shared from way over here

January Blooms

2012-01-22T13:42:00.001+01:00

Portugal is chilly {especially in the shade or inside!}, but not cold enough to kill the beauty that abounds. So fun to pay attention to what’s blooming around our house!

Even the strawberries keep coming. Need to catch them before the birds do.

Linking up to:

“Custom” Dining Room Chairs

2012-01-19T22:24:00.001+01:00

This isn’t my first post about our dining room chairs. They’ve been one of those seemingly expensive projects we’ve ignored for a LONG time. We’ve been content with the mix-match group we had, yet for dinners where we had a lot of people who sat in those chairs for a long time, I felt bad for them! In light of the fact that our job is hospitality, we decided this would be the next project to tackle when money became available.

Last fall we found some cushioned faux-leather-but-you-can’t-tell chairs we loved on sale! We had to wait until February for them to come in, yet in December we got a call that the manufacturer was not going to make more. We got our money back and started looking again. We went to several different places in Lisbon hoping we could find a decent alternative. I did find out that custom upholstered chairs are expensive in big furniture stores and mom-and-pop shops the same. IKEA had a sale on their chairs at the time, and I have always liked the INGOLF chair:

My husband wanted to get these chairs and add a padded seat of our own {?}. We had seen some great outdoor fabrics so this sounded like a possibility. I agreed to it when he said we could ask our local upholstery man to pad the chairs for us…for the right price. This was something I didn’t want to mess up! Guess how much the man said it would be: 10Euros per chair—unbelievably good!

What do you think? We are VERY pleased! My husband got to see the fellow carve out the foam to fit the chairs perfectly. They are as comfortable as we hoped! The fabric is a linen-look wipe-able outdoor fabric. Perfect for all our projects at this table and meals with kids!

You might can see the end chairs are not the same {two of the matching mismatch set!}. We hope to find something unique for the ends…someday. For now we are happy with such a welcome change!

Winter Wreath

2012-01-16T23:03:00.001+01:00

So you probably can guess what I made this wreath out of! I had seen a tutorial for a wreath made from cute striped socks, so I thought I’d raid our stash of less than optimal socks! The girls contributed tights that itch them, and I had two pairs with holes.

I remembered to take the photo after I’d already started cutting! Once your socks are cut, you slip them on a styrofoam wreath form you’ve made a slit all the way through.

Once I had the wreath covered, I cut out the “Brrr!” with my Silhouette and attached the vinyl to a piece of lightweight hard plastic I had cut to fit the back of the wreath.

I hot glued the edges of the plastic to the back of the wreath. Next, I added a felt snowflake I had from a gift box with a button of sorts with a nail-like shank. It feels great when I can use things I’ve held onto for projects like this!

I decided to use a wire hanger attached with straight pins and strengthened with hot glue. We have to use these big power suction cups to hang wreaths on our glass front door panel since a wreath hanger won’t fit {but I am thankful for that glass so I won’t complain!}.

Happy winter everyone from sunny but chilly Portugal!

Linking up to these parties:

Parcels, Cards and Luminaires

2011-12-21T23:24:00.001+01:00

We’ve learned a few fun new crafts and games this December that I thought were worth sharing!

At our neighborhood Christmas party, the kids played Pass the Parcel led by our British neighbors. I’m not sure if I’m the only one who didn’t know about this game or if it is truly a British game per Wikipedia. Anyway, it’s similar to Musical Chairs but a wrapped package is passed while music plays. When the music stops, the child holding the package unwraps one layer of the wrapping.

Our neighbor so kindly put a small chocolate Santa in each layer so everyone got several chocolates since there were at least 10 layers! Finally the child holding the package for the last layer of wrapping paper gets to keep the gift. Then she brought out gifts for each child—so diplomatic and thoughtful!

At the other party we got to attend, the kids did a bunch of fun crafts. Thanks Cristi and Kim {waiting for the yarn hat tutorial on her blog}!

I added to the mix with a craft I based on a Christmas lanterns tutorial from Our Best Bites. I had a bunch of dessert jars I couldn’t bear to throw away yet which I thought could be a small version of their project. The kids cut up small pieces of tissue paper and glued on with a half water/half glue solution. Some of the candle holders looked more Christmas-y than others which is great either way.

The kids got busy with other things before they could have added ribbon and glitter snowmen or trees we had to the outside, but I still think they turned out really cute—and talk about a cheap craft!

We also tackled a few homemade cards for neighbors and local friends this year. Styled after one from Meet the Dubiens' blog, I drew a “cord” for the girls to add finger stamped light bulbs to. Inside I glued on little tags that said “All is calm, All is bright.” Imperfectly perfect?!

One last thing I had to share was one of the “gifts” the girls have put together for another {they ran around the house and put some items together for a “new” gift}. I love the wrapping on this one under the tree—it says “I love you Miah”! Sweetest ever!!!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-03T23:33:00.001+01:00

Before I’m way past Thanksgiving, I thought I better share about how it went, even if it’s just me for to check next year when I’m recalling what worked or didn’t!

Food wise {for what I made for this meal}:

For the turkey, I used Pioneer Woman’s Favorite Turkey Brine again since Butterball’s are not an option here. I think it helps a fresh turkey {the butcher made sure I knew it had been killed the morning I picked it up!}.
I made Make Ahead Gravy again from Southern Living. I was a little sad to not put all the good drippings from the turkey to use after I’d already made the other though—but having it already made is so nice!
My green bean casserole was much better than last year’s because I boiled the frozen green beans before adding them to the casserole to bake. I didn’t have that problem in America with canned green beans {difficult to find here}.
I need to use jello mixes from the same country! One from Germany and one from the US did not make for a solidified jello salad. Funny my kids and husband still ate it though!
Keep an eye on the rolls to not let them get TOO brown!
Pureeing frozen pumpkin with a little condensed milk helped it get to the right consistency faster. It worked fine in All Recipe’s Perfect Pumpkin Pie instead of canned pumpkin.

Last year’s napkin holders were still in good shape, and I liked how they looked with my “new” table runner and napkins turned placemats from the flea market.

I also found some cheap copper-like cups for small bouquets at the flea market. I decided to let our town florist make the bouquets since it didn’t cost me any more than the price of the flowers. I was OK with them after I pulled out all the greenery I wasn’t fond of. So next year I think I’d choose to cut and arrange the flowers myself.

So thankful for my friends making wonderful treats in addition to the traditional dessert fare! The best EVER sugar cookies—pretty too!

The cupcakes were not only tasty but helped make our kids’ table Mayflower boats! Later we let the kids ice the cupcakes.

The printables came from Shindig Parties To Go. I only made the ships and napkin rings, but they offered much more to make in the free download.

The kids had a great time icing the cupcakes and doing some coloring and crafts after our meal.

Everything turned out great—truly thankful for a wonderful time!

The Camping Party

2011-11-28T23:56:00.001+01:00

Our oldest daughter wished for a “Playmobile camping” party for her 7 year old birthday. It was really just a camping themed party, no overnighting this time. Playmobile showed up just for the cake {and a few gifts}!

I looked at invitations on Etsy and Pinterest and decided to make my own with my Silhouette program—I didn’t have to use the cutting machine for this one. The color on the invitation above is a bit off since I had to scan it {Silhouette doesn’t seem to want to share it with other programs}. I purchased the 2 graphics and pink wood grain background from their online store and found the log font for free. I was able to use these items to make some of the party décor.

Pinterest was a great place to find ideas for the party! I copied others’ ideas for food:

Catch of the Day: Swedish Fish
Snakes: gummy strings
Twigs: Twix bars and pirouettes
Ants on a log: celery with peanut butter and raisins
Trail mix: nuts, raisins, and M&M’s
Smores {of course!}: we don’t have graham crackers here in Portugal but a cookie that is similar

Portuguese often have pudding and mousse at parties, so I made a little for some kiddy looking camping coffee.

I decorated with some vintage camping thermoses I found, lanterns, some of the girls’ toy binoculars and compasses, a small evergreen tree, some stars I hung over our dining room table, and a pennant banner I made.

We didn’t know anyone with a tent to borrow, so we had a very makeshift one for the party {and who knew if the November rains would hold off that day!}.

My husband got his new outdoor fire pit made just in time for the party. The American children were more keen on making smores than our Portuguese friends, but everyone enjoyed the roasted hot dogs.

Another hit for all the kids was making laminated nametags—kind of like a luggage tag. We had camping stickers and markers, they decorated them, then I laminated them and added twine through a punched hole.

The kids then got to choose a “camping satchel” to put their nametag on. I had collected pockets from my husband’s worn out pants for years, and I finally had a chance to use them! I hope to write a post soon about how I made them {I would have like some instructions!}.

Here’s our birthday girl sporting her nametagged bag post party! I think she was pleased with how things went. Many thanks to the moms and dads who helped it be special!!!

Month of Meals

2011-11-04T23:02:00.001+01:00

In an attempt to simplify life with my seeming “full time job” of homeschooling, I decided to give monthly meal planning a go. Years back I was amazed that my friend Joy could plan that much and repeat the same meals. I’ve resisted for quite some time! Now, I wanted to share that it’s not that difficult, you can take baby steps {like planning a week at a time first}, and you don’t have to stay in a rut if you don’t like it.

1. LIST THE MEALS YOU NORMALLY MAKE: I chose to make a chart a few years ago with all the meals I liked to make/my family would eat under different headings like beef, ground meat, chicken, pork, breakfast for dinner, fast/premade, fish, soups, and so on. Add to it as you find new recipes that pass the family test.

2. PLUG IN MEALS: When it came time to make a monthly plan, I plugged in meals from my chart making sure to not repeat chicken too much in the same week, etc. and making decisions on what kind of meals I’d need to make on certain days of the week {ie: fast meals on nights we have the girls in sports}.

3. EVALUATE AND MAKE CHANGES: My first month felt like such a success knowing every week what I’d need to get at the store right away. In review the second month, I saw how often I didn’t get to follow my menu to a T, so I started noting what changed, pushing the rotation down to the next week if we hadn’t gotten to eat those meals, etc. All that to say is I’ve now got menus for 3 months that are a little different. Maybe next year when those months roll around I’ll be able to use those again? Who knows what I’ll feel like then, but I know I’m going to stick with this monthly planning thing for a while. I think it’s working!

I’ve seen so many helpful blog posts on meal planning, freezer meals for a month {YES, really—and not a bunch of casseroles}, and even weekly and monthly menus! The issue {or mine at least} is doing it! If I can, you can—really!

Homeschool Curriculum, Part 1

2011-10-28T22:41:00.001+02:00

We’ve been at homeschooling full time for 7 weeks now, so I’m feeling in more of a groove, even letting go of some things I thought I’d be doing. I’m so thankful for encouragement I’ve gotten from friends and family as well as the vast online homeschool community. So I thought I should share what we’re using this year {at least right now!}. Hopefully it can be helpful to someone else as others’ recommendations years back helped me navigate the plethora of curriculum choices!

My daughters are currently 5 1/2 years old and nearly 7 years old. So I have a kindergarten and 1st grade student.

