A Bumblewood Giveaway!

Happy Friday everyone! It's Giveaway day! I'll be having little giveaways like this over the next two months as I gear up for the official Bumblewood launch.

For those who might have missed out on what's going on: I'm completely redoing things around here and will be selling my handmade soaps, lip balms, and other skin care products in addition to my custom knitting and pattern design. The official launch will begin with a Craft Fair here in town on October 12th, and will continue with the reopening of my Etsy store that weekend. I'm so, so excited about this new adventure!

So here's what you could win this time!

A three pack of hand poured lip balm made with skin loving, all natural ingredients and scented with high quality essential oils.

You will be getting one each of the scents/flavors pictured above: Grapefruit, Citrus blend (lemon, sweet orange & grapefruit) and lavender.

Each tube is .15 ounces net weight, and the ingredients include coconut oil, almond oil, shea butter and beeswax.

Here's how it works:
- Get one entry by leaving a comment here on the blog saying you want to enter.
- Get a SECOND entry by liking the Bumblewood Facebook page, and coming back here and leaving a comment telling me you did so. (If you're already a Facebook fan you still get an entry for that! Just let me know that you've already liked it!)

You have until Thursday, August 29th at 12:00 midnight PST to enter (any entries after that won't count, sorry!). The winner will be chosen and announced on Friday the 30th.

Good luck!

Homemade Living: Oatmeal Cookies

Wow. My brain has been so far away from blogging I almost forgot it was Wednesday, let alone my week to post. Between crazy schedules, keeping house, keeping children alive (which has been a challenge this week, just so you know!) and making soap every night of the week, I'm lucky if I remember to put on a shirt in the morning.

Case in point. Yes, that's a picture of a picture from a magazine. Sorry. :/ I was going to make them today and take pictures but I was busy.

These are my favorite oatmeal cookies. They are chewy, but not too soft, and they have that hint of cinnamon that I think all oatmeal cookies should have.

Oatmeal Cookies - Makes about 4 dozen
1 C butter, softened
1 C sugar
1 C packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 C quick cooking oats (I always use old fashioned and they're just fine)

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in the oats.

Shape into 1 1/2 inch balls (or spoon them, if you're lazy like me). Place 2 inches apart on a ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Cool as long as you can before you eat them all...

Now for the fun part of my post. I will be holding the first Bumblewood giveaway this Friday! Stay tuned!

Be sure to go visit Staci at Life At Cobble Hill Farm for her Homemade Living post this week! 

Happy Wednesday,
Meg

Homemade Living - Week 4

It's Homemade Living Wednesday! Today these fine ladies are posting - be sure to give them a visit!

Tammy at Our Neck Of The Woods

Daisy at My Maple Hill Farm

Mary at Homegrown On The Hill

Homemade Living Week 3: Making A Simple Quilt, Part 1

Welcome to Week 3 of the Homemade Living Series, hosted by Staci at Life at Cobble Hill Farm.

This week I'm doing a rough and quick little tutorial on piecing a simple, square block quilt. Now, I'm totally not an expert at this (ok honestly this is my first one, haha), but I figure if I can do it then ANYONE can do it because I am so not good at sewing.

Step one: Cut out your fabric! I chose a simple square design, cutting my fabric into 4 inch squares. Make sure they are square (i.e. the fabric pattern isn't crooked).

Step two: Lay all your pieces out on the table or floor in the way you want it to look. Move some pieces around if they don't quite look right. 

Step three: Working in either rows or columns of your layout, place two of your pieces right sides together. I chose to start from the bottom right of my layout and work my way up to the top of the quilt (so that would be column 1). Then sew them 1/4 inch from the edge. Basting stitch is fine.

Make sure any directional pattern is going in the right direction!

Step four: Keep working your way through your pieces, one block at a time, and one row/column at a time. You will add the third block onto the first two you sewed together, the fourth block onto that chain, the fifth onto the chain, etc. I did each column separately. Now, you will have strips of squares and all you have to do is sew those strips together! Face them right sides together and use 1/4 inch seem just like before.

Tada! You have a quilt top. (Mine's not done or I would show you... *ahem*)



Be sure to check out the other girls participating this week!

Staci @ Life At Cobble Hill Farm
Amber @ Making A Home

Happy Sewing,
Meg

Knitting, And What's On The Horizon

There are some changes coming to my business soon...

But first, what I'm knitting!

Last week my mom brought me a hand knit stocking, with the story that she had been at a friend's house and had been telling her that I was a knitter. Her friend walked into her closet and brought out this this stocking, saying her great aunt had knit it for her when she was born and she was hoping to find someone to make a similar one for her husband. She's been searching for the last few years for someone to do it, but has had no luck.

Well I love to knit, I love getting custom orders, I love a challenge, and this struck a special place in my heart since I have a similarly styled one that was knit by my great-grandmother for me when I was a baby.

After a few conversations with her, we decided to leave it pretty much the same, but change a few of the colors. I've been having so much fun with this! I loved deconstructing it and figuring out how it was put together, and recharting the motifs, and seeing the Santa and the words come to life as I knit. It's been a blast!

And now for the changes!

Mojito lip balm, Hazelnut coffee and unscented soaps

In October my sister and I will be participating in another craft show. This one is bigger, has been going for 12 years, and has had over 300 people attend (per show) in the past years. So hopefully it will be WAY better than the one we did a few years ago.

But here's my exciting news: I will be changing my business and using this craft show to launch my soaps and skin care products! I have been very busy building inventory, developing new formulas, designing branding, and doing lots of paperwork.

I will be renaming the Etsy shop and adding all of my new stuff into it.

I will still be doing custom knitting orders, and writing patterns as I design new things. You will still be able to find all my patterns on Ravelry in the same place.

I'm so excited about this new phase! I've been having so much fun with formulas and scents and ideas. I hope this will turn out to be very successful.

So stayed tuned for Bumblewood, launching October 2013! :)

Happy Monday,
Meg