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If you are looking to make some fabric toppers for some of your kitchen hand towels, I think you will be pleased with this easy to make project. You can find inexpensive nice kitchen towels at your local dollar type of store.

Here is what you will need to make this project:

1 cotton kitchen hand towel
2 pieces of 6″ square cotton fabric
5″ square of cotton batting
large 1″ diameter button
8″ piece of cording or twine
Sewing Machine & Basic Sewing Supplies
Scissors

Place your two 6″ fabric squares right sides together with the 5″ piece of cotton batting sandwiched in between them. Using a 1/2″ seam allowance, sew around 3 1/2 of the sides. Turn the square right side out and hand sew the turning hole shut with a needle and thread. Set aside.

Find the center of your kitchen towel and mark the center with a straight pin. Using your sewing machine, run a gathering stitch down the center width of your towel. Pull the threads up so that your gathered towel will fit the width of your fabric square. Pin your fabric square onto the gathered edge (center edge) of your towel and pin into place. NOTE: Your square should be diagonal on the fabric and not placed up and down (diamond shape). Use your sewing machine and run a straight stitch down the center of your diagonal from corner to corner. Make sure you back stitch to ensure its attachment.

Finish your towel by hand sewing on a 1″ diameter button onto one corner of the fabric square and by sewing on hanging loop on the back corner.

Shelly Hill is a mother and grandmother living in Pennsylvania who enjoys quick and easy crafts. You can visit Shelly’s online craft site at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com/ for free craft and sewing projects. You can find a photo of the completed project at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-make-kitchen-towel-fabric-topper.html

Article Source: WAHM Articles

You may not be aware of the severity of the negative dialogue currently within your mind. However, once you begin with positive self-talk, you will suddenly realize that you are self-sabotaging the goals you set for yourself from the minute that you make them. This process can make you aware of exactly how much that inner conversation has been interfering with your life. You’ll start believing that you can now set goals and surpass them.

Through positive self-talk you will be able easily set long and short-term goals for yourself. And when you use affirmations, you’ll have those tools accessible to help you push yourself further than ever before. Learning to quiet negativity and re-program your mind with positive thoughts is a great move toward setting and attaining future goals with ease.

Stay tuned…

• Subscribe to my RSS feed – that won’t change
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So, over the next couple of days, don’t panic if things look a little wonky around here. I’ll have them up and running and back in order before you know it.

Thanks for your patience in advance.

I browsed through the Gardening archives here, and found a few posts that might feed that gardening bug. I thought you would be interested in them too…

An indoor gardening idea I had was starting an herb garden. We have a bag of potting soil in the basement, and I found some indoor herb gardening tips to follow as guidelines. Planting a starter garden for home grown pizza herbs might be a fun way to get us making homemade pizzas again.

Thumbing through gardening magazines and plotting out the design of a garden can help ease that need for Spring. Get some help choosing the best plants for your garden. Decide between flowers, vegetables or both. Here are some ideas for your vegetable garden.

I do plan to start an indoor herb garden, but want to move some of it out to our backyard. There are a couple of different options out there for planting locations. My other thought is to start them in a large pot indoors, then move that out to the patio. I found this post with herb gardening tips helpful.

So, get off to a good start on your garden planning. I hope that the links above here will help, especaillyif you have been thinking about gardening as much as I have. It is all part of my Spring fever therapy.

One of the appliances that gets the most use in your home happens to be the refrigerator. Every day our family members get in and out of the refrigerator to grab what they need and off they go. Rarely do they take the time out to clean up any messes that occur. As the week goes on, these refrigerator messes get out of control pretty quickly.

If this sounds like your refrigerator you are not alone! Personally, I used to dislike cleaning out my refrigerator because it was so time consuming. Over the years I have learned a few tricks on how to clean it properly and how to organize my items to help prevent accidental messes.

