Wood Projects

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving with your families and/or special friends.  Here is my/my son's project for tomorrow.  Will post pictures.  Looking forward to next year!

Also have a snowman pattern we're going to work on.  Love natural wood!  

"People love chopping wood.  In this activity one sees immediate results."  "  -Albert Einstein 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

"As we express our gratitude, may we never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live them."  -John F. Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!  We are busy getting our home ready for our families who are sharing Thanksgiving with us and I won't bore you with a blog about ironing table cloths or making sleeping arrangements for everyone for tonight!  Hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow!

"For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For Everything Thy goodness sends."  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanksgiving Place-cards

I have the best husband and 14 year old son.  They new that I was a little overwhelmed with working full time and planning a Thanksgiving dinner.  I came home today, and they had cleaned the house from top to bottom!  That gave me time to work on place-cards for our Thanksgiving table.

I wanted my place-cards to be pretty natural/rustic looking.  So I started with a large dowel.

Originally, I had wanted to use a branch that was about 2" in diameter but the men in my family kept forgetting to bring a branch home from our property up north.  The dowel worked great as a substitute.

My 14 year old cut the dowel into 1/4" pieces at a 45 degree angle.

Next, I cut pieces of off white paper into rectangles approximately 1" x 2".

To make the paper look a bit weathered, I used a lighter to burn the edges.  I had to do this in the garage because in the house.....we have very sensitive fire alarms!

Next, I burned the edges of the cut dowel pieces.

Here are my "burned" dowel and paper pieces.

I used a brown marker to write each guest's name on the off white little pieces of paper.

From Michael's, I purchased a light brown piece of paper that looks a bit like bark.  I cut this paper a little larger than the off white pieces.

Then I glued the name pieces to the brown pieces.

We have a few guests coming for Thanksgiving!

Next, I used a hot glue gun to adhere the pinecone to the dowel piece.

With a little more hot glue, I added the pieces of paper with each name of our guests.

Here is how the finished product looks.

Can't wait to get the table set!!

"For what I have received may the lord make me truly thankful.  And more truly for what I have not received."  -Storm Jameson

Wrapping Paper

Tonight, my husband and I made a trip to Menards and while we were there, we came across some brown builder's paper.

I had been debating about how to wrap our Christmas gifts and decided when I saw this paper that I would wrap everything in the brown paper and use colorful ribbons.  I may even have my daughter draw or stamp designs on it.  It's a much cheaper option than traditional paper.  For approximately $11, I got a roll of paper 35" wide by 140' long.  That's a lot of paper!  I think it will look great with lots of handmade embellishments or just a simple ribbon.

My husband is skeptical as to how the gifts will look under the tree but I think he will be pleasantly surprised!

"A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect."  Jonathan Lookwood Huie

Oreo/Pretzel Turkeys

I've seen these Oreo/pretzel turkeys on Facebook and Pintrest so my daughter and I thought we would give them a try.  They are not as easy as they appear!

First we laid out wax paper and fanned out three pretzels for the feathers.

Then we melted 6 bars of Candy Quik chocolate and about a cup of chocolate chips.

We dropped an Oreo into the chocolate and completed covered it.

We carefully lifted out the Oreo and placed it on top of the pretzels.

My daughter added a piece of candy corn for the beak,

and two little candy eyes.

Here's our little flock of turkeys.

What made these more difficult than I thought, was the placement of the Oreo onto to the pretzels.  It was difficult to get them on straight.  They're cute even though they're a little crooked!

"If you are really thankful, what do you do?  You share."  -W. Clement Stone

Thanksgiving Side Dish

Tonight I was going through my recipes for Thanksgiving, trying to prepare a grocery list.   One of my most favorite dishes to eat is also one of the easiest to make......Scalloped Corn.  It may not look very appetizing in this picture but it really does taste great!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
15 oz. whole corn (reserve 1/4 cup of the liquid)
15 oz. creamed corn
2 eggs, beaten
5 oz. evaporated milk
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1/4 cup chopped onions
2 cups buttery crackers, crushed
3 cups shredded Swiss cheese
salt & pepper

To the beaten eggs, add the whole and creamed corn, milk, margarine, reserved corn liquid, onions, salt and pepper.  Fold in the crushed crackers and the Swiss cheese.  Pour into a greased, 8" baking dish at 325 degrees for an hour or until the middle is set.

Enjoy!!

"The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook."  -Julia Child

Resource for Herb and Spice Blends

I like to have gifts on hand during the holiday season for hostess gifts, teacher gifts, book club gifts, and so on.  This year, I thought I'd put together some spice mixes and put them in these great glass bottles I have.