Reading: Explode the Code

I started using Explode the Code books last year for my oldest when the girls were still in Portuguese kindergarten. Both of them like the humorous pictures and sentences. I am so thankful for the Teacher's Guide Books that give great ideas in helping teach and reinforce the lessons. We also use the 1/2 books for each level as additional practice for the girls.

I also use some of 1+1+1=1’s You Can Read program for sight word practice and her Raising Rock Star’s Kindergarten printables as additional practice for both girls. We used the RRS’s Preschool printables last year, so it is nice to revisit the Scriptures we focused on last year. These items are helpful for me to give one girl to work on while I’m teaching/working with the other.

Spelling: All About Spelling

Both girls have enjoyed our spelling curriculum, All About Spelling. I have found that it’s multisensory approach keeps things more fun, and it’s been a great reinforcement for what the girls are working on with their reading. They get excited to finish a step and color it on their chart! As others have said, you do have to be ready to do the up front work of cutting our letter tiles, attaching magnets, etc., but it is minor in the scheme of homeschool prep in my opinion. I did buy two sets of cards because the girls are at different levels, but I made my own dividers and use a different lidded container for the second set. The teacher’s guide is very helpful as is the website and online support.

Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting

After our calendar time in the morning, we start with handwriting. My oldest has just finished the A Reason for Handwriting: Level A review lessons. This week she began the 5 day process of practicing the words in a Scripture to write on a special page she’ll color at the end of the week—copywork in a sense. She had been looking forward to it! My kindergartener loves the letter pages with an animal to color on the back. Once the girls get started, I read about the animal to them {from the Teacher Guidebook}. The guide is full of helpful tips in encouraging best handwriting. I like that it covers level K through 6th so I won’t need to buy a new one for a while!

Math: Singapore Math Standards Edition

We’re using Standards Edition Primary Mathematics 1A & 1B for my 1st grader including the textbook, workbook, extra practice and tests book. I love the Home Instructor's Guide for how it gets me prepared for lessons, reminds me what is really important for her to have down well a certain point, has creative and simple ideas to reinforce concepts and has a scheme of work {what I can aim to accomplish in one week}—nice that I can use it again next year too!

This is my 2nd year to use Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics Standards Edition A and B for my girls as kindergarteners. I use the Activity Book for with it too. I don’t have the instructor guide for this level, but I feel I’m making it ok without it. I’ve actually just decided this week I’m going to skip a few units for my kindergartener and save them for when we’re working on the same concepts with my 1st grader soon {ie:weight, capacity}.

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So, that is the chunk of our morning curriculum. Please ask if you have any questions. I hope to address the other subjects we cover in the afternoon soon!

An Easy Wreath

2011-09-26T22:56:00.001+02:00

I got to work on a wreath this weekend, and it came together amazingly fast! I had a back-to-school theme in my head {most kids have only been back in school here in Portugal 1-2 weeks}. I’m holding off on putting out the fall décor for a wee bit longer.

The only wreaths I have left to work with here at 2 Styrofoam rings—on the small side, but they’ll do! I cut one of the arms from a discarded shirt of my husbands into strips and started wrapping the wreath.

I used straight pins to secure the ends as a way to save on hot glue and since I’ve had those pins for ages.

I didn’t plan on it, but one of the cuff button holes ended up so nicely showing. I didn’t have time to finish the embellishing that night and then I forgot to take photos of that process the next day.

I used a broken measuring tape like ribbon to wrap the wreath and secured it in spots with hot glue.
I cut apart a 3 circle doily that was stained, hot glued the center of one to felt and gently stretching it out lightly glued every other tip or so. I glued it all to a thin piece of cardboard for stability with fabric glue and added a button with hot glue.
I cut 4 circles of felt in graduating size and secured them with an X of embroidery thread.
I made a yo-yo and glued a button for it’s center. See my last post on yo-yo’s for more info on making them.
I added small pieces of cardboard with hot glue to the back of several of the items including the little chalkboard so they’d layer well on the wreath.
I twisted some wire around straight pins in the back for a hanger and added hot glue to secure it all.

If I run across something else “schooly” I might add it, but this works for now. I got a lot of these ideas from wreaths I’ve pinned to my wreath Pinterest board.

Have you joined Pinterest yet? It’s been a GREAT place to store all the ideas I see in one place with photos, not just a link as you would have saved in your web browser favorites. You can also search for things other people have pinned. Let me know if you’d like an invitation!

Happy wreath making to you all!

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A Hoopoe in Our Yard

2011-09-23T22:42:00.001+02:00

What is a hoopoe? Let me start from the beginning.

Over the months of reading about different types of homeschooling philosophies, I found that nature study is an important facet of the Charlotte Mason type curriculums I have considered. Time outdoors, a nature notebook, animal identification… So I wanted to buy a field guide or two yet didn’t want to spend the money and/or never followed through. Finally my husband said I should go for a DK one—our DK travel guides were always nice with great pictures.

I’ve tried to mark a few birds in our book {RSPB Birds of Britain and Europe by Rob Hume (DK)} that I saw might be in Portugal, and we think we’ve spotted a few. But yesterday we hit the mark. My husband saw a strange bird fly out of our yard with a head full of feathers poking up like a peacock. He came in to tell us and was able to grab the book and one daughter before the bird flew away.

The best thing was that this bird, the Hoopoe, is on the cover of our book! How convenient was that! I missed seeing the bird that first time and found it hard to believe such a bird would be seen here. Little did we know this bird would take a liking to our yard. He has come back several times a day over the past two days, and I’ve had several opportunities to take pictures of it {through windows only so far—it flies away once we open a door.}

I want to keep trying to get a photo of the Hoopoe with its head feathers up. So you can see, here is a photo from Bird Forum by Rajiv Lather .

We’re so thankful at how this has energized nature study for our whole family—albeit somewhat more spontaneous than I planned! It’s amazing what we see when we are looking!

Dyed to Please

2011-09-21T23:23:00.001+02:00

Last weekend I took action on some inspiration. I decided to dye some lace and doilies in bright shades for a lampshade skeleton I have after seeing one done so well with neutral tones.

In addition to the neutral items, I had a shirt and sweater that had faded {and I wasn’t ready to stop wearing them} along with a nice white towel that would not let go of its stain after several bleaches.

My mom had brought me some iDye {such a trendy name don’t you think?!} and some liquid Rit dye. Interesting how their instructions were not the same.

I used the stove top method since we have a front loading washing machine {although that didn’t stop me before}. I’m all about taking risks with clothing and fabric that would otherwise be thrown out or sit unused. The capris I dyed brown a few years back are now a nice shade of gray that I love!

I learned a few things:

Give the fabrics enough room to move in the pot. My sweater came out splotchy even though I did stir the pot. I hope this wouldn’t have happened had I not stuffed the pot.
Don’t wash the polyester lace because the dye will nearly all come out. This would really be a problem if it were going to be a part of a washable garment. There is iDye for synthetics but I didn’t have that kind. You can see how the cotton lace was the only one that retained the bright color.

I’m wearing the shirt I dyed today so that was a success. My favorite results are the doilies!

This was the kind of color I was hoping for. I don’t think I’ll use them on my lampshade since they don’t go all the way around, but they do look neat on one side of it. Now I have to decide if I want to keep them or sell them in my etsy shop!

Our School Room

2011-09-08T23:25:00.001+02:00

Having my husband’s old office for a school room is wonderful after containing our homeschool books and supplies to a few boxes and carts. See last year’s post for what I was working with before. We have tried to get it all in order before starting homeschool this week . . . and it is getting there. {Please excuse the picture quality in this post. I’ve found it difficult to get good photos in this room with the light against me from the window—tips, anyone?}

Making or finding fun decorations for the room was the easiest—I am inspired to do that! I made the vowels I love you print after seeing one on etsy I loved.

I found an amazing Portuguese 1st grade primer from 1945 that was falling apart, so I didn’t feel too bad to frame some its pages. It was hard to choose which ones to display!

Another great flea market deal was this bookcase that now houses all kinds of special things from the girls and some books I look forward to reading with them!

It’s been a great landing spot for the latest special feather, shell, or rock.

We use the window sill for other handmade treasures and baby succulents that had sprouted from leaves the girls had glued on a paper!

We hung a map from America {geographic titles written in English} above our computer.

I have a U.S. map and a Portugal map on our closet doors with the calendar and other things we do every morning. If you’re interested in any of the items we use, check out Homeschool Creations or 1+1+1=1’s Calendar Morning Board printables. There are other things I’d like to incorporate into that time as I can get to it!

I use a BIG sheet of laminated notebook paper for reviewing weekly themes. I’ve been blessed with a great dry-erase board, a small roll out desk attached to the wall, a movable dry-erase board we use for All About Spelling, and a new bulletin board for items like our picture study—not posted at the time of photograph. My sweet step-dad grabbed the colorful bulletin board border and a welcome-to-the-classroom sign from the Target dollar bins before they came to see us this summer!

We got our desks on sale last year {a pre-having-a-school-room-purchase!} that are a great fit—not too short like the ones the girls are outgrowing from IKEA! We are waiting for our next trip to IKEA for the TROFAST shelves for our bins. They’ll hold the girls’ independent assignments to work on while I work with the other sister, kind of the workboxes system.

And behind those closet doors are gobs of stuff in some resemblance of orderly fashion. Everything from our hallway art cupboard moved in here so games could have a new home in the hall. I made labels for my magazine holders with my Silhouette and some sticky chalkboard paper I found here. My fun idea did not have the longevity I’d hoped for since the labels get smudged when you grab the box. Maybe a chalk marker next?

The best things in our classroom are my wonderful students of course! They’re fairing pretty well with the change to full-time homeschool; every day this week has felt like we’re getting in the groove better and better. THANK YOU to those of you who were praying!

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A Good Laugh Now and Then

2011-08-29T22:25:00.001+02:00

The first fruits of our garden this year were not the prettiest.

We discussed that someone could do a sermon on this—so many angles you could take!

Then there ~~are~~ were my zinnias that grew from seed. I came outside one afternoon to find this. {My girls had a heyday with this inchworm!} Obviously the flower had been on its way out—some kind of mildewy looking stuff. Thankful for a laugh before its demise in the trash!

My husband and I had been talking about me doing some sequential blog posts on the vintage yet still-in-use or unusual signs we see in Portugal. Then we showed up for our boat trip and saw this one. {I know the situation would not be funny, but I found it’s uniqueness quite humorous.}

And fish hung to dry is not a daily sight for me, yet not surprising…

but what was hanging next to it was!

Berlenga Island

2011-08-26T23:48:00.001+02:00

Warning: Lots of photos in this post—it was tough to narrow them down!

There is an amazing island {or group of them—this is the biggest} just 45 minutes off the coast of Portugal, and we got to see it this week! We scheduled some vacation days and decided we’d better stay close to home, and fortunately Berlenga is!

We rode a boat that carries about 180 people—it was cheaper that way. We learned the hard way that not getting in line early means you have to sit underneath and face sea-sickness. {They even passed out plastic bags to the passengers underneath and not on top!}

Unbelievable water, right?! I didn’t make any adjustments in the photos either!

