Site Change

Hello Everyone!!

I have some super exciting news that has been in the works for a while now...

I have updated this here blog and changed the name.

So from now on to get my current updates, DIY's and recipes please hop on over to 

Happiness is Homemade 

and bookmark http://ourhomemadehappiness.blogspot.com/ as a place to visit everyday!

Thanks so much everyone for reading and following It's Sew Lisa and I hope you continue to check in even though I've moved.

Hop on over now and check out the new site and be sure to tell me what you think!

Maple Glazed, Brown Sugar Scones

My mister is a man of few words.

Our conversations are often quite one sided as I could blab for hours while he waits to say something he feels has actual value to the conversation.

I do not have that restraint.

I'm afraid if the thought comes into my head, it will also come out of my mouth.

The compliments I get whenever I bake something are often a shrug accompanied with some sort of line like "yah, it's good", or "I like it".

So the day I made scones and he told me they were the best scones he'd ever had I was blown away. I was even speechless for a couple of seconds while I processed the magnitude of this compliment!

I love these scones a dangerous amount. The maple flavouring in the icing with the tender yumminess of the brown sugar scones makes all your worries of the day just melt away. They are super-duper with coffee too.

I can't think of a better way to welcome October then to make these babies.

Maple Glazed, Brown Sugar Scones

For the Scones:

3 cups four

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter

1 egg

3/4 cup buttermilk

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Cut the butter into the flour mixture, until the butter has been broken into pea sized pieces.

Mix the egg and buttermilk together and pour into the flour/butter and mix using a fork until just combined.

Pour the loose dough onto a work surface and push together into a disk. Cut the dough into 12 triangular pieces (like a pizza), or 8 large triangular pieces.

Bake at 350 for 22 minutes until the tops are just starting to show some colour.

Maple Glaze

(This is Pioneer Woman's fantastic recipe... make it, drink it, looooove it!!)

1 pound icing sugar

1/4 cup milk

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) melted butter

splash of coffee

pinch of salt

2 tsp maple flavouring/extract

In a medium bowl stir everything together until smooth.

Pour or drizzle the icing over the scones once they are completely cooled.

And then eat... eat them all!!

Will Power

It is often a battle of will power in our house, and I have one little boy that has some amazing will power let me tell you!

We try to inforce the "one bite rule", insisting that they have to try everything on their plate or have at least "one bite" before they get down to play again. Eli is currently going through a phase that he doesn't like any food, and therefore the one bite... well, he just wont do it. He'll sit at the table, with a pout on refusing to eat, pushing his plate away forever!

It's really quite amazing how long he'll sit there just to get his way... he gets that from his mama!

I know this is something they all go through so I try not to worry crazy amounts that he eats pretty much nothing all day, but I do find it super frustrating, making him lunch for him to refuse eating it.

What are some constant battles in your house?

Heirloom Cut Chenille Blanket

I found the instructions for making this blanket a while ago and have been itching to try one ever since.

It wasn't at all difficult, but it took forever!

I do love how it turned out though, it's super soft and cozy like, and it was really pretty cool to see how the flannel went into the washing machine looking one way and came out looking completely different.

You should totally make one.

I can't wait to make another. It's a great "make busy" project as it's only sewing straight lines so it's really easy to stop and start or just go to town and make in one sitting.

The thing that took the longest was cutting the flannel. I don't have one of those fancy cutters mentioned in the instructions so I did it all by hand with my trusty scissors... that was unpleasant!

I think I'll tuck this one away (I had some troubles with the binding...) and get out the fabric to make another for the next little baby in our group of friends!

Why Blog?

Why do I blog... it's a question I've been asked a couple of times.

My reason is a pretty simple one.

I blog to remember and find the positives in everyday.

My mister's job has moved us far from family into a community that is about 94% smaller (yah, I totally did the math!) then where we are from. We moved from a place that is incredibly busy and full of malls and box stores to a place with fewer then 20 stores.

