Kickstarter Campaign - WinnowingFire Music

Our good friend, Rod Miner, has a Kickstarter campaign going for a few more days...We would love to see his project get fully funded!

Watch the video below for more info and check out his Kickstarter page here!

Homemade Lara Bars

I know, I know my blog posts are spotty at best. But alas, here I am.

I was inspired recently so I wanted to share a food discovery.

I love Lara bars. Yes, love is the right word to describe how I feel about this food. They are convenient, all natural, filling, granola-bar alternatives that are simple and delicious.

The only downside is that they are usually $1 per bar which if you're eating 1 per day (ok, let's be honest I've been known to have 2 or even 3 on the particularly busy day) that adds up! Everytime I had a bar I read the ingredients and loved that I recognized everything on the list...things like dates, peanuts, cashews, dried cranberries. And I often thought to myself...I could make that.

So, I tried it. We had some mixed nuts in the pantry as well as some sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, dried cranberries, banana chips, and walnuts. I picked up some dried dates from Winco and threw them all in the blender. After things were nicly chopped I pressed the mixture into a dish and put it in the fridge to harden. After a few hours I sliced them into bars wrapped them in baking paper and viola!

I decided to see if I would actually save money by making my own bars. Here is what I found out:

Let's break down the costs:

Lara Bars: $1 per bar

If on average I eat 7 bars a week (that's low balling it) that would come out to ~$28 per month.

To make my homemade fruit and nut bars (I by no means want to rip-off the Lara Bar name) I spent about $9.50 which made me 15 bars. So dividing $9.50/15 I get $.63. Wow! $.63 cents per bar! So, doing the monthly math if I have 7 bars a week that would come out to ~$18.

Homemade bars: $.63 per bar about ~$18 per month.

Thats over an additional weeks worth of bars at the $1 per bar price in savings!

The savings are amazing and here's another upside. I can choose exactly what flavors I want and can mix in healthy add-ins like flax meal and wheat bran. Here are some of the recipes I came up with:




Carribean Island Getaway
1 C dried dates
1/2 C island dried fruit mix (pineapple, cranberries, mango, bananas)
1/2 C dried coconut flakes (no sugar added)
1 T pumpkin seeds
1 T flax meal
1 T wheat bran

Gone Nutty
1 C dried dates
1 T each: peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, almonds
1 T flax meal
1 T wheat bran

Peanut Butter Cookie
1 C dried dates
3/4 C peanuts
2 T flax meal
2 T wheat bran






For each recipe... Chop finely in a blender or food processor. Press into a dish or pan. Let chill for 2 hours. Slice into bars and enjoy!

Hopefully you are also inspired to try this healthy, on-the-go snack!

Jessi

P.S. If you google homemade Lara Bar recipes you get a ton more recipes...I am going to try some of these out next time!

Studio Art 101

Many people don't know that I studied studio art in college. I tend to be a closet artist, displaying only my favorite works and humbly admitting that I created them when asked.

I love all things artistic. Getting messy with paint and glue, creating new beauty from old materials, organizing and layering totally different compounds to make a stunning or interesting piece, telling a story in an unexpected way. There are so many other parts to creating art as well that I love.

I feel like the process of creating is sometimes more enjoyable that the actual outcome. Which is probably why I choose to keep most of my projects in the garage; they weren't meant to be displayed. They were meant to be an expression of thought and feeling, kind of like a journal in some ways.

I have used art in many forms as a creative outlet where I didn't have to worry what anyone else would think. Where I could just relax, think, and process.

Since getting my teaching degree I had not really used any of the artistic components of my studies. Therefore, I was very nervous when I recently interviewed for a teaching position with the Arts Center in Corvallis. I was so pleased that the director loved my work and pretty much offered me the position right there.

It is a part time gig on days when I don't have school and possibly a few weeks this summer. I am just pumped that I get to teach art classes! Getting to teach kids about art, and teach them about other subjects using art as well as using art as a form of expression is awesome! I can't believe they are paying me to use two of my talents and passions.

My first class was a week or so ago and I just wanted to share the project we did and some of the process and finished pieces.

The theme for the day was Pre-columbian Civilizations. There were three different teaching artists throughout the day. A mask maker, a clothing designer and me. I chose to have the students make a relief sculpture with natural elements.

We looked at the work of the mound building tribes of North America and also the Nazca Lines from South America. Students then chose an animal that was meaningful to them and used line drawings and a building up technique (relief) to make their sculptures. They used some natural plant materials as decoration and embellishment on top.

It was a great day and I think the students really liked what they worked on. My next class will be at the beginning of April. The theme is Fantasy Fiction of Spain. I am not totally sure what I will be teaching but I think I may do either a fabric collage or some print making.

Hopefully there will be more stories to come and I will try to post pictures as well.

Thanks for reading!

Jessi

Step 1: Line Drawing and Building up with Clay

Step 2: Cover with Glue and Paper

Step 3: Add Natural Materials

Step 4: Paint and Collage with Added Materials

This was our studio for the day!

Students building with clay

Students adding natural elements and painting

These were some of the highlights from the day. 

