How I Ghetto Mend a Blanket

by Jenny

(UPDATE: this blog has changed from itsahodgepodgelifeforus to jennybrook journeys...still same info but if you notice some conflicting labels, that's why. Thanks for stopping by!)

Blankies. Lovies. Soffies.

Whatever you call them, if you have a child attached to one and something horrible happens to it, it's devastating. Well, that devastating moment happened in our home the other night. As Anne of Green Gables would say, my daughter was "in the depths of despair."
Let me just preface the story with the fact that the nameless daughter is a tad old for a blanket, I know. Regardless, she loves it and holds onto it when we all cuddle on the couch at night before bed, then carries it into bed. I can't seem to really get onto her about it, for the fact that I had a special little pillow I had from birth until I sadly left it in a hotel room at the age of 21. I was in the depths of despair. Not because I couldn't sleep without it but because I was sentimental and had all sorts of crazy thoughts about wanting to have it forever, to show my future kids, a keepsake, a memento...Anyway, back to the story.
It was bedtime. Often when the kids are being put to bed, they take this opportunity to play a game of "Last Hit"- partially to stall bedtime, and partially for an excuse to hit each other, I'm sure. This little violent game started, the aforementioned special blanket got caught up in the scuffle, I yelled, "Stop it, right now! Or "Flower's" gonna get ripped!" (My daughter named all of her blankets, Flower, Yellow, Dino...). The scuffle continued and the mother who really should be regarded as knowing just about everything had called it. "Ripppp" was the following sound. Shrieks followed. Everyone got quiet as daughter held up Flower. Right in the middle was a large "L" shaped rip about 8 inches by 6 inches. Tears ensued. I had flashbacks of my special pillow and my all too sentimental personality started the all too horrible guilt trip in on the son who was the culprit. "You ruined forever her special memory of childhood!" Maybe I had attached my own sadness of forever losing my pillow. "Ok," I thought, "enough of the guilt trips." I promised daughter I'd fix it. We settled them all in bed.
Thus began my google search of "how to mend flannel blankets" because I am definitely not a seamstress. I saw a whole buncha nothing. I ended doing what I usually do once I've clicked on and read a billion ways to do something. I do want I want. I make it up as I go. I  mess up or I totally figure it out and my head swells with pride. So I'm calling this post "How I Ghetto Mend a Blanket" because by no means do I really know what I'm doing and if a real sewer happens upon this someday, I don't want them to think, "She SO should not be posting a tutorial on 'How To Mend'...what was she thinking?!" Plus, it turned out a little ghetto...it's wrinkled, has mistakes, and way too much thread in some spots. But was my daughter satisfied? Yes! So, so am I!

The technical name of the knob is the Stitch Width Knob that you turn all the way to 5 to get the zigzag. The knob on the right on my machine is the Stitch Length Knob and I had it set around a 4 to zigzag stitch the "L" rip together. I adjusted it to a 1 to get a more embroidered effect when I was sewing the heart patch on the blanket.

So now the blanket is mended, my daughter actually loves the heart on it better, my son apologized and did her dinner dishes for a week, except for nights she's on counter (he thought up that consequence all by himself...and he knows she loves to wipe the counter). And I remembered to take pictures of the process so I could eventually make a blog post about it...

 

An Excuse to Craft With Melty Beads

by Jenny

(UPDATE: this blog has changed from itsahodgepodgelifeforus to jennybrook journeys...still same info but if you notice some conflicting labels, that's why. Thanks for stopping by!)

My girls and I love to craft. Sometimes we "invent" uses for the things we want to craft. This was one of those times.
We decided that our new J12 room at church (see post about string art) needed some decorations for each table. We had already made duct tape pencil holders but really wanted an excuse to make something with melty beads (they are really called Perler beads, but I will forever call them' melty beads'. Just like I call our "handheld mixer" a shuzsher.) I had seen a picture of a small bowl made with melty beads and thought it looked so cool how they melded together and held a nice shape. So off to look for oven safe bowls.
Which I had none.

 I had bowls that were the perfect shape but not oven safe.

I had oven safe custard dishes that weren't the right shape.