The first year after our big move I was pregnant with my second baby, had a little guy who just turned 1, and was living in an area much smaller then I was used to with little support. I was feeling emotional, bored, lonely and straight up negative. I would see the down side to a beautiful day and would dwell on the one thing that went wrong in the last 24 hours. I was not a nice person to be around. I was not happy with myself, as a wife and a mother; and I was horrified to think of all that I was missing in my boys lives as I was on a personal quest to be miserable.

I decided things needed to change.

I bought a journal and I wrote one thing everyday that made me smile. This worked well for the first couple of days however I was very stuck in my spiral of negativity and being accountable to only myself was not enough to keep me motivated. That's when I decided to start a blog.

Something about writing something and publishing it for the world to see made me feel obligated to push to be the person I wanted to be. I also loved that I could journal with pictures this way.

My blog has since become a place I share things that happen in my life and my boys lives, crafting projects I'm excited about and baked goodies I simply can't get enough of. It's a bit of a hodge-podge of everything but all in all can be summarized as things I love and things that make me smile.

Since starting this blog and becoming accountable to my invisible audience I have become more of myself again. I laugh more then I did, I play more then I was and I love in a way that I am proud of.

So... that's why I blog!

Thanks for reading along my invisible buddy!

I hope I make you smile every now and then too.

Musical Monday: JJ Heller - Control

If you know me personally, you will know I'm a control freak.

If you don't know me personally... I'm a control freak.

I have my life planned out for the next 10 years or so and I find it SO hard when life throws me a bit of a curve ball that messes up my plans... like I loose sleep until I have a new plan figured out!

I heard this song a couple of days ago and it spoke to me so much!

It's about realizing that we're not in control and our lives are in God's hands no matter what our plans are.

So I'm trying to let go... or at least loosen my grip.

Hope you like it (because I do so love Ms. JJ Heller!) & Happy Monday!

Scrapbook Inspiration Video

what fun!! It's a long video but I took a bunch away from it so I had to share for all those out there looking for scrapbook inspiration...

Crochet

I finally completed my first crochet project!

It took an intensely long time (like almost a year) but I'm obsessed with it.

Obsessed people.

I'm thinking of making another one... or two...

It was perfect timing to finish it as well as the air is cooling off quite quickly and now I can wear it all the time.

And I plan to do just that! This baby is officially glued to my head until April.

Amazing Puffer Energy!

I've been having troubles breathing lately... no biggie, just like I can't get in enough air all the time.

I went to see a dr tonight, because it's suuuuper annoying, he wasn't too concerned though... I think he thought I was making it up actually. Luckily the nurse who was working said she once had the same thing and the best they could guess was that it was some sort of muscle strain... so I'm going with that...

I do work awfully hard you know; it only makes sense I would pull an invisable muscle causing me to imagine shortness of breath.

Short story shorter... they sent me home with a puffer...

Now, I know nothing about medicine and puffers and what not and really thought it was safe to take it before bed, but hokey tater tots friends, I could not have been more wrong!

I am sitting here shaking like I'm on my 5th cup of espresso, ready to run a marathon and the best part? I still can't breath!!

Luckily I'm smiling though.

Want to know why I'm smiling?

You totally do, I know you...

I was just on fabric.com and found some wonderful stuff... you should go look. Type "retro" in the search and you will find the most swoon worthy patterns ever... EVER!

You know what, just click here, I did all the work for you with my aaaaamazing puffer energy.

...I wonder how long this craziness will last...

seriously... I'm practically vibrating off my chair...

Musical Monday: Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

This past weekend was one of those that leaves you scratching your head asking if it really happened.

The house was disastrous but it's clean now... the laundry pile was huge, but it has all been washed, folded and (almost) put away... I finally cleaned my side of our room (I can't tell you how over due this was!) and yet it feels like I blinked and it was gone. So strange considering how slow last week went.

