Hand Made "You're All-Write" Valentines

These hand made Valentines are a great way to 'spread the like' on Valentine's Day. They are especially good for boys to give out being that they aren't always as keen on the lovey-type valentines found in the stores.

Along with being sweet without being overly affectionate, these treats are fat and sugar free. I have to admit that while I don't deprive my kids from sweets, I am usually the Mom who gives out the non-candy treats for holidays. Do they really NEED another candy bar or gummy whatever in their bags? Our state has instituted a wellness policy in our schools that allows limited sweets at school parties and this is perfect for those situations, too.

Skip the crowded seasonal aisle and head straight for the stationery to whip these up in a jiffy! Use your imagination to come up with other phrases if you'd like.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Memo-sized notepads

Cardstock or paper

Stamps, stickers, markers

Computer and printer

Printer labels (optional)

Scissors or paper trimmer

Adhesive (I used Glue Dots)

Pencils (optional)

Step 1: Print your saying on printer labels or directly onto card stock. We used the phrase, "Valentine, You're 'All-Write!' Your Friend, Steven." Trim to fit if necessary. Place labels onto paper or cardstock.

Step 2: Trim cardstock or paper to fit the cover of your memo pad. Mine were about 2 5/8 X 4 1/8 inches.

Step 3: Decorate your card with stamps, stickers or other art supplies as desired.

Step 4: Attach to the cover of your memo pad with adhesive.

You can see the different steps I took in the photo below. Set them up in an assembly line to make several at one time.

Other phrases you could use are:

~Write on, Valentine!

~You're the 'Write' one for me.

~You're picture perfect. (With a small stick figure or smiley face drawn on it)

Heather is a wife, mom,school cafeteria worker,councilwoman and babysitter from Ohio.She also blogs at Heather LessiterIts All for the Bestand The Fat Bottomed Girl.

Heat Therapy Bags ~ A Valentine's Gift

I tried my hand at making some "heat therapy bags" as stocking stuffers at Christmas. They were very well-received by family (or maybe they're just good fakers) so I decided to make some more - complete with tutorial this time - as Valentine's Day gifts for my son's teachers. I've vowed to have a complete Make If From Scratch Valentine's Day this year with no store-bought ticky-tacky junk...thus the reason I'm getting an early start!

If you're not sure what a heat therapy bag is, it's just a little pouch filled with rice, flax seed, buckwheat, whatever you'd like. You pop it in the microwave for a few minutes and it stays warm for long time. It's a life saver for cramps and muscle aches. And I've been tempted to just curl up with it on a few very cold days this winter. Here's the one I made for Christmas...

First I made the insides. No tutorial here because that part was pretty easy. I used some cheap muslin I had laying around and cut it into a 4" by 16" rectangle. Fold in half and sew up, leaving just enough room to stick a funnel in. That's where you'll pour in the rice. (I've seen people use beans too, but I was a little leery of the smell it might give off when heating it in the microwave.)

Mix up a big bowl of rice with a few drops of an essential oil you like - something relaxing like lavender. Then pour it into the bag using a funnel. Stitch up the opening. Since no one will really see this inside part much, I just sewed it leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance on the outside and trimmed the edges with pinking shears.

Next you'll cut the fabric for your outer bag. I used a decorator weight for this tutorial, but I've also used upholstery weight and a very thin calico as well. They all seem to work just fine. This is the fabric my mom used to wrap up an antique map she gave my husband for Christmas. I thought that was a totally clever idea and thought it only fitting to repurpose the fabric for this project.

Anyhoo...moving on! Cut your fabric in a 4.5" by 18" rectangle. Fold in half with right sides together and pin the top and bottom.

Sew the top and bottom, then turn out. Voila - you have a bag. Easy-peasy! You may want to press it at this point.

Now you'll sew on the velcro which will be used to close the bag so that the inner rice bag doesn't fall out. You can use the little pre-cut pieces of velcro if you'd like. I happened to have this long strip of black, so I just cut it into pieces. you will sew this about 1/4 inch from the top (open end) of the bag on the outside.

Turn the top inch or so in (oh yes, I'm all about precision aren't I?) like so, and press it.

Pin it, then sew a line all the way around the top of the bag. I sewed mine just below the velcro. It's a little fidgety under the machine and you have to be careful not to sew the two layers together. Er, not that I did that...more than once.

Slide the rice bag in and you're just about done.

The last thing I did was to make a little tag with an explanation and instructions. I'm thinking some people might know what was, but others might just think it's a giant hackey-sack. Plus it's a whole lot cuter with a bow and tag. And I'm all about cute.

It says something like "place in the microwave for 2 - 3 minutes, then use on sore muscles or to relieve tension". I also put a disclaimer saying to spot clean and lay flat to dry. I'm not so confident in my mad sewing skillz yet and don't want anyones gift falling apart in the washer.

There you go - four little teacher gifts made from fabric and supplies already in house. Now who's joining me in the no-crap Valentine's Day pledge?

Garlic and Dried Tomato Bread

I made lasagna for dinner over the weekend, and wanted some homemade bread to go with the meal. I have a couple of cook books for the bread machine, but the Biggest Book of Bread Machine Recipes, lives up to its name. It offers a lot of choices when you are looking for something new. 

The choice was easy when I saw Garlic and Dried Tomato Bread. I still have dried tomatoes from my garden and garlic bread was just what I wanted. I altered the recipe a bit to suit our tastes, and to use ingredients on hand. The end result was delicious. 

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Don't forget to get your submissions in for next week's carnival. The 100th edition of Make it from Scratch will be hosted right here by yours truly. Can't wait to see what you've been making this week! Submit your posts via Blog Carnival. 

