Top Just Piddlin' Blogposts of 2014

We’re getting ready to close out another year.  2014 brought more books, travel, cooking, and crafts while raising kids. Shuffling from here to there. Keeping up with homework. Cheering at basketball games, tennis matches, and swim meets. Grocery shopping and cooking meals.  A lot of sorority and PTA meetings.  Trying to squeeze in a little bit of time for my own stuff.  And yes, despite the happy Facebook posts, there were some bad days, but as the old spiritual says, they were outweighed by the good days, so I won’t complain (too much.)

Over the year, these were the readers' favorite posts.  Is your's on the list?

Travel

• Whenin Texas... Finding the Perfect Cowboy Boots - p.s. I love my cowboy boots and ready for a return trip for another pair
• Takingthe Sweet Road - Our Ice Cream Tour - I love ice cream. This was this tasting thru New England
• PackYour Bags: Conferences - the essentials for your next conference

Books & Music

• WhereDoes My African-American Child See Herself in Books?  This one was also very popular on the BlogHer website.
• Books I'm Carrying Around: The Supadupa Kid
• Books I'm Carrying Around: 12 Years a Slave, James McBride, Sue Monk Kidd
• #ColorMyShelf- Diverse Books for All Kids
• MaryJ Blige Heads to London for #TheLondonSessions

For the Kids

• 5 Lessons from Rubber-band Bracelets
• 10 Ways to Avoid an "I'm Bored!" Snow Day
• 10 Things to Do on the Longest Days of the Summer
• Youth Financial Literacy & Entrepreneurship: Watching Seeds Grow

For the Home: Cooking & Crafts

• #WIP- #DIY Decorated Clipboards
• Crockpot Cooking Without a Recipe - Perfect for your next busy day to have dinner ready when you (finally) get home.

Thanks for Just Piddlin' with me.  Come on back and join me for piddlin' in 2015!

Follow on Twitter @JustPiddlinBlog

Like on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Travel journals

In preparation for our roadtrip, I suggested that the kids each make a vacation journal.  They used composition books and spiral notebooks left over from the school year and decorative paper and stickers that we already had around the house. No cost, re-using, creativity - pretty good already, right?

 

In the car, they are using them for car games. So far, we've had a couple rounds of scavenger hunts, from the vantage point of a car window; they've each written the list that I've come up with while driving up 95. They'll continue to be useful for other games and scoresheets.

 

At the end of the day, or while waiting for dinner, the kids take some time to write about the day - and who knows what else.  It's a good journaling experience for them, enhancing some writing or creative skills, or something. They also brought along a glue stick so that they can glue in souvenirs and brochures from the trip (they can't help it; their mother's a scrapbook addict). 

 

I've got one, too. It has my travel itinerary notes and also my reflections of the day. I'm following their example and trying to keep up with my journaling. 

Evernote helps you remember everything and get organized effortlessly. Download Evernote.

#WIP - #DIY Decorated Clipboards

If you've read a little bit here, you may have picked up that in some ways, I'm still an old-school paper type of gal.  You know, with the paper planner and all.  So, I still find I need to write stuff down on real paper and I hold it all together on a  good old-fashioned clipboard.  In my organization meetings, for swim meets, counting Girl Scout cookies, kids doodling in the car - I still have a handful of clipboards scattered about the house.  But they're that dull, chipboard, industrial brown.  Boring.

But I've got a couple shelves full of scrapbooking and crafting supplies!  Modge podge, paper, doo-dads - meet plain brown clipboard.

• Any area that's not going to be covered in paper, paint with basic craft paint.
• Cover the rest of the clipboard with ModgePodge.  It's okay if it mixes in with the glue.  Lay the paper on top and smooth it out.  Rub out any bubbles and wrinkles.
• Add any other embellishments you have - flowers, buttons, stickers, letters, ribbons, pictures.
• If you want a little more shine, or if you might be using this poolside, you can go over the paper with a coat or 2 or 3 of ModgePodge.  (Don't ModgePodge the 3-D stuff, like my flowers.)

Ta-da!  It's such an easy project and you can't mess it up!  You can even do it with a margarita in hand - what else can you ask for?