The girls wanted to learn to snorkel like their daddy, but they need to get a bit stronger in their swimming skills. We’ve had a friend who went scuba diving here and loved it too.

a view of the beach we were at and where my husband snorkeled from above

The walking trail takes you high up above the port. You can see the coast we departed from in the distance—Peniche is the city. We live in the area close to that hill you can see way in the background.

After quite some time of walking, you get rewarded with this view: Forte de São João Baptista das Berlengas.

The hike downward felt a tiny bit treacherous, but I’m glad we went down this only versus climbing up!

Like other castles and fortifications we’ve been to in Portugal, the bridge to the fort had no rails. There was even a girl standing there getting enough courage to take a dive from the ledge. We also saw a bride and groom taking wedding photos—talk about a location! You can actually rent rooms in the fort—probably great views over comfort.

We took a glass bottom boat tour for 4Euro a piece, and got to ride into caves like this under the fort. It was worth the price alone to not have to hike back to the main port with our girls!

This rock formation is called “the elephant’s head” I think?

The boat in front of us was going through this passageway. When we passed through, my husband asked me if I felt like I was in a Disneyland ride—surreal for sure. I was reminded of Thunder River at Astroworld for some reason, for any Houstonians out there.

a distant view of the lighthouse we passed on our hike

headed back to the main port before our departure back to the mainland—quite an adventure!

Three Bags Full

2011-08-23T23:55:00.001+02:00

Yes sir, yes sir, and I’m not talking about wool.

August is the time of year in our region of Portugal {the “Oeste”} for pears to be harvested. We are learning that people sign up to be pear pickers, and it just happens to be during the month that many Portuguese are on vacation, but some choose to work as a “picker” instead.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me when a line of cars were parked on our street: the field across from our neighborhood was getting harvested.

They bring in huge boxes and set them periodically amongst the trees for the pickers to fill. Daily we see tractors like this carrying full boxes from fields to the cool storage houses. Pears in this area are called Rocha named after the original producer here and can be kept in storage for around 10 months. They have to be left in warm temps to get soft enough to eat. I used to think they were called Rocha because they were hard as a rock {the word for it in Portuguese}…but they just need a little time, and they are sweet!

Our neighbor called us to ask if we wanted any pears from the field behind his house. The owner there is not a farmer but gives his pears away to friends. My husband took our car and came back with 3 bags full—he had to tell the man we couldn’t take any more {and there are still gobs of pears on his trees!}. I get sad about all the pears on the ground that pickers deem no good. How much more to see the good ones still hanging on!

But I am not called to use or share every pear. My green, thrifty side hates to see any go to waste! What is NOT green is how I turned on my old fridge in the garage to keep my pears until I can deal with them! I do have two trays of pears sitting outside waiting to ripen so I can make something with them. Maybe pear sauce like two years ago…or maybe something different this time…or both. Any ideas? Wish I could ship them your way!

Dishcloth on the Wall

2011-08-19T23:13:00.001+02:00

My kitchen desk area was a long time coming, and worth the wait! We had to find a carpenter that could match the cabinets and then a local granite dealer that could match the countertops that were already in our home when we bought it. {Marble and granite are unbelievably cheap in Portugal!}

You’d think I’d get it decorated in no time flat. Yet it’s been about nine months since it was all installed! I think having to drill holes in the tile deterred my decision making and following through a bit. But, at last, it’s all up!

The three vegetable print plates were a semi-simple decision. It was what to put in the big space behind the computer desk! I wanted the area to be restful to the eyes, rather than busy {which my grandmother’s fun salt & pepper shaker collection would have been—sad!}. I had some great pics of my girls and husband so I chose some frameless dollar store frames for those. We tried to hang them without holes several ways and had to resort to drilling.

One day I was going through my fabric stash and thought I should see if a dishcloth complemented what I had used in the kitchen. It did…but what to do with it? My husband happened to be hanging things in the new office so I grabbed a frame before he used it to try out my idea: putting the dishcloth behind the frame as a dry-erase board. It worked!

I bought a similar size frame that matched. FYI: it has glass—not sure how dry-erase would do on the Plexiglas-like frames. I didn’t even have to cut the cloth {which I was happy about} but folded and taped down the corner edges that stuck out. It has been so nice to keep tabs on meal plans and other to-do lists that don’t need to be rewritten weekly in my week at-a-glance calendar!

One space I planned for and therefore was easy to decorate was my latte bowl shelf. Just enough room for them and the hidden electrical cords behind them for some light on my desk!

And lastly, the tops of the cabinets needed some bigger items to fill the void. Two flea market finds, a souvenir box, and two items I use seasonally will work until something else catches my eye.

So thankful it’s done! Now just to finish organizing the insides of the cabinets!

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Recycling and Backyard Fun

2011-07-14T22:45:00.001+02:00

We were at the mall the other day and saw a large display of school kids’ recycle projects. It was very intriguing to see their creativity. Of course this got my daughters’ creative juices flowing. Back at home, we were finding boxes from our paper trash to make into a city in no time.

If you’d like to do this at home too, here’s what we did:

I wrapped each box in shipping paper so the paint would stick.
The girls decided what each building would be and where it would go on our cardboard landscape.
They drew what they planned out with pencil before painting.
Loads of painting! After the paint dried, they filled in details with marker.
The next day I hot glued rolled scrap fabric “roof tiles” {like we see here in Portugal} or some form of roof, then each box to the base and any other details the girls thought of.
Lots of play time!

Thankfully, when the recycle village project was finished, and the girls wanted to know what that day’s “project” would be, I turned to my Smart Summer Challenge calendar {Backyard Science Week}. Today said “Choose a number and make it into a picture using items from your yard.” Since today was the 14th, we decided to make fourteens. The girls flew outside to find great yard treasures and came back to create. Can you find the fourteen?

Other backyard fun at our house continues to be harvesting from our garden…

and bringing the backyard indoors.

P.S.: If you have a minute…

The most accepting Foo-Foo has been of the girls’ feeding her yet. We enjoyed her munching sounds!

Fourth of July Firsts

2011-07-10T20:44:00.000+02:00

Yes, the holiday is past, but I wanted to share some fun things I tried this year. I’ll start with a top personal accomplishment, a paper wreath for my front door!

I was inspired by Corner House’s awesome paper wreath. It is beautiful—you have to go see it! She has great instructions too.

Anyway, I had a small wreath to spare that I thought would not take too many scalloped circle cones. Ha! This was a labor of love OR more like an opportunity to persevere! Don’t let me scare you on this—I think it is the perfect project to work on as you’re talking on the phone or watching a show. Just know it may not get done overnight! Having a large scalloped paper puncher is a huge help.

A quirky thing about this 4th of July wreath is that the book pages are from a vintage Portuguese book! You could say that’s not OK on a piece of Americana, but we’ll just settle that we are blending cultures here! {or using what I can get my hands on!}

Speaking of blending cultures, I decided to go a little more low-key on 4th décor this year since we were having Portuguese and British guests {ie: the other side of the placemats made by my mother-in-law are covered in US flags}. Of course we had a few laughs about how we’d been freed from them! But they were great sports, even wearing red, white and blue!

We are only able to get our hands on sparklers in Portugal, so pretty-ing them up made it feel a bit more special. The free printables are from Thig and Twistle.

My other big attempt for this holiday was homemade hamburger buns. Not to complain, but the options for good hamburger buns here are very slim, so much that I’d gotten to where I really didn’t want to make hamburgers! This was a last attempt to keep one of my husband’s favorite foods in our normal repertoire. I think they turned out well—a recipe request from a guest makes you think others like them too! Oh how necessity{?} breeds resourcefulness!

Sharing this at Turning the Table Thursday and

Fingernails and the Circus

2011-07-08T19:39:00.001+02:00

Our girls finished up Portuguese kindergarten this past Tuesday, so our summer is just getting started! My surgery recovery has limited most of our afterschool homeschool activities, but I’m thankful to see the benefits of the girls’ creative play time without too much mommy intervention.

This morning was the beauty shop! Their Nana had brought the girls some cute boxes with new lip gloss and fingernail polish. The girls spent time making bracelets for everyone who was coming to the “salon” (our interns were invited since they are leaving next week and love being with our girls).

My 5 year old did a great job copying my written words for a sign she was making!

Both girls enjoyed the special attention and getting to paint a big person’s nails {they are so nice to let them do that!} and fake nails. Take note of these faces of concentration!

Nail painting could not top the circus we had at our house a few days prior. At the girls’ trampoline class exhibition, we saw other unusual-to-us sports like synchronized roller skating and circus acrobatics. {Really!} Now we have want-to-be acrobats in our home who have daily been working on new “tricks”!

So, they had a show for us complete with music, clowns and animals! {Sorry to those of you who don’t think tricks off the couch is a good idea. We have great mats they land on!}

I have been so pleased at how hard they’ve worked on moves like balancing on an exercise ball in the doorway or how they play the classical music over and over and move to the beat for their “routines”!

We have also been adding dates to our July calendar from 1+1+1=1’s 4th of July Connection Cards. The girls eagerly want to add each day and hear about who or what in on the picture. I have the activity calendar up from the Smart Summer Challenge and hope to do more of those now that the girls are home. So, I feel there’s no lack of learning opportunities around here!

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Weights of Worries, Unforgiveness, and Sin

2011-06-27T13:55:00.001+02:00

Hefty title, heh? Pun intended! My husband, Sunday School teacher extraordinaire, came up with a brilliant idea to help our girls understand how worry, unforgiveness and sin can effect our lives and those around us. {We have Sunday School at home with our kiddos here in Portugal.}

First, he had the girls “practice” obeying God by walking to the table and back as if God had given them that instruction. He held their hand as if God was going with them {and He does!}.

He first put a belt around their waist, and bungee-corded “a worry” they might have, then another onto the belt. Then he asked them to do the same obedience exercise, walking to the table with God. This time is was more difficult for the girls to keep up the pace with him and not get hurt! Hmm…how does worry affect our walk with God?

He used the same weight example with sin that we don’t confess to God and receive forgiveness for. As with worry {it is really a sin in itself: Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:6}, unconfessed sin interferes with our relationship with God, our ability to receive His love and walk in all the good stuff He has for us!

We also talked about unforgiveness—how it is a weight on us to not let the other person off the hook, whether they ask forgiveness or not!

Lastly, we talked about how we can give these weights to other people if we’re not careful—interfering with others’ ability to receive God’s love, and to obey and worship Him. Nothing like a little weight to make a worship time difficult!

My heart in sharing this is more than documenting our own family’s journey with God. We hope YOU can know:

the LOVE of the Father in such a way that His TRUTH replaces worries
His plan of forgiveness through His Son, Jesus, for EVERY sin
how we can FORGIVE OTHERS because we are forgiven
how we love others by not defiling them with information about others, stirring up fear, and things like this

If you have any questions, I’d love to field them as I can. We’ll be working on not carrying these weights at our house!

The Mint Bed

2011-06-18T11:55:00.001+02:00

Last year, we buried two buckets full of dirt and mint in our garden, hoping to let the mint have more space and still be contained. It thrived for the most part, but later we discovered it had hopped out of it’s boundaries! Amazing how such a wonderful plant can take over!

