Amy Beth

  • 2014 Calendar Printable for Sale!

    I’m excited to announce my first product in my new Etsy shop!

    yellow-gray-calendarpic-small

    Ever since discovering Etsy a few years ago I have dreamed of opening a shop of my own. Oh, to spend the days crafting and somehow make real money doing it. I’ve had lots of ideas – totes embellished with crochet flowers, handmade cards, recycled flannel burp cloths… But for now I’ve settled on something a little more up my alley: printables. I’m a graphic designer after all, so I have a lot of practice making files to print. I also happen to be a bit obsessed calendars, planners, and other various organizational papers. This new venture combines the two loves.

    My first product is a clean and simple monthly calendar for 2014 in yellow and gray. You can download the file instantly and print it out on your home printer to use however you see fit. Hang it on your fridge, put it in a binder, stick it next to your desk.

    And now for my infomercial voice (did you know I have one of those? Yeah, you’re right, I don’t. Just pretend):

    *Don’t wait! For THIS WEEK ONLY the 2014 calendar printable will be on sale for ONLY $1! Next week the price will go up to $3! Don’t miss out on this SPECIAL OFFER!*

    Ok. You can unplug your ears now.

    I hope to add more products over time, and I’d love to hear your suggestions. Are there other colors or styles that you would like to see? Have you been needing a good weekly planner sheet but just can’t seem to find one that has everything you need? Would you love to have some pretty notecards with your favorite verse or quote on them? Let me know in the comments or contact me directly. I’d love to hear from you!

  • Sister Time!

    My sisters and I embarked on a massive art project this summer. We decided to enter the Mystery Build Contest, which involved getting a mystery box of art supplies in the mail and creating a piece of art from only those materials. It was a lot of fun, it was challenging (that goat face about got the best of us), it required a few pretty intense weekends of work. But we got it done and we’re pretty proud of our creation. I wrote a little more about it over on our shared blog My Sister Says.

    Photo Aug 11, 2 50 03 PM

    Right now public voting for the contest is open. You can vote for our project #103: I and the 3D Village on page 4 of the contest submissions. (Actually, you can vote for as many submissions as you like. There are some pretty amazing ones. But we’d really appreciate if you’d vote for ours too!)

  • Simple Thanksgiving Centerpiece

    thanksgiving centerpiece

     

    Last year I hosted Thanksgiving at my house. We had a new house, a new baby, 14 people, and no dining room. As much as I wanted to go all out and overboard with the Thanksgiving decor and made from scratch food, I knew that my reality demanded I keep it simple. So that’s what we did. Everyone who came brought a dish or two to share, so I was left to only worry about the turkey and just a couple side dishes. A few weekends before the big day my sisters helped me come up with some decorations that would add a nice festive touch to the table without being too time consuming or expensive. This simple layered bean candle holder was just what I needed.

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  • A Grain Free Breakfast: Yogurt Bowl

    One of the more significant changes we’ve made as we’ve sought to cut down on the grains we eat has been in our breakfast routine. Breakfast is a meal that usually happens in a rushed state. I don’t have time to get ambitious with eggs or bacon or fancy breakfast tacos. I don’t even have time to stop and think about what options I have. I need breakfast to be the same every single day.

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  • October in Review

    October in review

    For some reason writing these month in review posts seems to make the months go by a lot faster. Maybe it’s because I’m just more aware of each month as it ends. So instead of jumping straight from summer to “Oh my gosh, it’s Christmastime!” I get to “Oh my gosh!” at each month as it passes. But despite the quickness, October was lovely. And I learned some good lessons.

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  • From Model Student to Aspiring Unschooler: What my success in the traditional school system taught me about its shortcomings

    ##A short academic biography…

    I was one of those students that most people secretly hate. I got straight A’s. I scored in the top percentiles on aptitude tests. I consistently set the curve in my classes. While I worked hard, learning material and showing what I learned on assessments came easily to me so I rarely experienced any failures. I went through the traditional public school system from kindergarten to graduation and left feeling like a complete success.

    **Now that I’m a mother and contemplating my own child’s future education, I’ve realized I don’t want him to have the same experience.**

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  • Navigating Nutrition – Grains

    navgatingnutrition

    So several weeks ago I promised to start a series of posts comparing how different eating plans treat each food group in the hopes of finding some overarching guidelines when choosing healthy foods. Today we’ll be looking at grains. If you consider the diet of a typical American, you know that grains are often the foundation of many meals, from cereal or toast in the morning, to sandwich bread at lunch, to pasta or dinner rolls for supper, to cookies or other sweet baked goods for snacks and desserts. It’s very easy to fill up on grains. The question is whether that is good for us. So lets take a look at what the different diets recommend.

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  • Stuffed Acorn Squash

    There’s something about fall that brings out the wannabe chef in me. I think it’s because fall seems to encourage a lot of cooking that involves combining fruits and vegetables with sugar and cinnamon. You can convince your brain that you’re having something healthy, but your tongue knows that it’s really dessert.

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  • September in Review

    Another month has gone by, and once again I’m linking up with [Emily at Chatting at the Sky](http://www.chattingatthesky.com/2013/09/27/learned-september/) to share the things I’ve learned this month.

    1. **Late summer/early fall is almond season.** I know this because we have an almond tree in our backyard and it has been dropping almonds by the bushel-full. When I first learned we had an almond tree I was kind of excited about it. I started envisioning tasty desserts and breakfast granolas full of fresh toasted almonds harvested from our backyard. But then I looked into what it takes to prepare almonds for eating and realized that I will **not** be harvesting my own almonds. Here’s why:

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  • Make Your Own Menu Planning Board

    Meal Planning Board

    I’ve long admired those cute little menu planning boards that I’ve seen floating around Pinterest. I assume that people with such boards must be super crafty and organized and have some kind of magical craft-and-organize time in their days.

    But it turns out that’s not really the case because I made myself a menu planning board. It is moderately cute and I got it done in one evening after my boy was in bed and before I hit my daily wall of exhaustion. Here’s how it went down.

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