Making Home with Your Hands & Your Summer Peace Plan Printable

There’s something deeply comforting about crafting with your hands—especially in summer, when the days stretch long and golden, and the pace of life invites us to slow down, savour, and make space for peace.

This week, I’ve been leaning into that sense of intention and simplicity—creating with joy, prayerfully preparing for the seasons ahead, and grounding my days in gentle rhythms. I’m delighted to share a few of those things with you today: a cheerful handmade rag wreath to brighten your home, beautifully decorated candles ready for gifting, and a free printable to help you map out your own peaceful summer.

✽ Creating a Home that Whispers “Welcome”

I started the week with a simple, satisfying craft: a fabric rag wreath. This is the sort of project that feels timeless and comforting—no fancy tools required, just your hands, some fabric scraps in soft summer hues, and a bit of time to tie and tuck.


Each scrap carries a story—a memory from an old sewing project or a remnant too pretty to part with. As I knotted them around the frame, I found myself praying quietly for my home and those who pass through its doors.

✽ Preparing for a Season of Giving

While the warmth of summer wraps us in sunshine, my thoughts often stray to Christmas. Yes, really! I love to use these quieter months to prepare small, thoughtful gifts that can be wrapped up with care when Advent arrives.

This week, I dressed a few candles with a collar of brown craft paper and seasonal trims—tucked away for December gifting. There’s such peace in this kind of quiet preparation. It feels like sowing seeds of love in advance, ready to bless someone months from now.

Perhaps you’d like to make a few too? Pop on a hymn or soft music, brew a cup of something soothing, and let your hands create beauty.

✽ A Printable to Help You Plan a Peaceful Summer

To accompany your slow summer days, I’ve created a Summer Peace Plan printable, designed to gently guide your heart and home toward peace. It's a one-page resource you can tuck into your journal, pin on your fridge, or keep near your Bible.

It includes:

  • Daily Anchors for Peace like prayer, time outdoors, and creative moments

  • Soul Prompts to reflect on what God may be inviting you to release or embrace

  • A Gentle Summer List of soul-nourishing ideas—from pressing flowers to reading under a tree

This is not a to-do list, dear friend, but an invitation to slow down, breathe deeply, and dwell in the quiet, nurturing presence of God this season.


PS. You can download this plan anytime from the FREEBIES page on this blog.

✽ Homemaking as Worship

Whether you’re stitching, baking, tying ribbons or simply sweeping the kitchen floor, I believe these acts can be a form of worship. When we make our homes with love and intention, we reflect the heart of our Creator—who made all things good, and called them beautiful.

So as summer unfolds, may you find peace in the small things. May your hands be blessed in the work they do. And may your home be a haven of grace.

With every blessing...

Starting a Simple Stitching Practice This Summer

There’s something about the slower days of summer that seems to invite me to pick up something gentle and meaningful with my hands. Perhaps it’s the longer evenings, or the unhurried rhythm that naturally follows the school year winding down, or in my case, a considered return to the gentle art of homemaking.

Whatever it is, this season feels like the perfect time to begin—or return to—a quiet stitching practice.


Needlework has long been a companion to peaceful moments. Whether it’s the soft click of knitting needles, the rhythmic pull of thread through linen, or the satisfying neatness of tiny cross-stitches forming a pattern, there is a kind of stillness that settles over me when I work with my hands. It's a way of grounding myself, of inviting beauty and creativity into the everyday.

This summer, I’m leaning into those slower moments by spending more time with needle and thread. I find that cross-stitch and embroidery offer just the right amount of focus to quiet the mind, while knitting feels wonderfully meditative—especially when paired with a cup of tea and a breezy open window.

Needlework has threaded its way through may seasons of my life - some joyful, some trying - and it's always brought a sense of clam and comfort. 

Needlework has been my companion through many a season. It has been a link from my role as a young homeschooling mother with days packed with learning and the challenges that parenting can bring, through the transition over the turbulant rapids of discovery throughout that empty nest season, into the still waters of acceptance and a new season.

I recently spent some time sorting through the stitching supplies and fabrics I’ve gathered over the years and came across three unfinished projects, along with materials set aside for others I’ve yet to begin. I'm so grateful I took the time to store these treasures carefully—they’ve waited patiently, ready to be picked up again.

This summer, I’ll be returning to these three projects, gently weaving a simple stitching practice into the rhythm of my days and weeks.

A Little Winter Robin

This little "Feathered Friend" stitchery in issue 234 of The World Of Cross Stitching magazine which I started in 2018. 

It was going to be a gift for my grandmother, we have shared a love of the little British Robin since my childhood. Sadly she passed away a few years ago and I never got to gift it to her. 

It's a stark reminder to not put off for tomorrow what we can do today. 

I think that finishing this little chap and displaying him in my home this Christmas time will be a beautiful tribute to her. 

I can imagine it catching my eye as I work in the Kitchen during that joyful season, and to be reminded of her. It will be like she is with me in the ordinary moments of my days. So my goal is to finish this project over the next 8 weeks.

Forest Snowfall

I started this Country Cottage Needleworks chart, Forest Snowfall, about two years ago. It's been tucked away for far too long, and I would love to complete it in time to display during the early winter months.

In my mind’s eye, I can see myself gently packing away the festive decorations after Twelfth Night, the house quiet once more after the joyful flurry of the holidays. In their place, I hang this wintry stitched scene—a quiet nod to the season, full of charm and stillness.

There is something so comforting about those first weeks of January, when the world slows down and home becomes a sanctuary once again. This sweet little chart reminds me that the return to simple domestic rituals are their own kind of celebration.

Changing Seasons

This was a more recent start. Autumn is by far my favourite season—there’s something quite magical about it. Outside, nature begins to slow down. Leaves shift from summer green to rich golds and russets, a final glorious flourish before the stillness of winter, when all things rest and gather strength for the season to come.

Yet even in this slowing, there are new beginnings. The rhythm of the year turns toward harvest celebrations and the quiet anticipation of winter festivities. It’s a season of both stillness and expectancy—a slowing and a quickening.

This chart was designed by Durene Jones for the World of Cross-Stitching Magazine. You can buy this design from her Etsy Shop.

I love to decorate my home for autumn with natural items gathered from nature, warm blankets, autumn scented candles and of course, my homespun stitchery's. I try to make something new for my home each year and I think this little sampler would be a great addition.

Starting a Simple Stitching Practice This Summer

What I love about this hobby is that you don’t need to be an expert or have a drawer full of supplies to begin. A simple hoop, a few threads, a free chart found on Pinterest, or better yet, treat yourself to a lovely cross-stitch magazine packed with charts and advice ... is all it takes to open the door to hours of peaceful creativity. And in a world that often moves too fast, returning to these traditional crafts can feel like reclaiming a bit of quiet joy.

As I settle into this slower rhythm, needle and thread in hand, I’m reminded that creativity doesn’t need to be grand or complicated to be meaningful. There’s such comfort in the familiar motion of stitching, in watching something beautiful emerge little by little. It’s a quiet, grounding practice—one that draws me back to the heart of home, to peaceful winter afternoons and the gentle blessing of making something with my own hands.

So why not pick up your needle and thread, find a quiet corner, and begin? You might just rediscover a deep and quiet joy waiting to unfold, one stitch at a time.