We decided to try something different rather than the mint being bound to pots this year. They don’t seem to do as well for me there—probably my lack of watering!

My husband dug a small pit under the ladder to the kids’ playhouse, next to our bunny cage. He lined the pit with weed barrier, filled it back in with dirt, and started putting all our potted mint plants into this new bed. There were several different varieties of mint, but I didn’t mind them growing with one another.

Here is the mint bed about a month later. We collected bigger rocks from various beaches we’ve been to here to edge the bed. It is filling in nicely!

Now we’ve got to attend to the grass problem--the sprinkler hidden in the corner there is not reaching the grass. My husband is such a good sport to continually tackle keeping the yard watered!

Our bunny is not complaining about this new treat next to the cage. Thankfully she cannot reach all of it!

Guest Room Redo

2011-06-14T18:42:00.000+02:00

Over a year ago, I wrote about motivation to complete our guest room. I’m glad to report that a few changes in that room make it more of what I hoped it could be in this house. Did you see my lampshade facelift after buying a new duvet cover? Well, this new cover continued to inspire the change from this:

to this:

We decided to not paint the freebie headboard for now. The beige Euro shams and other light-hearted textures and color help off-set its heavy feel. We changed out the rug with a blue one we’d used in our old office too.

I made the center pillow from an old flannel pillow case I found at the flea market. We added one more plate with a little blue to balance the plate wall around the headboard.

I did not previously post about my side table paint job since I was kind of disappointed in it. Long story short: Getting the right paint in Portugal has been a challenge for us! However, it works if you don’t look too close! A chair re-do is in order when the funds are available.

A few other blue touches around the room helped pull together what I was going for—a little less stuffy/a little more fun I think! My current guest is enjoying it!

Tissue Box Beauty

2011-06-02T18:17:00.000+02:00

I’m on a roll {HA!—especially when I’m talking about tissue!} with seeing what needs to be changed or finished around here. Amazing how a new round of guests coming can motivate me!

Since I moved overseas, I had to start using the long versus tall boxes of Kleenex/tissue because they didn’t sell the tall kind in Germany, much less cute boxes. So I couldn’t use the tall decorative covers I brought from America. Portugal does offer many nicer looking boxes of tissue, but the price is not worth it. Did I like this look? NO.

But sadly I settled for this look for WAY TOO LONG. This paper maché cover has been waiting for some attention for possibly 4 years!

I had some sweet guests who brought me a swath of new scrapbook paper from America, so I had new inspiration to get moving with.

Much better, heh? It was really simple to trace around the edges and hole of the box to the back of the paper, cut and then glue on with decoupage glue. I love it! This inspired me to attack the other blank box in my bedroom.

This tissue box cover is wooden {so German!}, and I had bought some lovely fabric-like paper in Germany to cover it. Thankfully I had not nabbed it for another project! I tried to cover it with one whole piece and layer the seams. It worked out pretty well except that you can see the wood grain through it in certain spots.

I’ve actually seen some pretty amazing homemade tissue box covers in blogland—quilted, embellished, you name it. Yet using paper was doable enough for me that I might have to go find some more blank covers to bring some beauty to an otherwise unattractive necessity in our home.

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap-up Party!

Pillows Part 3: Don’t Forget Alaska

2011-05-31T18:49:00.000+02:00

If' you’re curious why this is part 3, check out part 1 and 2!

Sometimes I think I should name my blog “Sew Imperfect”, but I’m sure that’s someone else’s blog already. Thankfully all the mess-ups in my crafting adventures haven’t stopped me yet. And every now and then I have a moment when it all comes together with nearly no hitches. This pillow was one of those! Check out my new favorite pillow:

You can find the tutorial for this pillow at kiki creates. She includes a template of the map that fits on a normal size piece of felt, but you could use any fabric. I was about to start sewing it on and not include a heart {like Kiki did} since we have family in many places. Then my husband requested I include Alaska where he grew up and his mom currently resides. I chose an image on Google that looked simple enough to sew around. Alaska’s placement was a little tricky on my pillow—it looked funny floating where it geographically is. So, as it is on many maps, Alaska seems to be more tropical. {Sorry Hawaii, you didn’t make the cut. I know those of us from the “Lower 48” often don’t understand.}

This pillow gives me hope for future felt and applique projects. I learned I did best when I went very slowly or hand cranked my sewing machine to make all the turns.

So, the new pillow crew is done, at least for now!

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Pillows Part 2: Fave Clothes on the Couch

2011-05-28T23:12:00.000+02:00

There have been a few of my daughters’ clothes that were very difficult for me to part with. Those made from amazing fabrics have found a home in my fabric stash! My living room pillow redo was an opportunity to enjoy these great prints again! {Check out part one of the pillow making extravaganza if you missed it.}

One of my favorite photos of the girls to date! {In front of our home in Germany 2 years ago}

I had to cut off the bodice which let the gathering out. I was able to get two 16-18 inch squares from the dress. As I happily worked along, I accidentally cut with my rotary cutter down the wrong side of my cutter guide, about 1/3 of the way into one of the squares! I quickly decided instead of beating myself up over this mistake, that I would use some of my linen look-alike fabric to help. Thus entered the ruched look into this pillow.

I basically followed the instructions for making the t-shirt scarves from last year, then sewed the ruched piece between my two printed pieces. I discovered it was best to run it through the machine with the ruched part on top to make sure the needle caught each ruffle. The first time the ruched was on the bottom, and I had to go back and hand sew a few spots that got missed.

So, not perfect, but fun, a solution to a situation gone awry. And even better paired up with the other pillows!

You can’t see them, but zippers were my closure of choice—the first time I’ve tried those since my college sewing class. Yes, another mountain that was not so scary to climb, IF you’re not a perfectionist. The closure for my next pillow became the next mountain….

Buttonholes! I figured it out now, but with much messiness, ripping stitches, etc. Don’t look too close if you ever visit. Again, this one did not turn out perfectly, but it was a fun was to use a cute top of my daughters’ for a small pillow that did not go with my new color scheme.

The shirt in another of my favorite photos from 2 years ago {can you believe my camera got this shot?}.

Because I decided to use the hemmed bottom edge of the shirt for the center button closure, there wasn’t enough fabric to cover the back. So, the linen-look fabric got utilized again. I think this and using the big brown button helped this pillow not look too much like something for a kids’ room.

In position with the rest of the old clothes, dish towels, forgotten treasures, and flea market misfits…

…and part 3 of the pillow making to come!

Linking up to

Pillows Part 1: Infuse Some New Color

2011-05-26T22:10:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago, some chocolate got on two of the throw pillows in our living room. {Cream puffs were the culprit!} I decided to wash the pillow covers. One came out fine. I could not zip up the other afterward, and it was coming apart a bit. So….

…what an opportunity to change things up! I’ve had mostly red and green décor in our living room for at least 6-10 years; I really can’t remember when it exactly began. I didn’t want to completely redo everything, so I decided upon a really FUN fabric I bought from the flea market to make a pillow from. It added turquoise, orange, and a lot more pink!

I chose to trim a square of it and back the pillow with some linen colored fabric to calm it down a bit. I successfully managed to make mitered edges!

When I was working on this pillow, I remember I had a Pottery Barn Outlet too-good-to-pass-up purchase pillow that never found a spot in our home. I dug it out of storage, and it matched perfectly!

Next, I decided to use a bit of the multi fabric to make a ruffle for a dish towel pillow I made a few years ago. It really helped pull things together. This was phase one of the living room color infusion. Stay tuned for part two!

Jake, Oldie, and Pepe the Pill Bug

2011-05-17T22:17:00.001+02:00

My girls have a new found interest in pill bugs or “roly-polies”.

For several days there has been talk of a roly-poly race from Dad, but other things have prevented it from happening, including several unintentional roly-poly deaths! Ah, how the girls are learning about being really careful not to squeeze them when they pick them up or step on them or how they need lots of air in the jars that become their new homes. Thankfully this has been without tears and there are many replacements out in the yard. We have now learned about the ideal habitat for our pill bug “pets.”

Today new pill bugs were able to race in a colorful track of end-to-end markers. It was amazing to see how they went forward like in a race with minimal or no help! Keeping encouraging hands away was a challenge.

Jake, Oldie and Pepe neck in neck here…

And nearly to the finish. It seemed the younger or smaller bugs were quicker on their feet. Or maybe they’d been handled less?

So, a silly thing to blog about, but lots of fun and memories for our family.

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Cake of Cream Puffs

2011-05-14T23:07:00.001+02:00

My husband celebrated his birthday yesterday, and he requested a cake of profiteroles as we know them here in Portugal. You may know them as cream puffs.

We see large cakes of them in the bakeries here, and my husband didn’t want me to spend a lot buying one of those. So, I bought several boxes of frozen cream puffs at LIDL {kind of like ALDI} for a great price. I put them on a cake stand to thaw for an hour and then drizzled on the included chocolate before serving.

Checking online, I see I really didn’t make a Bolo de Profiteroles {cream puff cake}. I checked some Portuguese recipes, and they use the cream puffs to decorate the outside of a real cake and fill in the spaces with whipped cream and/or egg cream which is very popular here.

So, it wasn’t the real deal, but there were no complaints here. A new easy dessert was discovered! And the simplest birthday “cake” I’ve ever made!

More UK Fun and Food

2011-05-05T22:56:00.001+02:00

Although we didn’t have a chance to do all the touristy things on this last trip to the UK, we sure appreciated things that were really British, like taxis.

or stone fences that divide the green {and usually sheep!}

or amazing homes that look like castles spotted from the train.

How about fish and chips?

Or hot cross buns? Really, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about them outside of our elementary school class learning how to play that song on a recorder. But they’re awesome--the closest thing to yummy raisin bread from the States that I’ve had in a long time!

And then there were some surprises that made us smile: {a speed limit sign}

Or our children: Have you had a chance to try the walk-on-water balls? Our girls are pretty good at it!

And lastly, some Americana: So fun to see and be able to buy, yet the prices kept us from splurging on foods we don’t ever get but really can live without!

Royally Honored Everywhere

2011-04-30T14:56:00.001+02:00

We just returned from a near 2 week stent in the United Kingdom. We helped put on a conference and had a meeting to attend with a little vacation in between. It was somewhat sad that we’d booked our return flight the day before the royal wedding before we knew it was happening. Getting to see all the pre-wedding excitement in country made it all the harder to leave!

Many stores had signs posted or displays that could have passed for the 4th of July. Gobs of party supplies were out for all the purported wedding parties.

You could find all kinds of memorabilia and some of it wasn’t over-the-top cheesy. Yankee candle had a royal wedding version! The Hello magazine below reads “Kate’s Last Days as a Single Girl.” Butter cookies in an engagement photo tin anyone?

Then there were restaurants: free onion rings at Burger King, champagne flavored royal ice cream at Baskin Robbins, crown cookies at the cookie store…

and one of our favorite finds in England {something I haven’t had the opportunity to eat in nearly a year}. They actually had donuts with a golden tinted glaze!

I hope you enjoyed the festivities from wherever your venue was. We watched the wedding at a British neighbor’s house. She prepared a wonderfully British luncheon for us afterwards. It was fun to make memories this way!

