Scarves X 5

Hi!  I'm so excited to be able to blog about this today!  I found this fabulous idea from Make it And Love it for a scarf, and when I was asked to make the scarves for the Young Women in my ward for Christmas, I decided to try this idea out.  Have you ever looked at something so long that you decide you hate it, but you know somebody else will like it?  That's how I feel about this project.

Now if I could only clone this one and have 5 done!

(Oh, and a trick I learned, is that if you can find the blanket kits ---I found mine at Joann's---some of them are already cut to the 60 inches for the lengths of the scarves!  Hooray!!! and less work for me!)

Token Board

Today is my first day of freedom from finals, and I can't wait to get started on some new projects!  I wasn't planning on posting about this, but then I decided that it involves cute pictures, buttons, and a bit of sewing, so I decided it counts as a craft!  I am a special education major, and made this for one of my classes at school.

This is a called a token board.  It's used commonly in Special Education classrooms to keep students motivated to work.  You can either use it to help reinforce responding correctly to directions, or for behaviors that student is working on (such as feet on floor, sitting right in chair, hands to self, quiet mouth, etc.).  Each time you praise the child, you give them a token (the buttons in this case).  Once they get the 5 tokens, they get to do the activity they chose (sitting above the buttons).  While you're working with the child, you remind them how fun it'll be to do the activity once they've earned it.  This helps a ton in helping students learn that there are benefits to getting their work done at school!  It also helps teachers remember to praise and reward students for doing well!

This is the choice board listing different options the student can choose to work for.  The bag below has more choices inside as well.

Well, it's my first day of no-school, and I've got a lot on my list to do!  I'm so excited, I finally get to clean up some messes and have a clean house! Wahoo!  Hope you are all having a fabulous Christmas season!

Still Alive!

Hi readers!  What a busy life I've had the last month!  With school and everything else crazy going on in my life, there has been no time for crafting and especially no time for posting! I haven't even had time to take the Halloween decorations down!  Hang on a couple more weeks, and my crafting will be in full force once school's out for December and I'm locked in my house with nothing to do! :)  Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thankful Thursday

Wow, it's already been a week since my last post?  Ooops, no crafting to show for it!  Well, we'll see what we can do about that. 

This Thankful Thursday I am thankful for books.  I LOVE to read.  Reading has kept me sane this semester.

The past week or so, I haven't had any books to read!  The library books I've got on hold haven't come in yet!  I didn't realize how calming reading is for me until I didn't have a good novel to read.  I love clean (namely written by Anita Stansfield, Rachel Ann Nunes, or Michele Ashman Bell) romance novels, but I'm starting to branch out to new types because I've read all the good ones (sometimes twice)!  

If any of you have books you're thankful for, give me some ideas of what I can start to read!

Sooo Yummy!

Tonight I had no idea what to cook.

Like NO idea.

I didn't want to cook ANYTHING I've made before, so I made something up!

(This can be REALLY scary for me, I usually can't try anything unless I know there's a recipe for it.)

But I just have to say that my dinner was SOOOO yummy!

I literally just threw things in a 8 X 8 pyrex dish and cooked it! (Oh and a warning on the spices, I don't measure them, I just smell it and throw more in til it smells good!)

Here's the recipe if you want to try it yourself!

Lynette's Yummy Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can large olives chopped (I just stick a butter knife in the can after it's open and move it back and forth to sloppily chop them, it may not look fabulous, but it's fine)

1 can sliced mushrooms (I think it's like 4 oz.)

1/2 cup of rice

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup-ish sour cream (I just used the rest of my container that was going to expire)

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

pepper

parsley (I honestly just did this for looks because I like green specks in foods)

grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. (Does anyone else forget to preheat your oven?) Put the chicken in the dish.  Mix the soup, mushrooms, olives, rice, water, sour cream, and spices.  Pour over chicken.  Grate cheese and sprinkle on top.  I just grated enough to cover the top.  I sprinkled a bit of paprika on top for looks.  Cook for about an hour at 350.  (We tried it at 45 minutes and the rice wasn't quite done.  So if you want the dish to cook faster, just cook rice separately on the stove...I was just too lazy tonight to do that. :)  This fed two with leftovers for lunch for the next day (love that!).  You could easily double it for a 9 X 13 size for a family.

My husband loved it, and I was so excited!  My first made up dish that he really really liked!  Wahooo!!!! :)

If I skipped something and you have any questions, just leave me a comment and I'll get back to you!

Thankful Thursday

This Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for laughter.  I have had a long and hard week with school, and with keeping up with everything (groceries, laundry, cleaning, ya know...the normal stuff that you just LOVE to do).  We bought Laffy Taffies after Halloween for way cheap, and have been enjoying the jokes on the wrappers.  Here's my favorite so far!

"Why don't monsters eat clowns?"

"Because they taste funny!"

I must have just been a laughter-needing mood, because I laughed like it was the funniest thing I've ever read!  Hope you enjoyed it too!

What are YOU Thankful For this Thursday?

Zippered Pocket and a Sneak Peak!

Hello there!  I told you I was making a bag....and I still am!  But I'm getting closer!  I have very short periods of sewing time, so it will get done sometime!

I have this thing about purses.  I HAVE to have a zippered pocket in the inside.  Without one, a purse is USELESS to me.  So when making bags, I have To MAKE a zippered pocket...and let's just say that first couple I've tried were a PAIN to do.

I wanted to give up so many times, but I told myself the more I practice, the better I'll get.

Well that's true...but I found a better way to do them, and they were a CINCH!  I found this tutorial to help me get a better idea of how to do the pocket.  The tutorial is for a whole bag (which is super cute and I may have to try sometime), so for the pocket instructions, start at step #12.  All I have to say, is trust the instructions.  I didn't believe them at first, and got SUPER confused but once I tried it, it worked perfectly! :) 

And look how cute my pocket is!!!

To give you an idea of what the bag will be like (when it's done), here's one of the outside panels.

Stay tuned!  I hope to have this thing finished really really soon!