You can be fancy and make our clipboard functional, too:

• Print kids' chores and to-do lists, affix the paper to the board
• Include pictures of your goals, encouraging words - it's a portable vision board!
• Use the clipboard for your daily to-do and grocery list

Enjoy!

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

10 Ways to Avoid an "I'm Bored!" Snow Day

“Schools are closed due to snow.”

The music of winter, singing at 5:30 a.m.  On the one hand, it’s a welcome “go head, sleep in” refrain. But when you do finally wake up, you realize that it means you will be in the house with the kids all day long, especially if it’s a wet, yucky snow that’s useless for sledding and snowman building.  Before you start to panic, some ideas of what to do with your kids for those housebound extra hours (or days).

• Enjoy a good breakfast.  How often do you get to enjoy a good breakfast, all sitting down together and chatting in the morning? For us, breakfast is usually a choice of boiled eggs, cereal and toasts, in a rotation of whoever is leaving for school or work next.  Snow days are a great opportunity to scramble some eggs, flip a few pancakes, make potatoes and biscuits, and all eat at once around the table instead of on the way to the bus.

• Bake.  I love baking, my kids love baking, and who doesn’t want warm cookies or muffins on a cold, winter-y day?  Luckily, most quickbreads and basic cookies require only the staples of a kitchen pantry – flour, sugar, an egg or two, milk, oil, salt, baking powder or soda. You can get fancy if you happen to have other ingredients such as chocolate chips, blueberries, nuts, and oatmeal on hand.

• Watch some old TV.  With the millions of channels on TV now, there's always some old show on that's family friendly. You'll get a kick out of watching your old favorites and you'll be surprised at how much your kids will enjoy shows that were really funny.  Gilligan's Island anyone?

• Cut out snowflakes.  I forgot, until I spotted a few on Pinterest, how much I used to love cutting out snowflakes as a kid. It’s still a fun surprise to see what the holes and cuts will look like when you’ve unfolded the paper.

• Keep a stash of random craft supplies on hand and let the kids be creative.  In addition to the norm, like crayons, scissors, and glue sticks, stash the following in a basket and be ready for “I’m bored!”:  buttons – from clothes not in good condition to give away, the spares attached to new clothes; magnets – the free, promotional give-aways or store bought; yarn, string; beads; stickers; plastic bottle tops.  Don't want to be fancy? Color - it’s relaxing and a fun time to just chat with the kids. And show off how well you can stay in the lines.

• Keep a “bored kids” board on Pinterest, for that moment when the kids are losing their creative energy and start throwing buttons at each other and have eaten all the cookies.  Add to it whenever you come across an idea your kids will like.

• Read. Call for quiet reading and everyone to their separate corners or cuddle up on the couch for family reading, silent or aloud. Gauge it by the energy level in the house or the need to settle down.

• Do a little school work.  The kids will complain and whine a little, but remind them that they are only going to do 30 minutes or an hour, and they’re getting out of 6 hours of work at school.  Depending on the grade, you can practice math facts, review lessons in their text books or online, read, or simply write a few paragraphs to practice handwriting or typing skills, grammar, spelling, and creative thinking.

• Clean up, declutter.  Not the most fun thing to do, but snow days can be good catch up days on the housecleaning that gets pushed aside for the busy family schedule.  Limit the time so that the kids can have some fun, though.

• Take a nap.  Who really gets enough sleep on a regular basis?

Oh – and of course, go outside, breathe the cold air, gather a bowl of fresh snow for snow-cream and throw a few snowballs!

What are your favorite activities on a snow day?

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

#WIP: I Can Make That (And it's going to be a hat)

A sign of a crafter?  "I can make that" is a constant refrain.  Even more so if their friends show them pictures or point out things in the store and say "can you make that?"  And of course, the answer is "yeah, sure."  Doesn't matter what craft - scrapbooking, sewing, painting, woodcarving, papermaking, gardening, cooking, crochet, knitting.  Once a crafter has decided that they are pretty good at something - and know the relative value of the raw materials - "I can make that" is their response.

