It's been a gorgeous few days here, downright hot even! While this is quite lovely, it is also long anticipated, and I can't really blame the bf for being antsy for our recently potted sprouts to get on with it and do something already! So since our pots have remained resolutely barren (and those that were green have since wilted) we picked up a few plants to transplant this weekend.
We bought a few container plants as well, just assuming we may fail to grow anything! I planted a hanging strawberry, and a tomato in a big container...of course I didn't get a chance to decorate all of these, but check out this quick post I wrote for your own inspiration on decorating your plain plastic pots!
We began by digging up the nasty side yard of our little rental house...of course, even though Bf called the landlord before we started, we still ran into a few unexpected burrows cables. To avoid damage and potentially sending yourself back to the dark ages, I recommend tracing out the intended garden area and looking for buried cables before you start digging.
After turning over a large (cable free) plot of land, we broke apart large chunks of dirt with a hoe, picked out all of the rocks and sticks and roots, and raked the dirt smooth. Bf made neat rows and we planted a few seeds and transplanted a few plants. The handle of the hoe turned out to serve as a nice measurement for seeds requiring 1-2 inches of soil depth. We added a bit of potting soil to cover the seeds and drowned them in water.
And now for the big reveal.... Ha! I promise to keep you thrilled readers updated on the progress, of course!
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I have excellent intentions of making a dozen or more of these and hanging them on twine to look like lovely streamers. I had wanted to do this originally for Valentines, but lost all ambition (or got wrapped up in something else) and so I am only just now getting a chance to share this with you...better late than never, I suppose.
I think I probably added a few too many layers here, and some of the pieces didn't curl as well as I wanted but that's okay, it's definitely good enough for my grapevine wreath... and I envision many of them hanging in garlands. What fun things will you make with this technique?
I have been "closely" monitoring my seed starter now for a while now, and after my initial excitement at seeing little shoots sprouting from my newly planted seeds, I have subsequently killed all the tomatoes. A few days after finding my sprouts, I watered and placed them in the afternoon sun for a few hours. I then took them back inside and placed them in their original place atop the washing machine--wherein I failed to do anything else with them all week. Now it has snowed again, making me grateful that I haven't planted them outside, but certain that it is time to transplant! So I will be placing some of the sprouts in pots and hopefully can save some of these dead little guys! Of course, being a master procrastinator, I didn't get back to this project until several days after I wrote the first part of this post...by then, the sprouts were beyond dead--but I figured I'd try anyway.
Of course, having finally gotten the energy to plant my seedlings, I had to wait a few days before they could be placed outside...since I didn't want to kill them with frost...Eventually though, it warmed enough for me to set them on the little deck. Of course, I still have quite a few seedlings left over--so now I need to work up the energy to rake the yard and prepare a suitable place to plant some of them! (I am thinking I should have done that before starting the seeds....oh well!)
Today I want to share this lovely spring wreath that I put together recently. I used some paper flowers that I made from colored paper and a map that I printed from the interwebs. For some extra fun, I also added a "map-to-my-heart", which is hard to see in the above picture. To finish the wreath I attached a piece of burlap that I tied into a bow. For detailed instructions on making the paper flowers above, please check out my Plethora of Paper Flowers blog post. You can also find some great tutorials and printables online or make your own pattern from your favorite flower. To attach the flowers to the wreath, I cut and hot glued floral wire to the base of the flower and allowed them to dry. For a more finished look, wrap floral tape around the glue blob to hide it With the floral wire thoroughly stuck, it's easy to bend and arrange the flowers on the grapevine. Simply twist the wire through a few pieces of the wreath (being careful not to break anything off) and voila! Now when you want to change the wreath for the seasons you can simply detattch the flowers and redecorate as you see fit! Believe it or not, I also used floral wire to stick the bow and the heart (check out this tutorial to make the heart) to the wreath. To hide the wire, I bunched up a bit inside the center knot and slipped it through the wires of the wreath, wrapping it around the grapevine as with the flowers. You could probably also hot glue these into place, but I like the semi-permanence of the wire. Watch out though, the placement of the wire could warp the heart. Good luck and have fun!