The first thing that you want to do is to remove everything from inside your refrigerator. Fill up your sink with warm soapy water and grab a new clean sponge. Take your shelves and racks over to the sink and scrub them down with the soapy water. When you are finished scrubbing them, rinse clean with cool water and towel dry. Fill up a bucket with warm soapy water and take it over to the refrigerator so that you can wipe down the inside walls, drawers, shelves and doors that are not removable. Rinse with clean water and towel dry.

Before you place everything back inside your refrigerator, check all of the expiration dates. Anything that has expired gets immediately tossed. Use a clean damp sponge to clean any gook off of your condiment bottles and containers before placing them back inside.

If organization is a problem for you, I suggest you invest in some clear containers that are stackable. I purchased 1 cup, 2 cup, 3 cup, 4 cup and 8 cup containers that are specifically made for the refrigerator and they stack on top of each other to save on space. I went with clear ones so that we can easily see the inside contents without having to label them. I also purchased slim oval shaped plastic beverage containers that take up less space than round ones and use those for all of our beverages. I decided to go with clear and opaque beverage containers so we can easily see the inside contents. Finally, I purchased some really neat slim design condiment containers at our local kitchen supply store. These containers are fantastic for holding all of your messy condiments and I find they fit inside my refrigerator door a lot easier than the regular containers that condiments come in.

Keeping your refrigerator clean and organized doesn’t have to be a nightmare. I suggest giving it a good overall cleaning once a month and to invest in some great slim design containers that are specifically made for refrigerator use. When you notice spills and drips, clean them up right away instead of letting them accumulate for another day.

Shelly Hill is a mother and grandmother living in Pennsylvania who enjoys cooking, baking and canning. You can visit Shelly’s online foodie blog called Shakin ‘N Bakin in the Kitchen at http://wahmshelly.blogspot.com for free foodie articles, cooking tips and for free recipes.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

It was actually my husband who reminded me about the recipe when he signed us up to bring Taffy Apple Salad for a holiday potluck. I told him it wasn’t Taffy Apple Salad it was sort of more like Hawaiian Salad, but he remembered that I had his Mom’s recipe. I made it last night, and just had to share it here. (Wish I had remembered to take a picture of it before Hubby took it to work today!)

Below is my Mother-In-Law’s Taffy Apple Salad recipe:

1 – 24 oz. can pineapple chunks (drain, but reserve the juice)
2 C. mini marshmallows
1 T. flour
1/4 C. sugar
1 egg – well beaten
1 1/2 T. white vinegar
12 oz. Cool Whip
2 C. diced, unpeeled Red Delicious apples (I got this from 1 large apple)
1 1/2 C. chopped dry roasted nuts

• Mix pineapple chunks and marshmallows in medium mixing bowl. Let stand overnight.
• In a small saucepan, mix pineapple juice, flour, sugar, egg, and vinegar. Cover, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until thickened. Remove from heat, leave covered and let cool. Then refrigerate the mixture overnight.
• The next morning, in a large serving bowl,add the Cool Whip to the cooked mixture; then fold in all remaining ingredients. Chill for at least 8 hours before serving.

My notes: It’s crunchy, and sweet, and creamy, and delicious! Next time I make this, and there will be a next time, I’m going to use a little more diced apple, and a little less chopped nuts. Tweaking to my preferences.

The kids will soon be home again for winter break, and it won’t take long until their “bored already”. The weather can be cold, wet and nasty. What do you do? Plan now to keep them busy making something with their hands, instead of you tearing your hair out. Here are 5 Holiday Crafts for Kids.

These treats are bound to be a favorite this holiday season, and you may find yourself wanting to make more. Perfect for gift giving, put some pieces in a cellophane bag, or airtight container for Teachers, neighbors, co-workers or friends. Here are 3 Chocolate and Candy Cane Treats.

Christmas belongs to everyone especially the children. Most of the memories that we treasure for a lifetime are created during childhood. Help your kids to make memorable moments with Edible Tree Ornaments.

