Celebrate 365: Father's Day Edition

Welcome to a new round of Blog Parties celebrating a wide range of festivities throughout the year.  Along with Jan of Tip Garden and Val of Corn, Beans, Pigs and Kids, Carlee of Cooking with Carlee we will be sharing a new Blog Party called Celebrate 365!

To start off the new party, we are celebrating Father's Day.  Share your gift ideas, favorite recipes or DIY's to do with Father's Day.  We have started wheat harvest and I need all the easy ideas you can throw at me!

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April Country Fair Blog Party

It's no Foolin' that we are ready for a new version of the Country Fair Blog Party today!  We are getting ready to plant corn, wrapping up calving, and are finished burning pastures.  March and the beginning of April are always so crazy busy around our house.

If you are a new reader of the blog party, it is a great place to find some new recipes, DIY projects and even some garden tips.

Here are my favorite posts from the March blog party:

Easy Beef Quesadillas from Farm Fit Living

Homemade Oreos from Midwestern at Heart

Make this Wine Cork Wreath from Purple Front Door

.

And a extra Champion this month!

Laura Unearthed compares Living in Full House to Living in a Farm House

 

I can't wait to see what great recipes, projects, farm stories and more are linked up this month.  Don't forget to follow each of my beautiful co-hosts as you link up 1-3 posts this month.

Please add this button to your side bar or your post, so every one know that you are linking up to our party.

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If you have been featured as one of our champions, we now have a purple ribbon for you to proudly display on your champion post.

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Please be kind and follow your hosts for this party:

Corn, Beans, Pigs and Kids

TIP Garden

Country Linked

A Kansas Farm Mom

An InLinkz Link-up

March Country Fair Blog Party

Welcome to the Country Fair Blog Party!  A place where blogger can link up to three of their blog posts and share with others.  I just love the new recipes I find each month on the party as well as the DIY projects and some new farming knowledge from farmers of different kinds.  Calving season in rolling along here and starting to slow down quite a bit.  It has had some highs like the bull born to Princess and the lows like last Monday, but all in all it has been a pretty good calving season so far.

There were several great posts in the February party and it was hard to pick my favorites, but I finally narrowed it down to three:

Confessions of a Rookie Farm Wife

OH MY, #1, #8, #16 and Definitely #19 are absolutely true in this household!

 

 Easy Hamballs

I so need to try to make Hamballs.  They sound so good, but I guess I am going to have to travel to the North country to find a meat counter that carries Ham Loaf as that is not a staple in Kansas Meat Counters.  Oh well!  Roadtrip!

10 Healthy Recipes

These recipes looks amazing and there is even a roast recipe I haven't tried!  (Did you hear my family groan as I typed that, because they are kind of tired of my #ProjectPotRoast, but they will live.)

I can't wait to see what great recipes, projects, farm stories and more are linked up this month.  Don't forget to follow each of my beautiful co-hosts as you link up 1-3 posts this month.

Please add this button to your side bar or your post, so every one know you are linking up to our party.

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If you have been featured as one of our champions, we now have a purple ribbon for you to proudly display on your champion post.

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Please be kind and follow your hosts for this party:

Corn, Beans, Pigs and Kids

TIP Garden

Country Linked

A Kansas Farm Mom

An InLinkz Link-up

May Country Fair Blog Party

Welcome back to this month's edition of the Country Fair Blog Party!  I am always so excited to see who stops by to link up and new faces get me really excited!  May is a month of celebrations around our house.  Graduation Celebrations.  Celebrating the wheat is almost ready to harvest.  School is out celebrations.  Celebrating that the corn is up and growing.  Calving is finished celebrating, too.

Here are some of my favorite posts from last month's party:

I have to say that I love the unfiltered honesty of this post from Positive Inspired Living.  We are who we are and not who others think we are or should be.

The Heath Revolution that is described by A Return to Simplicity is one that I could really get into and I think you might like it, too.

 

Those of you that have followed me very long know that I can't pass up a good recipe and this month I picked 2!

Roadside Potatoes from My Barnyard View and Blueberry Rum Punch from Little Blog on the Homestead.

If you are ready to get your hands dirty in the garden, Grow a Good Life has a great plan to grow salsa and even has the recipe to use when your produce is ready later this summer!   Fresh salsa is one thing I absolutely love all summer long.

 

Share some of your celebrations with us and be sure to share the party with your friends.  Link up 1-3 of your blog posts, be sure to link back to us and please be kind to your fellow party goers and visit a few of them.  While you are visiting, be sure to leave a comment or 2 and let them know you found them at our party.

Your Party Hosts are:
Corn, Beans, Pigs and Kids
This Unchartered Rhoade
TIP Garden
Country Linked 
A Kansas Farm Mom

An InLinkz Link-up

Making Personalized Gifts

I joined the Christmas in the Country Gift Exchange again this year which I shared earlier, but I wanted to show you how to make your own Glass Etched items for gifts this year.  Here is the mug that I got from Jent of From My Front Porch.

What I didn't tell you in my post about her gift was that I made etched glasses for my recipient, too!  I told Jent that great minds think alike.  Here is how I made mine.

 

Start with a smooth glass.  Believe it or not, some of the dollar stores have a great selection of glasses that can be used.  I found mine at Dollar Tree for just a buck!

You will have to make a sticker of the outline you want.  I made mine using the vinyl cutter at the Fab Lab ICC.  I think Jent used contact paper and an exacto knife to cut hers out (I have done this and it is tedious work.  If you have a Cricut Explore, like my friend Melinda, it would work great to cut out your picture as well.  Apply the sticker to your glass.  If you have a tapered glass like mine, you will have to cut a corner, so there are no air bubbles under your sticker.  I did use some painters tape to protect my glass as I made my stickers pretty close together.

