A sneak peek

Well girls, after that last post I thought I would move on to something more cheery.  I'm sorry but I just can't sit and do nothing about such sick injustice when I do have a voice.

Anyway, I bought this sturdy, wooden tray at a yard sale this past summer.  Do any of you ever have a hard time sanding down and painting over something that someone so lovingly created years ago?  It's so hard for me to do.  Even though I grew up with blue ducks all over the dining room and kitchen, I'm still not particularly fond of them.  My mom would probably like this though, hehe.

So I sanded it down and painted a base coat of Blue Mist.  Then I topped it with two coats of Battleship Gray.

After some sanding and ebony Briwax, this is what I ended up with...

Do you like it?  I hope so because it's part of my one year blog anniversary giveaway.

So if you don't like it, then don't come back next week hopefully on Monday when I announce my giveaway.  =]

No, my Amish dolls are NOT included (or the other things pictured), hehe.  But here is a sneak peek of some things that will be included...

Do you see a theme yet?  I thought it would be fun to have a Winter Blues giveaway since so many people are ready for spring to show up. I am enjoying winter.  But if you have the winter blues or grays, then this giveaway might be for you.

I wish for you a fantastic weekend.  Whether it be sunshine or snow, enjoy it while you can.  Stay safe and warm my friends~

How very sad

I came across this from another blogger last night and I'll be honest, I was outraged,  shocked, so angry.  An Etsy artist who goes by the name of "You Stupid B%#@&" is causing quite a stir.  The following text is from the petition for Etsy that I signed, along with adding it to both of my facebook accounts and twitter.  Please scroll down to the link, click on it, and add your name to the petition.  It takes less than a minute.  There have already been over 1,000 people sign it since I did last night.

"Congratulations. You Got Bad Touched."

That's the message printed on cards currently for sale on your website by the user "youstupidbitch." That card is offensive, demeaning, and potentially traumatizing to survivors of sexual assault. The same user also sells cards that mock breast cancer patients and mothers of special needs children. All must be removed from your website immediately.

The first card in question feautres a drawing of a naked sexual assault victim curled up on the floor of a shower stall, "printed on heavy duty white cardstock" complete with "red accents and matching envelope." Can you imagine if someone sent that to an actual rape victim? The cards for breast cancer and Down Syndrome are no better. 

Your official Terms of Use state that you "has no control over the quality, safety, morality or legality of any aspect of the items listed." However, in the list of prohibited items, Etsy says that it does not allow items that harass others or that are deemed obscene. I think a strong case can be made that this card fits both categories.

Etsy may not have a legal obligation to remove the cards in question from its site, but it does have, in my opinion, a moral imperative. Does your company really want to be known as the go-to website for cards that harass, offend, and traumatize survivors of sexual assault, breast cancer patients, and parents of children with Down Syndrome? Do you want to open the doors for sellers like youstupidbitch to peddle the wares unimpeded? I hope not. 

Please remove this card from their website and send a message that this type of product is unwelcome on your website.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_etsy_to_remove_rape_congratulations_cards_from_website

It even made it to CNN.  Here is the link to the video:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/01/07/jvm.greeting.cards.hln

Yes, I was outraged, so angry but now that I've had time to settle down, think about this, and pray... I have decided to leave you with the information and let you do as you please.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5  For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

How very sad

I came across this from another blogger last night and I'll be honest, I was outraged,  shocked, so angry.  An Etsy artist who goes by the name of "You Stupid B%#@&" is causing quite a stir.  The following text is from the petition for Etsy that I signed, along with adding it to both of my facebook accounts and twitter.  Please scroll down to the link, click on it, and add your name to the petition.  It takes less than a minute.  There have already been over 1,000 people sign it since I did last night.

"Congratulations. You Got Bad Touched."

That's the message printed on cards currently for sale on your website by the user "youstupidbitch." That card is offensive, demeaning, and potentially traumatizing to survivors of sexual assault. The same user also sells cards that mock breast cancer patients and mothers of special needs children. All must be removed from your website immediately.

