My daughters good friend has two children, the youngest of which was born recently. This friend of my daughters is very special to me because she has been in my daughters life since the 4th grade and she was also in my Girl Scout troop - yes I was a Girl Scout leader (I am also a lifetime Girl Scout!).  For the first child my daughter asked if I would help her to paint the letters of the child's name to match the crib bedding her friend chose, and of course I said yes! After looking at some pictures of the bedding we came up with a color scheme and decided butterflies. We wanted the letters to be just different enough, but still match the room and I think we did a pretty good job as you can see in the picture below.

So of course when child #2 was born we needed to make more letters - fair is fair, right?  So once again we got right to work on trying to match the bedding....this time it was flowers!  Again, we wanted them to match just enough, but still be original and...... I think they came out pretty good!

Once the colors and design are decided on, the process is really pretty simple!

Here's what we did:

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​Sincerely,

There is nothing better than fresh food made from scratch! This eggplant parmesan was made with all natural and fresh ingredients, most of which was grown right in my backyard! The sauce is made fresh from cherry tomatoes I picked, the ricotta is made from scratch, and the eggplant is right out of the garden! I also used fresh grated parmesan cheese and fresh mozzarella.  There is nothing better! Simply delicious :-)

Simply delicious!
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Sincerely,

 I had always loved these old looking signs but never really thought about making my own until I came across a Pinterest Pin on how to do it yourself.  Then when I really started doing some research I actually came across several different ways they could be done. I settled on the method I use below because it really is simplest and I had all the materials to get started right away. I absolutely love the results and can't wait to make many more as gifts for the upcoming holidays. I am even working on a sign for my craft fair booth!

Many thanks to Tammy at Homespun Happenings for the post "I Made A Sign." I couldn't have done this without you!

Supplies needed:

• Piece of wood 
• Chalk (any color)
• Computer and printer
• Pen or pencil
• Paint - paint pens work great!
• Sandpaper

Here are some pdf file FREE downloads for a 3" high sign:

They all print out on 8.5" x 11" plain paper.

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Sincerely,

Check out "What your hair stylist doesn't want you to know about cutting your own hair." They talk about pointing and trimming bangs. And just a note to my cousin Peggy and my good friend Robin.....if you lived within 100 miles I would be coming to you!  I promise :-)

Guess what? Despite the fact that in my "Ideas to Save Your Cherry Tomatoes" post I said that we don't really eat tomato sauce because we don't really eat pasta here I found myself needing it the other day! Not for pasta but for eggplant parmesan! What was I thinking when I wrote that post? We do eat tomato sauce sometimes and I needed it the other day! Since I only grow cherry tomatoes, it was either buy it, or find a way to make it with them, which of course I did since I have so many!  I have to say it was super simple and actually so delicious we had it with the eggplant parmesan and then the next night we finished it off with spinach ravioli. Yes, I know it is a pasta, but it is my husbands favorite and because my sauce was so good we made an exception. 

Watch this short video to see how easy it was to make!

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Sincerely,

I love our essential oil diffuser pendants. I really love them because they were actually designed specifically for myself! I wanted/needed a way to be able to wear the oils every day at work without putting them on my skin.  If you don't yet know what I do for work then you need to know I am a high school science teacher.  So not only is there a lot of stress from many different directions, there are also a lot of unsavory smells from the students returning from gym class, stinky chemistry experiments, to the odors of the cooking cafeteria food (Which are sometimes really good too!).  To make matters worse the hallway I am in is on the second floor which is literally 10 degrees hotter than the first floor. Classroom temperatures can reach into the 90's on some days and I don't have to tell you what heat does to the smells.... 

Anyway, I started looking around online for diffuser pendants and really didn't like anything I saw.  I am not a jewelry person at all.  I just don't like the way jewelry feels on my skin, especially around my neck so that pretty much ruled out anything made of metal.  I saw a few pendants made out of clay,  mostly kiln fired, which I thought was great at first. But then I realized that you were just applying the oil directly to the clay and the risk of getting that on my clothing or even on my skin was not worth it.  Then I came across air dry clay pendants and they were doing the same thing - applying the oil directly to the pendant.  But air dry clay, well now I had something I could work with!  Being a science teacher...well...the experiments began!