Gardening Fun In and Out

2011-04-28T23:28:00.001+02:00

Even though we’ve been gone for nearly two weeks, I still wanted to report on our gardening fun outside and indoors with homeschool as we continue along with HSV’s Gardening Challenge.

Some successes include our tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, lettuce and cilantro. In fact, everything seemed to have doubled in size {after these photos were taken} while we were gone and thankfully received a lot of rain!

We’ve had something eating up our basil and new broccoli plants, and I haven’t figured it out yet. The girls and I read an old Golden Book called, How Does Your Garden Grow? by Pat Patterson. In the story, the little girl plants marigolds by her tomato plants after discovering aphids on them. Thankfully, this hasn’t been our trouble, but it was a great reminder to buy new marigolds for our tomato plants. {Our marigolds from seed took so long to grow last year we’re quicker to buy this time.}

Some other books we enjoyed from our shelves that fit what we were doing outside were Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash by Sarah Weeks, Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall, and Beatrix Potter stories.

We all had fun doing garden themed homeschool work over the weeks since the last HSV Challenge when I downloaded much of Homeschool Creations’ Gardening Units. The girls’ favorite was the Trowel Game where I hid the gardening trowel card under a cabbage number card. They had to say the number {which can be tricky for both of them still} before they could pick up the card to see if they’d found the trowel.

The girls also loved singing the “What Do Plants Need” song and doing all the plant growth sequencing. I look forward to pulling all this stuff out again for this season next year! Thanks for the fun Jolanthe and the Homeschool Village!

Mother’s Day Cards

2011-04-25T22:55:00.000+02:00

Last year we didn’t wait until the last minute and made some fun card for our moms. Everyone got to help! I saw the idea on Family Fun.

We let each girl color a basic house drawing. The we cut out the shape, the door and shutters (a little different from the Family Fun instructions).

We used current photos or took new ones, including our little bunny (behind the door)!

Our moms (the grandmothers) were very thankful for our bit of work!

A Numbered Collection

2011-04-14T22:40:00.001+02:00

A new fad in our home is sticker collecting, particularly Cromos (in Portuguese). The girls were given their first set of stickers in a little tin. It wasn’t until later we learned books were made for them!

Panini is the same company that does sports trading cards in America. In Portugal and other European countries you can buy these books for a couple Euros and then packs of stickers for 50cents. They make them for many characters and teams. I even saw they were offering one on the royal wedding in England on the UK site.

What I love about this “hobby” is how the girls are working on higher number recognition. What a fun way to do it!

I also like that these stickers have a place when new toys and things always have to find a spot in our house. It’s been a cheap yet rewarding way to let the girls know we’re thinking about them when we occasionally bring home a new pack of stickers.

Pillowcase Lampshade

2011-04-11T22:43:00.001+02:00

Recently I bought an IKEA duvet that I’d been eyeing when it went on sale for 20Euro. Yet it has led me to change up my guest room décor quite a bit. All of the sudden I’m figuring out how to make it work! Maybe you know the feeling.

Thankfully, one fast changeover came to mind before our last guests arrived. I had been waiting to print some graphic on fabric before recovering this lampshade, but I didn’t have time for that. Instead I pulled out an old pillowcase.

I ironed the pillowcase several times, and those wrinkles from who knows how many years wanted to stay! Regardless, I cut the case the length of the shade plus enough to make a ruffle at the top. This way I could gather it to fit the shade.

Pretty fast and simple!

Sharing at these craft “parties”:

Hello Kitty Soccer Party

2011-04-07T23:09:00.002+02:00

You may think that there is no such birthday party theme as Hello Kitty Soccer, but this did not stop my now 5 year old from deciding that is what she wanted for her birthday!

Thank goodness for the internet! We found Build-A-Bear outfits that fit our big Hello Kitty doll {Portugual-esque colors don’t you think!} and a soccer outfit for a new small Hello Kitty doll. Both made great gifts from the grandparents.

I found several images on Google to print out and use for decorations. Some weren’t even flat images: I used pictures of water bottles and t-shirts with Hello Kitty playing soccer and cropped out as much as I could.

I put my Silhouette to work on an image I imported from Google to hang over our table—another learning curve opportunity since I did not buy it from the Silhouette online store. The soccer balls are from their store, but I adjusted the color accordingly!

I enlarged the same soccer ball and cut out it separately with the Silhouette for a guide to decorating the cake. I need all the help I can get! Here I am just checking the fit before I ice the cake.

After icing it and filling in the holes with colored crystal sprinkles, I covered those sections with the other cut pieces to add chocolate sprinkles in the open spaces.

I ended up adding black licorice to delineate sections. I’m not crazy about the final outcome, but my daughter was happy to have a soccer cake, and that’s what was important!

We had more rain than we’d hoped for—the girls entertained themselves with dress up and painting for the most part. The sun did come out before everyone left, and we had some great soccer moments in the back yard.

My sweet 5 year old enjoyed herself!

The Royal Palace of Mafra

2011-04-01T11:12:00.000+02:00

A couple weeks ago, we were privileged to take some guests to Mafra—a first for us. Look at what we’d missed!

The inside seemed even more majestic than the outside. How about a king’s eye view of the basilica within the palace?

Or a very nice hospital for sick friars? {Yes, that is a faux friar standing up there on the right! Ha!}

Amazing ceilings and art…

Hunting trophies galore—wall mounts and chandeliers and furniture made of it!

The most awe-inspiring library I have ever seen {and we almost quit our tour before we got here thinking we’d seen it all}!

35,000 books, some from 1500’s, hand printed, wow…

It’s worth a visit to see what broke the bank for Portugal so long ago.

That Time of Year

2011-03-30T12:43:00.001+02:00

We are joining up with The Homeschool Village’s Garden Challenge this year—a great one for us, since we love to garden!

Here is a view of our garden space and my husband cutting back broccoli plants from last year that are mainly just flowering now. Our compost bin is to the left, and the flowering tree is a plum tree. This photo was taken before we started a new flower bed in the back yard for our herbs since their increase in size left less room for vegetables—you can see their bushiness down the way.

Once the herbs were transplanted, we bought a few baby vegetable plants. My oldest planted the tomatoes. We bought 2 cherry tomato and 2 salad tomato plants (I’m not sure of the specific type due to language differences—I understood the cherry and tomato words though!).

Our youngest daughter planted the cucumbers (“Gurken” in German). The girls love them—a taste they acquired in German kindergarten! We are excited to have more space for these and the tomatoes since they all ran together last year. We also added more strawberry plants, more broccoli plants, and some new green and red leaf lettuce.

Honestly, the girls found other ways to have fun while we worked our old and new beds. Yet it was still a joy to be together outside as we got our garden back in business.

Building Others Up

2011-03-28T22:40:00.001+02:00

What to do you get when you mix Polly Pockets, spelling blocks and Toxic Slime?

A great lesson in building others up!

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Ephesians 4:29

My husband planned an excellent object lesson for our girls’ Sunday School. They saw how encouraging words from one Polly literally stacked up the blocks for the other Polly—how it helps us walk in who we really are in Christ.

You can see the distress in his face when the Polly’s words weren’t encouraging and tore the other girl down. I won’t show you the face he made as he acted like he was throwing up the Toxic Slime! I think the point was made!

So, here’s to a great dad and a reminder too: Go and help others stand in their rightful position with the words from our mouths!

Guest Books

2011-03-21T16:09:00.001+01:00

In our line of work, you don’t want to miss getting guest’s signatures. Living overseas, they might not pass this way again (although we hope they do!). I also wanted these books to be special for years to come. We hadn’t come across any journals that might fit the bill, so I decorated two journals from the dollar store.

For The Vineyard side of the retreat center, I cut a grapevine with my Silhouette—as always, we’re amazed what it can do—how intricate a cut is that?! I used travel themed paper my aunt had given me along with a pseudo pocket I made from card stock and lace fabric. Sewing paper is fun when it works right!

For The Orchard side of the retreat center, I used the same travel themed paper and a pear graphic from The Graphics Fairy. I sewed the edges of the pear piece and a button on the label and then added a ruffled piece of linen. Yeah for things coming together!

I’m sharing this at

At the End of the Rainbow Rice

2011-03-17T22:54:00.001+01:00

This St. Patrick’s Day, I was a little less motivated to go all out compared to last year. We did watch a video about this day on BrainPOP—we especially enjoyed looking at pictures of the Chicago River being changed to green afterward. Then we did a symmetrical shamrock painting since the girls had been learning about halves and quarters this week. I’d hoped to get to our rainbow rice dig for magnets {since rainbows go with this holiday a bit}, but we’ll get to magnets tomorrow as we finish up our week of the Letter M. I’m also tucking away a great teaching tool on the Trinity using 3 leafed shamrocks from 2Teaching Mommies.

Rainbow rice is sensory bin filler I first saw on Pink and Green Mama. Hers is beautiful as are others like Rockabye Butterfly’s below for St. Patrick’s Day. If you are not familiar with sensory bins, check out Counting Coconuts and 1+1+1=1 to get a better idea. After being inspired by an article that sensory bins were not too babyish for my age of girls, rice seemed like an easy to make option and is readily available in Portugal .

I used the directions from Pink and Green Mama. I loved that she used Purell, and we had a plethora of that! It was a great opportunity for the girls to practice measuring out one cup of rice at a time for each bag to be colored. I think we ended up making several cups of each color.

Shaking up the rice with 5 squirts of Purell and 5 drops of food coloring per instructions. I guess we had to add much more because of how much we made?

Then we laid the rice out in trays to dry. This led to some artistic landscaping rather than a nice ROYGBIV, but that’s ok.

And mixed together in the bin waiting for some fun treasures to hide within! The Polly Pockets in our house have found a great new way to go swimming!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you!

Sights, Sweets and Sidewalks of Nazare

2011-03-14T22:51:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, we took a family trip to Nazare, about 45 minutes north of our home. We’d heard great things about it, but had not been in our near 2 years of living here!

We started at the top. There is a elevator car that takes you up and down the hill. You can see the track on the far left of the cat.

My husband checked things out while the girls rummaged for good shells.

I caught some great wave action photos—a first for me!

Not only was the scenery spectacular, the people were quite unique. To see traditional garb being worn along side current day fashion was really surprising. We took a pic of the lady selling nuts and her 7 skirts {the story goes that they would take off one for every day their sailor was out to sea fishing that week}, but she may have just been dressed up for a sale I think.

When we kept seeing other ladies in a version of that traditional dress, we realized this was the norm!

My husband had to keep me from trying to take pictures of each of these ladies we saw--just something I didn’t expect to be a reality in “our” country!

Seems like this type of dress might no longer be seen past this generation—unless you’re a vendor!

Also, I had to show you some Portuguese sweets and not so sweet.

BIG meringues!

Lots of shredded candied egg yolk {that is NOT cheese}, filled with egg yolk pudding, or iced with egg yolk pastries along with some chocolate and apple items. A recent guest commented that one of these reminded him of a Twinkie but better!

Drying fish on racks on the sidewalk.

