Garden!

LOVE the Summer, LOVE the garden!

Here is a picture from...maybe early June.  The garden has grown SO much now that you cannot see the trellis at all!  There are tomatoes  planted on the house side of the garden (see next picture) and they have grown up over the top of the trellis!

Plot #1 (closest to the house)

To the right are the tomatoes (about a month ago).

Beets are on the left, cukes in the back (which have also grown up the trellis now).

Plot #2 (to the back)

Peas (!) on the teepee!

The squash (the corner) has turned into a Little Shop of Horrors - Audrey Jr.  This picture is also from about a month ago.  It is now GIGANTIC.

 From the tree in the back, we played with plants in birdcages (inspired by our Thailand trip).

Only one still hangs from the tree (due to light and difficultly in watering), but all are still in the backyard (5 total).  Here is a shot on the patio:

Also, I picked up this old lamp shade frame!  How pretty are the rain lillies!

The planter to the right I painted to have a rustic feel.  And what pretty pretty foliage - begonias and a Tradescantia.

 Full patio shot!  So pretty :)

S (he is such a smarty!) has also set up an auto-watering system for the garden plots!  OMG it is SO SO AWESOME!  Saves me about 40 minutes in the morning!!

Step 1:  attach a hose splitter to the spicket.  Use one junction for your all-purpose hose and one junction for your watering system.

2: Attach a timer to the watering-system side.  Set timer :)

3: Attach hose & run to/through the garden

4: use soaker hoses for a long even drip watering.  In the image below I have outlined the soaker hoses in pink for easy visability:

 Here is how the hose was cut and attached at different places to make for 6 soaker hose pieces (2 gardens):

The ends of each of the hose parts were then caped: 

You can also make a soaker hose out of an old one by punching small holes throughout.

Yay for gardens and Summer!

Happy 4th!

I love the day off and that it is followed by a 4 day work week!

I fixed a chair E decoupaged for me.  The caning was all ripped making the chair unusable.  I had seen the idea online HERE which has amazing ingenious repairs!

The step is simple: sew sew sew!:

Best part? I get to keep a chair I love <3. Close up:

One of the many things I love about Summer: Ice teas!  S makes great teas & we have 2 infusion pitchers.  The red below has tea infused with raspberries, the orange with lemon and fresh mint leaves:

July 4th also means barbeque!  Here's an idea I heard on NPR - grill eggs!

1. Half & clean a large pepper(s) (any color).  They can be halved either direction:  

 Crack an egg into the pepper shell:

 Place on the grill until you see the egg set.  The pepper will be deliciously blackened!:

 Enjoy with your favorite hot sauce, ketchup, etc.  I recommend fresh ground pepper:

Flowers, flowers, flowers...

So much has happened since I've last put up a post!  I'll break it down to a few different posts and hopefully actually post everything :)

So, I made mini flags for the mantle to match those that are out in the yard!  They are super cute!  So, here's the Summer mantle.  It's all about color and I move things around/add new things every few days.

 The plates on the left I bought 3 for a $1 at a flea market! They are now under plants at work.

 The greens I just love!  I even love them once they dried out (below):

 I have also been experimenting with drying our hydrangeas!  Above is the finished bunch on the mantle.

Here is the gorgeous bush out back:

 I have cut about 30 blooms off of the hydrangea bush and it is still magnificent!

Here are a 2 beauties on the kitchen table.  I have been pressing flowers in these books, but I love them as a corner-piece on the table as well!

So, drying flowers...

Cut and place flowers in an airtight container with silica already on the bottom:

 Carefully cover with silica...

 Cover the container...24 - 48 hours... 

 Wah-lah!  I find that 48 hours is way too long.  The flowers are super brittle.  24 hours is better, but I am still working out the exact timing...

 Here was the bunch of hydrangeas before drying *I wired them all together before drying them:

 And the bunch was pretty big, so I dried them in a plastic bag:

Worked okay, but a tupperware works better b/c the flowers do not get smooshed.

Finished product:

Looks great on the mantle!

LaGata en la caja

This post is all about E-town and how she loves to sit in boxes.

The Lancaster box is the purr-fect size!

Her favorite box for a while was the Karnival Kolsch box which is such an amazing box:

Here she is hiding again...ready to pounce if needed: 

 The Chesterfield box was a good one b/c she'd paw you through the open handles:  

 And of course, any box with provides cover for sneak attacks is always fun! 

 or for playing with toys (AKA hairbands)!

 Captain Baddy is also a fan of bags.  Here just chillin'...

 Time for a nap!

New wrap, Eva laGata goes for a slink (walk)

Yay for Fridays!  My goodness gracious, it has been quite a week!

Congrats to E & SK on their new baby boy! Can't wait to meet him.  I am also looking forward to meeting B & MP's new baby girl next weekend!  Yay!  Babies, babies, babies...

This week I realized the completion of a small, but time consuming (and gratifying) project.  A new wrap!

The wrap was a HAT in its past life.  It was made 10 years ago out of the black alpaca and added the yellow glitter yarn and then hand colored each end bright pink!  It had started to disintegrate, so I sewed and sewed and sewed up all the fallings apart and refashioned it into a catapillar-like wrap!  Love it.

Here are all 3 together (the newest is on the left side of the gate):

Also, we have been allowing Eva laGata to join us on the patio (either holding her or in her pink halter)!  She is SO funny.  She dislikes the halter and mostly just sits. But when she walks she slinks in it! 

Lick!:

Here I am biting her ear (like any good owner)...she is so docile...

And investingating... 

And being just super cute!  Doesn't it make you wish you were here right now?!

Loving the Spring weather!

I don't even mind the rain as it means things are grOWiNG and GREEN!

May May May!

What a busy month since I last posted!

I am LOVING the WARM lovely weather!

Remember when I asked you to stay tuned? Well, here is our hate-the-empty-lot-and-our-crummy-neighbors/yards solution...reed fencing:

We have planted Morning Glories in the long flower pots. We will trellis them and then the coverage will be nearly complete and BEAUTIFUL!

 

We have also re-mulched with black mulch which is so dramatic! Love it!  When the Rose of Sharon grow in the coverage will be very good here too and very pretty.  The flowers are PINK. ^^

You can actually see in some of the pictures below (taken later than the above) that the RoS has already started to fill in love-illy.

 

And I've hung FLAGS in the yard! Made these for J and R's wedding.  All they needed was some filling in and TLC.  FUN!

 

Left to right...wall and shepherd's hooks - 2 tiered (with wind chimes)! 

Angle shot!

From the Crabapple to the fence:

Pan out!

Close up...L to R: salvaged from old shirt, shibori silk scrap, block print cotton challis scrap:

AND a close up of one of the flags I knit on the machine (over-kill?! maybe.):

LOVE LOVE LOVE.