Posts tagged ‘home’

I received a rain barrel for my birthday in March and finally got it installed today…just in time for the forecasted storms the next few days.

It’s a Fiskars rain barrel.  It wasn’t difficult to install.  We had to cut the gutter & drill a hole in the barrel (while entertaining 2 kids at the same time).

So, why did it take three months to get it up and going?  Well, mostly we weren’t sure if we should keep it.  We have a small yard and wondered if it’d be an eyesore.  Now I need to figure out how to camouflage it into the landscaping.  We also weren’t sure if we could use the water safely in our vegetable garden.  I read lots of websites to try & get a straight answer.  The most educated answers I found from the Texas Water Development Board.  They make suggestions for the types of roofs to use, how to keep out debris & other contaminants, and treatment methods for potable water.  They said composite & asphalt shingle roofs leech toxins.  Plus, my system doesn’t have fancy roof cleansing abilities or first-flush system, so rain will collect bacteria, mold, fecal material, etc from the roof.  I’m not comfortable putting these things on my plants, so I’m pretty sure my barrel will just be for landscape plants.  But either way, I’m thankful for my gift & I’m happy to conserve a little water.

Last spring I made two candle lanterns for my back deck (and this tutorial on how to make them).  But two wasn’t enough because the last time we had friends over in the evening, my husband said we don’t have enough light out there.  He suggested buying more light strands or installing a solar light.  But my thrifty sense said to make more candle lanterns.  So, I’ve been saving glass peanut butter jars, and now that I’ve collected a few, I made three more lanterns today.  I just need some mounted hooks to hang them on.

These are the flowers that Rob gave me for Mother’s Day. They still look as fresh as the day he brought them home to me. Aren’t they amazing?

Well, the trick to keeping cut flowers fresh is changing the water daily. And by keeping your flowers in a tea pot for a vase it is very simple to change the water. I just tip the pot and pour out the old water and refill it in the sink. I don’t have rearrange the flowers at all.

Now Mother’s Day has lasted for more than a week. If only I could get my family to make my breakfast everyday until these flowers wilt!

My collection of pretty antique tea cups is stored in a small corner cabinet in our bedroom. They are lovely to look at and bring a peaceful feeling to the room but I often think I should try harder to actually use them. On a recent visit to FARM Restaurant in Calgary I saw this delightful and innovative use of china cups as holders for tea lights.

Just drop a candle into the base of the tea cup and set it out. A grouping of tea cup candles on the table or one set at each individual place setting is a perfect way to add a sweet touch to a spring or summer meal. I also love them on the windowsill to enjoy during the day.

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

Bad lighting, picture taken at night, sorry!

Remember how at the end of each school year, Mom would grab the scissors and cut the legs off all your jeans, and that would be the summer’s shorts. Well, my kids don’t really wear jeans, so we don’t get cut-offs in our family.

Vively Online has a post up today about some of her summer clothing remakes for her kids. The first project, a pair of shorts from a t-shirt style dress, inspired me to dig through our play clothes for some unwearables to turn into shorts.

These two t-shirts will make great shorts for the baby, using the Vively method (which happens to be a great illustration of the way I already make kid pants). I also plan to go through my adult t-shirts to make some shorts for the older girls. Finished projects to be posted soon. It’s going to be warm this week, so shorts will be needed.

I recently overheard a mother and daughter talking while looking at some crochet pattern books at a local craft store. The mother told the daughter that she used to crochet. The daughter expressed interest at this but the mother told her that “all crochet looks handmade by a grandma”. I was slightly offended by this considering for a long time I only knew how to crochet. I personally enjoy (and appreciate) handmade items and I love crochet.

So I decided to dig through my projects and find something that was fun, current, and still functional. I found this: a crocheted bowl. This bowl is crocheted using cotton fingering weight yarn. It is then stiffened using a warmed, one part water/one part sugar mixture. Surprisingly, it stiffens very well but needs several days to dry. This could be done with any doily pattern you can find. I think it’s a great way to make a doily a little more current. It makes a wonderful house-warming gift, is firm enough to hold goodies in, and even better? There are so many wonderful colors of cotton out there now so you don’t have to settle for the classic white. I’ve also done doilies using worsted weight cotton to increase the overall size. Imagine the possibilities!

Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.

I love gardening. I often say to friends and family that if the lottery ever found it’s way over to my bank account I’d pack up my life and move out to the country to devote myself to puttering around in the garden all day.

