using public transportation etc. we have started a business called Teens Create. Right now we are making stuffed pumpkins and decorated mason jars. The jars hold a votive cup and have been very popular with the school staff. Thank you very much! Here are some of the pictures and I'm listing them on Etsy. Please stop by our little shop and support this worthy cause. All profits will go to the students. Thanks a million.

We are making these as we get orders. We will be making them for at least another two weeks. If you are interesed in one, please email me. tlateach@msn.com They are $6.00 each. I'll let you know on shipping when I get your order. Just discribe the jar in your oder. I'm going to ues ESTY but for now I'll take an email. Times running short for fall decore. Have a good week and happy blogging.

Show and Tell Friday

Kelli, please allow me this show and tell. I know it's not the "typical show" and tell but I want to share my teaching blog with all the wonderful home schooling moms you have visit your site. Yikes, that almost a run-on sentence. LOL. It's called Cafe Class, (Cafe Cl*ss) and I'm really quite proud of it. I'll have a lot of information that could be applied to students K-3. With some activities adaptable to higher grades. Plus I plan to share resources, and websites of value. Please stop by and visit my classroom on the web. It will become more and more meaningful to home schooling moms. I love center based learning, hands on learning, and seasonal projects. Thank you for your time, Trudi M
Cafe Cl*ss

Wowzers, Great blog!

I don't do this very often, but I just stumbled upon a great blog. I love mosaic art. I havn't done much, but think it is so pretty. Well this blog is a real feast for the eyes. Please check it out. MosiacCottage

New Habits Here I Come... Agian

I love the blog called the Lazy Organizer. I haven't been there all summer and shame on me. She has great tips and useful tips. Every Saturday, she encourages you to set a small goal that will become a habit. To say I have poor home management habits is an understatement. I think I drove my mom nuts when she was here this summer. *sigh*

Well, I can't be totally perfect right? So here we go again. First goal, and remember I'm a slow learner, lol, so I may not add something new every week. Gosh, I also don't like to fail.

Goal 1: Tidy the hours for 20-30 minutes per day. Maintenance cleaning I guess you could call it.

I'll let you know how it goes. Have a good weekend.

Daily Chicken Soup For The Soul

I just found Chicken Soup for the Soul's own website. On the site, is a wealth of information. The coolest part of the site is the option to sign up for a daily email. Each day you get a different story derived directing to your email. How cool is that?! Sign up today, I know I did.

Please give me some feedback...

Some of you have mentioned that my blog wasn't loading. I was having the same problems and thought it was my Internet connection. I eliminated some of Htmls on the side bar and I think this has helped. Please let me know.
I'm signing up for the class from The Big Picture Show, please post if you are going to sign up. I think it looks fun. See my August 31 post.

Hobby Lobby Coupon

Hey all, this is something that I take for granted. However, I've learned through conversations with co-workers that not everyone know this... So if you don't, here you go. Every other week, Hobby Lobby has a printable 40% off coupon. It can be used as often as you want: print it, one coupon per person, per visit. I use it a lot in the classroom with the students. We go there and shop for supplies for crafts and can get some really good buys. Heck, I need tissue paper right now and I'll save 40%. We're starting to work on crafts for our classroom to sell. I'm going to call our little cottage industry Teens Create, and I plan to list on Etsy. (I've mentioned this in past posts.) We need money for the kids to go shopping, out to eat and to use public transportation. With the budget cuts around the state, I'm not getting money to do these learning activities with the kiddos.
Here's the link for the coupon: Coupon here I come...

