To Every Mother...

To my mother who gave me life and carved my life's path through her endless sacrifice, love, and example, to all the other mothers along the way who have taught me, strengthened me, and lifted me up through kindness and friendship ....Thank you and Happy Mother's Day!  I love you!

I Am a Mother...

Today begins Studio 5's kickoff of the 10 Day "Motherhood Matters" Challenge. It's all about remembering and celebrating our most honorable and influential job...that of being a mother. If you haven't heard about it, I invite you to take a look. The challenge is simple, yet keeps in the forefront of our minds why we do what we do, and reminds us of how important motherhood is.

In addition, they are offering four printable quotes like the one pictured here for free. What a great and simple gift for a sweet mother or for yourself! I'm excited to get mine framed and displayed.

So, my friends...as we look ahead to Mother's Day and ponder on our own mothers, let's also celebrate our own role, whether we are aunts, cousins, sisters, daughters or mothers. We all have a vital role in the lives of each other.

I am a Mother...

Exciting News! Please Stop by My Store!

Yes, Needle in a Haystack now has its very own Online Store! New patterns and products are being added weekly, so be sure to check in often. All Mother's Day Patterns and this School Days Pattern are 25% off the regular price from now until the end of May!




Each pattern you see on the site will be shipped directly to your home through the mail and can easily be paid for using your Pay Pal account.

Please stop by to see what's new, and be sure to drop me a line if you have any questions!

Happy Shopping!!

Make a Personalized and Inexpensive Gift for Teacher Appreciation, Graduation, Father's Day, Birthdays, Any Occasion!

It's such a busy time of year with school ending, graduation activities, Father's Day, and summer fun just around the corner! It's also a time for gift-giving, and I've got an easy, meaningful, and inexpensive gift idea for any time of the year.

Perhaps you've seen the fun that can be created with Wordle at http://www.wordle.net/. It's a creative way to display an array of words, thoughts, ideas, or phrases. I was introduced to Wordle last year, and have had such fun creating some personalized and inexpensive gifts with it. When you go to the website, just play around with it---you can change the fonts, the colors, and the layouts until you are happy with how it looks. And it's free to use! (I've provided a few "Wordle Tips" near the end of this post to help you out!)

For each of these gifts shown, I simply created my "Wordle Cloud" at the website, then after I was happy with how it looked, printed it onto an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of vellum. I then placed the vellum over the top of an image I had downloaded and printed off of the internet. You can see that for my daughter's kindergarten teacher, I printed a simple apple; for my cutie friend who was graduating, I printed a graduation cap and changed the colors to match her school colors using Photoshop.



I then trimmed both sheets to measure 8" x 10" then inserted them together into an 8" x 10" frame with the vellum sheet over the top of the printed image. (The frame only cost me $3 from Wal-Mart.) I added a little ribbon around it, and voila! Gift complete!



I've also made these gifts for the group of Young Women I work with in my church. We gave each of them a questionnaire to fill out at one of our activities. At a special recognition meeting sometime later, the other leaders and I presented each girl with her own personalized and framed "Wordle" to take home with her unique and special qualities highlighted. They were a hit!


You are welcome to use my questionnaire if you are interested. Simply click on the image to enlarge it, then print as many as you'd like.

Some "Wordle" tips:

-The best way to begin your list of items to put into a "Wordle" document is to first create the list in a word processing document, save it, then copy and paste to the website. That way, if you need or want to start over or change anything, you don't have to re-type all of the words in the space provided at the website. You simply make changes in your word document, then paste it again.

-The more times you type a word on your list, the larger that word will appear in the image. I usually type the person's name at least 4 times, then vary other important words by typing them 2 or 3 times. This creates a more visually interesting appearance by varying the sizes of different words.

-If you have a phrase that contains 2 or more words, such as "football player", do not type it like we normally would with a space between the words. Instead, insert a tilde(with no space) which is the little squiggly line at the far left and top of the keyboard that looks like this: ~ between the words. So "football player" would be typed like this: football~player. Otherwise, the Wordle program shuffles those two words around and separates them.

-There is a FAQs section at the Wordle site that can offer more advanced tips as well!

I hope you have a great time exploring the world of Wordle, and creating one-of-a-kind gifts! I'd love for you to send me photos of what you've created to my email listed on the sidebar!

Bath Salts for Mother's Day (or Any Day!)

I remembered again, as I was bustling around yesterday, that we didn't have something yet for our step-Grandma for Mother's Day! We're also spending the holiday with some of my sisters, and I wanted to take them a little something. My daughter recently went to a "Spa Party" for a friend's birthday, and came home with a few bags of yummy smelling bath salts. Somehow, however, I forgot that they were hers (just another sign that my brain is officially mush and I am getting OLD), and accidentally used them in her little sister's bath. Oh, boy, was she unhappy with me! Anyway, I had promised her we would make more, and that I would get the recipe from her friend's mom. We decided to make a big batch--some to give away, and some for the girls to keep, and now hopefully, everyone will be happy!