We tried making a bowl in an aluminum mini pie tin- it was definitely our "practice" bowl (you can see our practice bowl in one of the pictures). It was hard to get out, had the impression, number, and symbol on the bottom, and I thought it looked like an ashtray. It just didn't have the shape I was looking for.
Finally, after keeping my eye out on multiple shopping trips to different stores, I spied the perfect bowls at Target. They were only $1. They only problem was that I knew the beads needed to be heated at 400 degrees and these bowls were only heat safe to 350 degrees but since they were just a buck, I decided to chance it. Now that we had everything (bowl, beads, vegetable oil spray) we were ready!
My 11 year old, Evie, had a friend over so we decided to make them all together since we wanted to use them in their J12 youth room at church.
1. We sprayed the bowls with vegetable oil spray to make the bowls easier to pop out after they were melted.
2. We put in a handful of beads in each bowl and pushed them down to create a single layer of beads that went up the side of the bowl.
3. I turned the oven on at this point to 375 degrees.
4. I put the dishes on a cookie sheet to make it easier to get them out afterwards and put them in the oven while it was preheating so the bowls could heat up along side with the oven.
5. I checked them every 5 minutes because I had changed the temperature from 400 and put them in during preheating. It took about 12-15 minutes after the oven had reached temperature.

Once they were all melty I took the cookie sheet out and let them cool for a bit. Then I popped them out- some edges needed some prying with a butter knife. We were very impressed with our melty bowls. It was easy and fun and actually turned out- which are all bonuses when crafting with tweens!

                     

Craftin' Some String Art With Tweens!

by Jenny

 

(UPDATE: this blog has changed from itsahodgepodgelifeforus to jennybrook journeys...still same info but if you notice some conflicting labels, that's why. Thanks for stopping by!)

 

Coming up with a fun craft for a group of kids to do and that still looks okay hanging on the wall can prove to be harder than you think... 

 My husband Gregg, and I wanted some art to hang on the wall in the room that we were working on for our new tween group at church called J12. Our tweens at church needed a group specially for them, not youth group, not children's church but something just for them. For their unique stage of life. Gosh, I could probably write a book on all the information I've learned recently about tweens, their influence and their struggles...

We were so happy to help design a group for them, find some awesome passionate people to also work with them, and make a special room they'd love too! I decided to give the string art that I'd seen all over Pinterest a try. We wanted three pieces of art to hang along side corkboard squares on a wood background Gregg was going to install. We decided on a "J", a "12", and a cross. I read a lot of the tutorials and tried to learn from their mistakes. I still bought the wrong nails. You definitely need ones that are long so that they come up about an inch or so above the board after being nailed in. They also need a flat head so that the string doesn't slide off. I got caught up in a nail with a large flat head that when I attempted to nail it in, it was probably almost three inches too tall! After we got the right size nails, picked a font I was happy with (that took forever because I have a font addiction...) and prepped the boards we were ready to start.

 

Supplies:

 

1 1x12x36 board that we cut into 3 12x12s

box of 8d 2-1/2" finishing nails

an enlarged letter of your choice printed

stain (optional)

embroidery thread

 1. Tape the letter in place on the board. Start your first nail in one of the corners and be careful to space them evenly. Plan for about 30-45 minutes per board. There a number of ways you could get the letter on the board- you could cut the letter out, then tape it on. That would eliminate some of the small remnants of paper. You could use a dull pencil to trace the letter over the paper then follow the dent to nail (except I didn't want to see the line). But I chose to do the quickest and leave the paper whole.

2. Remove the paper and use tweezers to remove any small pieces of paper. Great job for the kids!

 

3. Tie one color of embroidery thread on a corner of the letter and start winding around. Being careful the keep it within the shape.I learned that some of the kids went winding happy while I turned my head and the cross turned into a diamond but no fear, it was easy to undo and fix. They layered on multiple colors and had a blast!

4. Tie off the embroidery thread when you're satisfied with the piece and that's it!

 

 

I really want to make some for myself at home now! They were fun and easy!

 

 

This is Gregg installing the boards onto the 1x1s that he screwed into the walls. He used wood paneling that came in a 10 pack of 8 foot boards. He cut them down into various lengths and stained them different colors.