An old timer convertible with Alaska plates on the sidewalk—what?!!! NOT normal to see in Portugal!

And lastly, what we picked up on the sidewalk! {next to a dumpster} All the parts were there except the obvious missing spindle. We’re not sure if we like it or think it needs a happy color of paint to make it less oppressive. Thoughts?

Thanks for sharing our journey with us!

Silhouette Subway Art

2011-03-04T22:49:00.001+01:00

So I received the most amazing machine for Christmas called the Silhouette.

It can cut paper, vinyl, and fabric and draw if you have the pen inserts. It’s a little different from other cutting machines because you don’t have to purchase fonts and graphics from a store. You get a set with the machine and then you can download more for about 99cents each. Plus the online store offers a free graphic each week! I’ve been working on learning the program that comes with it and am continually amazed at its functionality!

I think my most favorite thing I’ve made so far was the cut vinyl to decorate a tray I painted for a gift, sort of the “subway art” genre.

Transferring the vinyl in one piece was way trickier than the instructions made it seem. Therefore some of the words and letters were not in line and worse, I left too much space at the top. In the last minute crunch to complete it, it had to be okay. Learning curve again! I do feel I’ll know what to do a little differently next time I make something like this.

Can’t say enough good things about it still (and no one’s paying me to say this)! I feel SO blessed to have one!

Homemade and Learning

2011-02-25T23:18:00.001+01:00

With a chance to sit and write a post tonight, it seems a few projects have flown by that I didn’t get to share. I’m hoping to get to them, especially the ones using my new Silhouette! Just wait…I’ll fill you in later if you don’t know what that is. But first, the last minute/late homemade Christmas presents! {Yes, I am that behind on what I’d hoped to blog!}

My first attempt at decorative dishtowels, using materials I had on hand, including the chair fabric from an old garment I couldn’t throw away! I learned a lot through this and with the next set I made using vintage fabric {sorry, no pics on those!}. The next set two attempts of dish towels were DISASTERS as I attempted to use printed fabric as I did with the Thanksgiving pillow hoping a special rinse would keep it in the wash…and it didn’t and then trying transfer paper which is like vinyl on a dishtowel---nope. Yes, we all hit walls at times in the out workings of our creativity!

My other homemade gift ideas were covering wooden frames with paper. Another learning curve for me! I did not do the best job cutting the paper neatly around the edges, so I sanded the edges more to give it an “intended” shabby look. Getting paper to lay down flat with no bubbles was also challenging for me, so much so that I covered over my first attempt with some sticky chalkboard paper! Since you could see the first paper underneath on the edges, I decided to add an embellishment to pull the unintended colors together. When you’re doing things last minute (as in, all the stores are closed because it’s Christmas Eve!) you have to use what you’ve got, even if it’s a mess-up!

So maybe this post should be called “Make Sure You Know What You’re Doing When You Plan On Giving Homemade Gifts” or “Start Your Homemade Christmas Presents in July”! Thankfully I can grin in retrospect.

Growing Up

2011-02-04T22:44:00.001+01:00

I’ve been reading The House at Pooh Corner with the girls. It’s been a new thing for me, reading “classics” in their true form. Books like Ramona are what I remember from my early years and we’ll probably have to find that one to read too! Anyway, we were starting Chapter VI when the first paragraph really made me think:

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.

Part of me wants to believe I’ve grown up like the river, and I think I have quit living for the next big thing more and more. The other part of me doesn’t want to NOT jump and run and sparkle (who doesn’t want to sparkle or hold on to pieces of youthfulness?). Having purpose, steadfastness, and maturity may hold more value on the balance.

Thank you Father for growing us up.

Birthday Blooms Again

2011-01-28T23:38:00.001+01:00

It’s been several weeks since my birthday, but I thought this year’s birthday blooms were worthy of a post (similar to last year’s). When my husband brought home one very tall stem of orchards, I wondered how would I display such a thing. I needed a heavy vase to hold up them up and let them not topple over. Then I remembered my fun vase set!

The orchids cut up in the little vases along with a flea market tablecloth I had made a great new table setting!

The challenge of coming up with new table settings more often with the amount of guests we’ve had come through lately has been fun for me. {I’ve decided my table cloth stash isn’t just for occasional decor, and our placemats need to be used rather than stored for years!} When we’re eating on the table cloths and such, the need to wash them sooner is paramount. Thus a chance at a new table setting versus one per month or holiday like I used to do. I’m going to err on the side that our guests are blessed by a nice table set for them—and hopefully good food too!

We had Hawaiian chicken stack up for dinner this week with our guests so the flowers fit right in with that meal. This time I used my brown and pink floral melamine plates from Hobby Lobby. Last week I used our basic off-white Mikasa plates with my apple green napkins from the Pottery Barn outlet. {I forget to take photos in the midst of the preparation and meal.} So fun when things come together…enjoying it while these flowers last!

Happy New Year’s Planning

2011-01-05T20:49:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year from Portugal!

Now that all the smoke has cleared from the holidays (pun intended!), I am excited about my new planner and hopefully--system! I loved my desk calendar from the Target dollar bins last year, but I’ve not found anything like that in Portugal. Most of the calendars I’ve seen here are hard bound weekly planners—very nice looking but not so practical seeming. I’ve been eyeing some “binders” for a homemade calendar at an etsy shop called Crown Bindery. She has beautiful binders of all sizes and practical printables. I decided to give a try at making my own.

I took my favorite scrapbook paper out of my limited stash here, cut it to fit the laminating sheets I have and put them through our laminator. I used different pages front and back if the page was not double sided. I used our 3 hole punch and jump rings (from Staples here) so I can easily add more pages rather than using a binding machine. There’s room for A LOT of pages! Currently I have one divider to separate my monthly and weekly calendars. I may add another to put other lists in the back.

For my calendars, I downloaded the 2 page monthly calendar and 2 page weekly calendars from Clean Mama’s etsy store. I think I’d like to try making my own next year, but this is a project I decided to wait on for now. She has amazing sets of organizational printables and some free ones on her blog, Clean Mama.

Another blog I enjoy, Life as Mom, also sells a thorough set of printables in an e-book called Organizing Life as Mom. Looking at these and others have given me ideas for ways I can plan, like making future gift lists or things to remember for future holidays (before I forget!). I’d also recommend a couple “guides” to help you plan and set goals for the new year that have been helpful to me:

Setting Reachable Goals by Simple Mom

Tell Your Time: How To Manage Your Schedule So You Can Live Fulfilled by Amy Andrews

Blessings on you and yours in this new year, and may all your planning be efficient and effective!

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Christmas Fun School

2010-12-10T21:23:00.001+01:00

I have been motivated by all the Christmas ideas for curriculum, crafting and fun that I’ve seen online this year that I have tried to put many of them into the schedule! Here is a rundown of some of the photographed fun we’ve had the last two weeks:

We made the Christmas Tree Sun Catcher from Itsy Bitsy Learners. I loved the simplicity of no glue! Contact paper, sequins, and tissue paper circles instead! They look great on the window—just didn’t get that picture taken yet.

The girls enjoyed playing the “S is for Santa” game with a Portuguese version of M&M’s and dice. I like to use pages like these for their Do-A-Dot Paints too. There are tons of great Christmas learning printables at Making Learning Fun.

I read somewhere about a Christmas ornament count (let me know if it was you!), but we didn’t have Christmas stickers. So I decided to cut out a tree and have the girls add ornaments with their Do-A-Dot Paints. I encouraged them to make each ornament distinct so they could count them later. Next we graphed how many of each color. The next day they practiced writing their numbers next to each row.

Please don’t miss all the great Christmas curriculum at 1+1+1=1! She has lessons plans--a great compilation of ideas from many great blogs and sites I frequent. Here my 4.5 year old has written the first letters of these names (after tracing the letters on the back side). She was doing great until she got to S for Star!

Putting the alphabet ornaments in order has been great practice for her too. I am reluctant to print and laminate a new “theme” of alphabet every week normally, so this was nice to have a theme we can use for 4 weeks! There’s much more in 1+1+1=1’s Christmas Tot Pack and Nativity Preschool Pack—you have to see!

We came up with a fun new way to practice our sight words (those we’re learning with 1+1+1=1 RRSP curriculum). With us doing Christmas fun this month, we’re including Christmas songs in our start time every day. The girls have been holding the various sight words (on a popsicle stick) that may be in the song. When we get to that word, the girls hold up that sight word. They LOVE it and laugh a lot, and I think they are learning the words the best this way!

I’ll be checking out Homeschool Creation’s Gingerbread Baby unit and Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Christmas unit next, along with other creative and resourceful moms at

Painting Party

2010-12-05T23:01:00.002+01:00

Our oldest turned 6 in early November. She had agreed that she didn’t need to have a character themed party. So we looked at a few birthday idea sites online and were both struck with the fun and creativity of a pottery painting party at the Polka Dot Birthday blog. Then we found a personalized downloadable painting party invite from Whirlibird for $10 (more than the store bought kind in America but less than the time I would have to put into making my own).

We don’t have those come-paint-your-own-pottery stores like they do in America and the UK. Thus began the search for what we could paint. We ended up buying some tiny canvases and easels from CASA (here in Portugal) and some cardboard frames from IKEA . I also had the kids paint their own paper sacks with foam stampers as their treat bags.

My daughter was also pleased with the idea of having paint balloons to throw darts at. This was an acceptable alternative for her instead of us making a piñata as we had for her sister in the spring. My husband and a family friend graciously filled balloons with a mix of paint and fabric fix fluid using a syringe!

We added the fabric fix because the balloons were attached to a board covered in a cheap tablecloth I bought from the dollar store. We thought we might come near using a splatter paint tablecloth more than a splatter paint board. I didn’t want the paint to wash out the first time I washed the tablecloth. Therefore we also had to keep paint off of the kids! They wore their kindergarten smocks we call “bibes” here. (All of us adults are the ones with permanent spots on our clothes!)

I decided upon a rainbow cake after seeing one at Fowl Single File and a artist’s palette of cupcakes after seeing the idea on etsy (but I cannot find it now—sorry!). I almost waited too late to get an inside pic of the cake—one of the last pieces!

The before shot of the cake…and yes those are real sparklers. You can buy them in the grocery store here in the party section. It’s the thing to do here.

The last time my mom sent some smocks they came with these mats that were supposed to protect the floor. One made a great tablecloth!

Two other foods I’ve wanted to make overseas and hadn’t yet were caramel apples and popcorn balls. They seemed like good fall food for this party. All the Americans enjoyed them (in comparison to the other nationalities who think our sweets are much too sweet).

My sweet friend Cristi helped me set everything up, even dividing up our version of M&M’s here into colors for the table.

I have to say this is one of the most peace-filled parties we’ve had overseas—could be our kids’ ages, keeping the kids busy, the America and Portuguese helpers, getting more done in advance, just making less, or many prayers. So thankful for how it turned out! {And if you want to see the kids in action…}

Need some ideas?

