My Mom does stuff too

this beautiful crazy quilt was made by my mom for son Jimmy to congratulate him on his admission to the Bar.

My photography skills do not do it justice but here goes......

This quilt is made of old neckties - some belonged to relatives and others were thrifted.

all the blogs have lots of hand embroidery and other embellishments.

This block has Jimmy's law school's name and tower embroidered on it.

a dinosaur because young Jimmy planned to be a paleontologist.

this one has a section of a canary necktie that belonged to my dad.

My brother wore the same tie to work for an Ugly Tie contest and won first prize.

However, daughter Nina was very fond of this tie. One Sunday morning when she was about 2 years and too sick to go to church, my dad tied this canary tie around her neck and it made her very happy.

a button grape cluster because Jimmy worked at an Italian restaurant almost 10 years

frogs and peacocks

even some beading on this fancy crazy quilt

some machine embroidery on the block for Oklahoma State University

Mom used some of her sister's double knit scraps for the back and she pieced them together so pretty

Mom said this quilt was so much fun to make. She has even considered getting rid of all her other sewing and craft supplies so she could just make crazy quilts.

I don't expect she really will give up everything else but I do expect she will make more crazy quilts.

2 reasons new blog posts are not happening

Record-breaking hot weather has been around since the first of June

with very few days under 100 degrees.

It is not fun at all.

These 2 little urchins are sweet as can be and are spending lots of time with me while their parents go to work.

Here they are doing high-fives while they wait for their breakfast.

So between busy toddlers and this heat wave,

I am just not doing much extra.

Fall will be here soon and hopefully when it is cooler, we will all be more cheerful.

my kitchen assistants

Up until today, Gavin and Elizabeth have only ate food from my kitchen.

They are getting bigger, so today,

they learned how to make a family favorite,

salad crackers.

My grandmother made these at least 30 years ago. I know it was then because son Bobby ate them when he was a toddler and he is 30.

We have been eating them ever since.

Salad crackers are oyster/soup crackers moistened with salad oil so the seasoning mixture of dill, onion and garlic powder, and dry ranch dressing mix will stick.

The grandbabies had fun making and eating them.

And just a few crackers flew out of the bowl onto the floor.

salad crackers are popular with everyone in this family.

We all like them on top of salad instead of croutons. I think most recipes for these seasoned crackers call for 1 or 2 bags of crackers but I always make a big batch of 4 bags.

This makes a lot but they won't last long here,

especially since we have 2 more salad cracker fans.

Daughter Nina's latest project

Nina saw some very cute and very expensive fabric playhouses that fit over card tables on Etsy. At their home, the play area is in a nook beside the dining room and Nina wanted to use their tall dining table as the base.
She used low-cost brown sheets for all the walls and roof. Her big shortcut was using the finished edges of the sheets as the bottom of the walls so she would have less sewing.
She used fabric from my stash for the curtains, window boxes and door. _the door is not quite tall enough and will need to be adjust though.

The windows have clear vinyl in them, she bought it at Hobby Lobby and it looks good but my machine did not like sewing over it.

Pretty cute isn't it? And it can easily be moved and folded up at meal time.

Spice shelf - make do and mend project

BEFORE

My spice shelves just looked so messy to me.

I had some of the Starbucks bottles left from Nina's party so I started with those.

I painted the lids cherry red with a can of spray paint in the cabinet.

Then I printed off some free labels from

http://eatinginisin.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/round-labels-for-spice-jars/

I just printed them on regular paper, cut them out with scissors and glued them on with glue sticks. You could certainly use a cutter, sticker paper, pre-made labels - all kinds of ways to be more high-tech. There are also many free printable labels on line, just look around until you find ones than suit you.

AFTER

I also had a dozen tiny 4 ounce canning jars. I used them and the labels in their package to hold the smaller spices.

labels on top - easy to read

a few of the spices needed to be shaker jars so I re-used some of the original plastic containers with shaker tops. I covered them with red paper and added labels.

to see more Make and Do Mend Projects or to join in with Heidi with your own Make do and Mend

go to The Cranberry Chronicle

Now if only all of my house was as neat and tidy as the spices