Julianne's fundraiser flowers

When Allison was offered the opportunity to sell her fabric flowers to raise funds for quiz nationals, I got thinking that maybe Julianne should try selling some of her crocheted flowers as well. After all, they'll be at a scrapbooking fundraiser and I think her little flowers would make great embellishments for a scrapbook page.



She's been concentrating on making flowers that are flat, rather than dimensional, to work nicely on pages.

Her smallest flowers are about 3/4-inch across with the largest flowers hitting around 2 1/2 inches in diameter.

She also tatted a couple of butterflies. Isn't it cute? Alas, it takes a long time to tat so she quickly resumed crocheting.

We are, again, wondering about how to price them. Any suggestions on pricing are more than welcome. Thanks!

Allison's busy hands

This summer, when our church was holding a garage sale for missions, the quiz team held a bake sale in an effort to start earning money to travel to Seattle next year for the national competition. Allison put out some flowers she made, priced them super cheap, and they sold incredibly well.

The missions director of our church loved Allison's flowers and told me later that she just couldn't stop thinking about ways Allison could market her creations. One thing she thought of was another upcoming fundraiser for missions, a scrapbooking/craft day. She offered to let Allison be a vendor there without paying a fee, if she'd just donate a couple flowers for door prizes.

She's been building up stock:



She makes them in various sizes for a variety of uses. Aunt Kathy shared a big pile of scraps with her when we were there recently.

She made a cool multi-colored flower a while back and then we found some rainbow buttons in Shipshewana-perfect!

She doesn't love making the tiniest size because they're pretty difficult to work with. But, they make the most darling earrings so she's been plugging away at them even though they aren't her favorite thing to do.

One problem she's having is trying to figure out how to price them. The plan right now is to assemble the flowers into pins, barrettes, hair clips, head bands, or earrings, custom-order style, so the customer can choose exactly what they want. We have some pricing ideas but are certainly interested in more input.

Would you mind leaving a comment saying how much you'd expect to see something like this sell for at a craft show? Once I get some pictures of what Julianne is working on, we'll be wanting some pricing input on her stuff, too. Thanks!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

September was a busy month for all of us in our FIAR group so this month was our first meeting of the new school year. We chose The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and everyone really enjoyed it.

Our day included some language arts exercises for the kids-taking text from the book and noting which words were "lightening" words. The kids took some of Mark Twain's sentences and changed some of the words to simpler ones, then took simple sentences and gave them more flair, using lightening words. It was amazing to listen to their creativity as they read the re-written sentences aloud.

They talked about persuasive speech techniques and each of the kids had to think of a way to try to convince the other kids to take on an unpleasant task, like Tom did to get the other boys to paint the fence for him. The kids tried to convince the rest of us to do things like vacuum the pool, vacuum the floor, write a paper, go to the dentist, become a vegetarian, sell discount cards for a fundraiser, mow the lawn and clean the litter box. After they finished, we took a vote and the job most desired was vacuuming the pool. My friend, who usually has to do that job, was quite excited to think she'll have all those willing helpers next summer.



For our snack, I decided on "wedding" cake to remind us of the cake Tom and Becky ate in the cave when they were lost. The girls and I made our first attempt at making fondant roses without having our friend nearby guiding us. Allison made most of the roses because Julianne and I ran out of patience for it. I really do enjoy trying to think of a snack to go with our books but cake decorating is not my forte, that's for sure.

After lunch, the kids acted out a skit they made up during lunch. They pretended to be newscasters at the scene when the boys go pirating and are missing. They interviewed family members, then covered the story when the boys came to their own funeral.

It was good to be back with all our friends, beginning another year of reading and learning together.

Renaissance Festival

Back in September, my Aunt Barb offered us three tickets she'd won to the Renaissance Festival. Since we had been learning about the Renaissance in history recently, and it would only cost us the price of one admission, we decided to go. Clarence and I had gone years ago, back before kids, and were less than impressed, but were hopeful that it had improved in the interim.

We didn't arrive there until 2, by the time we got some items off our to-do list. I worried that we would be sorry we hadn't allowed more time before they closed.

We walked in, started looking around, and my girls' first impression was that it wasn't a Renaissance festival at all, but was actually a Medieval festival instead. Much darker than the name implied to them. I had to agree.