For this easy project, I washed some used kitchen jars and made vases to hold some of my paper flowers (to see how I made them, check out this blog post). I have been making so many of these guys lately that I just needed somewhere to put them until I am ready to use them in other crafts (I think a wreath is in order!). The first of these three was made using a spare piece of lace and some twine. I simply wrapped the lace around the bottle and secured it in place with the twine. My lace is wrapped twice, which makes it stiff enough to support itself at the neck of the bottle. I also simply folded the excess lace ubdrneath the bottle. If you'd like a more transparant look, or have less lace, you could cut a measured amount and use mod podge to seal the fabric to the glass. Alternatively, you can stiffen lace with fabric starch to make a delicate vase minus the glass olive oil bottle. Similar to the above oilve oil vase, here I used a piece of burlap and secured it with twine at the top and bottom of the jar. Since burlap frays easily, I recommend cutting in between squares to get a straight edge. Also, as above, mod podge will seal the burlap in place and help prevent fraying (but make sure to trim any strings before you do this or they'll stay there!)
I was feeling pretty proud of myself this morning when I checked on the seeds and saw so many little sprouts that I had to share with all of you. I've cracked the lid to my seed started and moved it from its former place atop the cabinet above my washer to the top of the washer itself--hopefully it will get more light there--but not too much! Now I just need to think about thinning out the seedlings....maybe for another morning!
I am laughing to myself a bit that I am posting this after a week of snowstorms here in NoCo--we sure did need the water though! With such a dry winter we were almost 8 feet below normal water levels in the beginning of march and now we're up to 90% (though the drought continues in the south). In any case, I am determined to think of spring!
To resolve one of my concerns, I decided to make tags for my seeds. I purchased some clothespins from the dollar store and painted them in fun colors. I decided to use magazine clippings to add labels (a la ransom note style). A little mod podge on the painted pin and a little on top sticks the letters and then seals them down. (If you are so inclined, mod podge makes an outdoor formula--but i just used the regular kind). I wasn't very fussy about letter placement, which I think is just fine--they work well and are pretty cute too!
After my pots were labelled, i added abother scoop of soil and covered the tray with the plastic cover. Now lets hope my seeds sprout! With spring finally underway (ish) here in Colorado, I've decided to attempt some gardening this year (wish me luck!). I have a few plants from my office that were started for me by some green-thumbed colleagues, but they're starting to overgrow their little pots (or cups of water...I'm a very devoted horticulturist, if you couldn't guess by now--the one in the mug is what've been taking care of myself--ha!). I've been staring at this little pot problem for a while--since fall really, (hey let's keep politics out of it! ba-dum-pum pssht!--okay, back to work) and spring, as well as some glaring from aforementioned colleagues, has finally convinced me to do something about it! I of course turned to our ever-steady friends, google and pintrest to get some crafty ideas for resolving my spacing issues. (I've shared some of my search results below!)
To begin, I took one of my little plastic pots and painted it white using some regular craft paint. I think a streaky look is okay here, so don't worry above completely covering the pot. Happy with my white, I added a bit of age to the pot by blotting it with gray paint.
Just blot till you're happy! I think mine came out okay, i may smear it a bit more next time--since I quite like the way the bottom looks on my finished pot. I tried not to fuss too much with the paint, since I'll be covering it anyway with this lovely toile print that I got from the interwebs. The image transfer is pretty easy to do with mod podge, although I recommend using a darker image than the one I am using here, since you will be loosing some detail with the transfer...also the ink color does change a bit, mine looks more blue in the finished project...but since I need to replace my printer ink, this is as good as it gets. Also, if you want to transfer words, remember the mirror effect and print backwards. Cover the whole image to be transferred in mod podge. I probably didn't use enough...I think in this case more is better, and allows more detail to be transferred. Make sure your painted pot is completely dry before you stick the image to the pot, mod podge side down. Be sure to center the image where you would like it before pressing it into the pot...if you try to move it after sticking, you may end up with wrinkles the way I have here. If you do have wrinkles, try to smooth them with your thumb and press all areas of the image into the pot. Let the paper dry completely. I have read that some people will speed up drying with a hair dryer, but since I was pretty tired at this point, I just let mine sit over night. I think it was probably dry much sooner than that, but in the end, laziness won out. The next morning, I dipped paper towel in water and completely saturated my image.
