Book Review ~ When Hope Blooms

This is my 2nd Kim Vogel Sawyer book, and she is now one of my favorite authors!  I so enjoyed this gentle, sweet story of a Mennonite widow with 3 children.  Amy moves to Weaverly, Ks to start a new life.  Her young teen daughter, Bekah, is questioning if she wants to remain Mennonite.  Son Parker, age 10, is 'slow' due to a head injury at age 4.  And little daughter Adri, 5 years old, is a flittering butterfly of joy and fun!

Their neighbor is a quiet man named Tim, who left the Mennonite faith 20 years ago, rebelling against his father's strictness.  But he is consistently thrown into helping Amy and her children in their new home.

Amy's sweet, gentle nature, and the grace and love of fellow Mennonites in Weaverly are a consistent witness to Tim and make him question the choices he's made in the past 20 years.

This sweet story kept me up too late at night and had me riding my exercise bike extra minutes so that I could keep reading longer!
You won't be disappointed!

Blessings,

Donna

Vintage Winter Tablescape

 One of the things I love about changing seasons and holidays is the opportunity to practice creativity in changing out my coffee table scape. 

 This antique sewing drawer has graced my home for about 1.5 years after I fell in love with it at a flea market.  I've been watching for a vintage muffin tin that I liked, and found this little sweetie this fall for just $4!  They are both lovely vintage blank-canvases in which I can create little seasonal scenes 4-6 different times a year.

The muffin tin is so cute because it is smaller than usual and has smaller cups than most.  Eight little pockets to stash something cute for each season.  

For January, my tin has a fortune cookie (we traditionally eat out at a Chinese buffet on New Year's Day!), a crocheted snowflake, a candle, red and white peppermints, and two little cups with Epsom salts in them for 'snow' and figurines that depict winter.  The other two cups hold a red and white ribbon wound into a mound and Scrabble tiles that spell JESUS.  :)

My sewing drawer vignette was inspired by my childhood copy of Frosty the Snowman.  All of the things in there with the book are things I already had...vintage cookie cutters are just begging me to make Sugar Cookies, yarn with the colors of the stuffed snowman reminds me to crochet, and the little scoop is my newest flea market treasure that I LOVE!

It's cute and small and roundish and has a red handle.  And is another little empty container that can hold something adorable and seasonal whenever I wish.

At Christmas, it held peppermints.  I'm pretty sure conversational candy hearts are in its near future.  :)

And lastly, I was glad to find that I had enough vintage blocks to spell out 2013 for the table, too.  A good reminder this first month of a brand new year as I try to remember to write the correct date!  And if you like the paper table scarf, it is just 6 pages from a vintage hymnal that I zigzagged together on my sewing machine, and then edged with a paper cutting tool.

The vintage things in my home that I've picked up for a few dollars here and there are my favorite accessories.  I'm a modern day mama with a vintage soul.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  In just a week, I'll be adding some Valentine decor to my little tablescape...won't you?

xoxo,

Donna

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Your HomeBased Mom

A Home in Drayton Valley ~ A Book Review

Reading Christian fiction is my little daily vacation.  If a book is 'pretty good' then I read it just at bedtime til I get sleepy.  So some books take me more than a week to get through.  However this book not only got read at bedtime, but during the day in snippets here and there too!  It was really good!

I like stories that are a little bit different from the normal plots I have read time and again, and this one fits that bill.  Tarsie helps her sickly friend Mary, husband Joss, and their 2 wee ones to have the finances to move by wagon train from dirty, noisy downtown 1880 New York City to peaceful, rural Drayton Valley, KS.  The hope is that Mary's illnesses will lessen in a better environment.  However, Mary barely lives to see Kansas in the distance before her illness  consumes her.  Now Tarsie is left with the care of Mary's 2 little ones and the beligerent, prejudiced, ungodly Joss to finish the journey and set up a home.  What will happen?  Tarsie has promised Mary that she will love the children and even love Joss to the Lord.  But at what expense?

Kim Vogel Sawyer takes you on a wonderful journey with this unique story.  You will love it!

Blessings,

Donna

Felt Farm Animal Puppets

Our sweet little firstborn grandchild just turned one.  Happy 1st Birthday Carson Davis!!

His Momma dreamed up a darling birthday party for him.  The theme was Old MacDonald's Farm.  So farm animals played a large part in the decor.

Being that I love crafting, my daughter asked if I'd come up with some kind of table centerpieces for the tables where the guests would enjoy eating a farm fresh lunch!  "Of course!" I replied.

I found some cute farm animal ideas online and settled on these darling felt puppets.  I found these at Just Another Day in Paradise and was so glad that Larissa provided the patterns for free as well.  Cute for the party, and reusable throughout the years as fun toys!

I tweaked them a bit for my time schedule, just doing machine stitching around the outsides of the puppets, leaving raw edges, and sewing wrong sides together.  I used fabric glue to attach the faces and other details.  I did sew Kitty's whiskers on, using embroidery thread.

And here is how we displayed them on the tables...we sat each one over a small plastic cup turned upside down so that it would stand up, and then tucked some raffia around the base, as if it was in the barn.

Puppy got to welcome the gifts on the gift table.  :)  Carson will be able to play with these puppets when he is a bit older.  Since he loves animals so much, I'm sure they will star in many puppet shows over the years!  One little hint would be to make the body of the puppet a bit wider (another inch?) if you want adult hands to be able to wear the puppet.