Bald Eagle: representing power, strength and beauty

Left: Coiled Snake: representing wisdom, balance, and healing
Right: Beaver and Snake: representing hard worker, caring and industriousness

My favorite from the day.
Wolf: representing loyalty and compassion

Old Shirt, New Shirt, Red Shirt, Blue Shirt...

The Idea

James isn't much of a collector, in fact he loves getting rid of things. We even just took another load of stuff to St. Vinnie's yesterday!


That being said, he was going through his clothes one afternoon and had a HUGE stack of shirts he was going to get rid of. I, in my most pack-rattish tone, said "What are you doing with those? You can't just toss them! I could use them for something!" So, I of course put them in my craft room and held onto them for about two years waiting for just the right opportunity.



The Opportunity

I don't exactly remember how the opportunity came up to turn that pile of old sports, clubs, business, mission trips and souvenir shirts into a quilt...but what I do remember was thinking..."oh yeah, that's a great idea...it will be easy."

Famous last words. It is all about perspective when quilting. To an experienced quilter, someone who has spent numerous hours measuring, pinning, cutting, re-pinning, sewing, cutting some more and loosing track of time because they are so  into their project, a t-shirt quilt is easy. However, I learned very quickly that deciding to use all 108 shirts to make the grand-daddy of all t-shirt quilts was just a bit more than I could handle as a novice, no, as a non-quilter.

The Process

Sewing together t-shirt material is an art form. T-shirts are stretchy, which is great when you're wearing them and horrible when you're sewing them. So, step one is to fuse (iron on) a stabilizer to the back of each piece you will be using.

All of the designs cut out and placed

Had I read the directions that my awesome experienced-quilter-mother-in-law had shared with me I would have known that fusing THEN cutting makes your life easier. I however, in all my quilting wisdom cut each piece and then proceeded to fuse each piece and yes, RE-CUT every piece again. At this point I was thinking, "This is step 1?"

Well, I made it through the hard part, so I thought. I was super excited to start sewing things together so I called my mother-in-law and said I was bringing down the pieces on my next visit to put it together. Of course I was very
surprised to find out that you had to have things like "precise measurements" and "same sized blocks" and in order to get there you had to use a "fabric ruler" and "rotary cutter" neither of which I had.

The back laid out and ready to sew

Thank goodness for Dawn, she helped me make a plan and cut and get things in order and she gave me all the tools I would need to be successful.

So, I went back home with a mission. I was going to get all the blocks pieced together for the front and back (Oh, yeah, I added that little step of quilting the backside as well as the topside...am I nuts?!) before the next visit so we really could start sewing that time.

The back sewn together

I put in a lot of man hours sewing small pieces together to make the larger blocks. I did math in my head and math on the white board and cut and re-cut, so many times that I needed a vacation from my craft time. But, I did it. I got every block finished and packed for our trip down during Christmas last year.

Exhausted after a long sewing session

My mother-in-law was so excited to finally get started on the sewing she did what she always does and double checked  the measurements. Much to my horror each piece was off by about 1/4-1/2 of an inch. Come to find out one of the rulers I had been using was warped and off by about 1/4-1/2 of an inch.

At this point I was pretty sure the quilt was a goner. Had it been up to me I probably would have forced the issue and just started sewing the thing and hoped and prayed that when I got finished no one would notice the crooked seams or lopsided edges. Dawn, the experienced quilter, said..."That's ok, we can just trim them all to match." Oh, such a simple statement. She proceeded to trim each block...all 149 of them to be exactly the right size. Without her help I never would have made it past this step! Thank you, Mom!

Vinnie "helping" me tie the quilt

Once they were all the right size the sewing actually was pretty fast. We got most of the strips put together that week. I finished putting the strips together once I got home. Then on her next visit up Dawn helped me spray the top and bottom with fabric  glue and stick them to the batting to hold them in place for tying. I decided to tie my quilt since I don't have a big enough machine to do any actual quilting through all the layers.

I turned on some CSI and tied until my finger tips couldn't tie anymore. Then (I know the mind reals that there could be more!) I watched a couple you-tube videos about binding the edge. It took about four 2 hour sessions of Olympic highlight videos to get around the whole thing but I remember that last stitch... I felt like one of the athletes I had been watching...accomplished, trained, practiced, I had put my mind to it and finished and I had gotten the gold, well at least I had gotten a finished quilt and had gotten to be poured into by my mother-in-law about a skill and passion that she adored. That was reward enough.

We love our t-shirt quilt. I think Vinnie loves it most of all. And we will have the memories both from the shirts and making the quilt for a very long time.

The Finished Product

Vinnie Enjoying "his" quilt

Up-cycle

Editor and Guest Contributor
James and I were chatting the other day about our blog and how he is the main contributor. I do play an editing role on most of the posts but every once in a while I like to make a contribution that is all my own. Today is just the day for such a post.

I have had the past few days off from work since it was time for teacher conferences. I am very blessed to work just less than full time as a reading assistant and I get to enjoy the freedom from other full time teaching responsibilities such as conferences, parent phone calls, maintaining a classroom (complete with cleaning, decorating and prepping for lessons).

