Watchin' God Book One - Listed Alphabetically

">

Thursday, October 10, 2013

recycled plastic bag wreath



Nothing fancy here.  We shop for groceries at a store that uses plain brown plastic bags.  Sometimes I'm lazy and ask for those instead of paper.  (They're easier to carry the 100 feet or so from the car to the house.)  I've been donating them to thrift shops instead of throwing them away. (See?  I can be responsible every now and then!)  BUT...

Isn't this a much better use for them?!



This would work for Fall - add leaves, twigs, whatever floats your boat.

Or Winter - add twigs and pine cones with a little white paint to look like snow.  Maybe some red berries...

I'm on a roll!  Since there is that craft fair to do in a month, perhaps I'll save a few more bags and make another one.  They're easy, if  time-consuming.  Make one while you're watching The Sound of Music.  (or Downtown Abbey, or whatever...)


Here are a few instructions:



First find a metal coat hanger - the flimsier the better.  Then make it round.  A pair of flat-nosed pliers work well for getting the ends straight.  (Please excuse the fuzzy picture.  It's kinda hard to take a picture with one hand, and work with the other...)


 (New instructions:)  To allow the wreath to sit flat against the door or wall, place the circle against the side of a table at the beginning of the hook neck.  Bend it so the neck and circle are at right angles.  Then do the same just above the twisted part, making the hook parallel with the circle. 
Next, flatten out the bag and cut off the seam at the bottom and the handles.  Cut off the writing.  Save the handles that don't have writing on them.   (I don't know why some of these pictures are sideways.  Just cock your head to the left, or use your imagination...)


 






Fold in half  lengthwise and cut along the fold on both pieces. 

 Fold in half lengthwise again (this will be a different 'lengthwise' now.) 

I guess I could have said fold in quarters and cut all the folds.  That would work, too.  Just so you have pieces about this size.

(I made a second, smaller size by folding the long narrow pieces into 3 sections in this step.  Gives the wreath a bit of dimension.)

 Scrunch 2 pieces in the middle thusly.



Tie on the hanger and fluff out the ends.  (In the picture, only one end is fluffed.)  Tie all the pieces from the same direction to keep things neat.
If you chose to make different sized pieces, alternate them along with the handle pieces: long, short, long, handle, long, etc, etc, etc.

Your job is now to decide on decorations.  Have fun!  If you make one, please post a picture to share!

This is one made from fold-top sandwich baggies.  Cut the sides of the fold, so that both top pieces are flush, and not folded over.


UPDATE:  As I was surfing pictures of plastic bag wreaths, I came across this at Crafts n Coffee





Go ahead... make my day!  Tell me where you found the link for this post.  And are there any changes I should make to the directions to make it more clear?  Because I know what I'm doing, but you may not...  

Saturday, October 5, 2013

500 hits!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Whomever you are that just this very hour made the 500th hit on my blog!!  It's 9:32 am EST.

I checked the numbers earlier.  499...  One more Lord?  It would be so cool to have it go over 500...

After reading about Kari's flat tire on A Grace Full Life it seemed appropriate to write about the angel and the gas can.

Then in an effort to check something on the blog, I noticed the magic number!

So, whoever you are, THANK YOU!  I wish you would leave me a comment so I know who you are!

UPDATE:

On Oct 13, Beckie from RoadKillRescue featured my brown plastic bag wreath, and the numbers doubled in 2 days!  As of 9:27 EST today, this blog site is over 2000 hits!  Thanks Beckie!

Update 2:

Dec 18, 5 p.m.  3333 hits!  fun.  I love numbers!

May 2, 2014, 5000 hits!  But what's more amazing is that for some reason I checked my +1 account and there are 49,299 hits!  Truly amazing!  May God use my scattered and feeble efforts to show someone the way Home. . .

Angels and Gas Cans

After reading Kari's post on A Grace Full Life about a tire blowout and a 'courtesy officer' I had to post a 'Watchin' God' story of my own.  After all, that's what this blog is supposed to be about, right??

 Sorry, no pictures.

Jamie (my really nice son whom a friend said thinks I'm pretty cool - back 10 years ago, and after having grown up with me as his mother [see book on right], so that's pretty amazing!) and I were driving from somewhere south to Hardeeville SC on I-95.  No idea where we were that would have both of us in the car, and heading south.

Oh wait!  I have a picture of the house we lived in then.  That's another story.


To the chagrin of my husband, I had (okay, still have) a tendency to cut the gas pretty close because I knew exactly how many miles my Honda would travel on the interstate.  When it's all on the interstate.  Which, evidently it wasn't.

We were just north of home, by maybe 2 exits and a few miles, when suddenly the car started to sputter.  Not a good sign.

It ran out of gas just feet away from the entrance to an exit - at the bottom of which was a gas station.  Jamie was busy playing a vidiot game (did I mention I hate vidiot games?  When someone else is playing them??  But if he hadn't been, there wouldn't be a 'rest of the story'.)

With wallet in hand (come to think of it, Jamie couldn't have used my debit card to purchase the gas can, more than likely...  Okay, you're off the hook here, Jamie) I headed down to the gas station.

Inside the store, I was looking for a gas can.  A skinny, scraggly-looking old guy asked if I had run out of gas, and how far away.  I explained.  He bought the gas can AND the gas.  Even filled the can for me!  Then offered me a ride back to the car.  I was a bit skeptical, but figured maybe God was being nice to me, and certainly He could protect me.  There were enough people and a video to identify the man if anything happened.  (Besides, I'm by nature a trusting soul.)