Here's the finished product! I added a little bit of paint to the corners of the image, using a paper towel to blend it. If you'd like, you can seal the pot with a top coat. Now I just need to decide if I should cover the whole pot with more toile ...I may just have to make more! Happy crafting!
I already had aroll of burlap (walmart $5), which I bought on a pay-day high. Since I'd never used burlap before, I thought it best to get used to it in a small strip rather than trying to handle a whole ream; although I have since seen that many websites and even home depot carry bulk varieties to help you save your pennies. I think that I may take this route if I go forward with some of my burlap wreath plans. To add a little something extra, I used fabric squares that I purchased a while ago (when I was making my floral place-mats). You can buy a pretty decent sized sample square of fabric at most craft stores, which may not be terribly economical, but is highly convenient if you only need a little bit of fabric, or if like me, you have some need to buy lots of different types of fabric but don't want to spend too much. To create the faux-antique frame, I used a few colors of regular craft paint. I happen to have a decent (if not oldish) supply of paint from my sorority days back at the wag--so I'm rarely in short supply there, and I generally encourage you to try and use what you have around the house...paint can be so expensive! For this project, I used purple to add some low-lights and a mix of gold and white paints to add the highlights. Lastly, I used some sandpaper to wear some of the edges a bit---oh and of course, I also used mod-podge to seal the frame and keep it from shedding too much (after the sandpapering). I wasn't entirely sure how it would turn out, since I'd originally planned on using silver paint--only to find that I was out, and my gold paint required thinning since it was so old and gungky.
To finish, secure the frame to the decorated back with hot glue. You could also try to tie the frame to the back with fishing line (if you do not want to make your frame permanent). If you use fishing line, tie the sting like a package around the length and width of the frame and knot it in the back (Make sure this is very tight--otherwise your whole display will fall apart when you go to hang it!) Actually, for this step, I recommend using hot glue. If you need to remove it later, you can try reheating the glue and cleaning it off with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol). Take a look at these tips for removing hot-glue. I think the next time I make this, I may be tempted to add some additional decoration to the frame, though I recommend keeping it simple the first time around, sometimes adding that extra detail is just a little bit too much! In any case, I quite like the way it turned out...despite not having that metallic paint I specifically purchased for this project...I blame the dogs (since they can't defend themselves!) Happy crafting!
I have been noticing a lot of these pretty succulents included in wreaths and in centerpieces lately. Since I'm a bit, shall we say, thrifty, I wasn't sure where to get these without spending waaay more than I wanted (which is any amount, really--I love flowers, but have a hard time convincing myself that purchasing them is a valuable investment, especially when I could easily make them!).
That being said, I began my search for a DIY paper succulent tutorial. After some quick googling, I discovered this tutorial by Twigg Studios. After some modifications of my own, I created a lovely paper succulent to share with you all.
For my paper succulents, I used a paper-towel roll to cut leaves. I cut half of my leaves in the regular brown and the other half I cut from a paper towel roll that had I sprayed with adhesive and stuck a piece of green-colored paper. Once all the leaves were cut, into triangles of different sizes, I began gluing them together in a sort of "throwing-star" (pinwheel) shape, so that the corners touched and there was a hole left in the middle. I layered gradually smaller pieces on top of one another, with the corners pointing in the empty spaces, so that each empty space was eventually covered with a leaf. I also tried to intersperse the green and brown leaves, to add a little dimension to my faux-succulent. After I finished stacking my leaves for my succulent, I bent some of the edges with my fingers to make them look a little more natural, and less stiff. For a few finishing touches, I rounded a few of the edges (to make it look a little softer, and more natural). I then added some purple paint to the leaves edges and centers....and voila! My version of the paper succulent. Now I only need to make ten or so more for my wreath! (sheesh!) I think I will try a different kind next, maybe with fewer leaves...check back for updates.
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