So, if you need a last minute, homemade gift, this one is super easy, fast, economical, and the kids love helping to make it! Here's the recipe:

2 c. Epsom salts or Dead Sea Salts (I used the Epsom)
2 tsp. Baking soda
10-12 drops essential oils in whatever flavor you'd like!
5-6 drops of food coloring (now my friend said that some places she had read said that coloring can stain your towels or tub--just be aware of that, and don't use it if it makes you nervous. I guess we're really living on the edge at our house!)

We mixed it all up, then put it all in empty jars I had in the basement. We covered the lids with fabric, then tied a ribbon on each with a little note. I might even head over to the dollar store today for some loofah sponges to go with them.

Now, if you want my little poem, you are welcome to it...my scanner is not working, so I can either email you the pdf (let me know in a comment), or you can just copy it from here. I'll admit, it's a bit cheesy, and will never win any poetry awards, but hey...if your brain is as mushy as mine, at least you won't have to think it up yourself!

Here it is:

"Here's a little something, to brighten up your day...
It's sure to help you just relax, and float your troubles away!
You always do so much for us, you go the extra mile.
You love us and take care of us, and always have a smile.
So here's to you this special day, we think you are the best!
We love you and adore you. Now go relax and rest!"

Now, one more thing. Leigh Anne, over at Your Home Based Mom (one of my favorite blogs!) is hosting a fantastic Mother's Day Give-Away. Hurry on over there and leave a comment for a chance to win some beautiful jewelry!


Well, friends, I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and a Happy Mother's Day!

Things I Learned from My Mother

Mother's Day is just around the corner. This year's date happens to be an interesting one in our household. It's another Mother's Day that finds my hubby and I both Mother-less, as both have passed away, and May 10 happens to be the 5 year mark of the passing of my hubby's mother. (We are grateful, however for a step-mother who is a sweet and lovely woman and Grandma to our kids!) Yet, it is a bitter-sweet day ahead, as we think of, and honor our mothers, yet mourn their passing, and miss them terribly.

I have read a few blogs recently that highlighted things other gals have learned from their mothers. Naturally, my thoughts drifted toward my own mother, as I began to ponder what I had gleaned from her during her lifetime. As my own life gets so busy, I find that I don't reflect on some of those things as often as I need to, and as I'd like.

So, while each of you are welcome and invited to join with me as I reflect, I am realizing that this post is mainly for my benefit, and I hope you won't be too bored with the details...(I did whittle the list from 32 to 17!) Writing these thoughts gives them validity and makes them concrete--rather than fuzzy memories floating through my mind. It also reminds me of how lucky, blessed, and loved I was to be given such a beautiful woman for a mother. (Isn't her photo lovely? It's my favorite).

I invite each of you to do the same for your mothers--especially if they are living, and can appreciate it fully! You can also visit here for more inspirational Mother Tributes.

Things I Learned from My Mother:

1. We really do become our mothers. I see the things that are important to me now as a mom, are many that were important to her--even the things she never "taught" me, but things I picked up from just being around her. A good reminder for myself that my daughters are always watching...

2. God is real, He keeps His promises, prayers are answered, and reading the scriptures brings peace.

3. To love our country. Mom taught us that our civic duty was to always vote and be involved in politics, and she was.

4. Family night and reunions are priorities.

5. Cooking, sewing, public speaking, and poise. From the time I was 9, she held 4-H classes for me and my friends every summer up until I graduated from High School. She made us give demonstrations to each other weekly on cooking and sewing topics. Then over the course of the summer, we sewed an item of clothing that was to be entered into the county fair for judging, AND had to model it (that was, at times, humiliating!). I have ripped out so many sewing seams over the years that were not up to her standards, but in the end of course, I am grateful.

6. How to lead music. I never realized what a blessing that would be. I watched her lead music all my growing up years, and now I've led for the children and women's organizations in my church, and have loved it.

7. To love Dance. She had a dance studio in her home before I was born, and gave all of us girls the love of dance. (I truly think she sort of wished we were like the Osmond's, and could sing and entertain, as she ALWAYS wanted us to sing anytime we got together, and none of us wanted to!) So we joked with her later that our music was in our feet, because whenever we sisters got together, we danced instead of sang!

8. To exercise. I remember as a tot exercising with her to Jack LaLane on the T.V. (Funny!) She always tried to get a walk in daily, and now, so do I.

9. To take care of our health. Oh, my, was she health-conscious! We rarely (maybe even never) had white bread in the house growing up. Always her homemade whole wheat. And, she often had a home remedy for what ailed us, although we were really very healthy most of the time.

10. How to do laundry and clean house. Those darn Saturday chores never went away, and my kids whine about the same thing.

11. How to plant a garden and weed it. Ughh! How I hated weeding...but who doesn't, right?

12. If a mom stays up all night, new Easter dresses magically appear the next morning!

13. Creating limericks on a long car ride can really pass the time quickly.

14. If you put your shoes under the Christmas tree, the New Year's Elf fills your shoes up with goodies on New Year's Eve.

15. You can NEVER take too many pictures of an event!

16. Lilacs really are one of life's greatest fragrances.

17. To always keep learning and improving yourself. I always saw her reading books to improve her skills, her relations, her health, and to help have a happy, functioning family.

Mom truly molded me into who I am. I miss her daily, and love her dearly. Happy Mother's Day to all of you!