Camping Quiet Book Pages

 I am happy to report the camping quiet book page is finally complete!  These little buggers take a lot longer than one would think. I think for the next couple pages I'm going to keep it really simple...whew this thing took FOREVER!!

But I will say the second my little boy is about to have a tantrum in the middle of church, this little puppy comes in really handy especially this page that has a million little things to do...like catch fish, build a fire, hang clothes on the line and I even made a fancy little camper guy that we lovingly named Cleetis (the name suits him rather well) that they can play with.  And you can get pretty creative too... like cooking fish over the fire or shoving the clothes in the tent or the laundry into the fish basket or having the farm animals from the other page come visit...

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These really are a lot of work but also very rewarding to put together.  I can still remember playing with the one my Mom made for me and my siblings and have very fond memories of playing with it during those long church meetings. It really has been a lifesaver!  Sadly I don't have a tutorial to go along with this post but I hope you got some ideas at least.

Vinyl Wallet For Little Boys

Kids are the funnest to sew for, they easily get excited over the smallest things like monster truck fabric!  I hope he stays this easy to please forever cuz it's sooo much fun. He's been a champ lately and has been saving his money up and wanted a place to keep it like his big sisters with all of their purses and bags. So we came up with this monster truck wallet and he loves it!

Really quite simple to throw together and doesn't require much fabric at all. If you have some various scraps laying around, they'll do the trick for this project.

It's lined with vinyl on the back in hopes to have it be a little more durable..boys tend to be a little rough on things. It also makes it a little more sturdy so it keeps it's shape a little better too. I bought about a yard of clear vinyl a few yrs back and have used it for a handful of projects..great stuff to have on hand ;)

And it folds right up so he can slip it in his back pocket or in the glove compartment of his new electric gator truck...yep he's pretty cool!

I thought it would be fun to make a pocket for a driver's license pic. You can't really tell but the orange frame has vinyl inside so you can put a photo in.

What you will need:

Two coordinating fabrics

Vinyl

Bias tape

and the usual scissors, thread, sewing machine... 

You'll want to start by cutting out your rectangles that will make the basic shape of your wallet.

Mine were 10 1/2 " by 5"

(cut one out of front fabric, one back fabric and one vinyl)

Now you can start on the pockets.  You can make it to your liking mine were.

Two 4" by 3" (monster truck fabric and orange framed vinyl)

One 3 1/2" by 4 1/2" (monster truck fabric)

One 3 1/2" by 4" (orange)

One 3 1/2" by 3" (orange)

That's a total of five pockets.

 

Any edges of pockets that will be showing need to be hemmed. I find it easiest to iron them down and then sew. Then you can start sewing them down to the big orange rectangle you cut out earlier.

Once your pockets are all sewn down it's time to sew all three rectangles together. Vinyl on bottom, outer fabric (monster truck) and then orange.

I found it easiest to tape mine together to hold them in place and then pin the bias tape around the entire thing and sew down. ( I tend to get excited at the end of a project and forget to take pics...sorry)

That's it! Your little boy will love you forever.

                                  

Raising Chickens For Beginners

  Last spring we got into the chicken business and it has been quite an adventure!  I grew up taking care of chickens on the farm and have been wanting to get some of my own for a while now.  We went into our local Cal-Ranch and each of my kids picked out their baby chick.  I had heard Rhode Island Reds were a good breed and they have proven that to be true.  They have been the best little chickens and regularly have eggs for me, even in the winter! They are nice as can be to boot.

The other two chicks we picked out were Ameraucana because I always loved the beautiful greeeny blue eggs they would lay and sometimes they even lay pink eggs....WHAT!!! That's a dream come true..or so I thought.  Our reds were laying consistent eggs and still no blue/green eggs and they were feisty (especially one of them) then we were hearing faint crowing ummm yep we got a rooster!  A really really feisty rooster that likes to attack my kids and I a lot...but mostly me :/ So we donated him to my Mom, who has a barn and a big run for him to get his wiggles out.  We are down to three chickens and only two that lay until..just this last month almost a year later we got a beautiful blue/green egg!!!! Ameraucana's mature later than most like up to 40 weeks but it was worth the wait. Just do a little research before you purchase your chicks to make sure you're getting what you want and be prepared for a rooster, apparently they get thrown into the bunch frequently.

We found a great little coop online for a decent price from Costco, it is a little snug for three chickens and was super snug for three chickens and a huge rooster. If you are looking to have more than three you would need something bigger than this.  We had planned on building our own but my husband was booked with work and my kids and I just couldn't wait. We just let them out a lot in the summer and their favorite hangout...the garden. (I'm in love with this pic)

If you are planning to get chicks in the spring, like we did be prepared to either have them inside or under a heat lamp until they get big enough to withstand the cold temps.  While you are picking out your chicks make sure and get some chick starter and we also got a two gallon waterer so they wouldn't be falling in and making a mess. Chickens poop a TON so be prepared and get some sort of bedding to keep them clean (we used pine wood shavings). While we are on the subject of poop...umm baby chicks get a condition called poopy butt (ok that's just what we called it).  It's for real and it happened to all four of our chicks.  This can be serious so be sure you treat them right away if you're noticing anything. Ours were very vocal about,  it's like they were chirping MY TUMMY HURTS!  We just gave them a little warm bath, my kids actually loved it.  They look so cute just standing in their bath just soakin their little bums for a while.  And I saved the best for last...you have to wipe them afterwards. YEP super gross but super necessary.

 

That's about it. We eventually put them on grain and let them roam around the yard in the summer to eat whatever they can find. We have had a lot of fun with them and have really been enjoying all of our farm fresh eggs!