The glass etching.  

I have used this bottle of Glass Etching Cream for several years and lots of projects.  If you are doing small projects like glasses, it will last you a long time.  I found it at Hobby Lobby.

It is hard to get a picture of this, but apply the cream pretty heavy with a brush.  I also wear gloves and make sure everything is covered.  The cream is a pretty strong acid, so please be careful.  Now, you wait 5 minutes for the cream to do its etching magic.  You can also use an abrasive blaster to do this, but for at home use the cream is much more readily available unless your Fab Lab has a blaster.

Hold the glass under running water to remove the etching cream.  I use the mudroom sink and I make sure I use LOTS of water. While the image is wet, it is hard to see how well it is etched...

But when it is dry, you can see your image wonderfully.  If you don't get a piece as etched as you want, you can always reapply the cream and try again.

 

I took the inside of the stickers from all the glasses I made for Christmas and made Christmas ornaments, so they got a 2 for 1 gift.  This is the tractor ornament I made for Brandi of Lipstick and Tractors.  My youngest liked the glasses so much that I had to make him some of his own.

The cow ornaments for our tree that my oldest absolutely adored.

 

Here is my word of caution for you.  I made these for one of the trucking firms that busted their rear ends for us during harvest.  If it had not been for them, we might have still been harvesting at Christmas.  When I thought I could cut out their logo (it is a husband and wife that drive the trucks), I wasn't thinking about every little letter I was going to have to punch out after it was cut.  I also didn't have a really good picture, so making the cutting lines was pretty intense as well.  They didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, but I think they liked them just the same.

These glasses where square sided and MUCH easier to apply the stickers to instead of the tapered glasses.

Do you have a family member with a unique name?  We have used contact paper and scrapbooking stickers to make one of a kind gifts for cousins with unique names.  They were loved by all of them boys and girls alike who can never find personalized items in the store.

What else should I try to make?  Have you ever made etched glass items?  What would you make next?

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Holiday Gift ideas

Around our house we love to make homemade gifts especially for the grandparents, aunts and uncles.  My oldest son is quite good at polishing stones and making them into jewelry and my youngest loves making barn quilts.  I suppose I should do a blog post on how they do it if anyone is interested.

I do have a wreath to give away as a gift and it continues to rain this week, I think I will be making more in my time hibernating in the house.

 

I absolutely loved this idea from my Country Fair Blog Party co-host Jan.  I never would have thought of writing a poem about my years as a child growing up in Kansas.  I love that the site even has a template for you to follow with suggestions.  I may have to get my boys to look at this.

Food and Swine linked up to the November Country Fair Blog Party and I love the idea of Kettle Corn.  My boys are addicted to Kettle Corn.  I have tried several times to make my own, but haven't perfected it quite yet.  I think it looks too cute in a Mason jar for a gift, or maybe that is her adorable son holding it that makes it look cute.

I have seen the Sharpie mug and plate tutorials ever since I joined Pinterest, but have never been brave enough to try them.  This maybe the year.  Jamie from this Unchartered Rhoade linked up her tutorial on the November party as well.

Jamie also has a post of ideas if you are still looking for something for your hard to buy for farmer. You can also check out my Farmer Gift Guide, Farm Mom Gift Guide,and Farm Boy Gift Guide. 

If you are looking for things to entertain the kids when they get out of school, you might want to check out my post Recycled Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make.

Are you finished with your Christmas Shopping?  Are you like me and still have a few projects left to finish and a couple of people you have no idea what to get them?

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Country Fair Blog Party #12

Welcome to our weekly edition of the Country Fair Blog Party!  It’s a place for bloggers to share their finest each week whether they live in the city, country, or somewhere in between.  It’s a place to brag a little about what you have been doing.

Now on to the Blog Party!  Just like a local county fair we name Grand Champions each week in 3 divisions: Food, DIY Projects, and Agriculture.  You can find the champions from previous blog parties on my Pinterest boards Ag, Food, and DIY.

Here are the Grand Champions from Country Fair Blog Party #11.

FOOD

Turkey Spaghetti Pie

from My Other Exciting Life

 

 

AGRICULTURE 

5 Lessons in Cowboy Jargon

 by The Idaho Rancher's Wife

 

DIY

Where to put your Vegetable Garden

from Corn, Beans, Pigs and Kids

Feel free to join in the fun and link up with up to 3 posts!  Click through the links and find some new friends and leave us a comment to tell us what your favorite post is.

Kelly who writes the blog Old Blue Silo and does some graphic design work is one such person.  She designed some super buttons for the blog party that you can "grab."  Please add this button to your side bar or your post, so every one know you are linking up to our party.

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If you have been featured as one of our champions, we now have a purple ribbon for you to proudly display on your champion post.

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<a href="http://talesofakansasfarmmom.blogspot.com/" title="Country Fair Blog Part"><img src="http://i896.photobucket.com/albums/ac168/coppertop1985/countyfair_ribbon_zpsd1937d63.png" alt="Country Fair Blog Part" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Please be kind and follow your hosts for this party:

Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

+taysha reitzel  of Dirt Road Charm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

+Danielle Beard of High Heels and Shotgun Shells on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

+Laurie Link of Country Linked on Facebook, Pinterest  
+Krista Stauffer The Farmers Wifee  of The Farmer's Wiffee on Facebook, Twitter

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