Carnival #99

Welcome to the 99th edition of Make it from Scratch. A Dusty Frame is our hostess for the week. She has included a bit of inauguration trivia in honor of today's historical event.  Be sure to head over there to check out the entire carnival, and to give her a little link love. Here are some entries that caught my eye this week. 

Make Your Own Pop Tarts

My kids, not to mention my husband, think Pop Tarts are food from the gods. I rarely buy them. Homemade would be cheaper and better for them. 

Playdough Color Wheel

What a fun way to teach children about primary and secondary colors. 

Hamburger Helpless

Make something delicious out of hamburger and what you have on hand. 

Other carnivals of interest this week. 

All Things Eco

Carnival of Homeschooling

Homesteading Carnival

Carnival of the Recipes

Modeling Compound Magnets

If you could see my fridge, you'd know why I always say you can never have too many magnets! Between my boys' art projects from school, the lunch menus, photos and drawings done by kids I babysit, I am forever searching for something to hold them all in place. I bought a package of peel and stick business card magnets that cut easily and already have adhesive on them, but they need jazzed up a bit for us.

We first made these magnets years ago when Matthew was around 3 years old, so kids of any age can make their own masterpieces to hold up their masterpieces. These would be fabulous attached to Valentine's Day cards for classmates, Grandparents or anyone dear to your heart. We have used rubber stamps here, but you could certainly use chopsticks, toothpicks, spoons and forks, skewers or anything with a cool texture to make a pattern in these lightweight magnets.

MATERIALS NEEDED:
White Air-dry Modeling Compound (I love Crayola!)
Rolling pin
Magnets (old ones work well, too)
Glue
Scissors
Rubber Stamps (optional)
Tools to make patterns
Pizza cutter or cookie cutters
Markers or paints

Step 1: Roll out the modeling compound to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shape with pizza cutter or cookie cutters.

Step 2: Make patterns, words or pictures with stamps or tools in the compound. Make sure to make the impressions deep because they will relax a bit as they dry. If you mess up, simply turn the piece over or roll it out again.

Step 3: Allow pieces to air-dry completely according to package directions.

Step 4: Color pieces as desired with markers or paints and allow to dry.

Step 5: Trim pieces with scissors if needed. Attach magnets to the back of the piece.

Heather is a wife, mom,
school cafeteria worker,
councilwoman and babysitter from Ohio.
She also blogs at Heather LessiterIts All for the Best
and The Fat Bottomed Girl.

Reporting for duty!

Happy Friday Make it From Scratchers! I am thrilled to say that I'll be writing here on the MIFS blog each Friday. If we haven't yet met, I'm Kellie. I've participated in the MIFS Carnival in the past and most days you can find me over at Greenhab, my blog about my family's attempts to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

Our journey started about a year and a half ago when we realized just how large our impact on the earth was. Since then we've started recycling, composting, making our own cleaning products, using natural or organic personal products, we've switched from paper towels and paper napkins to cloth ones, I downsized my vehicle and started working from home, we're buying less, spending less and enjoying life more.

I've started making more and more things from scratch these days for a variety of reasons and they all seem to go hand-in-hand with sustainability. Handmade gifts are so well received, they're less costly to make, they're not overly packaged or shipped from around the world, and you can decide what materials to use. Food made from scratch can also be cheaper, you can choose organic ingredients, and there's no end-product packaging involved. It just makes sense to me.

So each Friday I'll be here, sharing with you some of the things I've made - my failures and successes. Thanks for having me!

Oh, and since I'm not quite prepared today, I'll give you a peak at just a few of the items on my ever-growing "to make" list...

• Recycled crayons - I'd like to do these as favors for my son's birthday this summer. I kind of cringe when we get a bag of plastic stuff at other parties. Instead I'd like to give the kids something they can use up completely with no waste left behind.


• Photo Memory game - Another one for the kids. We have tons of summer birthday parties each year. This game in a handmade drawstring bag will be perfect for all of our little friends.


• Crate slipcovers - A hundred of these probably wouldn't be enough for my storage problems, but this is a good (and cute!) start.


• Papier Mache bowls - Just because they'd be pretty sitting all in a row on my long farm table.


• Quilted hot pads - These look so cheery. I've (gasp) never done any quilting before, so I thought this would be a good place to start.

See you next week!
~Kellie

Make Your Sundae Bar

This week we celebrated my daughter's 7th birthday. As is tradition, the birthday child gets to pick the kind of homemade dessert that will be served for the celebration. I am not cake decorator by any stretch of the imagination, but my kids do not seem to miss the decorations, as long as the dessert tastes good. Hmm.... I wonder where they got that from? 

Anyhow, many a birthdays in this house are celebrated with a Cheesecake. Even more birthdays have been celebrated with Jessie's Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake, but this year was something new. This year we had ice cream sundaes. 

We had a lot of fun with this at the birthday party. I bought a large tub of vanilla ice cream, and borrowed some pretty glass dessert cups from my mom for the occasion. Each guest was given a dessert cup of ice cream and sent to the table to create their own personal masterpiece. Their palette of choices included chocolate syrup, blackberry freezer jam, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, chocolate chip cookies, peanuts, and whipped cream. There were a lot of delicious looking sundaes leaving that table. 

Putting together a sundae bar for the party was quick and easy. It was a little more expensive than a homemade cake, but quite a bit cheaper than purchasing a decorated cake. It was a fun activity for the guests, and no one even seemed to notice that I was sneaking some healthy choices into their dessert. 

A sundae bar was a great alternative to cake for a birthday dessert. Here is to hoping that the children whose birthdays are coming in March, May and July also feel the same way!

Image Credit(because I was too busy scooping ice cream to take any pictures.) - Frosted Fakes.