Library bag

At the Recycling Center Book Sale (which I always volunteer for) we offered up these lovely free bags to customers to carry home all their wonderful used books.  I made two purchases and so I came home with two lovely American Express bags: 

And since my kids are obsessed with books (big pat on the back to me) they could really use their own library bags.  Enter the bag make-over...

With some fabric and ribbon already in my stash (zero cost) and a few minutes, Ms. S. has a brand new library bag.

I'm thinking it could use her name on the top (perhaps in felt?).  What do you think???

R has requested a spider and a bat on his.  That's my goth 4-year old for you!

Sweet Sleep Soap

This most recent swap is called the Sleepytime Swap.  I haven't done one in a while, but this sounded fun.  My creation is soap!

A blend of coconut oil (which is my new obsession), lye, a hint of shea butter, lavender flowers, chamomile flowers, organic oats, and honey.  It's to die for!  The lather is thick and creamy and doesn't leave your skin dry.  I'll never buy store-bought soap again.

Here's the little bundles all ready to go.  And since I wanted to include something extra, I wood-burned some stars to go with it.  One star says "Dream" and the other "Rest".

Hot weather = Sprinkler time!

It got up to 97 degrees here in SE Kansas today.  Yuck! 

Since we needed to water anyway, it was time to let 'em play in the sprinkler.

And since R sprayed me with water (like, a LOT), I wasn't able to get good pictures of them actually playing in the sprinkler.  But the popsicles afterwards are always a hit.

Summer Solstice

What a beautiful thing, the first day of Summer, the longest day of the year.  We celebrated with sun themed art projects, a batch of sun tea (made with herbs from the garden), lamb's quarters done up like kale chips (which were fantastic!), and ended the night with a bonfire and toasted marshmallows.  I was quite inspired by this blog. 

Next year I'd like to try making sun bread and to leave treats for the fairies...

Welcome Summer!

Blue pill bug

Under the woodpile (which has gone the way of the burn barrel) was the strangest thing.  It was a blue pill bug (sometimes called roly poly). 

This one really was the oddest color.

There were many fun creatures at the bottom of the woodpile.  This snail was pretty sweet.

The door

Stripped...