craft update

it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I have written on here.

I’ll share a little about some recent crafts.

more peg people for church

Recently, Saturdays have become a special pancake day. I learned the secret of sheet pancakes and will never go back.

I made Josh a basket weave blanket for Christmas (finished mid January). He requested rainbow colors, I found a beautiful variegated yarn and paired it with black. The kittens loved assisting me.

I can barely take credit for the last project. Josh has been building us a new dining table.

josh also made some beautiful cheese from local Amish raw milk

upcoming projects:

a mural for Wolfie’s room.

I’ll use the leftover paint from Stevie’s room to make Wolfie’s mural.

Josh’s home office will also get an update.

I’ll be back to update you on our projects.

Pastoral Crafting: Peg Disciples

The curse of being a pastor with hobbies is the lack of time you get to do said hobbies if you aren’t intentional about carving out time. For the last 6 months, however, I have folded my hobbies into my pastoral duties and ignited a fire inside of myself. Holy Week (especially Good Friday), Vacation Bible School, and the peg dolls have all been sources of creativity that spiritually filled me.

Disclaimer: If you care extensively about historically accurate clothing or aesthetics, this post will not be for you. The character designs were built entirely on “vibes.”

Since Holy Week of 2024, I have been on the lookout for Bible character dolls or action figures. I have been on a journey to incorporate play into our worship space to include kids and neurodivergent minds to engage with their faith. Much to my dismay, there was nothing even close to affordable for a small country church. Fortunately, I am a crafter with ADHD and a “How hard can it be?” attitude. I turned to Amazon, yes, the evil Bezos empire, and purchased some wood peg dolls. (unaffiliated link)

The first rendition was Jesus, the original 12, and Paul & Matthias. They were imperfect, and I didn’t have any women represented. I was satisfied for the moment; ministry was calling my attention to other duties.

Maybe it was a year or only 6 months later, I finally got myself organized enough to create more peg dolls. Here are some slightly better photos of all the dolls. The guys got a few updates (because of the lack of sanding I did; they were already showing signs of wear), and now we have some of the original female disciples from the Gospels.

I’ve learned a lot about this medium. I loved using acrylic paint for it’s quick drying properties and ability to layer colors. However, I really should have sanded the pegs first. I tried to work on the guys too fast, and the paint is muddy in a few spots. I am considering putting a clear-coat varnish on the dolls, hoping to protect the paint.

Dolls include:
- Jesus (heart on his chest)
- Mother Mary (heart on her chest)
- The 12
  - the fishermen/inner circle
    - Peter (fish & keys)
    - Andrew (fish)
    - Sons of Zebedee: (fish & lightning bolts)
      - James (the Great/Elder)
      - John
  - Judas Iscariot (bag of money)
  - Philip
  - Thomas/Didymus
  - Bartholomew/Nathaniel
  - Matthew/Levi
  - Jude the Zealot
  - Simon the Zealot
  - James of Alphaeus/ James the Less
- The women
  - Mary Magdalene (fancy clothes & a money bag)
  - Mary of Bethany (scroll & pen)
  - Martha of Bethany (apron)
  - Susanna
  - Joanna
  - Salome
  - Mary of Clopas
- Acts Characters
  - Paul (scroll & chains)
  - Matthias

If you have ideas of items the other characters could carry in their hands or be represented on their body, let me know! I created these from memory and would like to add more details.

I am placing an order for a few more dolls, including a few different sizes. Naturally, my ADHD wants to go all in, therefore i’ve started making a list of future peg dolls.

Near Future Peg Dolls:
- Gospel characters: woman at the well, healed woman, man born blind, John the Baptist, Pharisees, Sadducees, Roman officials, King Herod (Luke 2), Herod Aggrippa (Easter), Zacheus, Elizabeth & Zechariah, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea
- Acts & the Epistles – Lydia, Priscilla & Aquilla, Phoebe, John Mark, Luke, Timothy, Onesimus, Philemon, Stephen, Eunice, Lois, Syntyche & Euodia, Barnabas, Cornelius, Dorcas, Ethiopian Eunuch, James brother of Jesus, Philip (not the apostle) & his daughters
Eventually: Hebrew Scriptures Peg Dolls
- Abraham & Sarah
- Moses & Zipporah
- Aaron & Miriam
- Jochebed (A, M & M mom)
- Isaac & Rebecca
- Jacob/Israel + Rachel & Leah, Zilpah & Bilhah
- Hagar & Ishmael
- David, Saul, Jonathan, Micael, Abigail
- Dark stories:
  - Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel
  - Noah & Family

Okay, I had to stop listing characters… I was about to list everyone in the Bible. You get the point.