Alas, until that day, I continue to look for things that are easy to grow. Cool climates, short growing seasons and all the demands of a busy life makes it a waste to spend time growing slow, finicky plants. In terms of finding success in the garden I can’t think of anything more satisfying and foolproof that growing your own salad greens. Salad mix is so easy to grow and so fast to grow! Plant seeds now and you’ll be eating tender, delicious homegrown greens in only a few weeks. Spring is the perfect time to sow a single variety of lettuce or to be more creative and plant a mixture of your favorite greens. On my list for planting this year are:

• Butter lettuce: This is your regular lettuce – leafy, green, tender and tasty.
• Red leaf lettuce: I love red leaf lettuce for the colour and contrast it adds to your garden plot and to the salad plate. It’s just as easy to grow as regular lettuce and has a bit more punch taste-wise.
• Beet greens: Beets themselves are wonderful to grow, but I enjoy baby beet greens just as much. Plant beet seeds in containers or the salad section of your garden the same as you would any leafy green and harvest the tender leaves in the first month or two of the plant’s life. After that you may want to thin them out a bit or just have the odd beet growing among your salad plants.
• Spinach: so healthy, so tasty, so versatile. In addition to clipping baby greens for salads, I also harvest spinach from the garden and freeze it in baggies for use during the winter (much better for you and your grocery bill than store bought!).
• Nasturtium: along with violets these are my favorite plants to grow if you want to add colorful edible flowers to your salad. They have a lovely peppery taste and the flowers are bright yellow, orange and red.

The planting method is very easy. Start with a clear patch of dirt in the garden or a container filled with potting soil. The size of the plot or vessel is up to you – even a small pot will work, so don’t let the lack of garden stop you. Sprinkle seeds over the dirt and then place a thin layer of dirt on top. The general rule of thumb is that the layer of dirt on top of seeds should be about the same height as the seeds themselves. If you do plant nasturtiums their seeds are bigger than the others so poke them in about an inch.

I mix all my seeds together and wait for the beautiful mishmash of color that comes up; you might also prefer a more orderly planting style like rows or patches of specific varieties. Another thing I don’t worry about is spacing. While you don’t want to be wasteful and use too many seeds, it is also really easy to thin out your salad patch if it’s getting too dense by just eating more salad!

The best way to ensure a steady supply of fresh greens all summer long is to keep harvesting the leaves as they’re ready. It’s easy for salad greens to get parched and dry in the hot sun, so definitely don’t wait for a grocery-store style head of lettuce to emerge. Baby greens and micro-greens are all the rage in fancy restaurants and for good reason: they’re delicious! Eat and enjoy!

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

There’s a huge empty space in my bathroom that’s been begging for a piece of art.  I wanted to create repetition in the room with either the flowers on some of the tiles or the leaves on the shower curtain.  I decided to use the engraved flower images and try a “leaf rubbing” technique.

I originally thought of using plain crayons or charcoal pencils, but with Easter on the horizion, I wanted to see what a clear wax crayon would do.  So I used the crayon as a resist & tried a variety of paints & inks to color the paper.  Acrylic paint & stamping inks didn’t work well because they stuck to the wax too much & colored it.  I then tried watercolor paints & liked the contrast I can get with them.

Supplies:

clear wax crayon (from an Easter egg kit), watercolor paint (I used glittery watercolors called Twinkling H2Os), brush, container with water, paper for the rubbing (thinner paper gives a crisper image), an embossed tile (or other item with an embossed or engraved image). Read more »

I always love the vignettes in Anthropology.  They’re so unique & often use recycled items.  Sometimes I think the displays would be great artwork in my home; other times I’d use them for party decorations.  Here are some pics I took during my last visit.

Bike wheels surrounded by colorful pop bottle flowers

Pretty paper flowers cascading from the ceiling

Empty glass bottle display

With Clementine Season reaching a close we have accumulated at least 6 crates. Those wooden boxes are so wonderful, and I never throw them out. At the moment I am using them to hold individual projects-in-the-making in my craft room, and will probably continue to use them for that for a while.

There are other ways to use the clementine crates though. I have used them in the past as drawer organizers, since they are so short. I keep my cookbooks in one in my kitchen on top the fridge. And I know that Colleen used them for craft room organization in the past. Since I have more than I need this year, I will probably use the two extra I have for kindling in our fireplace since the wood is nice and dry and should catch fire quickly.

But all of those crates were easy to find purposes for. The challenge for me this year was what to do with the orange plastic nets that are on the top of them. Well, I zigzagged two of them together and sewed a strap onto it. Now we hang all of the bath toys in it for draining. But that only used two! Does anyone else have a creative use for them?