2010-12-03T00:02:00.001+01:00

Being that I like to share ideas with others, I couldn’t NOT tell you about this amazing Christmas crafting e-zine (is that a word?) called Inspired Ideas by Amy Powers. Full of decorating and gift ideas from people like Mary Engelbreit, Jenny B Harris {love her embroidery designs} and others I don’t know as well but am enamored by their creativity. Even if you don’t like to make things the settings for the pictures are inspiring themselves!

Wish I could show you a couple of these but you’ll just have to go see things like:

An advent calendar made from a 24 count muffin tin pan
Glittery village houses made from cereal boxes
Holly berry garland that kids can make from felt
Burlap and lace door vase
A yo-yo Christmas tree!

Many have templates and downloadable freebies too!

On one of the ads I read what might be my new favorite motto:

This is not a mess. This is potential.

Thank you Jerusalem Greer!

I’ll have to let you know if I get around to making any of these beautiful things. Love to know if you do to!

Thanksgiving in Retrospect

2010-11-30T22:08:00.001+01:00

This year I started Thanksgiving preparations early. Even though I had wonderful helpers (our new interns!) it felt like the first time it was all on me. That is where grace abounds… even when my first baking item comes out like this!

The first pan of spice cake cupcakes turned out great. We’re still not sure why the lower pan decided to explode. I’ve forgotten those semesters of food science!

Thankfully there were no more mishaps, apart from the butcher being very late on having our turkey ready. So my brining process was about 12 hours versus 24. Everyone complimented the turkey, so I can recommend Pioneer Woman’s Favorite Turkey Brine. Just be sure to use a fresh turkey, for “they say” it can be too salty otherwise.

My next adventure was procuring flowers for our table since I’d never bought anything from a florist in Portugal. I was pressed for time, so I went to the first florist I came to. Another car pulled up at the same time, and the woman rushed in and bought nearly all the cut mums the florist had. I was left to choose between white or brown mums since there wasn’t many other Thanksgiving-ish options (since they’re not celebrating the holiday as we are). I got envisioned for the white mums once I saw the florist had some dried wheat. But how to arrange it all?

We have one of those long candles with multiple wicks that sits in a narrow tray on legs. Thankfully I had enough floral foam to fill the tray, so I covered the foam with the leafy branches the florist had.

Then I put the mums in. It was looking a little funeral-ish. Thank goodness for the wheat!

I was able to use the wheat in vases on other tables to pull it all together and some dried leaves to help it look a little more fall/Thanksgiving-like.

I used some linen remnants from curtains we hemmed at the Haven (the retreat center) as a runner and mix and match candlesticks and candles.

Abbie and Piccola (our interns) jumped right in and whipped up many of my recipes—things they’d never had to make from scratch before (like rolls). And several of our guests brought pies and/or food, so it really wasn’t all on me.

I wanted to share the sites I got the printables from for our dining table and our food table. The “Gather Here…” printable came from Craftily Ever After for FREE! Check out the other Thanksgiving printables and her new Christmas ones in a her blog archive.

The placecards, cupcake toppers, and napkin “rings” were downloaded for FREE from HWTM Daily Blog. There was so much more they offered that I didn’t even have a place to use!

This word really does sum it up. I’m very encouraged by the peace I had during all the preparations and the enjoyable, memorable time we had with our friends.

Notes From Home

2010-11-16T18:49:00.001+01:00

This past weekend we had three great visitors from our home church in America. One came specifically to love on the kids at each stop the group made. Of course the girls ate up the attention! Thanks Jessica!

Jessica brought some notes the kids in the preschool department made for our girls. So fun to see!

A few of my favorite small notes, one written by a child we’ve known since he was bitty:

Encouragements come in all shapes and sizes and from all ages! Thanks home base!!!

Autumn Accents on the Sofa

2010-11-10T23:08:00.001+01:00

I found a fun and cheap pillow at a local store recently. It reminded me of a project I’d seen in a Do It Yourself magazine where they appliquéd a bird print onto a turquoise wood grain pillow (the Fall 2010 edition). I thought it might be just the thing to add a Thanksgiving fabric graphic too.

I have seen different examples of using free graphics in decorating. I thought Just Another Hang Up’s printing on fabric tutorial seemed simple enough, I actually tried it! (She also has a tutorial on using iron on washable graphics if you’re interested). I chose a Thanksgiving graphic from The Graphics Fairy—scroll down to Clip Art Categories to see all she has to offer!

This is my printed graphic on fabric still attached to card stock (with spray adhesive). It was easily removable. I cut out the printed section and realized I didn’t like how it covered up my wood grain pillow so much. So I ended up using a piece of burlap that fit perfectly around one of my rectangle pillows to make a new cover. Before I sewed it up, I sewed on the printed graphic and frayed the edges a bit—nothing fancy.

These new pillows led to a decision to change out a few other less “fall-ish” looking pillows for a few I had stored away or used elsewhere. I pinned on a quick circle flower to one to help it coordinate {cut out some imperfect circles, stack, and glue or attach with a sewn button}.

So, a seasonal change in our living room for not too much effort or money!

Pearls and Metal

2010-11-02T21:44:00.001+01:00

This week I got to wear a new creation born out of mostly really old things. I’ve had these pins, clip earrings and broken necklace for years with minimal wear. I think I bought most of them when I was young at a flea market. I’ve seen several tutorials for Anthropology copy-cat necklaces (and here), so I thought I’d try and get a new necklace repurposing these old jewels!

I really didn’t follow any specific tutorial and thus it’s not perfect and I got to redo things a couple of times. It’s like that for me with many projects—thankfully I keep at it! A quick run down of what I/my husband did:

1. Take off some pearls to have more string to knot onto jump rings (those metal O’s that can be opened).

2. Connect the pearl necklace to the new metal necklace.

3. My husband removed the pins and earring clip.

4. I started trying to group the “jewels” with jump rings but it wouldn’t work since they flopped all around.

5. My husband taught me how to use epoxy glue to glue metal together. We had a silver metallic version thankfully. Not the easiest task to do and not be messy, as you can see:

I don’t think you notice it from the front! Just the glue the original jewelry maker used back when.

I can wear the pearls on top or bottom,

…but honestly the jewels part makes it way down to balance the weight of the pearls on its own. Regardless, I’m celebrating a new necklace and using old things that had little use!

Linking up to

Bread From God Day

2010-11-01T22:06:00.001+01:00

Today the girls got to participate in a Portuguese tradition called Pão-por-Deus (or “Bread from God”). Kids go around to all the neighborhood doors before noon and say “Pão-por-Deus” to get little breads, candy, fruit, nuts, or other goodies. {Sound familiar to a night time activity in America?} It’s a holiday--All Saints Day--today so everyone is at home.

I’ve heard some variations on the origins and meaning of this day. The girls’ teacher said it’s a time we’re thankful for the harvest. My language teacher said traditionally it was a day to give food to the poor who came to your door. Wikipedia says the tradition started after the November 1st earthquake that devastated Lisbon in 1755. Maybe it’s a little bit of all of that!

Our girls decorated bags for the occasion in their kindergarten last week. Pears, apples and grapes are the main agricultural products in this region.

The girls only made it a few feet in the door before they were organizing all their loot. We really had a great time being together, meeting new people and seeing neighbors. I’m definitely up for trading frightening costumes coming to my door and all that kind of stuff for this!

Cutting Up the Stash

2010-10-22T22:44:00.001+02:00

With the cooler weather coming in, I was able to pull out the “new” t-shirt scarf I made last spring. What I made it from certainly wasn’t new. You might have caught on to the fact {from my posts OR if you know me} that I don’t let go of things very easily. I’m getting better though! So, from an old mission trip T:

I actually saw one just like it at H&M for 9.99! It really IS a simple thing to make. YOU SHOULD TRY IT! I followed the tutorial at Vermillion Rules except that I didn’t pull out the basting stitches afterwards. Mine’s not quite as ruffly as theirs, but I’m not complaining.

So… off to your machines to make free scarves for everyone! I know my stash still has lots to offer—how about yours?

Free and Really Cute Costumes

2010-10-14T23:29:00.001+02:00

Even though we really don’t celebrate Halloween in our family {or this country}, I couldn’t miss a chance to share an amazing costume idea I saw during Portugal’s dress up time earlier this year. All the different kindergartens dress up for the Carnaval parade in our town. I guess you could call these costumes Telephone Book Mary Poppins?

They had skirts, scarves, hats, canes and umbrellas all made from telephone book pages! It was amazing! {Except for the fact that they couldn’t sit down!}

I think they made the skirts and boy jackets from rolled pages attached to another then to a skinny piece of fabric covered with paper rosettes tied around their waist or neck. The rosettes look like circles cut with pinking sheets and folded in some fashion—I’d have to play around with it {sorry I wasn’t brave enough back then to try to ask in Portuguese how they made their outfits!}.

So, another idea for book pages {in addition to the amazing book page wreaths I’ve seen in blogland—here’s a new one I just saw} or a way to use up those old phone books! I’d love to see if you try it!

PS: I saw a some great ideas for incorporating the Truth into October 31st at 1+1+1=1!

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Hedgehogs and More

2010-10-05T16:54:00.001+02:00

Today is a holiday in Portugal. In fact, it’s the 100th anniversary of Portugal becoming a republic. You’d think it would be similar to the 4th of July, but a friend told us there have been many victories over the opposition in Portugal, that this is celebrating one of many. I have to remember that America is a relatively new country! Anyway, the girls were home from their Portuguese kindergarten so we had extra time to do homeschool versus the 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon we have normally.

This week we started the letter H with Raising Rock Stars Preschool. This program has been a lot of fun and a good basis to focus our week around (great printables and songs to download too!). We love how it helps the girls learn God’s word. I even signed up for the members only portion so my youngest gets extra review from the PowerPoint presentations.

Every week I look at several websites for ideas to go along with our letter of the week or something with the theme. Our hand print hedgehog from No Time for Flashcards was quite a hit. They turned out really cute too! We looked at pictures of hedgehogs on the internet and to find out about their habitat (another H idea from No Time for Flashcards).

I was also encouraged with our continued gradual introduction to telling time. Last week’s letter was T, so I only introduced the clock. Today, we each had a clock with movable hands. I was reading the book Playtime (Tick Tock Book) as we all changed the hour hands to match hour of the girl’s activity in the book. Even my four year old was following along well!

Another fun thing we tried for the first time was going outside with a cute nature study page for the girls to draw what they see outside. {Thanks Mama Kenz Studio!}I like this one since it allows the girls to “document” things themselves, and then it helps me ask them questions afterwards. The girls LOVED going around outside with their nature study page on a clip board—big stuff!

So, thanks for reading about today’s successes. I’m really grateful for all the online “support” I have way over here (meaning readers and amazing bloggers who share their ideas)!

Catching the Grape Harvest

2010-10-03T16:25:00.001+02:00

We’ve passed several trucks filled to nearly overflowing with grapes, and I’ve either not had my camera or was too slow! Friday, we were driving from the girls’ school, when we spotted a tractor and trailer parked on the side of a vineyard (so nice to not have a moving target!). This load was not as big as some I’ve seen going down the road, but it’s still amazing for me to see.

There were three workers in this vineyard. You can see it’s not easy to find them!

Ah ha!

The vineyards are really showing the first signs of fall in our area.