The first card in question feautres a drawing of a naked sexual assault victim curled up on the floor of a shower stall, "printed on heavy duty white cardstock" complete with "red accents and matching envelope." Can you imagine if someone sent that to an actual rape victim? The cards for breast cancer and Down Syndrome are no better. 

Your official Terms of Use state that you "has no control over the quality, safety, morality or legality of any aspect of the items listed." However, in the list of prohibited items, Etsy says that it does not allow items that harass others or that are deemed obscene. I think a strong case can be made that this card fits both categories.

Etsy may not have a legal obligation to remove the cards in question from its site, but it does have, in my opinion, a moral imperative. Does your company really want to be known as the go-to website for cards that harass, offend, and traumatize survivors of sexual assault, breast cancer patients, and parents of children with Down Syndrome? Do you want to open the doors for sellers like youstupidbitch to peddle the wares unimpeded? I hope not. 

Please remove this card from their website and send a message that this type of product is unwelcome on your website.


http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_etsy_to_remove_rape_congratulations_cards_from_website

It even made it to CNN.  Here is the link to the video: http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/01/07/jvm.greeting.cards.hln

Yes, I was outraged, so angry but now that I've had time to settle down, think about this, and pray... I have decided to leave you with the information and let you do as you please.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5  For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Our first snow... finally!

My favorite thing in my home is not an antique or an heirloom or even a piece of furniture, it is this...

Although, it is flanked by family pieces.  The fireplace tool set belongs to my husband's 97 year old grandma and she has had it as long as he's been alive so it is at least 44 years old.  When I was visiting my parents on Christmas Eve, my mom was showing me some new decorating she had done in the basement... this is the large family room where we have all family gatherings and it is a wonderful and homey place!  Back in one of the corners I spotted the old coal bucket that we used in our old house when I was growing up.  Since she wasn't using it, she let me have it.  =]  Funny sidenote: after the little shopping trip that day with my mom, my husband was putting something in the suburban and was asking where all we had been, he thought we were antiquing and I bought that.  I said "Shh!  Be quiet!  It came from the basement and don't let my sisters know!"  There are four of us girls and mom won't let us have any family heirlooms because she's afraid to make one of us mad.  So I had to sneak it out of there before one of my sisters saw it.  Hehe!

I adore my fireplace and use it every single day of the winter.  I feel that I am very blessed to be living in the Central US in Oklahoma where we have the privilege of experiencing all four seasons.  You won't hear me complaining about the weather at any time because I am thankful God gives us such a variety and I'm grateful for it all.

The kids are super excited about the snow finally coming!  I know some of you are tired of it already because you've had several feet of it for several months but this is our first snowfall this winter which is really odd for us.  We always have a white Christmas and didn't this year.  Five year old Robbie thinks it's Christmas now because it's snowing.  Don't you just love their innocence?  It is so adorable.  He's a little upset that it's not Christmas after all.  Okay, it's barely snowing but you can see the gazebo roof is covered.

As I'm sitting inside where it's nice and warm, I'm enjoying looking beyond my red door at the beauty of the snowfall.

I hope you all are able to enjoy the beauty as well.  Please be safe and stay warm wherever you are!  We are patiently waiting (well, some of us are) for the brownies to come out of the oven.  My boys and I like to add butter to our brownies as soon as they come out of the oven.  Mmmm so delicious when it melts down into the chocolate!  Now I know, I didn't say anything about healthy but you should splurge every once in awhile.  =]

Have a delightful week~

Cookie Christmas Tree

Since the kids were out of school for the week before Christmas, I knew this project would be a fun one for all of us instead of a headache just for me.

Robbie rolling out the dough

We have a cookie tree kit that came with ten different sizes of stars.  You cut out 2 of each size.  Let me tell you , those big stars are hard to come up in one piece.  Well actually, they didn't haha!  We had to piece them back together on the baking sheet.  But they healed beautifully in the oven .