Ah well, what can you do?

You can play a Musical Monday song, that's what you can do!

I love this song - I bet you know all the words too...

Books

I have never been one to read a single book at a time.

I don't know why, it only makes sense to read one book at a time, but perhaps that's why I don't do it!

I usually have 2 on the go, at least.

The other day I was cleaning up my night stand and realized I was currently reading 7!

(I found 2 more after I took this picture)

I think 7 is a new record for me.

I decided it was time to scale back a bit... enter the world of the "normal" and start and complete a single book before I move on to the next.

I decided 1 book a month seemed reasonable, so that is a new goal of mine - to complete reading one book a month.

This month I decided to focus on this one.

It's the first faith based book I have read and from what I've read so far I know it's pretty intense but beautifully written.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

Slow Days

Do you ever have weeks that last for eeeeeeevvverrrrr??

I am having one of those weeks. It's actually completely shocking to me that we are still in this week because I feel like an entire month has gone by!

I have done all our standard "long day" activities, a couple times now, and still nothing is increasing the speed of time. I'm thinking we must just have amazing speed completing all the tasks because what would normally eat up hours is taking minutes!

It's like we're living in a parallel universe or something!

What do you do on slow days?

New Fabric Stash

I love fabric.

I love looking at it, I love touching it, but most of all I love buying it!!

The hubbs doesn't quite understand my enjoyment of fabric purchases, but I like to compare it to his love of football. It doesn't have to make sense, it just is, so accept it and move on...

When we were in Ontario, in July, I spent so much time in fabric stores. Whenever I was able to muster up child care for the boys I drove like a fool to the fabric stores and spent hours in them, fingering through every wonderful bolt they had!

Truth be told, I may have gotten a little carried away...

It's a problem I have when fabric shopping... no self control...

I bought a lot, but I have plans for every inch of fabric, I didn't buy for the sake of buying... well except for this stuff, but just look at it!

And it's super soft and cuddly like... ah, just looking at it makes me smile like a fool!

I plan to make the boys quilts at some point during their childhood so it only made sense to buy the fabric the second I made my decision that a quilt was in their future.

Eli's fabric is made up of cars, trains, planes and other locomotives. He likes that kind of thing.

When I found the Thomas the Train fabric I think I actually screeched in delight! It was a semi embarrassing scene, complete with a happy dance...

Zac is super into superhero's. This morning he informed me that he has changed his name to Superman actually... so I made it a personal mission to find him superhero fabric and I succeeded!

I can't wait to get at all this fabric and wear my poor sewing machine out.

Bertha and I have actually spent very little time together since I've been home and I think she's getting a little annoyed with me. Perhaps I'll plan a date for later this week. I think she'd like that...

Poke Cake

I love baking with Zac (Eli's still not exactly interested in helping yet), but I find it a real challenge to find easy recipes that he can do pretty much all on his own.

If we're baking Zac prefers to be in charge and likes me to assist him, so the less work I need to do the better the experience... for everyone...

I've heard of "Poke Cake" before and even seen pictures of the end result but didn't really know how to go about making it. Once I found a recipe I knew it was a perfect one for Zac to tackle.

Poke Cake

1 package cake mix (I used rainbow chip but yellow or white would work well)

1 package of your favorite jello flavor

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cold water

2 cups whipping cream

Make the cake according to the package directions and bake in a 9"x 13" pan and allow to cool for about an hour.

Using a fork or fat cake tester poke holes all over the cake.

Mix the jello powder with the boiling water until dissolved and then add the cold water, pour all over the cake and put it in the fridge for 2-4 hours.

Whip up the whip cream and spread all over the cake.

Simple enough for the kids to make, good enough for the adults to eat!

Musical Monday: Joni Mitchell - River (live)

I feel like I may have shared this song before... or perhaps I just listen to it lots and am confused... I'm confused quite often, let's be honest here.

I love it, I think it's too beautiful for words.