Not a bad view for your workplace, huh?! The Atlantic is just over that last set of hills in the distance. We have rain and wind today, but I’m hoping for many more gorgeous autumn days like this ahead.

Shelving Solutions

2010-09-22T23:04:00.001+02:00

Months ago, I shared about my new craft room desk area. That was one side of my craft area. The other sides (there are 3 since it is open to a large room) have not been so easy to control or beautify. Are you ever less motivated to organize when the opportunity to be creative or decorate seems minimal? Part of my problem is not having the time to go through all of it and moreover, keeping things picked up, as you can see!

I decided the fastest solution to the most unruly shelf on this side was to cover it, and then come back and attack the contents later. I’ve thought about ordering some cute fabric from America to cover it, but I decided I’d give this bird fabric from IKEA a try. I think it added a fun punch of life that the more organizational side of the area needed!

Our upstairs room still had another unsightly, catch-all, forgotten, not-really-been-touched-since-we-moved-in bookshelf:

Taking everything off of this bookshelf was a good place to start. Things that didn’t belong here had to find a new home. Then I realized many of the big books and magazine holders could not even fit between the shelves (this was a homemade bookcase left in our old house). I took magazines out of their holders (or took them elsewhere). Stacking big books on their side actually helped visually. It is so nice to know where I can find something or where something goes. Why do I wait to do these projects? …moving on.

I’m sharing this at the We’re Organized Wednesday link party.

PS: These organizational projects were completed before the last few weeks of retreat center busyness and decorating, for those of you who know about that. I do want to share what happened there and what I’ve learned! Soon hopefully!

Pumpkin Factory

2010-09-20T22:14:00.001+02:00

Friday we took the girls back to check out a place that had caught our eye in passing earlier that week. It looked like a pumpkin factory, but really it was pumpkin storage. And actually I think it is winter squash storage.

Bins and bins of the biggest squash and pumpkins we’d ever seen in one place! We were used to a trailer full on the side of the road in Germany but never this quantity.

We didn’t know if the workers would let us take pictures (it seems businesses are funny about pictures here)—thankfully one said yes to my question in broken Portuguese. Then another fellow motioned that we should go back to the warehouses in the back.

Amazing what we saw! Rows and rows of neatly stacked squash and pumpkins! It could pass for the fall aisle at Hobby Lobby, but these were real!

I found online that you can store some winter squash for 4-6 months! We’ll have to check out what this place looks like in a few months.

We weren’t in Portugal for fall last year so I’m not sure what it looks like here (and I’ve been holding onto summer as long as I can). Yet I’m thankful for glimpses of the beauty of the season to come!

Table Talk and Tomatoes

2010-09-03T15:07:00.001+02:00

Quote of the day: We were talking about what foods were good for your heart at lunch today (ie: oatmeal, garlic). Our oldest daughter said,

“Jesus is what people need for their heart, not oatmeal!”

Confession of the day: We have not found hard taco shells in Portugal. Thankfully we can get tortillas, but it’s much cheaper to bring some back from America! I found a recipe for making taco shells (essentially just frying and folding them in the oil). It feels like a confession since I’m a Registered Dietitian…funny we were just speaking of heart health! I do have to say that these tacos (including ground beef/pork, homemade salsa, field greens, cilantro, and tomatoes from our garden) in the fried shells were YUM-O! Maybe we’ll put them on the menu only…once a month :).

Quickly I wanted to share how I used up 8 kilos (nearly 18 pounds) of tomatoes from our garden in a matter of minutes. Sorry these are NOT pretty pictures!

This is my 2nd Vidalia Chop Wizard. It might not say much about it since my first one broke after months of chopping onions (and not shedding tears doing it). However, I loved it so much I got a 2nd one!

I could not make all the salsa to can that I wanted since I couldn’t find more limes at the store. Therefore I chopped up my tomatoes and froze them for future salsa making just like the frozen chopped tomatoes I usually buy at the store.

Yeah for fast and free!

Changed By a Book

2010-09-01T23:11:00.001+02:00

You may not be able to help but notice the flashing book “widget” I added to the sidebars. Those are the books I’m reading or recommend that you can find on Amazon. I was bummed you wouldn’t see this book since it isn’t sold there, but when I finished it I knew I had to tell you about it still.

I actually won Igniting Faith in 40 Days from the writers at our international conference we attended this summer in America. God knew I needed it! It has a daily reading and declaration of truth along with 3 lists of declarations in the back. So many of the readings opened my eyes to lies I’ve believed or unknowingly spoken over my life versus walking in the truth of God’s Word. It’s no magic formula, just believing the Word. Some examples:

“Let the weak say I am strong.” Joel 3:10

“Jesus answered, ‘…if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.’ ” Mark 11:23

I’m not asking for physical mountains to move. Instead I have seen the mountain of FEAR be done away with in my life (by faith)! We were on our first flight back to Portugal, and I normally struggle to not have fear in flying. Several minutes into our ascent, I clearly felt the Lord say (in my mind) “Be as if you never had fear.” And the feelings of anxiety vanished! Really!!! Instead I had a joy like I haven’t experienced in a long time on a plane! I believe this is fruit of my declarations (and thus hearing the Word) becoming belief and faith!

I could tell you more stories about how I feel reading this book and following it’s direction in getting in the Word and declaring God’s truth has changed my life. I will hold off and let you go check out the book! You can buy Igniting Faith in 40 Days and others by Steve and Wendy at the Ignited Hope store. I’m starting the next book by the Backlund’s. Can’t wait to tell you about it!

Not too late for blackberries

2010-08-31T11:42:00.001+02:00

Sunday we both decided we shouldn’t wait any longer to try to go blackberry picking. It is a good walk from our house, but worth it to bring home a free harvest! Thankfully, we had not missed all the good ones. We were also thankful we wore jeans and old tennis shoes even though it was a hot day—much better for traipsing through the briars!

My little one tired out before we were done, but she did a great job resting in the shade! Can you see the purple around her mouth? This event lent to getting out Blueberries for Sal to read again!

Another victory (in addition to bringing home a bunch of berries) was taking care of the blackberries before they all went bad. First I washed all of them and laid them out to dry on old dishtowels. Then I laid one layers worth on a jelly roll pan to freeze—2 pans worth. The next day I put the frozen berries in freezer bags. The rest I put in the fridge for eating soon (and they’re almost gone)! We also made a Blackberry Buckle introduced to us by my dear friend Rachel when we lived in Germany.

What should I do with the rest? We’ve tried blackberry lemonade in the past. I already have some blackberry jam in the fridge. How have you had success with blackberries?

Linking up to

Eye Sore No More

2010-08-27T13:55:00.004+02:00

Another eye sore in our home (or outside of it) is somewhat conquered! We are blessed to have an inset grill and sink on our back patio. It has taken us a while to get reacquainted with charcoal grilling, but my husband is getting the hang of it. As well, it’s taken us over a year to take time to make the grill area an attractive place, rather than the place to wash out paint brushes or throw the kids’ yard toys under.

After taking an assessment of what I had to “decorate” the area with without buying anything, we decided to go with a shabby garden theme with a few touches from the ocean.

We used an old milk crate to store my current gardening tools and gloves. I cleaned off the pots that fit the “shabby” bill and lined them up with the watering cans.

My husband made the chicken wire frame years ago, and it hasn’t been used in our past two homes, until now. I painted my clothes pin jar lid (our laundry lines pull out from the wall adjacent to the jar). I had bought the Fleurs sign at a dollar store in Germany, so it was waiting for a spot too!

I’m not sure what the purpose of this wooden box was originally. Again, had it for years, waiting for the right place to use it. It was always challenging to find something to put in it and the thing still be seen. This time, old tea cups, garden supplies, dried garlic, and shells (and an urchin) we’ve found at the beach filled it nicely!

It’s so nice when you don’t have to be embarrassed for people to come out to the grill AND when things have their place!

Linking up to: Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest,

Stuff Control!

2010-08-18T12:23:00.001+02:00

Motivation that turns to action in organization is a gift that I have to grab before it flies away. Thankfully this gift has lent to attacking several problem areas in our home!

First of all, we bought a rolling set of drawers from IKEA to keep homeschool supplies and activities in. I keep the curriculum we currently use in a rolling bin that rolls out to the dining room table. This new cart will keep me at the table rather than running back to a room to find something else! The decided home for this cart was our kitchen pantry/laundry room. It was getting out of control:

We removed the lower shelf, found spots for the bins and recycling, added a melamine covered board as a countertop and shuffled other things around or threw them away! Here is the reorganized look (and I’m being thankful for this when I’d love for it to all be hidden away!):

I was also ready to see less stuff hanging around in the girls’ room. (I forgot to get before pics of the bookshelves and their closet.) First, I removed books I thought the girls had outgrown (so hard to do when I think “they’ll be able to read that themselves soon!”). I needed more space for all the new books we brought back from America. Now the girls have dedicated spaces in the room for their “treasure boxes” (jewelry boxes) and a new rule that they can only keep as much stuff in them that will allow the boxes to close.

I also bought plastic drawers for one side of their closet for toys, purses, CD’s and other things that were in bins on the shelves, making more room there. The games are more accessible (or at least less likely to be forgotten) in this new spot.

Lastly, we hung up two peg racks for the girls’ necklaces and bracelets in their closet and put all their lip glosses and such in a little tin.

Now for training myself and them to put things back where they go! It feels like you can breathe in these places again.

There are still problem areas TBA (and attacked)! My hope is that others will sense they can also be vulnerable and productive in their stuff management along with me.

I’m sharing this at ABC and 123’s:

and

Back to Business (and a winner!)

2010-08-04T23:34:00.001+02:00

We’ve been back in Portugal 3 days after 5 weeks in America. We had a wonderful time AND it is good to be back (apart from the crazy wake-up-every-night-feeling-I’m-on-American-time syndrome AKA jet-lag!). I’m looking forward to delving into my craft/cooking/gardening/organizing/home school world again (and sharing it with you!) but I’m taking the resettling process one step at at time.

I did want to say we had a winner in The Girl Creative’s give-away for my etsy shop, Retrosaria Rua. Christa at Modern Vintage Interiors won and chose the vintage metal soap holder. Congratulations to you Christa! (Go check out her amazing work and beautiful blog!) Thank you to everyone who entered/visited the shop!

I also thought I’d share a few favorite pictures from our trip although there were many more memorable moments.

shucking corn with cousins (in matching dresses from Nana)

profile shot with Nana

being the bowling ball at our conference’s carnival

beauty all around us (wishing I had a recording of the water streaming by!)

going to the circus with Grams, Pops, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Erin

more cousin time

and kitty time

And now back to the present (and good things to come!) in Portugal…

My First Giveaway!

2010-07-05T06:09:00.001+02:00

Diana at The Girl Creative is hosting a giveaway for my Etsy shop, Retrosaria Rua!

Visit her blog to find out how you can win one item of your choice from my shop. Plus you will see some great ideas at her linky party, Just Something I Whipped Up!

And since we’re in America this month, I was able to reduce shipping fees for customers in North America. ~~Thanks to everyone for visiting Retrosaria Rua--coming to you from a street in America this month!!!