Clover Lane

I am always on the look out for cute place mats.  I just cannot use cloth mats!  I would have to wash them every day and I do not want to add to my laundry load.

The plastic ones I find always seem boring and outdated so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Using Picasa, I made a collage for each member of my family.  I selected a bunch of different photos of each of the children...great vacation memories, baby pics, funny faces, etc...created a collage, and then using the Text feature, wrote their names on them.  The kids love these place mats!  Each photo seems to bring up a topic of conversation at the dinner table.  "Remember when Dad made us hike up that mountain?"  or "We had so much fun at that reunion!"

You have heard me talk about using the collage feature of Picasa before...it is the same method I use for making my blog headers and my scrapbook pages.  It is so fun, easy and best of all free.   For a tutorial on how to make a collage you can go here, or here for a step-by-step easy video tutorial from Persnickety Prints.  You can also use a different program (i.e.Photoshop), OR just use a single picture if you don't want to bother with fancy digital stuff.  If you want to make it even easier, you could pick up a few 11 x 17 size papers, and have your children make their own drawings.

I called my local printer and decided to go with an 11 x 17 size.  That seemed to be a good size for a place mat, and it was easy and cheap for them to make color copies and laminate those color copies because it is a standard size.  The color copies were $1 each, and then to laminate each of them was $3.  $4 for custom place mats!  Not bad!  They also told me I could just email the collages to them, which made the whole process extra easy.

I did this about 5 years ago (using just a single picture that I brought in to be photocopied, before I was familiar with photo editing software) and the place mats held up for a good 3 years.  They are easy to wipe off with soap and water.  The copy place told me that they use 5mil laminate which makes them durable and sturdy.

Here are some tips and ideas:
1. I made a collage using the automatic "Mosaic" feature...that throws all your selected photos together into a collage automatically. (I chose plain white for my collage background.)  Once that collage was created, (after you hit the Create Collage button) I selected that collage, and also selected a scrapbook paper, pressed Collage again, and using the Picture Pile feature, centered the finished collage on the scrapbook paper.  That is how I got the scrapbook paper edge around the collage.

2. Sometimes the copier will cut off a small bit around the edges...ask!!!  The copy lady told me I would lose about 1/4"...it didn't matter because I had the scrapbook paper behind my collage, but without it, it might have.  Keep that in mind.

3. Remember in Picasa you can select your own custom collage size.  You just type in your dimensions.  (Horizontal size first.)  Again, I used 17 x 11 because it was cheap and easy.
4. I think for this size, I could have used less pictures.  I overloaded my own placemat and some of the pictures are tiny.  The ones that turned out best are the ones were I selected not more than 30 pictures.

5. And of course, the possibilities are endless.  Wouldn't it be cute to type in manner reminders?  Or the family dinner blessing?  You could make seasonal place mats also, with fun summer or fall colors, or a holiday theme.

Update-2015 and we still use these almost daily!  They look great and have held up well.

Lisa Leonard, in addition to her beautiful and popular jewelry designs, (I wear this necklace all the time), came out with a decor line.  These beautiful things are so perfect for gifts...magnets, bowls, baby spoons, wall hangings and more, all personalized with whatever words/names you want to add.

Here is what I gave Abbey for her 8th grade graduation.  We have a favorite song called "Keep on the Sunny Side" and I thought she would love a little daily reminder hanging in her room.

It's officially summer.  The school year has come and gone so quickly.


The last day of school was All School Mass and the award ceremony. Matt must have been tired from all the walking up and back to get his accolades.  Even Andrew received an award...not the one he wanted but I like his competitive spirit.  The award was a Fitness Award, and he earned the second tier...no doubt he will be practicing his chin-ups and push-ups this summer.

We are saying good-bye to a priest at our parish who is leaving to be a pastor somewhere else.  The kids have LOVED him and he has made a huge difference in the school community.  He interacts with each of the kids and they feel comfortable enough to talk to him and joke with him...such a great thing in the junior high years especially.  Each class, Preschool-8th, presented him with a gift.  I don't know how he held it together, because I was dabbing my eyes.


I don't know how these kids keep track of their phones.  Isn't it funny how they are apt to misplace just about anything else but these?


