Confessions of a Country Girl/Livestock Show

   Last week was the project show/livestock show. It's a really fun, busy week. I only made one project, but my little brothers showed their animals and I led barn tours, so we were there ALL. WEEK. LONG. :D

  I don't mind, though. I love the atmosphere: wearing boots, slugging through mounds of dust while George Strait wails through crackly old speakers, petting the rabbits waiting to be shown, cheering for friends as they show, balancing precariously on pipe fences surrounding the arena just for the fun of it, even waiting in an hour-long line in the hot sun to buy a snowcone.

Okay, my monologue has lasted long enough. Moving on,

The buckle is silver and turquoise! It's so heavy that it pulls my belt down.

I got this reserve grand champion belt buckle with my kitchen set project!!

I apologize for the galoshes/lack of Western attire; the barns are very, very muddy(I now live an hour from Old Navy, btw). But aren't they cute galoshes?

 Dad taught me how to use the tools and I learned a lot. I had a great time painting the kitchen set, decorating it, and building it. It started with an old desk I found for $40 at a thrift store, and we built shelving underneath. The faucet a nice employee at Lowe's gave to us for $5, as it was a display faucet they no longer needed.
The 'burners' are furniture grip pads glued to a board spray painted silver. The sink basin is a mixing bowl.

I had a ton of fun leading the barn tours this year as well. We had 585 kids come through. We walked them in groups of two classes from station to station, then through the barns to look at the cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits, peacocks, turkeys, horses, etc. It was such a great experience, but also a very eye -opening experience. When we asked where they thought beef came from, they said the store., or  they thought people 'grew' it.  "A man grows it an' puts it in a truck an' takes it to the store," one boy explained confidently.

   I guess, in the five years I've lived in the country, I've become used to learning exactly where my food comes from. I know where the animals live, what they eat, and  where the plants grow. Not to say I'm an expert at country life; I can barely ride a horse. :)
Still, I've come to think of myself as a country girl, and I'm proud of that!

Easy DIY Paper Flower tutorial

Have you always wanted to try your hand at paper flowers, but don't have everything you need? Here's how to make a super easy flower! It take about 30 min to make a large one. This link is what I used to make them, but I put my own spin on the flowers by making them pointy-er(if that's even a word!) at the edges.
You will need:

•  Six sheets of construction paper 
• Hot glue gun 
• Scissors

1. Fold one sheet of  paper into a triangle and trim excess paper to make a square. Unfold.
2. Fold the bottom corner to the top. This will make a triangle.
3. Fold both corners of the triangle up into the middle corner to make a diamond. (or a square, depending on how you look at it)
4. Fold those same points down. The folded edge will line up exactly on top of the outside edge of the square. if you don't do it exact, your flower will look a little less delicate and more abstract, which is kinda cool as well.
5.  This next part is a little tricky. Open those points by running your finger through the inside and then flatten them.
6. Fold the top triangles towards you so they are level with the edges of the paper.
7. Hot glue the edges together and fluff them out, and you have a petal! Repeat this six times, and hot glue the petals together as you go for an awesome flower!

4-H Roundup and Fashion Show

This Saturday was the 4-H  Fashion Show, Roundup(a speech contest) and a Window Wow and storyboard contest. Now, you're probably going "What on earth is Window Wow?!" It's a super fun competition in which teams of 4 people have 1hr+ to design a storefront based on a theme. You have an area about the size of a folding table. This year's theme is "Be True to Who You Are. It's a pretty vague theme, but the idea we came up with was to have a 4-H supply store. Our subtitles is "Be True to Who You Are with 4-H. We'll all bringing 4-H "stuff" like show halters and lead ropes to represent livestock showing, green quilt and sewing supplies for clothing and textiles, etc. There's something for nearly every project!  I can't put a pic up now, because we've advanced to district, and we don't want other teams reading our ideas!
I entered my storyboard in the storyboard contest-basically it's a poster board representing your original design theme based on "BE TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE". You use cute scrapbook paper and embellishments to design it.
Next was the Fashion show. I wore my candy striper outfit like I did in the Academic rodeo, but the 4-H show and the Academic rodeo Show are VERY different. With 4-H you are interviewed for 3 minutes, fill out a worksheet on comparison shopping, and then model the garment. With the AR, you just fill out the sheet and then model.
Then was Roundup. I gave a speech on calories, and how they can be consumed in moderation. There were lots of great speeches, and some amazing Share the Fun people!(Share the fun is when you sing, dance, recite a poem, or play an instrument for roundup, along with your speech.)

Church

Today was church, and the high school girls Sunday School teacher, Ms. Sally, made all of the girls (including my 8th grade class!) these adorable bouquets. She also served us breakfast-pigs in a blanket, fruit, and  breakfast burritos. Wasn't that sweet? (I feel compelled to mention that there are no longer any candy hearts, and the tootsie rolls are half-gone. Just saying.) But, really, my church is awesome. Our other teacher,Mrs. H, is so encouraging, and she really makes the Bible come alive. Today, for instance, we did a skit on God's word and patience. It was fun, but it wasn't so silly it took away from the lesson, if you know what I mean. That's one of the things I like about her. Oh, and look at this!