That being said, I have still had to transition back into the working life after my summer vacation, I know, I know rough life, so I really do appreciate the days off when they come.

I love to do many artistic and craft related things in my free time and one of those things is sewing.

This summer I finished a t-shirt quilt, which was my first and maybe only BIG sewing project. More on that later perhaps.  For now I wanted to share about two up-cycle projects I just did this week.

Up-Cycle
Think of up-cycling as taking something old and discarded and turning it into something new and exciting.

My first project was made out of an old sweater. I really liked the sweater when I bought it but it was one of those purchases that looked great in the store and then when you got it home and put it on the next day you had no idea why you would ever buy something so ridiculous looking.

 Well, needless to say as much as I loved the design on the sweater I never once wore it in public. I cut it up one day to use the pieces for something else and then it just got shoved into the scrap box. I re-discovered it and decided to turn the sleeves into a scarf. I sadly did not take any pictures of the sweater beforehand but below is the finished product.

I looped the sleeves together and then ran a strip of elastic down the center to make it bunchy. I attached the ends together to make it a loop and voila...an infinity scarf.

I am excited to finally get some use out of that sweater I bought about 5 years ago.






My next project was converting an old pair of pants into a crochet hook organizer. I made a different hook organizer about a year ago when I became inspired to get organized in the craft department. I'm pretty sure that venture will be a life-long process, but in the meantime I did, at the very least, get my crochet hooks organized.

From This...

To This!

There were a few things I didn't like about my first attempt. There were not enough pockets, the hook spaces were the wrong size and the sewing was less than an amateur attempt.

So, when I found the old pair of pants in the scrap bin I knew exactly what I would make.

I also made a plan this time...utilizing the amazing sewing skills my mother-in-law had shared with me during the t-shirt quilting.

After about four and a half hours of stitching, ironing, folding, un-stitching, re-ironing, staring into space thinking about which way different seams should line up...I had a new crochet hook organizer!

The best thing about both of these projects is that they are custom made and they were essentially free since I used materials I already owned.

I hope this inspires you to find that old sweater, bookshelf, flower pot, or pair of pants and turn it into something new and exciting!

Thanks for reading!

Jessi

Midsummer Night's Garden

Snap Peas

After a hard days work on our fence project I got some time to finally tend to my little garden! We have lots of tasty treats that are ready including snap peas and strawberries!  Here's some pictures of all of our beautiful plants!

Snap Peas Going Crazy

Yummy Carrots! Not Quite Ready Yet

Cherry Tomatoes With Lots Of Buds

Delicious Strawberries

Red Potato Plant

Striped Zebra Squash Flowering Promisingly 

My Herbs Are A Little Out Of Control :)

 Hope you enjoyed the tour...more to come later I'm sure! 

       Jessi

Tonights Bountiful Harvest

      

Garden Time!

It's one of my favorite times of the year...when the sun begins to shine and the grass gets cut and when the garden gets cleaned out and replanted!

All tilled and ready to plant!

We decided to try a couple of new things this year and stick with a few tried and true favorites. Here's what we've got growing this year...


Yearlong Strawberries: These are actually the same plants as last year. Vinnie got to all of the berries last year before they even ripened but this year there are tons of new buds! More on the Vinnie problem later.

Zebra stripped Zucchini: I was attracted to these literally because they were stripped! We'll see how they turn out.

Red Potatoes and Yams: I had some beautiful yam vines last year but I started them way too late and the vines froze before producing anything.

Carrots: Last year I started my carrots from seed, this year I went with seedlings since my carrots never got thicker than a pencil. I tried a new variety of organic baby carrots.

Spinach: For whatever reason greens grow extremely well in our garden, the spinach last year, however, totally got burned...We are going to attempt to cover the garden this year. Hopefully that will help.

Swiss Chard: This is the same crop from last summer...it bolted in the last few weeks and is now turning to seed. It is still super tasty and I just read how to harvest the seed and re-sow them. I have been the most happy with this plant out of all of them. There is nothing I (or Vinnie) can do to kill it!

Snap Peas: My snap peas also got burned last year so hopefully covering them will do the trick this year. We did get a few peas before they croaked. The plants I got this year seem to be a little stronger than last years.

Herbs: My parsley, thyme and oregano all wintered very well! I am keeping them and might add a few other herbs along the way.

Onions: I had a few bulbs from last hear that suddenly took off this spring. We have enjoyed chives throughout the summer but I am hoping that the bulbs actually fill in this year.

Tomatoes and Peppers: Lincoln Elementary, where I work, is selling plants from the school garden this year so I am going to try out some of the tomatoes and peppers. I might also get some basil, cilantro and tomatillos...but we will see if I have enough space!

Admiring his work

So, the big goals this year are to create some shade during the full sunny afternoons and also to keep Vinnie, the hole digger-plant destroyer, out of the garden. We haven't come up with any good solutions yet. If you have any ideas send them our way!

Vinnie the garden eater

Thanks for reading!

Jessi