I have the great packaging, I just needed some great spice recipes to use to fill them.  Tonight I did a lot of research on the internet and found a great website with lots of homemade herb and spice blends.  The website is called Wellness Mama.  Here's a link   wellnessmama.com  The link will bring you to the homepage, but if you click on recipes and then on condiments, you will find the recipes for herb and spice blends.  I thought for my gift shakers, I would make the seasoned salt.  (I will be buying the spices I need in bulk at my local co-op.  This will save me some $$ and will also ensure that the spices I am blending together are fresh.)

Wellness Mama also has posted some other great recipes.  I will definitely be trying out the Strawberry Gelato one and the Butter Pecan Ice Cream recipe sounds pretty decadent too.  (Can you tell which recipes I spent the most time looking through......the DESSERTS of course!)  All of the recipes are healthy too which makes them even more appealing.  I will definitely be adding some of her main courses to my dinner rotations.

"I'm not an amazing cook.  But I can follow a recipe."  -Rachel McAdams

Glad for Mass Transit on Snow Days!

It is on days like this that I am so thankful that I can ride the train to work.  This morning it was foggy and wet.  Tonight it was snowy and slippery.  For those of you who know me well, know that 15 years ago, I was in a bad car accident on a snowy day.  I was pregnant with my second son and had my oldest son, who was 2 years old, and my mom in the car with me.  I have been terrified to drive in the snow ever since.  When I took the job at HealthPartners, I gave careful consideration on how I would get there when it was snowing.  I like the option of being able to drive or ride the train.

When I ride the train to work, it's actually two different train lines that I have to take.  The first one is the Northstar Rail.  This rail line starts in Big Lake and ends in downtown Minneapolis at Target Field.  It has stops in Big Lake, Ramsey, Elk River, Anoka, Coon Rapids and Fridley.  I park at the Fridley Station;

walk through the tunnel;

and then choose the elevator or the stairs to get to the railway platform.

Once on the platform, I pay for my ride using the kiosk.  It costs me $6 for a round trip ticket from Fridley to downtown Minneapolis.  My transfer from the Northstar Rail to the Light Rail (which goes all the way to the Mall of America) is free.

My employer subsidizes mass transit passes so if I ever choose to use the train as my main source of transportation, I would get a pass card that I could swipe at the pass stands that are at each train stop (both Northstar and Light Rail).

The Northstar Rail is a very comfortable train.  It has multiple levels and extremely comfortable seating.

It has very clean bathrooms and is brightly light and clean in the seating area.  It's also very comfortable temperature-wise.  Not too hot and not too cold.

It's only a 10 minute ride from Fridley to Target Field in downtown Minneapolis.  This is the end of the line for the Northstar Rail.

This is where I get on the Light Rail train.

This train stops at many places in downtown Minneapolis and then as it moves south, it makes many stops on its way to the Mall of America.  Lots of commuters take the Light Rail to the airport as it stops at both terminals.  One of its last stops happens to be right outside of the building I work in.

This kind of commuting makes getting to my desk

pretty stress-free!

"In the same way we have a long term plan for building roads, we have to have a long term plan to build transit."  -Kathleen Wynne

A Little Running Tumble

A very short blog tonight - my husband's orders.  Monday night while running outside, I fell and got pretty scraped up.  (I will be putting new winter running pants on my Christmas list.)  My left thumb/wrist were still sore today, so after work I went to the doctor to get an x-ray.  Here is my new fashion accessory.

So........I am going to enjoy an evening of watching TV with my family, complete with popcorn made the old fashion way!  I'm going to take advantage of the pampering!

"It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse."  -Ann Trason

Party Invites

I planned on inviting my Book Club friends to my home for our December meeting.  I was going to send out "traditional" invites but last night, I decided to do something a little different.

I made patterns for a poinsettia out of notebook paper and found a button that was the perfect size for the center of the flower.

Then took some plain red paper, glittery red paper and some gold glittery paper and set to work making a poinsettia.  

I traced my leaf patterns on the red paper and then cut out each leaf.

And I traced my little button on the gold paper and cut it out.

Here are all of my cut out pieces.

I glued the leaf pieces together first then added the gold center pieces.

Here's one of my finished flowers.

Next, I made little cards with my party information and glued it on the back of each of the flowers.

My invitations weren't done quite yet.  I thought I'd add a special treat.  I filled some little plastic bags with candy and attached each of them to a flower.

I made one of these invites for everyone in my Book Club.

I gave them out at our Book Club meeting tonight and am excited for our meeting in December!

"My motto is:  more good times."  -Jack Nicholson