~ Homemade Room Freshener: A Tutorial ~

Isn't it just lovely when you walk into a room, and it smells fresh and fragrant? We've been having SO much fun putting together all sorts of delicious scents for our home.

Today we decided to make a homemade Vanilla Fragrance~


What you'll need:

1 Pretty spray bottle
Cold Water
2 TB.Vanilla Extract
A lovely tag with your scent labeled on the front.
String or twine to attach the label to the bottle

Pour Vanilla extract into spray bottle and fill up the bottle with cold water almost to the top. Attach the label, shake well, and lightly mist around your rooms!

Store in a cool dark place. If kept in direct sunlight the fragrance will lose its scent...A nightstand drawer or closet is perfect for easy access.





Other Inspirational fragrance ideas~

Try the above recipe with different extracts such as peppermint, lemon, cinnamon, lavender, and orange.
Peppermint and lemon are refreshing, cinnamon and orange gives you that, "fresh out of the oven" smell, and lavender and vanilla are very relaxing before bedtime!

You can find these extracts at most natural health food stores, or at ~  http://www.frontiercoop.com/

So mix and match and make your home smell fresh and delicious!   Let us know which one you make first!

~~Elizabeth

{ Etsy Sale! }

Our good friends at Country Hearts At Home are having an amazing sale in their Etsy Shop!

Go check it out! My favorite items are the Tea Cup and Coffee Cup Pincushions!  What a neat idea!!!

What is your favorite item in their shop?

Happy Thursday!

~~Laura Elizabeth

A House Made Of Gingerbread

For the second year in a row, we have made a gingerbread house with a friend!  

This year, our wonderful neighbor Renee came over to help out....

We started working on the dough right before lunch, at lunch, put the dough in the oven, took the dough out of the oven, and let it cool.....end of story!  We were talking and laughing so hard during the "rollin out" process, that we ran out of time to decorate!  :D  

Well, we never could find a time to have her back over, so Lizzy and I finished it up.

We decided to make a log gingerbread house -- like our new house here in TN!  Though the scaling isn't correct, and our field here isn't that small, we think it represents our little farm pretty nicely!  haha

Our "puddle" of a pond .....the candies that we melted stuck to the pans and made a sticky mess!

Our "not so healthy" garden!

We really enjoyed making this candy house!

Renee:  we will have to give it another try next year.....and start in the morning next time!  :D

~~Laura

Candles part 2

Candles part 1

Don't know what yall think, but around here NOTHING smells better than 100% pure beeswax! MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

I love the sweet honey-like smell that our hand-dipped beeswax candles make.
Here is part 1 of our journey of candle dipping..........

We started with 6 huge blocks (that equaled 17.2 pounds) of pure beeswax..........

Yes we did make a HUGE mess chopping these big blocks into smaller pieces! ;-)

As our harp teacher would tell you, I had several big blisters from scrubbing our "waxed" floor after it had a big layer of wax on it! Ouch!
We found this old pan and wonderful cast-iron skillet at goodwill-- love that store!!


Elizabeth had a wonderful time taping down a ton of paper that turned out to be of no use to our tile floor.......... but it saved all of our counter tops!!! ;-)


Our dad gave us these "weights" from his tool box and we tied cotton wicking to them. Now we are all ready to dip!



P.S. We have this old bar attachment to our riding lawn mower that we don't use -- yep!, you guessed it -- perfect place to hang our candles to cool! ;-)

~~Laura

Websites

Boy has this been a busy year so far!  Farmers' markets, sewing, websites, photography classes, baking, knitting, harp lessons, music recitals, guitar playing, candle dipping, soap making, birthday's...... we have done it all!  whew!  So many things to post about!  

Well, to start off I would like to mention that www.barefootseamstress.com is getting a makeover!  Elizabeth and I are making new additions faster than I can get pictures of them and then uploaded them on the site.  We are adding - funky, retro aprons, organic baby items including burpies, booties, hats and blankets, tea cozies, hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps, wonderful smelling lavender products, hand knit dishcloths, spa sets, and a bunch more that I can't think of at the moment!  ;-) 

A new addition to my list of "things that I love to do" is a photography business!  Yes www.imagesbylauraelizabeth.com is under construction!  Finally!!  :-)

Well, I will be posting our candle-dipping pictures as well as everything else that we have been up to very soon, so keep an eye out!

~~Laura

Finally Finished

"She looks for wool and flax, and works with her hands in delight."
Proverbs 31:13

It really was a delight to finish this. I love the way it turned out. I gave this as a wedding shower gift to our Pastor's daughter. I really wanted to give this to her and make sure that it was finished on time, so I worked at it until the wee hours the night before the shower, and Muddy raced off to get it framed the day of the shower. Whew!!! Muddy was given that task because Elizabeth and I were busy in the kitchen making 400 rosemary cheddar muffins, stuffed mushrooms and vegetarian sushi rolls for the buffet at the shower. :-0

It was a beautiful shower, and one we'll always remember.

~~ Laura

Picnic Roll

Here is a new addition to our farmers market goodies. It's a picnic roll that we will be selling with cute blue handled utensils. I'll have these in different fabrics including a fun retro style we picked up in Santa Fe. I am also starting on some Christmas stockings that I will post later.

~~Laura

Window Treatment Ideas

Here's some fun window treatment ideas.
They are very inexpensive and use unique materials.
~~Laura

The first one is in our laundry room. I spend sooooo much time in there, it's like my second bedroom~~Elizabeth and I are the home laundresses.



Muddy bought a black curtain rod and hung a table runner on it's side from clips. She found this table runner on sale at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. Since she likes to decorate with roosters, she knew she could find a place for it.

This next one is the door that leads from the breakfast room to the backyard.

Muddy had seen a picture in a French Country decorating book that used a piano scarf as a window treatment. She found this shawl in a tea section of an antique store (the shawl was new). When she brought it home, we thought we were going to use it for dress up, but she had another idea. It is held up with brass head pins.

My Favorite Puzzle

We fell in love with this puzzle and I am going to try to frame it. It is an older sister playing the piano, the younger sister playing with her doll, and their Bichon Frise. This couldn't match Elizabeth and I (and Bingley our Bichon) more closely.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss spoke at our Bible Study this spring and mentioned how she loves putting puzzles together. Afterward she told me how to frame them. I have a couple completed and couldn't bare to take them apart. Now I have the perfect solution! ~Laura