Family History

On this Wonderful Memorial Day I want to share with you how I remember the amazing people who have left such a wonderful heritage for me. I can't believe that most of these people have passed, but I am so thankful for them and all they have done.

My home is decorated in an antique/contemporary way.
I love antiques and the way they hide all the wear and tear that my kids put on my stuff.

So I made this collage by the entry way of my house.
It has photos of me and my husband's parents and grandparents.

This one has photos of our grandparents on or around the time they got married.
I got this frame from JcPenny but it didn't really fit in being so white,
so I added some brown paint to give it an older feel.
My Grandpa served in the Navy in WWII. Didn't he look handsome?

This one I made myself, the frames I glued to the ribbon and made the cute bow.
I actually used epoxy that we had on hand because the frames were so heavy
I needed something that was going to hold Really well.
My husband helped me by bending a nail into a hook to hang it from.
These photos are of Mother Hen as a baby (in the middle) and her Mom and Dad.

This one I got from a friend and added the pictures of my Father-in-law(on the left) and his dad(on the right) as little boys. I added the Family in black vinyl tying it all together.
I love how it all turned out. I once had some hand dipped candles hanging from the hooks,
but my boys destroyed those soon after.

All the pictures are just scanned into my computer and printed off.
The black and white is easy to copy and hides the wear on the pictures.
I love the old feel.

I hope we can all pay our respect to those who have come before us
and those who have served our country. Thank You!!!

KITCHEN IMPROVEMENT

KITCHEN IMPROVEMENT

This was what I wanted to do for Home Improvement Week,
but am glad I got my bathroom cupboard done.
This week, I've gone back to sewing to help improve my kitchen.
I've crocheted a lot of towel toppers, and found really cute ones to sew.

Sorry this first picture is a little dark, but it is a towel topper for May.
There are some darling ones for each month and season of the year.
If I had left an inch on the bottom, I could have used snap tape to snap the towel on,
but this one I will put some elastic on the back and then just slide a towel through it.

Next, I decided to make a magnet, tower holder,
clock trio for my kitchen. For the frig magnet,
you can use any of these kinds of magnets. Just
hot glue it on the back, or use some of the magnets
that are sticky on one side.

This magnet says: 'Bless This Home'.

This tower holder is darling. It's a little more
detailed than the magnet, but the same theme.
I got some snap tape to sew across the bottom,
right under the picture. Then you cut a dishtowel
in half, hem the raw edge, gather it and attach
the other side of the snap tape to it. Then you
just snap the towel on and sew a button on the
back and your towel is ready. This way you can
have several towels and just unsnap one to be
washed, and snap on another.

Next I took an old clock that I had on the wall
and decided to change it to match the magnet
and the towel holder. If you don't have a spare
clock, you can get one either at D.I. or Walmart
for not very much money.

I embroidered the clock face on some muslin
backed with a thick cut-away stabilizer.
It turned out really cute.

Next, I took off the cover of the clock and
centered it over the clock face.

Draw a line around the cover so the design
is the same size as the original clock.
Carefully trim around the circle.
If there are any puckered spots, just
cut the stabilizer in the back and it
lays right down.

This is the clock face all cut out. I then
sprayed fabric glue around the outside of
the clock face between the stabilizer and
muslin and pressed it down so it all lays flat.
Now, cut the hole in the middle to put the
hands through to the front.

I glued the fabric to the back side of the original picture.
It took a little work, but I got everything put back in place.
Here's my new matching clock
If I ever want to change it back to the cow picture,
I would just need to turn the picture back around.

Hope you enjoyed this.
You could come up with a lot of creative things to do with the clock.
I'd like to know what other ideas you've come up with.

We are in Reno, Nevada doing Cinco de Mayo, and Elk Grove, CA doing the Western Festival with our 'Texas Twister Drinks'!
If any of our readers are in the area and mention the blog I'll give you a great deal on our delicious drink!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!
I'm loving all these other blogs! Great Job!!
Bye for now! Mother Hen - Barbara

Linking to
Funky Polkadot Giraffe

HOME IMPROVEMENT WEEK

EMBARRASSMENT TIME!!

I wanted to just sew something cute
for my home improvement blog...
but...
every time I tried to think of what
I wanted to do, my bathroom cupboard
kept haunting me.
YOU CAN SEE WHY!!