Ummm...no way!  Could you imagine?  That would get scary. We compromised and he had a sip of orange bad boy juice, and was in heaven...

 One of the boys brought his guitar...

..and after awhile all their parents picked them up and they were all gone, and hugging and yelling "Good-bye!" like they would never see each other again.  It was the easiest party ever, and so enjoyable.  Mostly because, like I have said 1000 times before, these are the nicest, most polite, well-mannered kids ever.  Not ONE problem, not ONE issue.

Endings and beginnings...so exciting, and bittersweet, and scary and fun all at the same time.  It never stops feeling that way I don't think, for the rest of our lives, whether we're 14 or 42.

Abbey giving her class president speech:

One of her favorite teachers, and ours too of course.  She teaches writing and literature and boy does she have a way with students.

I held it together well till I had to take a picture of these two then I just lost it.  Abbey and Catherine met in 4 year old preschool and have always been close.  It seems like just yesterday they were dressing up in princess clothes and playing with Polly Pockets.


When we finally called it a night, we presented Abbey with something she has been waiting years for.

Here's a little trick I learned from my mom, who most likely learned from her mom, Josephine, mother of nine.

It's the "cross your arms" trick.

When you have a child who needs to be told something important, or reprimanded, especially one under say about 7, you have them cross their arms.  It does a couple things:

-It makes them look at you and concentrate on what you are saying.
-It makes their mood, somehow-I don't know how- change.  Usually they get a little giggly.
-It makes them look really really cute, which makes you really really less angry.

I've been doing this for years and it works wonders.


The other day, I was trying to get Andrew not to scream whenever his brother teased him.  So I made him cross his arms and said, "Repeat after me.  I, Andrew, will not scream bloody murder whenever my brother Matt teases me. I will go and get Mom instead, and she will help me."

He said, "Ok, Mom, I have one for you.  Cross your arms and repeat after me.  I, Mom, will buy her children a brand new X-Box 360."

(I said it, but inserted NOT of course.)

Last week I bit the bullet and paid someone a gazillion dollars to clean the carpets in my house.  I bought this a couple years ago, and it works great for inbetween jobs but I needed a truck engine-massive sucking machine-clean.

The night before the carpet cleaner came, I moved all the furniture out of the rooms so they could do a thorough job.  (See, I am crazy?)

The boys LOVED this...they immediately set up an indoor soccer field in the living room.

Isaac said to me, "When I have a house I am going to have NO furniture in ANY rooms, except for one couch to sleep on."

I have been making batches of these like a crazy woman.  They are easy and so so so good.  And the best thing is that they don't cost $14 a dozen.  I bet they come in under $1.

This recipe is from AllRecipes and I use my Zojirushi Breadmaker...I love that thing.  The recipe makes about 8 bagels.  Last week I doubled it, and the bread maker handled it fine.

1 cup warm water
3 cups of bread flour
2 TBS white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
3 TBS sugar
1 TSP cornmeal
1 egg white
Toppings if wish:  shredded asiago cheese, poppy seeds, dried onion flakes, rock salt, cinnamon sugar...

1.  I add the first 5 ingredients in the order listed.  Set on Dough Cycle.  When complete, place dough on a lightly floured surface. Shape into 8-10 balls, flatten them, and then poke hole in the middle.  (Make it big, because dough will rise.)

2. Cover bagels with a clean dish towel, and let rise.  Mine take about 30-60 minutes to get rise.  Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil.  Dissolve 3 TBS of sugar in boiling water.


3. Sprinkle an ungreased cookie sheet with cornmeal.  Heat oven to 375.
Transfer bagels to boiling water.  (My pot holds about 4 at a time.)  Boil for 1 minute, turning halfway through.  Remove bagels and place on dish towel to drain.

4. Arrange boiled bagels on baking sheet. Glaze top with egg white.

My kids  love asiago cheese bagels, so I will grate some of that and sprinkle on top.
They also love "everything" bagels:  I mix up some poppy seeds, dried onion flakes, and a teeny bit of coarse salt. I will dip the top of the bagel in the egg white, and then dip it in the "everything mixture".  We haven't tried cinnamon sugar yet, but I bet that would be good.

5. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

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