So, yeah, I'm one of those people.  I'll blame it on my mom (because I've learned as a mother, everything can eventually be blamed on your mom) because she's the cook who picks through food at a restaurant or watches Iron Chef and says "what's the big deal, I can make that" and then the next thing I know, we're eating stir-fried salmon skin and some kinda soup for dinner.  I've been known to notice a hat or scarf or sweater someone is wearing and try to identify the stitches and yarn used in construction.  I might have on occasion made my husband rewind the news because the reporter had a great scarf on while standing outside in 10 degrees telling us how cold it was or torn out a page in a magazine with a picture of a simple enough sweater or counted stitches on a scarf in the store.  And maybe I have followed someone around who had on a really cute hat.  Maybe.

Which brings me to my current work-in-progress.

It's going to be a hat... 

Let's say that I saw a woman with a cute little hat on, with a different kind of construction for a hat where the rows went front-to-back across the head rather than in circles or spirals and was gathered on the side.  My friends made that same face you are probably making as I tried to explain it to them, too, but trust me - it was cute.  It seems a bit crazy yarn stalker-ish to go up to someone and say "hey, can I look at your garment or take a picture," so I didn't do that. I just kinda watched her until I got a good picture in my head.  (Don't judge me. You know you've eyed some nice pair of shoes or baby stroller or something.)

I know, it doesn't look like a hat just yet. But there's a swim practice, basketball game, choir rehearsal or some pick-up lane in my near future.  Then it'll be a hat.

As for "I can make that" being the constant loop in our heads?  Let's not even talk Pinterest and Ravelry, right?  But if we're going there, then go there with me - stop by my pages and say "hi!"

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Best of Just Piddlin': Top 10 of 2013

Thanx for Just Piddlin’ along with me in 2013!

I've had a wonderful year blogging and chatting with you.  Checking over my blog posts, these were the 10 most read posts of the year (no particular order).

Working moms and stay-at-home moms, alike, were represented in these motherhood and parenting posts:

• "Lean In" Isn't Such a Bad Message
• Now That You're a Stay-at-Home Mom
• Shall We Give The Kids a Sticker for Breathing

These dishes perfect for busy moms who want home-cooked food for their busy families were popular:

• Next Best Thing to Fried Shrimp - from Witchery in the Kitchen
• Asian Chicken in the Crockpot - selected as a Circle of Moms Recipe of the Day
• And for birthdays, holidays, or any reason to have cake - Cake Decorating - tips from Fancy Cakes by Leslie

Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with the “where’s your family from” projects, as many of you read up on Another Family Heritage Project.

Fellow yarn-holics picked up their needles for this one: My First Knit Hat

Folks were busy cleaning out their closets & looking for tips on what to do with those old clothes: Re-Use & Recycle Old Clothes

And friends were looking for answers of why they were de-friended (or justifying why they de-friended folks): 5 Reasons You & I Are No Longer Friends

Was your favorite in the top 10?

In 2014, we'll continue striving to grow Just Piddlin' and make it better - for you, the reader, and me.  To learn more about this whole blog-o-sphere, I attended 2 blogging conferences - Disney Social Media Moms and Blogalicious - conferences will be in the plans again in the coming year.  We received a pile of products and books for review which was a lot of fun and look forward to continuing to bring you great products and recommendations.

Book reviews will continue, but I’ll be changing the reading plan a bit.  I’ll let you know in the beginning of the month the Book I'm Carrying Around and invite you to read along and discuss the book with me.  (I’m busy trying to pick out what to start the year with.)

I’ll still be In the Kitchen, cooking and trying out recipes, especially anything chocolate.  Feel free to recommend any great foods or coffee/chocolate shops you think I should try if ever in your city.

And of course, I will continue to be a busy mom of 4, who is always carrying around a skein of yarn, a book, and my perceptions of the world.  I hope you’ll keep piddlin’ along with me.

Please feel free to let me know in the Comments below what you would like to see in 2014.  We'll see what we can do.

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Yarn for a New Fall Scarf

A funny thing happened on the way to Costco. I passed the yarn store, so what could I do on a beautiful sunny afternoon but stop and look around?

I actually did have some intention - I need ("need"? let's just go with that for now) a cotton yarn to trim a baby blanket.  But there was some variegated yarn and it was on sale. And I got distracted.

My next WIP (maybe).  A scarf for the fall?

Bring your stitches with you and join us on Facebook to keep Just Piddlin'. 

