Birthday Celebrations!

Today we are celebrating the birthdays of our dear husbands who both turn 35 today. Yes, both are celebrating their 35 birthday today and no, we did not marry twins! Check back this week for more installments of Tuesdays with Molly. We have lots of work and fun planned!

Friday, September 26th

Project #4 - Autumn/Winter Table Sign

A friend of ours who has a vinyl lettering cutter showed us this project. We started this a few weeks ago and did not take any progress pictures, but here is the finished product.

It is a two sided sign, one sign reading "Autumn" and the other "Winter"

Blocks Measure approximately 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches

Each block is painted and then decoupaged with a piece of scrapbook paper

Distress blocks with sand paper

Adhere vinyl letters to each side of the blocks

Attach blocks together using 3/4" hinges

Beans!

Project #3 - Pinto Beans!

This week, with a lot of time on our hands... Meredith and I have strayed from working just on Tuesday. We had a blast learning how to can pinto beans, it was so easy, I can't figure out why we haven't done it before.

We forgot to take step by step pictures but here are the basics:
1. Put 2/3 cup of dry beans in pint jar
2. Add 1/2 tsp. of salt
3. Fill with water leaving 1 inch of head space
4. Seal lids and place into pressure canner
5. Process for 75 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure

6. Voila! Your beans are ready to use in soups, salads, as a side, or refried!

Tuesday, September 23rd

Project #1. Canned Tomatoes. We didn't do a ton. Enough for a first try.

Two 20 lb cases of tomatoes. Courtesy of Bountiful Baskets.

Blanch tomatoes in boiling water to loosen skin.

Remove skins. It slips off easily.

Remove stem and any hard, fibrous areas from the stem end.

Tightly pack quartered tomatoes into quart jars, add additional water and lemon juice (to preserve color and add acid) leaving 1/2 inch head space.

Process for 45 minutes water bath or steam canner. Or, process for 10 minutes at 10 lbs pressure in a pressure canner. (We have all varieties.) We used the steam canner today.

40 lbs tomatoes yield 22 quart jars of tomatoes for our pantry and food storage.
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Project #2 Message board with chicken wire and decoupaged clothes pins/clips. Project found HERE.

Two ugly thrift store pieces of artwork, spray paint, clothes pin (AKA chip clips at our homes) and a role of poultry wire Found in garden section at Lowe's.

Spray gray primer. Dry. Spray black paint. Dry. Sand to distress.

Decoupage scrapbook paper scraps to embellish clothes pins.

Use wire cutters to trim poultry wire to size and staple to back of frame using heavy duty stapler.

Molly's finished memo board in natural daylight.

Meredith's finished memo board in the evening.

These are so cute! Now we want to make more...


A preview of the "before" for next Tuesday.

Tuesdays with Molly

I have a fantastic friend. Her name is Molly. She is my little sister. Not my littlest sister, she is HERE, and lives in Colorado and dang it! I wish she could be here for Tuesdays! Here is a tangent for ya - she is having a baby boy! We are all so excited for her and she and baby boy and the other girls will for sure be occasional beneficiary of Tuesdays! We miss you Meghan!

Molly and I are both doing the best we can to love our husbands, mother our children, beautify our homes, and have a blast doing it all. Life isn't always perfect or clean or neat or perfectly tidy. But we always have fun together. It seems we always have something we want to do, some project or craft or job to tackle and love doing it together. So, we decided to make it official and started Tuesdays with Molly! (I think Molly calls it Tuesdays with Meredith so she can make another blog if she wishes...I don't think she will though...)

Here is the deal. We have rooms to design. Holidays to decorate for. Gifts to make. It seems the list of project ideas is never ending. We also have fruit to can, meals to freeze, and sometimes a whole lot of Oprah to watch. Tuesdays are the one day we are not pulled in other directions and are not busy serving or volunteering elsewhere so we are giving the time to each other.

We plan to meet once per week with all the supplies ready to go for a fun craft or decorating project or two and depending on the season, "put up" some fruit or jam or bake or whatever the particular need is at the time. It could be painting a bedroom. It could be cleaning out a pantry. But whatever it is, we will take turns at each others homes and won't complain about the mess that is left at the end of the day.

Tune in weekly to see the fruits of our labors. And watch us strategically photograph it all as not to show the disaster that surrounds us. Or that we are probably doing it all in our pajamas. Or that we ate chips and cookies for lunch.