Ms. Sally's friend made them for us! Nice, right?! I love it! Now I leave you with this:

Credit goes to http://img2.etsystatic.com/000/0/6351714/il_fullxfull.342041326.jpg

Quilt Show

Mom really liked this one!

I loved that on this quilt, called" Love,"all the Bible verses  were about love!

The rose looks real!

I had to find an owl on a quilt for the scavenger hunt!

This was so cute! A perfect Easter gift!

This quilt was really whimsical and vibrant.

All the designs are made of quilt blocks!

I liked this one a lot.

We went to a quilt show at the Cain Center, and there were all kinds of beautiful quilts. Christopher, Andrew, and I got to participate in a quilt scavenger hunt, and had a great time finding all the items!  Some of the quilts were huge, and it was hard to find items for the scavenger hunt on them. We eventually finished the hunt and won some cute stencils.  While we were there, we got to see a quilting machine that quilts large, intricate designs very quickly. There were also raffles for quilted/quilting items like a quilted sewing bag or a quilt.We also ran into several people we knew! I had such a hard time picking my favorite quilt. I couldn't decide between all the rows of quilts, because some of the designers made their work look just like a photo, and others made the designs look like they were about to pop off the quilt, and I loved both methods!! It was amazing to see all the work that went into these quilts. The people who made them must be very talented- some even said it was their first time quilting!!

Project & Livestock Show!

We've been really busy making projects and showing broilers, Bantams,quail, Buff Orpingtons (a type of chickens), and goats.

Some of the projects I made were:

Clipboards

Me auctioning my baby blanket I made

I made these cupcakes, but someone ate some of them...

Oat pan rolls.


I really like making projects for the project show. It's one of my favorite events of the  4-H year!  You can make just about anything. I like making new friends and learning new things.

 Pictures from the Livestock Show:

You have to have 3 people to hold your broilers in the ring, and these really nice girls offered to help!

Feeding my goat, Hearts.

Blowing Hearts off after trimming him.

In the show ring.

 Since this was my first year showing a goat, I only got sixth place, but I'm going to try even harder next year! I also got 5th place with my Buff Orpington Hen. It was a little sad selling Hearts because: 1. He didn't make the auction and 2., I'll miss him, but I got over it pretty quickly and am looking forward to showing goats,rabbits, and chickens next year!

Decorative Clipboard Tutorial! (It's easy, I promise!)

Everything you'll need..

I've been making decorative clipboards, and they turned out sooo cute! I was inspired by a clipboard I got a few years ago from my Grandmama. Anyways, I thought I'd show you how to make some...




        What You Need!
Mod Podge
A sponge paintbrush
A clipboard, of course!
Scissors
Pretty ribbons (in coordinating colors and various textures/sizes)
2 sheets of pretty paper.
Paint marker(optional, but I highly recommend using one for a finished look)

1. Take clipboard and apply Mod Podge to it with a  paintbrush. Don't use too much!!
2. Trim paper to fit and lay on top of wet Mod Podge, leaving a boarder of plain clipboard showing. Let it dry for a few minutes.
3. Repeat steps 1-2 on back of clipboard. Paint both sides again with Mod Podge. Let he clipboard dry!
4. Take paint marker and use it to color the border you made in step 3. I suggest using a silver Elmer's paint marker because it looks great and is easy to find.
5. Gather all your ribbons and cut them in the sizes you want. Tie them to the clip on the clipboard with a simple knot.

Enjoy your fabulous "new" clipboard!

P.S: Sorry I haven't posted in forever-we're sooo busy with the Livestock Show. Posts about that coming soon!

P.P.S : Let me know if you made the clipboard-I'd love to see pictures!

Facebook Costume

For Halloween I was Facebook. Yes, Facebook. You can find how to make one like mine at :http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/face-book-1024870/ . I made mine with help from Dad and wore it to 4 Halloween parties!:-). Basically, we cut a cereal box like a book, wrapped it in wrapping paper,then accordion-folded paper to look like pages and glued it to that. Then we glued a big sheet of paper on top and cut a hole for my head. You're supposed to attach a hat to it, etc., but we punched holes in the top and attached a stretchy headband to it. My middle brother was a scarecrow and my littlest brother wore his train engineer outfit. No scary costumes for us!I liked making my costume better than buying it because I could decide what colors to use and adjust it to size.

What I did for the Project Show

                Well, now that the Project Show is over, maybe you'd ike to see some of the things I did for it!
  Exhibit A you've already seen, if you read this blog. It is a Origami collection. The other things I did were: a Cork Board ,an apron, a picture of a daffodil (that's with that poem I posted earlier)  picture of a butterfly, Key lime pie, cookies(see Little pink cookies post for pics), a turtle cheesecake, and a piggy cake.