The girls were ready to leave almost immediately. We kept strolling, hoping to find something to catch our interest. We enjoyed watching the glass blowers for a bit while Clarence watched some jousting but there was little else we bothered to stop to watch. It felt like a waste of a beautiful afternoon.

As we made our way back out, however, the day was redeemed.



The potter who made Clarence's favorite mug ever was there!

I'm sure, since this was the Renaissance Festival, that these are actually tankards but we like to think of them as really big coffee mugs. Allison's is on the left, Julianne's is the center one, and mine is on the right. (Clarence got one too, but he carries it every morning so it's never here for a picture.)

We don't plan to go ever again but we've been enjoying our tankards mugs an awful lot and are very glad we found them there.

Save the Tomatoes!

Although I've done a fair amount of canning already, I haven't canned enough tomatoes yet to last through the winter. When they started producing in quantity, my priority was making salsa.

We've been blessed this year that the late blight we often battle hasn't been an issue yet. We have all these beautiful tomatoes in the process of ripening...



and tonight we could get our first frost.

We didn't want to lose the peppers, cucumbers, or beans, either so Clarence and Allison went to work getting things covered, just in case.

Clarence thinks the garden is looking a bit like a refugee camp now but, hopefully, we'll get to continue enjoying our fresh veggies a little longer. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get enough tomatoes canned to make it until next year.

Summer fruit goodness

The girls and I stopped on a whim last week and picked some raspberries at a local u-pick farm. I generally avoid raspberries, thinking they are one of my least favorite fruits, plus I have bad memories of having to harvest them from the backyard garden as a kid. I always managed to get lots of scratches, which made me dread the chore even more than my general laziness already did.

Things change over time, though, and I found myself enjoying picking raspberries this time around. Funny how the large, sharp thorns of my childhood are much smaller and less vicious now. We brought home four quarts, about 5 pounds.



Nothing would do but to go back for some more this week. The plants were loaded with lots of beautiful berries. The girls thought they were fun to pick, in spite of the thorns.

On our second trip, we picked 10 more quarts, weighing almost 13 pounds!

We stopped for raspberries the first time because we noticed the sign when we were coming home from picking up a bushel of peaches. 'Cause, you know, a bushel of peaches isn't enough to do, you've gotta get some raspberries, too.

So far, I've made Peach Melba freezer jam and canned peach-raspberry no-pectin jam. I've canned peach syrup and frozen some raspberries, but I still have more peaches and raspberries I need to process today. I am thankful for my girls, who always willingly help with all the produce we preserve.

It's a busy time but the work we do now will taste so good when the ground is covered in snow and all this fresh summer fruit is just a memory.

Kitchen Dry Erase Board

I've been planning to make one of these for quite a while, ever since seeing one in a friend's kitchen. I finally got around to it on Friday and am already loving having it.

I make a lot of little notes to myself in the kitchen on scraps of paper or various notepads so this should help eliminate some clutter. I usually make notes when someone is coming for a meal so I don't forget something (yes, I really have done that) and since my best friend was coming for lunch Sunday, I put it to use right away.



We have some wallpaper sample books and I was happy to find this paper in one. I love pansies! I was tickled with the placement of the flowers in the final project, leaving me lots of room for note making. The candle, a lovely gift from Becky, was lit to remind me to look at my note to call Becky! (which took me another day to get around to...).

My friend, Cinda, asked me to make one for her but since Julianne had some frames from a garage sale she was willing to share, we started looking through the wallpaper books right away. Allison joined in to make one for her room and Cinda made one for herself, one for a friend, and cut out a couple more papers to allow for change on a whim.

My frame is wood but the beauty of Julianne's frames is that they are metal, allowing a dry erase marker from Dollar Tree to be attached right to the frame because there's a handy-dandy magnet on the cap.

Julianne didn't want to make one yesterday because she had already done one with scrapbook paper when I started talking about the idea. Hers is hanging on her bedroom wall, mine will sit on the counter on an easel.

I'm planning to use this for grocery lists, to-do lists, menu ideas, notes to my family, and probably a bunch of other things. They are so simple, cute, and fun to make.