Category: Cooking

Easy dinner hacks for busy evenings

Posted on October 11, 2018 by

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Easy dinner hacks for busy weekday evenings {Heather's Handmade Life}

We’re a month into our new school-year routine, and it’s different than previous years because C and D now each have TWO after-school activities. (We used to always stick to one but, well, I guess those days are over?) Luckily, our busy-ness is pretty…

Category: Cooking, Recipes, Uncategorized

Cake pops are surprisingly easy

Posted on June 19, 2018 by

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Cake pops are surprisingly easy to make {Heather's Handmade Life}

I always admired parents who made cake pops. They seemed so fancy and I’d imagined they’d spent hours in the kitchen, perfecting each little ball of cakey goodness before dipping it and decorating it. While I’m definitely better at baking than cooking (which isn’t…

Category: Cooking, Parties, Recipes

Work-at-home meal hack

Posted on June 14, 2018 by

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Work-at-home meal hack {Heather's Handmade Life}

When I’m working, I’m completely zoned out and don’t register that I’m hungry until suddenly I’m STARVING and ready to eat anything in sight. I feel like I’m too busy to stop and make something — even if it’s just opening a can of…

Category: Cooking, WAHM

I’m Heather Laura Clarke. I’m journalist and blogger in beautiful Nova Scotia, I have an 9-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter, I married my high school sweetheart, and this is the story of my handmade life.

I have depression and anxiety, and I fight like hell every day to keep it from taking over my life. Making things isn’t just a hobby — it’s part of what keeps me alive.

Whether I’m decorating a room, busting out my power tools to build furniture, getting muddy in the pottery studio, sewing clothes for my kids, or cross-stitching a swear word, I’m all about using my creativity to craft a life I love.

@HFXHeather on Instagram
The way this girl loves slime, it’s no wonder she loves Magic Mud (or “Oobleck” as the kids today apparently call it). Perfect indoor snow day activity. Mix three cups cornstarch with 1 1/2 cups water (approx.) and a few drops of food colouring to get a gloppy goop that you can pick up like a solid and then it then instantly to a liquid. My mom used to make it for me and my sister and it’s still really fun. Way better than slime because of the way it changes. Just don’t ask me to explain the science behind it lol. #snowday #again #snowdayfun #indooractivities #handmade #oobleck #magicmud #messy #butnottoomessy When you walk into a project area in your dining room that looks like a @craftsmanca photo shoot except you actually staged nothing! 😂 Can’t wait to show you guys how this BIGGGGGG project is turning out! #DIY #woodworking #furniture #DIYfurniture #buildingfurniture #design #custom #customfurniture #craftsman If you scroll through my posts, you’ll see right away that I make things. I sew. I build. I paint. I craft. I design. I decorate. Oh, and I also write and edit newspaper, magazine, and web copy for a living. Always making stuff, I am. What you don’t see — at least not unless you dive deep into my Insta stories and blog posts — is that there’s something different I’m trying to create. A novel. Finding the time, the headspace, the permission to work on this novel is harder than all the sewing and building and painting and crafting and designing and decorating and “writing for a living” in the world. But I’m trying. I try to work on it every single day, even if I only come out ahead by a couple hundred words. It’s still a couple hundred words more than I had the day before. Baby steps. And there are also stolen moments, like this photo I just snapped, when I take five minutes — in between the family dinner and the family game and then the bedtime routine — to read a few pages of novel-writing wisdom (#savethecatwritesanovel) and scribble down notes to myself. It all counts, however small. It’s all getting me closer. It’s all going to be worth it. I know it. #novelwriting #novel #aspiringnovelist #futurenovelist #onedayatatime #writerlife #writing #amwriting A school week’s worth of handmade cotton dresses, ready to wear. Cupcakes 🧁 Rainbows 🌈 Flowers 🌸 Ice creams 🍦 and forests 🌲 #sewing #handmade #dresses #sewingforkids #sewingproject #thisisseven #handmadewithlove #handmadeclothing #handmadeclothes Sundays are for quilting. Especially with fresh fabrics. 🌸 🌼 🌸 🌼 🌸 #quilting #florals #fabric #quiltersofinstagram #fabriclove Last year, I started sewing memory quilts for people who had lost someone close to them. These quilts are a nice way to preserve someone’s favourite items of clothing — T-shirts, dress shirts, ties, nightgowns, sweaters, jeans — in a way that allows their loved ones to still snuggle up with them. Today’s blog post walks you through the whole process, from prepping the clothes to completing the quilt. 💕 N E W B L O G P O S T 💕 #sewing #quilting #memoryquilt #memoryquilts #handmade
@HFXHeather on Twitter
My Top Posts
Easy DIY sofa tables
DIY dog crate cover
Our board game wall
Build your own slide-out pantry
Anne of Green Gables quilt
Super easy quilt top for beginners
How to sew a cozy nap mat
DIY quilt made from old jeans
How to transfer photos to wood (without a million failed attempts)
Sew a reversible circle skirt
PREGNANCY blog posts
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© Heather Laura Clarke and Heather’s Handmade Life, 2009-2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Heather Laura Clarke and Heather’s Handmade Life with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.