Every time I opened the cupboard door,
I'd have to catch what fell out!
Especially the medicine cupboard on top.
I could block the mess out as long
as no one asked for anything!

YOU SAY YOU NEED A BANDAID?
OR
A THERMOMETER?
GOOD LUCK!!

Can you even make out what any of the stuff is
in the bottom?
I'm sure there must be some good things about
being a saver, but I'm having trouble
thinking of them!
I'm sure I have it...I just don't know where it is!

This is from 'just' the top cupboard!!!
How in the world did it all fit in there?

Another view!

How in the world could you
'NOT' find a Bandaid with this
many boxes up there!

I hate to say it, but, we always made fun of Grandmas
Buchanan, ,Uhlman, and Memmott
because everything in their house
was always 'OUTDATED'!
Have you ever heard the phrase 'what goes around,
comes around'?
That is the story of my life!

(Beware, children, what you say about me,

as it will come back to haunt you, too!!)

Outdated meds, etc.

NOW FOR THE BIG TRANSFORMATION!!

Anybody need a bandaid?

Can't find a cough drop when you need it?
Now I can!

What ever will I do being able to find
all these ace bandages, and
gauze wraps?

These things were just too tall to fit in the drawers but
fit nicely in this organizing bin.
I know just where to put it.

No questions where things are now.
Each drawer is labeled for easy searching.

More tall bottles! Easy to see what's in here.

No more guess work here!

When my mother-in-law passed away, we got a lot
of her things. I'm not sure what she was going
to use 4 bags of cotton balls for, but they fit
nicely behind the bins with tall bottles.

Whoa!! What a difference!

Every thing is easily found and thus used!

As much as I would rather sew...this was very
rewarding.
We'd love to hear some of your ideas for
Home Improvement!
I just need to be able to twitch my nose and
have it ALL organized.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
We love it.
Have a great weekend!
Mother Hen - Barbara

Cleaning the Cupboards.

Yeah for Home Improvement Week.
Hope you have enjoyed coming into our homes this week.

When Jess suggested this week that we should do home improvement,
I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do.
Not because my house isn't in need of home improvement,
but because there are so many things that need to be improved!
I decided to start small ( a.k.a doesn't cost a lot of money) by cleaning out my spice cabinet.
Here is a before:

As I was cleaning it out, I figured I had probably not cleaned it for...
at the least 6 years.
Yuck I know!
If you don't want to be my friend anymore, I'll understand!

I started by taking everything out. I threw away expired medicine, spices and
empty containers taking up space.
(Anyone else have this problem?)
I wiped down the cupboard and shelves, which were disgusting!

Earlier that day I had gone to Lowe's looking for organization items.
Wow, I could spend a lot of money and time on organizing if I had the means.
I don't so I ended up buying a two tiered spice rack for $5-7.

I was going to alphabetize all my spices, but they fit better on top of each other.
All the spices we use a lot, I stuck in front or on the sides.
I have holiday S&P shakers that fit perfectly under the tiers and
will be easy to pull out when needed.
I also had various surplus spices in baggies that fit perfectly under the tier as well.

Did you know it's cheaper to buy your spices in the bulk section at Winco? I just fill up my old container when needed!

The second shelf is where my large spice containers are as well as our vitamins. There wasn't much I could do with this shelf, but I did transfer some random jello to the pantry.

The third shelf stores all of our sprinkles, candles and children medicine.
This shelf was just crazy. I had 5 million different containers of sprinkles, candles and expired medicine. I consolidated all the sprinkles and candles into two margarine containers. I am planning on covering the containers with scrapbook paper and labeling them hopefully tomorrow.



The reason there were so many expired medicines was because I could never see what I had without getting a stool. I found this granola bar box that fits perfect and will hold all the medicine, so we just have to pull down the box for what we need.
It will also get prettyfied tomorrow.
(I know that's not a word!)



So here is the after picture:

Pretty good, huh?! Now on to the next cupboard!
Ha Ha. Maybe next week!
Hope you enjoyed my dirty -turned slightly better - spice cabinet.
Enjoy your Easter holiday this weekend.