Tell me if you’ve made any peg dolls. Do you have tips or tricks?

Homestead apples

our garden has been flourishing. it is finally time for harvesting some of our apples.

First, we had to wash the apples and sort them into two categories: apples good enough to be apple chips and ugly apples to be made into apple butter which would be turned into fruit leather.

Apple chips:

Slice, peel, core
soak in an acid solution for 5 mins (I used lemon juice)
place in a single layer in dehydrator on low over night
I may put these in the oven crisp them up a little bit more

Apple butter :

slow cooker for 4 hrs to soften and then pressed in the food mill.
back into the slow cooker with spices and sweetener for 8 hrs
then ladled onto leather sheets into the dehydrator for 8 hrs

final results TBA

Stevie loved the taste of the apple butter. here’s hoping she’ll eat the fruit leather.

Home updates

Stevie cooking with Mamaw

Harvest from today

vanilla bean paste

We used the left over vanilla splits from making vanilla extract to make vanilla bean paste.

I followed this recipe: https://thesaltedpepper.com/vanilla-bean-paste/#recipe

The paste should be thick in a couple days and less alcohol-y in a couple weeks. It already tastes phenomenal!

Fermenting and other Homestead things

Today Josh and I finally got to process some of the things we have been fermenting and extracts we’ve been… extracting?

Here are some photos of the process

Finishing projects!

Last year for Stevie’s first birthday. my mother-in-law bought Stevie a bluey bed set.

I told her I would make curtains for Stevie’s room. Well, Stevie just turned two and I am finally hanging up curtains… After we switched her bedroom with Josh’s office and started preparing for our adopted son to people born. … parent of the year over here.

We still have some projects like patching the drywall in the closet and making the crib sleep safe but it’s a work in progress.

Shout out to Lori Hoback for lending me her Cricut press and for my mother for chasing my toddler and giving me the confidence to tackle this task. Honorable mention to Josh who was working on his master’s homework in the same room as our chaotic mess.

closet before valance added now with baby’s bed!

Here’s a few pictures of the birthday girl (birthday yesterday!) as a bonus.

Lego Hogwarts Castle – a 3 month build

In 2018, LEGO released their Hogwarts Castle at the time it was the third largest set. I have always loved Legos but never owned a normal set of my own. I had “girl” LEGOS with purple and pink flowers, but never the real deal.

This year, Josh bought me my DREAM as an early Christmas present (and then he ended up getting me 2 other presents…). I received the set in October for Alex and Deandra’s visit. The goal was for us to have something fun to do together while we hung out at home.

Here are some pictures of the different stages.

Alex & Deandra got things unboxed and sorted.

The beginning: sorting the four books of instructions and 40+ bags of parts.

2. Various stages of the build- much was started by Alex & Deandra

3. The final product: forgive my terrible lighting

We started this in October 2022 but I wasn’t able to finish it until January 17th, 2023 because of 1. needy baby girl and 2. a complication with a step in bag # 34 while assembling some stained glass windows.

I feel like we climbed Mt. Everest. My nerd heart is happy.

Disclaimer: the author of Harry Potter is a TERF. Building this does not mean I agree with her sentiments about trans folk. Trans-men are men. Trans-women are women.

Crockpot Blueberry Butter

I found a recipe on fb that I had to try!

the link from Facebook:
https://m.facebook.com/BestRecipeIdeas/photos/a.560198331353925/982259152481172/?type=3

this is the photo from the link with the ingredients

I do everything on hard mode…. so I made a 2.5 batch rather than following the recipe as is for the first time.

My quantities were:

13 c blueberries
2.5 c sugar
2.5 lemons (juice & zest)
4.5 tsp cinnamon

I followed the recipe instructions but because I made a bigger batch it did not reduce in the time allotted in the recipe. The cook time went like this: 1 hr low sealed, 6 hrs low vented, 1 hr low sealed, (time for bed so we’ll just put it on overnight) 8hrs high vented, (husband checked it before work and thought it still needed time) 2 hrs low vented. What a timing mess!

If I were to make this big batch again, I’d do 1 hr sealed low, 6-10 hrs vented high. checking for consistency every couple of hours.

my results: total quantity 2-24oz jars of delicious thick blueberry butter.

It tastes AMAZING! I’m a sucker for apple butter and was so happy that this blueberry butter turned out to be equally as yummy!