Carson had such a fun birthday party!  Especially since our 2nd born grandchild, Eloise Mae, got to come too!  Eloise and Carson are just 7 weeks apart, and are sure to have GREAT fun over the years as cousins.  :)

And that's me.  Mimi!  I'm the happiest Mimi there ever was, when my arms are full of my granddarlings and my heart is full from having time with them.  There is nothing better!

Thank you for stopping in!  You'll find the puppet patterns HERE!

Blessings,
Donna

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Your Home Based Mom

Graphic Organizers for Mom (Or How to Play Games With Your Mind)

For some reason, I dislike making lists for myself of things to do.  They tend to become taskmasters to me, and make me feel like I must get them DONE before my day or week is a success.  Typical first born, perfectionist, I suppose.  But I've come across another method for helping me organize tasks, that feels more like a game of Bingo or Black Out.  :)  Oh, the games we play with our minds!  I call it a Graphic Organizer for Mom, and I love how it organizes my want-to's and need-to's into nice tidy little squares.  Here's how:

Just take a piece of computer paper and fold it in half, and then fold each half several times until you have either 16 or 24 little squares.

Then as you think of things you WANT to get done and NEED to get done, write one on each square. I also write down some fun things I'd like to do.  This particular Graphic Organizer is for me over Christmas Break from homeschooling our 9th grade son.  I still have a few empty squares on it, so that I can add to it as I think of something else.

As you complete a task or a fun To Do, put a nice big X through it.  Ahhhh, doesn't that feel aaaamaaaazinnnggg?!  And it looks so tidy.  Plus it feels like I'm just playing Bingo with the goal of a complete Black Out by January 2.

Some of these things I am REALLY looking forward to...like beginning my new Smash Book Scrapbook. Playtime with paper!!

Other items...not so fun.  Like mopping the kitchen and sewing my husband's coat buttons on tight. But, because of this Graphic Organizer I really didn't mind doing it and then having the fun of crossing it off.
My photos today are subpar because I used my iPhone rather than my camera, but you get the gist.  
So give it a try and see if it makes you feel more organized and less mastered by a To Do list.
Works for this Mama!

Christmas Blessings!

Donna

Linked to:
Made By You Monday

10 Minute Trees

This Christmas, I have had so much fun coming up with new Christmas displays for my home.    Partly because I didn't want to get out all of my usual decorations and have the work of putting them all away again in a few weeks.  Partly because I just wanted something different to enjoy.  One of those little projects has been to try my hand at Origami!  I found a website that visually showed pictures and gave instructions for making Origami Pine Trees. But since I am not good with geometry, (at all!), I also searched You Tube and came up with a video that showed how to make them.  The little tree above is one of the ones I made.  

I decided to do our mantle this year in the calm, peaceful colors of Aqua, Green, Silver, and White.  The plate is a North Star treasure I found at a flea market for a couple of dollars.  LOVE it.  It was my inspiration piece.  I already had the glass containers, teacup and saucer, and the vintage green copy of Little Women, so just added an aqua print fabric belly band around the book and put inexpensive aqua and silver ornaments in the glass containers.

The three trees were so easy and quick to make.  The link for the blog site that gives instructions on how to fold them is HERE.  And if you are like me and need a video to help you figure out the folds, then watch this ONE (just through 1:45 minutes of it, because then they do a different design than the simple one I wanted.)  The 3D stars came from THIS blog link, and were fun and easy to make.  I can't decide if my favorite tree is the aqua one with the green star, or the sheet music of Good Christian Men Rejoice (a photocopy of it) for the small tree.

These would be fun projects to make with kids.  You can practice on a square of computer paper first.  You can make them any size...just start with a square.  Add a loop of ribbon or embroidery thread at the top if you want to hand it from your Christmas tree.

Come back soon, and I will show you the Origami dresses I've made to hang on a Christmas tree.  Sweeeeet!

Have Fun!!

Christmas Blessings,
Donna
Linked to:
My Romantic Home
Funky Junk Interiors
Sunday Showcase

A Vintage Little Christmas

My love for all things vintage is sparking some creative fun as I decorate the house for Christmas.  I am using some of my vintage belongings to make a few new tablescapes.  Here is the coffee table's new look for December.  The little old muffin tin is something I found at the flea market this past weekend, and I already LOVE it.

The same scene with the flash used, so you can better see what makes up the vignette.  

Eloise Wilken's book Baby's Christmas is a true favorite.  Both of my darling grandbabies have Eloise Wilkens cheeks and profiles!

The tin is holding miniature candy molds, Peppermint Pillow candies, and Scrabble tiles that spell Jesus.

With the flash, you can see my $2 bag of ABC blocks from this summer's garage saling is being enjoyed!  On the left is my childhood Christmas stocking, and I tucked in a few photos from my childhood Christmases in the 1960s.

That's me in the snow above right in 1967 and the lower photo shows my mom, my baby brother, and me with a large teddy bear in 1965.  :)

Lastly, this fabric underneath the display is called Dick and Jane at Christmas Time!!  Bliss!

Thanks for stopping in!

Christmas Blessings,

Donna

Linked to:
My Romantic Home
Funky Junk Interiors
Sunday Showcase