Shadow Boxes are My New Scrapbooks

Once upon a time, I scrapbooked everything.  Pictures, tickets, school work, hospital bracelets. All the paraphernalia that came with life's events, big and small. And then suddenly - poof! - my time to select papers and buttons and stickers disappeared. Yet all the stuff of memories remained. And piled up. And I kept saying, "I'm gonna get back to scrapbooking."

In the meantime, I've found another solution, at least for some of the stuff.  I'm putting the physical remembrances from our events in shadowboxes.  It's easy, it makes a nice display in any room, and you can add to it. No glue or stickers required, unless you really want to add all that extra.

Shadowboxes come in different sizes and configurations.  Most have a picture mat inside so you can include a picture on the back "wall" and then put the associated stuff in front.  I picked these up at Michael's craft store (on sale!)

What can you put in a shadowbox? Anything from any important or memorable event.  You can be real extra fancy and add embellishments and doo-dads around the frame, if you'd like.  I might get to that, eventually.

Swimming ribbons. This box has a slot on top so more can be added easily.

Sorority Box. Conference nametag, event tickets, committee badges. I'm going to put in my membership cards, too.

Ticket box. Movies, Broadway, concerts.  A tennis tournament.  A Metro ticket from Obama's inauguration. Dinner menu from our anniversary celebration

New baby? Consider a baby picture with memories from those first fleeting weeks - hospital band and bassinet nametag, a picture with the grandparents, a silver rattle or first pair of socks.

School?  Along with a picture from the first day of school, add a school nametag, pencils, an art project. For the graduate, include a picture from Kindergarten and their senior photo, the tassle from their cap.

Sports?  Post a team photo and winning ribbons and awards. Add goggles for your swimmer or pretty ribbons for cheerleaders or gymnasts.

Vacation?  Include your favorite photo and memorabilia - seashells, postcards, matchbooks, tickets, brochures.

And - I had a brainstorm while working on this post - these would make really cute gifts! How about a picture of the mom-to-be and let guests fill it with notes or giftcards? She could use it for the baby's things (see above) in a few months.  Or for the high school grad heading off to college - fill it with cash and giftcards.  For the birthday boy or girl - include a photo and some of their favorite things.

Be creative and share any ideas you have in the comments below.

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Craft Challenge - Project #6: Photo Transfer

When I grow up, I would love to be a photographer, either wildlife or travel, or both.  In the meantime, I have easily a couple hundred, okay thousand, pictures stuck on my computer, on memory cards, and piled up on my desk waiting to be displayed in my photo gallery.  And every now and then I get the notion to do something with them.  I would love to frame and hang all of my favorites, but I think my husband would not like our home to be wallpapered in random photos, so I choose carefully.

Window boxes; churros and coffee

Recently, I came across instructions on how to transfer a photo using gel medium onto canvas on another blog, A Beautiful Mess.  Wow - photography and a reason to wander through the craft store?  I immediately put it on my crafts-to-do list.  I used some photos from last summer's vacation, and now that I've got some practice in, I'd like to try it again with pictures of the kids.  I've got some ideas rumbling through my head.

The stuff you'll need:

- canvas - get these at your local craft store like Michael's or ACMoore
- gel medium - wandering thru the paint section was mindblogging; I used Liquidex Gel Medium
- paintbrush
- photos printed or copied on regular paper (not photographic paper) - the blog instructions say to use a laser copy, my husband informed me after the fact, that we have an inkjet printer, so I'm not sure how that affected the project.
- water in a spray bottle


How to (adapted from the original blog instructions):
1. Prepare the photo - this was one of those "trial and error" finds of doing the project.  Trim away all the white area around the picture, I would even recommend trimming just inside the border of the photo - I will do that when I do this project again.  Removing the paper that doesn't have ink on it is almost impossible.

2. Paint the gel medium onto the canvas, covering the surface.  If the picture is smaller than the canvas, you only need to cover enough area for the size of the picture.

