My new friend Neti...

I would like to introduce you all to my new best friend Neti...

I usually don't buy my friends, but this was an exception. I have this horrible head cold right now and have been trying to tough it out. Yesterday my sinuses were just killing me. So I decided to head over to Whole Foods and pick up one of these gems. I'd been wanting to try one for a while but was a little hesitant. I don't normally care for water up the nose if you know what I mean. But I was desperate!

How it works is you fill it with warm water and a little salt. Then you hold the little spout to your nose and tilt your head to the side. It flushes out your nose/sinuses/head and the water drains out the other nostril (I don't care for the word nostril... but it had to be said.)

Honestly, it was weird. It took a little practice to actually get it to drain right and not feel like I was just pouring water in my nose. My ears felt a little funny after (they are all connected up there after all) but within minutes my head started to feel a little better.

Today when I woke up, NO SINUS PAIN!! I'm so glad! I think this one is a keeper!

I really like home remedies. I would much MUCH rather try something out at home before rushing to a doctor just to get on medication. There is a book that I like called The Prescription for Nutritional Healing which has some really good remedies in it. However, I'm a little leery of trying too many herbal remedies. I don't really like putting things into my body that I'm not totally sure what they will do. There are some herbs out there that can cause a lot of problems, so I only try the herb stuff if it's been well tested and is a more common herb. There are some other remedies that I've tried that I will now swear by such as taking ginger pills for motion sickness. I wont go on a road trip or a plane without it. Also the old nasty bitter straight cranberry juice for UTI's. Work great!

So yes, the neti pot is now a keeper on my list of home remedies. What home remedies have you found that work?

Family blog link...

I've had a few people tell me that they haven't been able to find my family blog. Sorry, I don't want to link it here anymore... so if you would like to have it just e-mail me at naturallymeg (at) gmail.com.

Meg's salad...

Oh how I love a good salad. A few years ago I made a salad almost everyday for my lunch. It was my experimenting time, to see if I could master a good salad. I found a certain mixture of goodness that I haven't been able to stray from since. Every time I make a salad I make THIS salad. I love it. It makes me happy.

The goods...

lettuce (I like green leaf or the box of Costco greens)

tomato

avocado

craisens

feta

a little Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top

That's it! I try to keep these things on hand at all times so that I can whip up my favorite salad whenever. I rarely will add anything else to this... usually I make it without the feta because it's so dang pricey, but it's better with it!

Ruffles...

Sorry that I don't have any projects to post about. I currently have five college kids sleeping on my floor for spring break... including the floor to my sewing room. So instead, I'll just dream of pretty things that I can make someday.

I've never been much of a girly girl. But for some reason I've been so drawn to ruffles lately it's ridiculous! Here are a few ruffles that have caught my eye lately...

Ruffle shower curtain for Anthropologie...

Ruffle skirt from Target...

I spent most of last night while I was laying in bed trying to figure out how I could make that shower curtain. Out of bed sheets?? That might be the way to go. I almost snagged that skirt at Target the other day but it was just a tad too short... Don't be too surprised if you see some ruffle projects making their appearance here soon.

Little Bunnies...

I know that it's still March... but I've already started to think about Easter. I don't think that I really did much for Easter last year. No Easter baskets, no new clothes! Boring huh? Well, I don't want to miss out on the Easter fun this year so I'm already starting to think about what I want to do.

One thing on my list is to try to make these sweet little knitted bunnies for Tru's basket. I think that they are just adorable! I've never knitted with double pointed needles so hopefully I can figure it out.

Naturally Meg Tree Winner!!!

Thanks for playing along with my little game. The winner is Kristi who said...

Congrats Kristi! E-mail me at naturallymeg at gmail dot com with your initials and address and I'll get this off to you!

Winner chosen at random.org

Naturally Meg - The Shop

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, so I am happy to say that I finally got around to setting up my own little etsy shop.

I've been wanting to join the "world of handmade" for a long time, but I've had a hard time coming up with something that I wanted to make. I wanted it to be pretty original, something that I hadn't really seen before.

One night I was laying in bed trying to sleep and I was trying to think of some type of artwork that I could put on my sons wall. I wanted it to be something that had his initials and birth date on it. Then the idea of a little tree with his initials "carved" into it came to my mind. I couldn't sleep until I got up and made the tree! I spent December making all sorts of little trees to give to people for Christmas and so I decided to offer them to anyone who wants one!

I'm starting with these four trees, one to represent each season. And of course, what tree collection would be complete without...

A palm tree...

So there is my little tree collection that I've been working on. I wanted to start things off right so I figured why not do a giveaway!!!

To enter the give away...

1- Visit my shop (naturallymeg.etsy.com) and take a look at the trees.

2- Leave a comment on this post with which tree you would like and what initials and date you would like "carved" or sewn onto the tree (some ideas are a child's initials and birth date, you and your spouses initials and anniversary date...)

3- And since I always like good ideas, what is a project that you are working on or wish you were working on right now!