I normally use buttercream icing on this but I really love the powdered sugar icing for sugar cookies so we went with that instead and I'm so glad, it was delicious!  Start with the biggest cookie, ice it, set it on the platter with a dollop of icing under it to keep it from sliding.  I use a cake board covered in Christmas tissue paper.  

Next is the other star the same size.  Ice it and set it where it lays with its points between the points of the other star.  Follow this pattern all the way to the smallest star.  Save one of the smallest stars for the tree-top star.  This icing hardens faster than the buttercream icing so we had to put sprinkles on it as we went up.  Rich said the guys from work loved it and was even taking pictures of it.  One of them even texted me to thank me and said it was beautiful and tasted great.

Amariah self appointed herself as the photographer.  She had to see how many neat angles of the cookie tree she could get.  

I really like this angle a lot.  It makes the cookies look so thick but airy and oh so delicious!

We had a most wonderful Christmas surrounded by lots of love, family, and laughter.  I'll leave you with this picture of Rich's grandma Soudry and little Robbie.  Frances is a 97 year old full blooded Italian that came to the US from Italy many years ago.  She is definitely a feisty one, but also a real sweetheart.

I'm grateful that my family was able to celebrate the birth of Jesus together.  I'm so glad that God brought us all together and allows us to have great relationships... where we look forward to spending time together... where we can laugh at ourselves yet still feel good about ourselves... where we feel like we belong... because we do.

Christmas baking

Christmas baking... probably my favorite thing about Christmas.  This year the kids and I spent three weeks making sweet memories... and lots to satisfy our sweet tooth!  =]  Snickerdoodles and very easy to make chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips.

Easy Butterscotch Chip Chocolate Cookies

1 box (18.25 oz) chocolate cake mix

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 cups (12 oz pkg) butterscotch flavored morsels

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Combine cake mix, oil, and eggs in large bowl.  Stir in morsels and pecans.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until centers are just set.  Let stand for 2 minutes, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

I love that recipe, it's so easy to do.  We are peanut butter lovers here so we use pb instead of butterscotch and leave out the nuts.  They really are delicious!

Amariah's favorite to make (and eat) are the chocolate stars.

Again, so easy to make.  Melt one bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and a tub of chocolate frosting in the microwave.  Let it cool slightly.  Put it in a decorator (we love Pampered Chef's Easy Accent Decorator just for this recipe) and squeeze out your design.  Put them in the freezer for a few hours to set.  YUM!

Then Amariah got the smart idea to add recipe cards to the goodies.  I don't think she thought that one through too well... she had to write out one for each of her 6 teacher's bowls.  We decided just two of the recipes would be enough, haha.  In the end, they made cute little gifts.

Robbie has three teachers this year.  He's all ready for his school party with his book gift to exchange.  I'm so glad they do a book now instead of a toy.

After we finished all the school teachers' cookies, I made 6 dozen snickerdoodles for our Ladies Christmas party/cookie swap at church.  This year we did it a little different.  Everyone only took home 3 dozen cookies (instead of the normal 6 dozen) and the other 3 dozen were donated to our youth Christmas dinner and children's program.  We didn't want to leave out those who don't like to bake or don't have time for it; they only needed to bring 3 packages of cookies to donate.  It was a wonderful night of great fellowship, food, and cookies!  Also a fun way to serve others in our church!

Next on the list was Rich's co-workers, the kids' Sunday School teachers, and the College/Career class that Rich teaches.  Lastly, cookies for the extended family.  I wish we had counted the number of dozens we made.  I just know dozens of memories were made... that's all that really matters.

The stars are for a special project that I'll be back to show you in the next post.  Brothers working together...

I think they all three did an awesome job!

Ryan, the 15 year old has been a huge help in the kitchen for me this year.  I am training him the ways of cooking and baking so he will be able to do it when he gets out on his own.  He is a very fast learner and is doing a super job already!