There was a road that ran parallel to the Interstate, and we drove in his ragged red pickup to a location opposite the car.  (maybe that was God's way of reclaiming the honor of red pickups.  Another few stories there...) The nice gentleman handed me over the fence, asked me to hold the gas can so he could get over also.

When we got up the hill to the car, he put the gas in the tank for me.  The southern gentleman all the way.  I'm not sure where Jamie was - inside the car still playing games, or outside watching.  I was hoping he was paying attention to such gentlemanly behavior.  (Yup.  He's grown up into a nice gentleman himself.)

Then, when I turned around to thank the southern gentleman - he was gone!  The truck was gone.  There is no possible way for him to have gotten down the hill and over the fence and driven away in that time!  No possible way at all.

Thanks Lord!  I love it when you send angels to take care of your kids!  It's soo much fun Watchin' God!!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Super easy no-knit scarf

Are you a bit confused by knitting needles?  Or even not so familiar with crochet hooks?  This scarf evolved from this project, but I didn't like it much. 


First things first.  Find something that will work to wrap the yarn into a hank.  This is a folding card table and will make a long scarf that will make two loops around the neck, as shown above.  The back of a chair would work well for a single length scarf.
     Instead of tying the hank with strips of leather, or as in another blog I cannot find, simply tying one end together with several wraps of yarn, I crocheted a coordinating yarn (or in this case 1/8" silver ribbon) along the length of it while still on the table legs. The ribbon was scrap, so the two pieces weren't terribly long, maybe a yard or so each.  I slip-stitched the strings together in two places on the scarf, maybe 1/4 crochet, 1/4 open, 1/4 crochet, with the last quarter open.  In the open places, I did use one short piece of the silver ribbon to tie in the middle of the entire bunch.  Make sure at some point that the beginning and ends of the hank are tied.   
     The crochet keeps the strands together so it doesn't make a tangled mess like the inspiration piece.  I left large spaces un-crocheted so the yarn would spread out and give more coverage when in place.  Keeps your neck warmer that way.
     This is the finished result.


There is no way to describe how the crocheting was done so it will require a video, which hopefully will be added before the night is over if I can get my husband to take one - also hopefully with a better camera than my phone! 

Alternately, for those who do not wield any kind of needle, you could simply tie the hank together in many places in 1/4 sections as above, not completely around the whole hank, but on one side in little sections at a time, thusly:

 Hope that makes sense.  It will be easier to visualize when the video is put in here.  I hope!

For having all the pieces, and being free and able to innovate, I must say it's so much fun Watchin' God!

Have YOU made anything like this?  Would you try this project?



Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Rambling for the day

Have you had one of those days lately?  You know, where there isn't anything wrong, but things are just -blah?  Yeah, I've been having them a lot lately.  Today is no exception.  It might help if I got up from this computer. lol

Sunday was a productive day.  PR and I went to church, expecting to be numbers two and three of the congregation.  Four, five, six and seven arrived to convince the visiting preacher that we really don't mind listening to him preach when our pastor is out of town.  Then we went to went to Lowes and acquired some stuff we needed to work on the trailer.  And worked on the trailer.  (That's a never-ending task.)  The evening was topped off by PR working on his cross-stitching and me making a baggie wreat - well, the baggie part; the decoration remains to be done.  This is last year's project.  (Naturally Me Creations has the tutorial that I used as a springboard for the one I made last year, and am working on as we speak.)

All that crafting was to the accompaniment of The Sound of Music.  Believe it or not, this is the first time I've watched it!  Pretty good movie, if ya ask me.

Monday - well this is what I looked like for a few minutes.

Under the trailer there was a patched hole in the underbelly cover.  It needed some spray foam to seal out the wind.  And my head/eyes needed protection.  Those large plain food storage bags just fit over my head.  Of course, one must be careful about getting it over the nose.

This is what I looked like last winter while fixing that hole.  Monday was a bit less dramatic.  No orange hat or Carharts.


After that I called a back friend who was returning my call...  I had to ask her something.  Well, after asking her how she has been.  Have you ever dropped something on your big toe?  And then everything in the universe seems to be strangely attracted to that exact spot on your toe?  Seems like my friend was having that kind of a day.  After a weekend of migraines.  So, I couldn't complain too much about the foam that got smeared around on my wrists.  At least the foam doesn't hurt.  Peeling it off for days is much less painful than a big toe that hurts every time you bend your foot to walk.

The reason I called was to get her opinion on an alternative medicine practice.  Her opinion was the same as my original reaction.  The reason I wanted her opinion is that it's really easy to justify something, and even say God confirmed it, if it's something you might want to do.  But her instant 'Oh, be careful about that!' was enough to convince me my initial reaction - the same as hers - was right.  Sometimes it's a good thing to get a second opinion, ya know?  And do ask someone you know will tell you like it is, not simply agree with you.  I'm glad God puts those people in my life. 

And today, it's 4 pm, I'm still sitting in front of the computer, havent' taken my happy pills, nor eaten anything.  Oh yeah... eating.  That reminds me... what shall I fix for supper tonight?  I saw a recipe for crockpot stroganoff - but no time for that.  Maybe I'll just thaw out the tube of organic ground beef, make up some stroganoff from that and the remaining sour cream, and put it over speghetti squash (the heat from the oven will feel very nice, I must say.)

For finding a place to live (that's a story I should tell on here), a place to get away from it all (that's a story, as well and actually, that's a better description of the place we live), for craft projects and good movies, and for friends who tell me what I need to hear, it's so much fun Watchin' God!

Have a won'erful October day!