-Jacki :)

Coupons, Bills, & Magazines.....OH MY

HOME IMPROVEMENT WEEK....WHAT????

That's what I first thought cause I don't do major home improvements.
Actually the truth is that I'm not aloud to.
When I do I make things 10 X's worse.....seriously just ask my hubby

If it involves a hammer or screwdriver I just walk away and wait for the hubs to do it

My form of home improvements are cleaning and organizing

*************************************************

SOOOO do any of you have a place where you just throw your mail, school work, coupons, magazines, random papers, etc.?

I DO

and does it ever end up looking like this?


why do I let it get this way???? It really doesn't take much to keep it nice and organized

After cleaning it out it looks like this

looks so much better...all nice and organized
To help me keep it organized I've assigned each tray

TOP: Coupons & Bills
MIDDLE: School Work
BOTTOM: Magazines & Important Papers

**I love this paper tray organizer and you can find it at Ikea and it's inexpensive which is a bonus

Home Improvement Week and a Thank You!!!

Hello There!!! Are you loving Home Improvement Week yet?? Well, before I get to my home improvement, I'd like to give a big Thank You to Becky over at My Domestic Design!!! She's given us this awesome award!!!

Thank you SO much Becky!! You guys definitely need to visit her blog. She is so creative and talented, so go check her out!!

So before we pass on our award to a fellow blogger, we're supposed to list 7 things about ourselves. Since there are 5 of us, you get to learn a little bit about each of us!

1.Mother Hen sells Texas Twister drinks at fairs and festivals all around the U.S.

2. She'll be busy selling them EVERY WEEKEND UNTIL OCTOBER!!

3. Heather recently took a trip to Disneyland with 6 kids (ages 6, 5, 4, 3, 19 months, & 5 months) and 2 adults, and actually made it out alive!

4.Jacki has been blessed to do daycare for 10 years. Last week she had 16 different kids come through her door over a two day period!! Yowzas!

5. Juli's husband has officially banned her from Target. He says she always seems to find something that she "needs" that wasn't on the list!

6.Even though Jess is Mother Hen's daughter (and is married), they still have the same last name.

7.We actually have 2 other sisters that don't blog with us. JaNae has 6 kids and Jen is starting Nursing school soon.

So there ya go!! We'd love to pass this award on to Cris over at Crissy's Crafts. She has some amazing crafts, and most can be done on a small budget, which is just what I need! She also has some great ideas for parties. My favorite is the slumber party! Such fun!! So go check out her blog and give her a shout out!

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Alright!! On to our Home Improvement Week!!!

My post today is on something that is still a work in progress.  My husband LOVES electronics, which isn't such a big deal.  The part that stinks is that it leaves me stuck trying to make my house look semi classy with a bunch of black, shiny hunks of metal and hundreds of DVD's.  Here's our entertainment center

I know. Hot Mess, right??!  The open windows show all the crap that is supposed to be hidden behind closed doors.  The upper cabinets hold our hundreds of dvd's we'll never watch, and apparently this is just a place to drop junk!!  We've had the tv FOR---EV---ER...and I would love to get rid of that huge piece of junk, but for some reason, paying our mortgage takes priority. What's up with that?? :)

So, this entertainment center has been my recent project to clean up. I've always hated the open windows on the cabinets. Then one of my children slammed the door and broke the glass on one of the doors, and we've just left it that way. Sooo tacky!! So I figured this would be my first attempt at cleaning up our entertainment center.  I asked my sweet husband if he would mind if I changed the entertainment center, and although he seemed hesitant to let me near his 'manly electronics', he agreed.  So I took out the glass from the one cupboard, and did this

So much better, right??!

I've been looking for a fabric that combines reds and blues, and was smitten when I saw this fabric at Joanns the other day. It's "mocca" from The Alexander Henry Fabrics Collection. I ended up hot gluing it to the back of the board, which worked out fine. Hopefully I'll get a staple gun for Mothers Day, and then I'll staple it on! :)  The nice thing is that the remotes still read through the fabric, but it's so much cuter!! My next project is to clean off the upper shelves, but that will have to wait until I'm done with my daughters princess party this weekend!!! Stay tuned for those pics next week!

Have you worked on any home improvement jobs lately??

Thanks for reading!!

Juli