Well it's been a lazy New Year's Eve day around the Berry homestead.  So very, very nice for a change!  But I'm not good at just sitting around.  I'm gonna tackle my scrapbook/craft area so some new cabinets can be purchased to get that area workable again.

I'm grateful for the three wonderful kids that God has blessed us with.  I'm thankful that God allows us time together to make some fun childhood memories for them.  I'm excited about what the upcoming year holds for this family.

Wishing you and your family a fun time to end out the year and a refreshed spirit to tackle the upcoming year~

Christmas packages in the mail!

I just wanted to share a couple of packages I received in the mail this week.  I put them under the tree and opened them on Christmas day, hehe.

Debbie over at Goat Creek made this adorable salt dough crow.  What's even neater is that her dear sister friend Holli from Where the Rooster Crows donated from her own pocket $1.00 for every crow bought, to MS research.  Well I couldn't pass up such a cute crow and for a wonderful cause!  He is so cute, thank you Debbie, you did a wonderful job on him!  Thank you also to Holli for having such a sweet and loving heart!

I was beyond thrilled when I learned that I had won Kerri from The Calico Rabbit's Christmas giveaway!  Here is a picture from Kerri's blog of all the wonderful goodies that I won:

It's always so fun to decorate with giveaway winnings, isn't it?  I thought the little pillow fit perfectly in this black wooden tray sitting next to a homemade rolling pin that my Dad made years ago (I treasure this piece!).

These peppermint sticks are the cutest!  I love the vintage tag and homespun that Kerri used on the bag.  They look right at home in this vintage bowl I bought last week at Hobby Lobby for only $3!

This bowl of pine cones, greens, and apples really needed something but I just didn't know what to put with it.  Kerri's gorgeous pillow completes the look!  Kerri, the stitching is perfect and I love the variegated look of the words.  It is truly beautiful!!

I'm so glad this wonderful greenery garland with berries was part of the giveaway.  I never made it outside this year to collect some pine boughs from my pine trees down by the pond.  Our country roads are overflowing with winterberry and I never had time to collect the beautiful berries either so it was wonderful to have some greens in the home!

Also part of Kerri's giveaway was a beautiful red wooden bead garland.  I have been on the lookout for wooden garland and all I can ever find is the plastic stuff so I was glad to get that too!

Thank you girls for your generosity!  Go check out these wonderful girls' blogs, you won't be disappointed.

Well, I've been laid up since Christmas evening.  As I put on my facebook status just a few minutes back "I'm sitting here by the fireplace surrounded by pillows, blanket, toilet paper (to blow my nose, haha, thought I better clear that up), Mentholatum, Mucinex DM, and my laptop.  Even though it really stinks to get sick Christmas evening, I am blessed to be feeling somewhat better already and so very thankful for my wonderful family that cleaned up all the Christmas aftermath for me."

I am truly blessed and had such a wonderful Christmas surrounded by loving family and friends.  I hope you did too. Looking forward to what the new year holds for the Berry homestead.  Much love to you all~

Our busy November & December

Well, as always... I am behind again.  But that's okay.  We are making lots of memories at the Berry household so I'm okay with being behind on my little blog even though I love it so much and love visiting you all!

The November "Dad Initiative" project for Robbie's Pre-K class was to build a barn together.  They sent home some popsicle sticks to use.  I love these projects because for once I get to sit back and watch, hehe.  Rich did a wonderful job with his dad duties, as always!  Out of two boxes, he cut and transformed a shell for Robbie to use.  Robbie colored and glued them all on, all by himself!  I was so proud of how straight and how well he did for a five year old.  I think they are both pretty proud of their barn...

Another project that was made at school was butter.  Yep, butter.  Don't know how or why, but they made butter.  Here's a picture of Robbie holding his butter... looks like he's thinking the same thing.  Lol!

We always enjoy our little town's Christmas parade.  The Shriner's never disappoint.

Big guys in little cars is something every parade needs.

You can't have a parade in Catoosa, Oklahoma without The Blue Whale.  Check out the story, it is a sweet one.