Before you throw out what appears to be useless ornaments and Christmas cards, think about how they can be reused for another year of celebration. Get the kids involved and turn the quest for recycled materials into a treasure hunt through the house. Here are 5 ideas for Recycled Christmas Decorations.

Everyone thinks of the traditional ham or turkey with all the trimmings as the must-have meal at the holidays, but it’s a lot of work. Time to start thinking about it now! You can still have a delicious meal without slaving away all day. Really! Here are some Easy Christmas Dinner Ideas.

Whether you’re new to scrapbooking or an old pro, coming up with ideas for a new album is not always easy. Here we’ll talk about different ideas and how organizing your photos will help determine the theme of your next scrapbook.

Here are some album ideas you can use; and looking these over may spark some other ideas of your own.

Travel Scrapbook: You can create an album from photos of you and your family while traveling. You may have enough photos from one specific trip to complete a small album, or you can combine several trips into one larger album. If you travel a lot, you might like to do an album called “On the Road in 2009″ for example.

School age children’s events: If you have kids in school, an album of their different activities is a good way to store and display those memories. You may want to have one album for each year with all your children, or you may want to have different albums for each child throughout the years.

Antique Album: An antique style album is great for old black and white photos you may have lying around in a box or the basement.

Seasonal album: Perhaps you have lots of pictures during the different seasons. You could create an album with all your fall pictures using earth tones and fall colors and themes.

Children’s artwork: Do you have tons of your child’s artwork plastered to your fridge or in a box somewhere? Get it out, sort it by year and create an album using the different pieces. You can use it for backgrounds, decorations or maybe even embellishments. Incorporate pictures of your child from a specific year with the artwork.

Now that your wheels are spinning with ideas for your next album, let’s talk about photo organization. Organizing your photos is a great way to get ideas for albums as well. As you sort through the boxes and packets of pictures you have, you’ll start to get ideas for an album.

There are, of course, many different ways you could organize your photos, so I’m just going to give you a few ideas to get you started.

Chronologically: If you have piles and piles of photos in boxes, or photos in old albums that aren’t acid and lignin free, take them out and start sorting them into stacks by the year. If your photos aren’t date stamped on the back or front, try to determine the year they were taken by the ages of the people in them, the style of clothing, the location or event where the photo was taken. You may find you have hundreds of photos for each year and will need to break it down further by season or event.

By event: As you’re sorting chronologically, you’ll probably come across photos from certain events that would make for a nice album or two such as: a trip, a wedding, birth of a new baby, a play or other theatrical event, a concert or a family outing.

Once you have your photos sorted and organized, store them in plastic baggies to keep the air out. This will help preserve them until you can get them into an acid and lignin free album. Be sure to mark each bag by year or event so when you go back to make the album you know which baggie to grab.

Are you ready to scrapbook yet? I am off to scrapbook my latest trip.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

To add color and fun to your pages, use scrapbooking embellishments.

Many items can be donated to area thrift or Salvation Army stores. Quite often they will give you a receipt that will allow you to take it as a tax write-off. It is probably best to call and check with them as to their drop-off policies. Some places only take donations on certain days or hours.

Another option is to donate carefully used toys, books and clothes to women’s shelters. Many times the families staying there have had to leave their homes with just what they were wearing. A few things for them to have while they are there can be a great comfort.

There are other charities that also take clothes and household goods. Some, including veterans’ organizations like Purple Heart and Vietnam Vets, and other groups like Easter Seals, will actually pick up your donations at your home. If you call them, they have set pickup schedules for the neighborhoods in your area. They have a set procedure.

Some hospitals collect books, sometimes specifically for the children’s wing. When your children outgrow their books, considering giving them away to a hospital or other charities for children.

Once you’ve donated things, you can reorganize what you have left and maximize your storage space. This is something to consider doing every few months, because things tend to accumulate. If you’re unsure about donating some things, put them away, and if you haven’t used them after a given time then you can probably go ahead and donate them.