~More Laundry Soap~

About a month and a half ago, I made my own laundry soap, following this recipe. It has worked really well! I'm so happy that I can make my own soap at home. It will really save a lot of money.

A few notes:
---I have found that laundry can't stay as long in the washing machine as it can with regular detergent. It starts to smell "sour" sooner. That's easy to remedy, it just means I need to trek down to the basement when I hear the washer beeping! (I should do that anyhow! LOL)
---I haven't had trouble with staining, or the laundry not smelling clean. It works very well.
---As I mentioned before, I do have to use liquid softener, to keep static cling at bay. I use scent-free softener.

My batch from last time was running low, so I made a double batch today. It ran out faster than I thought it would. I must have miscalculated the number of loads, or maybe I didn't use enough water in my first batch, because I really don't think I've done 64 loads in 6 weeks. Hmmmm.

~Coupon Code~

Through November 30th, use the coupon code BLOG15 in my Etsy store Treasures by Tammy when you check out, and you will receive 15% off your entire order.

~Beaded Socks~

New, in my shop:




Beaded socks! There are two sizes available.

And through November 30th, get 15% off your order (before shipping) when you use the code BLOG15.

~The Little Red Hen~

My daughter has a book called The Little Red Hen. It's a familiar story: the Little Red Hen finds a grain of wheat and asks Duck, Goose, Cat and Pig to help her as she goes through the process of planting it, reaping it, taking it to the mill, making the dough, and baking the bread. At each turn she asks for help, and is refused help. "Not I", said the Duck, etc. Then when she pulls the bread out of the oven, she asks, "Who will help me eat the bread?" and of course the Duck, Goose, Cat and Pig all say they will. But she ends up eating the bread by herself because they didn't help her. So there.

So what exactly is the moral of the story? The Little Red Hen was asking for help with jobs that she clearly could accomplish by herself. Just how many farm animals does it take to plant one grain of wheat anyhow?

~Blogger Meetup~

I have "known" Melody of With the Fruit of Her Hands for a long time. I started reading her blog over five years ago. When someone you know online lives a long distance away you don't really expect to ever meet them. So I was very pleased to have the chance to meet Melody!



We met up yesterday for lunch, and ended up chatting for quite a while! As I was on my way home, my husband called to make sure I was still alive, I was gone that long. ;-)

Melody is a lovely Christian woman and I so enjoyed our visit! I'm hoping we can meet up again in the future!

~Turkey~

How do you roast your turkey? The first year I roasted a turkey I dumped a bunch of water in the roaster oven and plopped the turkey in. It was...blah. LOL By the time the next Thanksgiving rolled around I had read a better way to roast turkey so that's what I did. :-) I patted butter on the turkey and then liberally rubbed it with turkey rub, from McCormick Spices. It was great! That's the way I've been doing my turkey ever since.

Until now. Because I couldn't find turkey rub at the store. What? The gal stocking the spices said they must not be making it (or my guess is that the store isn't buying it to stock). So now what am I going to do??????

Freedom from Want Giclee Print by Norman Rockwell at AllPosters.com

~Why, Hello!~

It's been a little while since I updated my blog. I guess I've been a bad blogger, eh? There's nothing too new going on, just life. :-) I was thinking today that I no longer blog in my head as I go about my day, so in part that would be why there are less posts than I've previously put up!

So now that I've opened this post...hmmmmm, what to write about? Well, here are some little snippets from my life right now. :-)

My daughter loves to wear my shoes:


I've taken an interest in using Kevin's big, scary camera (as opposed to my trusty little Canon point-and-shoot). I've been experimenting a little bit, but I really want to read the manual and get better acquainted with the camera and all the functions.

I found this super neat tool for saving web pages, called Evernote. It is amazing! You can do so much with it, so far I have saved all my bookmarked recipes. I had so many recipes bookmarked that I had forgotten about half of them. Now they are all in one spot, tagged appropriately and searchable. Since downloadking Evernote, instead of bookmarking a recipe, I now copy it to my recipe notebook. It's easy to use, and I really love it. The only problem I have had is that with a free account you can only save so much each month before essentially locking your account.

Lastly, I was recently contacted by Lil' Sugar. They asked permission to use my picture from my mini deep-dish pizzas. I was pleased to say yes. :-) My pizzas are featured in a muffin tin lunch idea post, found here. There are four other recipes as well.

Have a good day! And I hope to be blogging more regularly! :-) Thanks for stopping by!

~Stitched Notebook Tutorial~

This is a fun little project. Maybe tutorial isn't the right word, perhaps crafting inspiration would be a better way to describe this post? Whatever term you choose, I hope you enjoy crafting a notebook! It is relatively easy, and if you are a scrapbooker, bonus! You'll be more imaginative than me. :-)

You'll need:
a spiral-bound notebook, with a light-weight cover (I got mine at the dollar store)
card stock
scrapbook paper or any other decorative paper
ribbons, buttons, or flowers
a sewing machine
scrapbook glue
Tacky glue for adding buttons or flowers

My notebook:


Papers and ribbon:


Using scrapbook glue, put glue on your notebook cover, close to the edges.


Press your cover down on the card stock.


Cut around the notebook cover, using the cover as your guide.


Cut and arrange your papers and ribbons (I created my saying in a Word document and printed it on a nice piece of paper):


I sewed along the edge, and used zigzag stitches to hold the ribbon in place. To help hold your stitches in place, use a needle to thread the tail, bring the thread from the top through to the back (through the first stitch hole). Tie threads in a knot and cut. (This picture shows the knot at the straight stitching which did not need to be threaded to the back since it was right by the edge).


One at a time, glue each paper in place, then sew around the edge as desired. Note: this will dull your needle, so you'll want to use a new needle next time you sew with fabric. You can use an old needle for your paper crafting and save it if you plan on doing a lot of sewing through paper! :-)


After I got everything stitched, I decided it needed a little something more so I added a button with ribbon.


This notebook is available in my shop. Here are a few others that I did, as gifts: