Gum Drop Pillows

Here is my first sew-from-a-pattern project; Gum Drop Pillows! Since it's another first for me, and I greatly enjoyed the process, I thought you might like to hear how these pillows came to be, and see a few pictures.

I got the idea to sew them about a month ago when my mom and I were at Craft Warehouse. I was aimlessly wandering around the fabric area, when I saw some sample pillows sitting on a shelf. As soon as I saw them, I knew I just had to make one! After thinking about it for awhile, I figured I could make two pillows with coordinating fabrics, as holiday gifts for some friends of mine, who are sisters.

My mom and I ended up coming back a week later, to shop at the big Craft Warehouse yearly sale, and that's when I bought all my material and the pillow pattern (both of which were largely discounted!!). Since the store was crazy busy, and we knew the fabric cutting line would soon be extremely long, my mom and I ran (ran!) to look at fabric together. I quickly decided on the fabric for the first pillow, and Mom ran (ran!) to get in line with it. While she was waiting, I quickly looked for somewhat matching fabric for the second pillow. Before finding any, my eye caught the Cottage Romance fabric collection. I thought it was so cute, so I ran over and picked out my favorites for both pillows, and got them to Mom just in time before the sales lady cut the fabric I had previously picked. Whew!

The next day, Monday, I cut out all my fabric. I was a little worried I wouldn't quite like what I had gotten, as I made my final fabric choices in about 6.2 seconds, but I was extremely pleased when I had everything layed out.






Then, I spent a few days embroidering my friend's names onto the two, small octagon-shaped pieces, that would end up being on the tops of the pillows.


That Wednesday, my grandparents came to spend the rest of the week with us, so my grandma was able to help me tremendously in sewing all the pieces together. Thanks Gram!


On Thursday night, we got the pillows done. Here is Valentina's...


...and here's Galina's.


I love the way they turned out! Since the ladies live not too far from my grandparents, my grandma was able to drop the pillows off at their house the following week. And, from what I understand, the girls loved them too!

Easy and Healthy Pancake and Waffle Recipe

My mom and I personally love this recipe. Once in a while we'll have a "breakfast for dinner" night, and these are usually the main course of the meal. It's so nice to be able to start the pancakes up in the morning, and when it's time to make dinner, just blend a few things in with the soaked grains and pour the batter on the griddle. While they taste a little more "healthy" than normal pancakes, with a little syrup or fruit sauce, they're good!

Blender Batter Pancakes
6-8 servings

1. Place in blender:

- 2 cups buttermilk or yogurt thinned to same consistency (or, if you're making waffles, 2 1/2 cups)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup rolled oats, whole oats or other grain
- 1 cup buckwheat, brown rice, corn, millet or other grain

2. Mill on high speed.

3. Cover batter and let stand at room temperature for several hours or over night.

4. Preheat griddle on medium high or waffle iron on highest temperature.

5. Just before cooking, add (dropping in vortex of blender) and blend:

- 2 eggs
- 2 Tbsp flax seed
- 1 or 2 bananas (to sweeten the flavor)
additional liquid - as needed to keep churning

6. Blend in thoroughly but briefly:

- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder

7. Bake on griddle or waffle iron (3-5 minutes or until crisp).

Picture courtesy from The Happy Housewife

Mallard Fillmore...and Homeschooling

Tour of a TV Station

Last Wednesday my family had the privilege of taking a tour of a TV station with some other home school families in our area. We had a great time! We enjoyed learning about how commercials are made, how long it takes for a report to get up on the news (from thinking up the report, to watching it on TV - about six hours), how show scheduling is organized, how companies purchase "spots" for their commercials to be aired, what the control room looks like, how it's worked and much, much more. We even got to see ourselves on "TV" sitting at the desk where the reporters sit. All in all, the field trip was very interesting, and I think we all learned a lot.

Standing at the desk where the reporters sit while being aired on the news...


There was almost a whole wall of TV's in the control room - plus lots more!


While we were in the equipment room, one of the reporters came in to get a video camera before she went to tape a story on Samaritan's Purse.


Here's one of the ladies who thinks up ideas for reports, telling us what goes on in her part of the operation.


That's all for now!

Love,

A Real Eye-Opener

I just read this moving, although fictional, story about a girl who's biological mother was an aborted fetus. The sad thing is, this kind of thing actually happens in real life. Go on over to Striving to Glorify the LORD, and read Hannah's post labeled My Mother Was Never Born.

Ahhh...Baby Names!

Anyone interested in sharing ten of their favorite names with the bloggy world? Today I was inspired by Jasmine's post about up-and-coming popular names, to start up a little meme for all of us who could easily count off fifty names we love, which we hope our future (or for some of you, current) husbands might agree too. :) Here's mine, although not necessarily in order:

My Top Ten Favorite Baby Names

1. Evangeline Jubilee (my absolute favorite!!)
2. Abigail
3. Macie
4. Elishava (one of my sister's middle names :)
5. Mae Amelia
6. Eliana
7. Judah Benjamin
8. Will (I can just imagine a cute, skinny little boy named that :)
9. David
10. Asher

I (and many other people, I'm sure) would love to see your Top Ten Favorite Baby Names! Won't you blog about them, then add yourself to Mister Linky over here? Also, as you can see, I've created an image to go with this post, so if you'd like you can add it to your post or sidebar. Now, I'm absolutely clueless as on how to write HTML code, so if you could just copy the picture, and make it link back to this post, I'd greatly appreciate it. :)

*A little post update:* Just for fun, if you'd like to see the top ten names for 2007, the Social Security Administration has a list up for both boys and girls. The number one names? For boys, Jacob, and for girls, Emily.

More on "Being Jewish" - Eating Kosher

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, or seen pictures of the boys in my family, you've probably guessed that we're Messianic Jews. Well, on top of celebrating the Feasts, believing that the Sabbath is on Saturday and keeping the boy's side locks (peyot), we also eat kosher. My mom wrote a great post all about the reasons why we eat that way, and how it's Biblical, on her blog, Fresh Thoughts From the Laundry Room. Go check it out! She did a great job explaining most of the questions people have about eating kosher, and even the deal with kosher salt. :)