A Home for Sycamore Hill

Two months ago we closed on our first house! We were on break from school at the time, which was a huge blessing. After getting moved and settling in a little (digging ourselves out of boxes!) it was Christmas and then time to start a new school year. And all the while I've neglected my poor blog!

It's not much, but it's OURS!

But I'm back now! And I'm going to show you our new school room set up in the basement. It's ah-MAY-zing to have a dedicated school space! Being able to just run upstairs for lunch and return to our open books and half-finished papers is a huge blessing. Not to mention the fantastic built-in storage. It's homeschooler heaven! (Well, maybe not. That would probably be a house with far more square footage on an acreage, but...I'm content!)

We are no longer in a small town, but smack-dab in the city. This is mostly good, but has a few draw-backs. Everything is so much more accessible and yet we are saving beaucoup bucks on gas since Hubby cut his commute from 45 miles per day to 45 miles per week. But we're a lot further from "nature" and will miss our many woodland visitors. Though we've been quite excited by the squirrel population and visiting winter birds.

I've been taking lots of pictures and am putting together a virtual tour of our homeschool space, so stay tuned!

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Fall SWAP progress

I finally have some progress to report on my Ottobre SWAP. There are actually six garments finished, but I only have pictures of four of them so far. You can see that the brown Maya blouse is lacking buttons. I didn't have anything suitable in my stash, so I'll "have" to go find some at JoAnn's. I'm thinking something to match the medium pink in the trim, but we'll see. I almost never buy buttons...I usually always make do with what I have on hand. The cream Maya blouse is made of a vintage pillowcase I picked up at Goodwill a while back ($0.50). It carries that oh-so-fresh smell that I love on my pillows and is super soft. I have a bit left that I'm going to hoard until just the right project comes up. I'm delighted with how dressy the little skirt came out! It's made of chocolate brown stretch velvet. Miss M thought it was great fun to pet it like a kitten. Modeled by the lovely Miss M...and just before naptime (what was I thi...

Cocoa Krispie Sod House: a model you can eat

Ahh! I just realized I haven't blogged our Adventures in U.S. History since Week 26!! What happened?! We've just been plugging away contentedly at our work and are nearing the end of our school year. So, while I go get myself sorted and whip up the rest of our weekly reviews for you, I thought you might like to see our latest project. A Cocoa Krispie Sod House Ingredients: 6 tablespoons butter 6 cups miniature marshmallows 9 cups cocoa krispies 3/4 cup fancy shredded coconut ("fancy" looks more like grass, but any shredded coconut will work) green food coloring extra butter or cooking spray Also needed: large sauce pan (or large microwave safe bowl) wooden spoon jelly roll pan or cookie sheet waxed paper small glass bowl fork knife clean scrap of cardboard popsicle sticks kitchen shears Directions: Melt butter in a large sauce pan over low heat. Don't let the butter brown! When melted, add in the marshmallows and s...

12-gore denim skirt

The other evening I drafted a pattern for a 12-gore skirt following the instructions found here . The next day I cut gores from worn out pairs of jeans! Now I have a gorgeous denim gored skirt. I used 1 1/2-inch wide elastic in the waist and designed it to sit on my hips rather than my true waist. I’m so short waisted that if I wore bottoms at my actual waist…well, it wouldn’t be pretty! I plan to reuse some of the original belt loops so I can wear a belt with it…let’s just say that a toddler and an elastic-waist skirt are a recipe for disaster! You can see a few places where I removed pockets before cutting my gores – adds character, don’t you think? And a skirt without a pocket is simply ill-conceived, so I reused a pocket from one of Hubby’s pairs of jeans. Now I can carry my cell phone when I run errands!

CHRISTEPHI

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