The winner will be announced on Monday, March 9th.

Thanks for playing along!

Book Scrapping...

One of the crafty things out there that I have never had a desire to get into is scrapbooking. Now don't get me wrong... I've seen many beautiful scrapbooks in my day... and every time I think, "Wow, that looks great! But that is just not for me!"



Scrapbooking seems too high maintenance for me. The thought of sitting down and cutting out all of those little bits of paper, gluing them onto the page, picking which picture you'll put on the page out of the hundreds that you have... I don't know. Not to mention, I'm a cheapskate. It seems like it's a hobby that requires a lot of money on ribbons, paper, little clips...you name it!!!

So there you have it. Please don't hate me! But that is why I have never gotten into scrapbooking...



With that being said, I have so many pictures that I want to put into an album that are just sitting in boxes. I also am a pretty sentimental gal so I have lots of coaster, napkins, ticket stubs, etc. that I also want to put into an album. So I've been trying to tackle this project in a non-scrapbooking type of way. I wanted to give you a sneak peak into my idea on what I'm doing here... I came up with a few rules to making the book that I am following.



1- Absolutely no glue or tape will enter the book. Every item that is attached to the page has to be sewn.

2- The "sewn" page only contains items that have meaning to the particular day or situation. Either pictures, fabric from clothing, little sentiments that have been kept from that day.

3- Each page has a typed out description as to what was important about that picture or that day. I like attaching the memory of why this was important or what was meaningful for that day.



I'm working on putting my wedding album together right now. Here is a peek at the first description page that I put together...

This is from the day that we got engaged. I have a picture of us smiling from ear to ear, a tree that I sewed onto the page since we got engaged in the mountains on a hike. I also saved the bandanna that I was wearing when we got engaged so I cut it up and sewed that onto the page. Total cost for the page - $0.29!! That's all the the piece of paper that I sewed it on cost. The rest of the items I already had.

I found these great page protector refills that have 4x6 pockets to store the rest of the pictures from our engagement on the following pages. This way I can put all of my pictures into the book and I don't have to make a separate page to highlight all of them.

I am so excited about this project! Each page has only taken me a short amount of time to put together. I have a few more to do before I finish the wedding album so I'll show that when I get it all done.

Joel Dewberry...

I'm not into name brand anything... for the most part. I don't buy name brand clothes, or shoes, or food!!! Until it came to fabric...

I'm finding myself being so drawn to certain textile designers. One that is probably not new to you, but is new to me is Joel Dewberry. I just love his stuff!!! Especially his Aviary Collection. I've been trying to find a great fabric to recover our dinning room chairs with and this one might be the winner...

Jean Quilt...

I finished the jean quilt just in time for my family to use it! We had company this weekend and I was so happy that I did not have to borrow any blankets from my friends so that we didn't freeze!!

Sorry that my pictures are fuzzy... Unfortunately I don't care to retake them...

For the top of the quilt I sewed together all of the jean squares. I didn't want to to be your average/typical jean quilt so I added two strips of this black and white flowery material in there. There is a black border around the whole thing, but it didn't make it in the picture. It's kind of hard to take a picture of a big ole' blanket like this you know!

For the back I did a strip of jean that matching up with the strip of fabric on the front. Then I just pieced different fabrics onto the back till it was big enough. I think that I like the back better than I like the front.

To quilt it I used my walking foot and just did straight lines down the diagonal of the squares. It was a workout, let me tell you! Some of my lines are... straighter than others... It's going to take a little practice to get good at this machine quilting business!

I'm really happy with this blanket, it's a good extra blanket to have around! I love the memories that are in here. Six years of jeans from Trent and I! Some of my favorite pairs that I wore down to the last thread almost.

Balls of Yarn...

I admit that I spent a lot of my "spare" time yesterday rolling all of my skeins of yarn into balls of yarn.

Why?

I think that balls of yarn just look so much better!!! And yes, I think that it was time well spent...

New Feet...

January has been a slow month for crafts... instead life has happened. It's been a wild roller coaster ride, but I think it's starting to slow down a bit. Refreshing, depressing...time spent with family... both happy and sad times. I've found that instead of wanting to dive into a new project I would rather spend my time cuddling on the couch with my two favorite boys... so I have.

But as the end of January is here I find that something is missing... so it's time to jump back on the saddle. I pulled something out of the "craft dresser" that I am soooo excited to start using!!!

Meet my two new feet...

Some girls ask for shoes for Christmas... I ask for feet! (Yes, I'm aware of how corny that sounds but it's true!) Here are my two new quilting feet that I got for Christmas! One is a walking foot for machine quilting, and the other is a darning foot for free style quilting (thanks Mom!) I've never tried either of these out before so it's going to be good times! Probably more ruined projects before a real keeper, but that's okay.

The first project... I'm going to attempt to machine quilt a jean quilt that I've been working on. Is it possible to do this? I really don't know... I hope so. I'm sick of tying quilts. Messing with the boards and the clamps... so we will see how this turns out!