Labor Day Activities

Picture from wedsite

Well, dear Hubby and I stayed busy, but not too busy. I've been really tired since starting back to school. We went to the Blue Berry Festival in Plymouth IN, on Saturday. It is a really large festival with sporting events, tracker pulls, concerts, tons of arts and crafts and gobs of food. We go for the food and crafts. Jr. went with us, so we hit the midway too and he rode a few rides. It was a good time, but warmer than I would have liked. I saw a really cool product related to the scrapbook. All your work is done on line and then you can have the company, called Heritage Makers make a bound book out of your pages. I haven't investigated it too much, but wanted to share the link. There's also a consultant opportunity... Looks kinda interesting.
Heritage Makers, check them out. Let me know what you think and if you worked with them.
Sunday we slept in and boated. It was a beautiful day.
Monday I started to "put the garden to bed". Learned that term last year. IE, I pulled and cut back dead flowers. It looks so much better. We've had a lot of rain so the plants got a little out of control and some were just done.
I hope you all had a good and restful weekend. Four days and the weekend. Yeh!

On Line Class by Big Picture Show

Here's the advertisement for the work shop.

"The power of YOU. The question is not whether we will have challenges in life, it's what we choose to do with it that matters. Learn strategies for maintaining a positive perspective as well as how to choose joy in spite of it all as we embark on a journey of empowerment, faith in yourself, and loads of fabulous projects. "

It is a eight week course and it's just in time for what I need. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm having trouble with my creative spirit right now. I need a kick start for sure. This sounds like what the creative muses ordered.

Here's the link: http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/choosingjoy.php

This is a well established on line learning site. I've done other things with them. It would be great fun to do it with several of you... We could share and chat. If you decide to sign up let me know. I plan to after I get to the bank and get some money in my debit account. It sounds inspirational and creative. That's what I want to just-start my for Christmas.

I hope some of you want to do this with me. Post here if you plan to do the workshop, please.

Have a restful and playful Labor Day weekend. The weather here is suppose to be fabulous here. All my best.

Great New Magazine...Home Grown Hospitality

I recently purchsed this great publication by Paper Crafts Magazine. It has the most charming projects in it. The editor really captured how I feel about my daily like, crafting and homemaking. I so want a healthy balance. Here's what she wrote: "Have you ever wondered how life gets so busy and complicated? Do you want to learn how to simplify, but still be able to make handmade items, gifts, and cards for your home, friends, and family? Learn to live a “Simply Complicated” lifestyle from this brand new special issue, Homegrown Hospitality, brought to you by CK Media. This issue is full of great ideas on how to celebrate and document both the momentous occasions in life as well as those meaningful everyday moments. You’ll find inspiration for neighbor gifts, handmade cards, scrapbook albums, cake decorating, organizing, sewing, quilting, and much, much more. Make each moment matter by simply sharing a little of your newfound Homegrown Hospitality. " I just love that term, "simply complicated". How about you? Pretty much sums up what I want right now in my life. I don't want to be bored, but I want things simply organized and decorated. *sigh*

The editor has a blog too. Home Grown Hospitality

It appears she updates the blog almost daily. Check it out.

Paint Chips, Don't Repeat My Mistakes

Hi all, gosh I am struggling the balancing act of blogging, homemaking and working again. Yikes, I want more time in the day. Or better yet, better time management. All in good time, I hope.

I've done a lot of painting over the years. I've selected paint colors I love and some not so much...

This post relates back to my red door. We gutted and moved into our home in less than a month and a half. I don't recommend this! At that time, I made some very quick paint sellections at the store. Some turned out and some did not. Those are the ones I am now correcting. Here's my tip; take the time to go to the store of your choice and pick out paint chips. Choose as many as you like in the hue your are considering. Hang them in the area, you plan to paint. Some will be obvious "dont's" and others will be possibilities. Look at them in different lights, and eliminate as you go for several days. Chances are you will end up with a color you like. Any time I have taken the time to do this, I've been very happy with the color. When I've made a split decision, I am not always so pleased. Please keep in mind, paint colors all have a base color to them, red, blue, green, yellow, gray ect. Those base colors make a big difference in different lights. That's where the mistake of a poor color choose will usually come from.

Lowes, Valspar paint happens to be my favorite. It has great coverage and a low odor.