Trial 1:

• I made the pendants out of the air dry clay, however since I didn't like the idea of the oil possibly getting on my skin or clothing I decided it needed a small well for the oil to go into so we drilled small holes into the back where the oil would be 'dropped' into.
• After giving these a try I quickly realized this was not going to work. The oil was able to seep through the pendant to the front. The oils are also very strong and they weathered the finish as well!

Trial 2:

• ​Same pendants, same drilled holes as wells on the back, but now we addd a small piece of felt.  The felt worked great for absorbing the oils and keeping them from seeping into the clay.
• Problem: the oils dissolved the glue that was holding in the felt.  
• We ended up experimenting with numerous glues until we found one that the oils could not dissolve.
• However, after about a month of using the pendants I realized that the oils were still able to seep completely through to the front of the pendants and weather the finish on the front.  Not good.

Trial 3:

• I needed to find a way to prevent the oil from seeping into the clay. I needed it to be 100% blocked from going through.  Thats when the finish experiments began.  We tried every type of finish we could find from polyurethanes, to acrylics, etc.  The oils are so strong that they weathered every single one of them. Some finished took longer than others, but nothing worked the way I wanted.
• So I started to think about what they are stored in: metal or glass containers.  I already knew metal was out for me, so glass it was.  What could I use that is like glass?  I was watching a video one day for wood finishing and the man was using epoxy to give it a beautiful glossy finish.  I thought to myself, "could this work?" and the epoxy experiments began.  
• If you know anything about epoxy you know that most of them have a yellow tint to them. Finding one that remained clear and could withstand the effects of the oil was not easy but I did eventually find success (With thanks to my husband!).

Of course I really over-simplified what I wrote above. In all the entire process took about of year of trials and errors and experiments and in that time we threw out several hundred failed designs.  We also had a lot of input from friends, family, and customers and we are so satisfied with how they turned out that we offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not happy! 

Some of the important design features:

• Super lightweight - the only reason you will know you are wearing it is by smelling the diffusing oils!
• Super soft cording - the faux suede cord is so soft on your neck you won't even know it is there.
• Deep well for the oil - we drill the wells deep enough that the felt is not able to touch your skin or your clothes.
• Absorbent felt - the felt absorbs the one or two drops of oil and allows them to diffuse over several days.
• Epoxy coating - the back of the pendant is coated with a special epoxy that prevents the oil from seeping into the clay.
• Many designs to choose from!
• Just add 1 or 2 drops of oil to the back and wear it all day! So simple :-)

Watch this video to see how they are made from start to finish!

You can make them yourself or buy them for $15 in our online shop (They ship FREE too!).  Every pendant comes with a trial size bottle (dram) of Lavender essential oil.  They make a great gift or even a stocking stuffer for the holidays!

Learn more about why you should use essential oil diffuser pendants!
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Thanks for visiting!
Sincerely,

I had a lot of zucchini this year and I was simply tired of making the same old zucchini pie so I decided to try something different and I was not disappointed   These zucchini sticks are absolutely delicious, especially when dipped in a fresh tomato sauce! They are more like a healthy snack, but also make a great addition to any meal.

​The fresh ricotta, well, I can't tell you how simple it is!  I simply will never buy it since it is so easy to make!  I actually made it with 1% milk (shown in the picture), but if the more fat in the milk, the more creamy it will come out!  But since I only buy 1% milk that is what I use and it is still delicious!  Especially in my fresh eggplant parmesan :-)

Want to keep the recipes? Simply copy them down or click on pictures or the button below the recipes to download the pdf file  and print one sheet of  8 1/2 x 11 cardstock paper.  Then cut out each of the 4 x 6 inch recipe cards.  They always come two recipes per sheet in an effort to not waste paper! 

Visit my Recipes Page to view or print out previous recipes (pdf files) or to download a FREE 4 x 6 Recipe Card Template (.dox file) for your own recipes! You can also check out my past Recipe Blog Posts here!

Enjoy!

FYI: there are always two recipes because I do not want to waste paper!
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Sincerely,