3.  Place the photo face down onto the gel medium.  Gently rub the back to press the paper into the medium.

4. Let it dry - a couple hours or overnight.

5.  When the paper and medium are dry, spray lightly with water.

6.  Gently rub the paper away, the ink will remain on the canvas.

7.  Cover the picture with another layer of the gel medium for protection.

8.  Enjoy!

Girl Scout Cookie Brownies

As a Troop Leader, Cookie Mom, and mom of three Girl Scouts, there is no shortage of Girl Scout Cookies in our house this time of year.  Combine that with a household love of brownies and we have this tasty, easy treat.

Ingredients
Brownie mix - I used Pillsbury, use your favorite packaged mix or if you're really feeling Betty Crocker-ish, make them from scratch

A box of Girl Scout Cookies - my favorite are Thin Mints and Tagalongs; I think Samoas would work well, too and maybe Do-Si-Dos.

Preparation
1- Place cupcake liners in a muffin tin.  I used different colors to mark the two flavors of cookies, and a another color for plain brownies.

2- Put a cookie in each cupcake liner, pour batter on top of cookies.


3- Bake according to the package directions, or your recipe.

4- Enjoy!

March is National Craft Month

I have no idea who designates such things, but crafts is the thing for March.  And since I like to think of myself as a pretty crafty person, why not just jump in with a challenge that will further reduce my amount of sleep per day?

There's a long list of crafts-to-do in my head - and as my friends who I mentioned this to reminded/corrected me - there's quite a bit of half-done projects in my house.  Therefore, I am declaring for myself that March is Finish-Some-Crafts Month.  My challenge to myself - and anyone who would like to join me - is to complete some of the half-done projects laying around and maybe even get to some new ones I'd like to try.  (I dare not make a list because it may seem that I'm a highly distractable person that spends way to much at craft shops and yarn stores, I'll let that become more apparent as the month goes on.)

I've gotten a jump start by finally making and ordering a digital photo album from our family vacation last summer.  Its not really all the pictures, let's just say, Kodak has a limit to the number of pages you can put in a book so that's where I stopped.  And, as invited by a friend, I joined Pinterest for further inspiration (but I haven't figured out how to pin anything yet).

Now, let me think what my first project will be.....

Weekend Project - Sweets & Cards

What am I doing this weekend?  In addition to the regularly scheduled basketball games and church, we also have middle school registration (yes, already! and by "already" I mean that I can't believe B is old enough to go to middle school and isn't it only February?) and I have sorority meeting.  And somewhere in between I'll be doing what any mom worth her coffee will be doing - clearing off her kitchen/craft table for Valentine's Day!

We have three official class parties, one student-inspired lunchtime celebration, and Girl Scouts meetings (can't forget the Girl Scouts).  That adds up to about...100 Valentine's Cards?  Maybe not quite that much, but it feels like it.  I'm pulling out all the pink, red, and white paper; heart punches, stickers, and stamps; red and pink markers; glittery sticky stuff; and glue sticks.  The kids can take it from there, making sure they have enough cards for everyone on their list.

Valentine card making supplies

To go along with cards, I always like to make some special sweet treat.  For the Girl Scouts, we'll probably have the traditional s'mores, they'd be really cute with some pink marshmallows (any ideas where to find some?).  And for my family, I'll bake a cake - it's not really a secret because its red and their favorite, but let's pretend they'll be surprised.  The cupcake version will go to one of the class parties.  Next, something for the teachers and any other special folks.

While wondering around in blog-space, I happened to come across a sweet recipe for peanut chocolate clusters at Our Delightful Home.  And since I've never met a recipe I didn't tweak, I substituted almonds for the peanuts and added caramel sauce, the kind you use on ice cream sundaes, to the mix.  A few cooking notes here.  Whether using chocolate chips or squares, it only takes about a minute to melt in the microwave and it will not be smooth and liquid-y when taken out; mix a little to get it from its melt-y stage to smooth.  Since the caramel is saucy, it takes longer than it seems like it should for the candies to harden.  Its a messy, quick, hot process so be careful and work fast.

Almond Caramel Clusters

Ingredients: chocolate chips or squares, almonds, caramel sauce

Pour almonds into foil pan.

Melt chocolate in microwave.  Heat caramel sauce if needed, to make it easy to pour.

Pour caramel and melted chocolate over nuts.  Using rubber spatula, mix all together.

Scoop portions into mini-cupcake liners.

Let cool.  Enjoy!