Just because I love horse and buggy's...

Amariah's 6th grade basketball team played the other Catoosa 6th grade team in a tournament.  It has to be hard to play against your own friends.  There was some pushing and elbow slinging, but we all loved how they came together at the end to show their true spirit.

Oh such a busy month.  I can't wait to come back and share our baking days with you.  Such precious memories I LOVE to make!

I am grateful for Rich to work so hard to allow me to stay home and raise our kids.  When I was working, even just part time, it took such a toll on me that I was too tired or too stressed trying to get everything else taken care of that I neglected to enjoy these precious moments with my family that make up such sweet memories.

I wish for you and your family a warm and wonderful, Christ filled Christmas~

My snowman tree

Well girls, my snowman tree isn't prim but I love it just the same.  See the painted Amish cheese box under the tree?  That was my Christmas present from my sister last year.  She works at an Amish cheese house and I had been bugging her about a cheese box but she kept ignoring me.  I was getting perturbed with her... then when I opened my present I realized why she was ignoring me.  Her talented daughter-in-law painted the snowman scene on it and I just love it!

I only use blue and rusty ornaments for this tree.  It has snowballs, snowflakes, mittens, and snowmen.

I had a great-uncle that was a big man with a big nose (well, really he did and he would admit it) who always had a deep, jolly laugh that made you laugh when you heard it.  He rightfully earned the nickname "Frosty" and that's what we always called him.  See my "I love Frosty" ornament?

The snowman tree started out as a 4' tree about 8 years ago.  Then it graduated to a 5' tree.  Now it has become a 7' tree.  I'm gonna have to stop buying for it because I don't want to go any bigger, haha!

It's one of my favorite trees and the most fun to decorate.  It's my little tribute to Uncle Frosty who has passed on.

I wish for you and your family a warm and wonderful, Christ filled Christmas~

The Barely There Primitive Bear's Christmas giveaway!

Make your way over to my sweet friend Karen's The Barely There Primitive Bear's blog for a chance to win this wonderful Christmas arrangement in a sifter, it's just so cute!

But hurry!  The giveaway ends Dec. 8th!  This is how sweet my friend Karen is:  She has 216 followers and if she reaches 225, she will draw a second name to win something!  Tell her Angie from Berry Homespun Primitives sent you.  =]

Have a delightful week my prim friends~

Cardinal Tree

Well, it's December 4th and I'm not too far behind, am I?  This fall lovin' girl puts her fall decor out mid to late August and puts it away the beginning of December.  So out came the Christmas totes last night and the cardinal tree got decorated today.  See the little cardinals peeking out?

Cardinals are so beautiful against the stark white snow.  I got the idea for a cardinal tree a few years ago.  During the '08 Christmas season working at Hobby Lobby, someone returned a $393.00 7.5 ft. mixed pine tree with red berries, snowy branches, and pine cones because the lights didn't work.  It was a beautiful tree but I just couldn't afford it.  This tree sat in the box in the stockroom throughout the season and I admired it every single time I walked by it.

My manager let me have it for 80% off, plus my 15% employee discount!  I was so excited!  But the excitement wore off when I got it home and realized I had to use wire cutters on the 1,266 branches to cut off the lights.  Yep, each branch had lights clipped to it.  Whew!  That literally took me over a week!  So last year, the cardinal tree made its debut with new sets of clear lights, shiny glass red balls, matte glass red balls, and cardinal ornaments.  I even found a metal cardinal tree topper.

I won the Thomas Kincade Christmas book from Micki's Make Mine A Country Christmas facebook group.  It's perfect under the tree.  We can cuddle on the floor by the fireplace and read it.

I realized, a little too late... that I didn't share any of my fall decor with you.  It is my very favorite season of all and the most fun for me to play with.  Everything seems to fall into place.  Not so with Christmas, haha!  So here's tree #1.  Four more to go.

I hope you are making delightful memories this time of year with your loved ones~