9.30.2009

Garden Bloggers Death Day.

Its that time again.
Garden Blogger's Death day hosted by Kate over at Gardening Without Skills.



Fall is coming and with nighttime temps around her in the 50's my garden is starting to die.

My Cantaloupe plants that gave me those nice(small)melons is dying.

Photobucket

Lets get a close up of that rotting fruit down there,

Photobucket

nice.

My pumpkin plants spent the entire summer covered in mildew, produced one pumpkin each, then withered and died.

Photobucket
Photobucket

My green bean plants, which have been producing more green beans than I care to eat, have not produced in a few days so I suspect they are going to start dying as well.

One of my eggplant plants is dying too. It started to make an eggplant but...


Photobucket

I guess it changed its mind.
I don't really care for eggplant that much anyway.



Even though death is quickly approaching there is still some life hanging around in my garden.
Like my tomato plants.
They are digging this cool weather.
I always pull them off green so that they don't split or get eaten by something else.

They just sit here on my window sill,

Photobucket

ripening in the sun, until they turn red.

Than my husband gives them away before I even get to taste one.

My sweet potatoes are growing

Photobucket

This one is small.
I think I will wait a few more weeks before I dig the rest up.

This praying mantis has been hanging around for awhile,

Photobucket

and I always see bumble bees,

Photobucket

and there are also gigantic grasshoppers in there that the girls like to catch but I don't have any pics of them.



I will conclude this post with my days harvest
(and don't laugh at the little people box. It's all I had laying around)

Photobucket


Happy Gardening!!!

9.29.2009

Dear Swiffer...........

Dear Swiffer,

I remember the day we 1st met. My husband brought you home for me.
He said you would simplify my life.

He was right.

You were fast, you were easy, you gave me an extra half hour to my day that I did not have before.

I lusted for you,
but after the lust died down I began to see you in a whole new way,

I began to hate you.

I thought you were wasteful, expensive, and horrible for our planet.

BUT

than I read this article and realized you were not so bad after all.

I can knit so I dont see why I cant knit you one of these.

And

I really do believe that you use less water than traditional mopping.

And

There are tons of coupons out there for your wet pads.

I'm still mad about throwing 12+ mopping pads into a landfill a week but relationships are about making sacrifices and learning to accept flaws.

So, I have decided that you can stay in my life for many many more years to come.

Thank you!

Lo

9.28.2009

Laundry list of projects.

I have a huge list of projects I want to tackle. Here's a preview.

I love this felt fairy house from 5 orange potatoes. I have a thing for fairies and fairy houses so this project is right up my alley. I think I will make mine a bit bigger and make some dolls to go along with it to give Ellie as a Christmas gift.

This outfit is drool worthy. When I saw it on Lil Blue Boo yesterday I said out loud, " No F'ing way! I just bought those pants at Target the other day!!!" I love corduroy, Ryan only wears corduroy, and since I can now confidently sew knit fabric I'm sure corduroy will be a breeze. I do have to admit that I am really thinking about going against my husband and doing the hall bath in owls like I originally planned before he shot the idea down. I think an owl would look great on a switch plate and as a wall decal (or 2 or 3).

I really want to make one of these fruit fly catchers featured on The Idea Room. Actually this may have to be done, like, today, since I always have fruit flies in my kitchen from all our nasty kitchen compost. Totally gross but I can deal with fruit flies if it means I'm reducing my carbon blueprint.

I REALLY need to make some of these smockets for the girls. I'm sick and tired of scrubbing paint out of their clothes. These smocks are simple and beautiful. They would make great Christmas gifts.

I love aprons. I REALLY REALLY love them. I need to make this Suzy Homemaker one for myself. Since I'm referred to her more often than not I think it will be appropriate.





Photos taken from www.craftster.org

I also still have this to fix up. I think I'm going to paint it a yellow that I bought for my hall bath and ended up not using because I did not like how it looked in there.

I also got this off of freecycle yesterday.

Photobucket

I'm going to sand it down, paint it black, and distress it a tad to go with this

Photobucket

I bought for $7 at the antique mall a few weeks ago.

I really love the look of this

Photobucket

I bought some paper and wood plaques yesterday to do a test run.

I also found 2 of these on top of one on of my kitchen cabinets.

Photobucket

God knows how long they have been up there. They were totally nasty. So nasty in fact, that after I scrubbed them down I threw the sponge in the trash. They are all prettied up now and I think they would work well with this project.

I think this project will be good for Ellie's room. Her room is literally a blank canvas. There is nothing in there but a hanging wall shelf hanging, a dresser, a small cabinet, a crib, and a glider. That's it. Blank. And to make it worse not one piece of the furniture is matching. Non-matching furniture is usually like nails on a chalkboard to me but some some reason, in her room, it works.

Now I'm starting to think the owls would look good in there.......



I think that's it for now.

I'll start on this laundry list as soon as I get done making these awesome Sienna dresses. I got the pattern from Little Blue Boo's Etsy shop. Ive got one pretty much done and I love it! Olivia loves it too and Isabela cant wait for hers to be done. They are Halloween related so I have to finish them before the Girl Scout field trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday.

9.24.2009

Go Green.

I got an email the other day from GoGreen.VC asking if they could list Mother Earth in their green blog directory. After checking out the site and blog I sent an email back excepting their offer.

GoGreen.VC is a great website. They have a green blog directory featuring green blogs from every state, they have a calender showing dates for things like State Fairs and gardening shows and they also have a store featuring the worm factory. It is totally gross but I want one REAL bad.

So click the links and read some blogs. Who knows you may learn a thing or 2.

9.23.2009

Nice Melons.

I picked these cantaloupe out of my garden yesterday.

Photobucket

They look juicy, ripe and big.

Well dont let that image fool you. Here's the real melons I picked today.

Photobucket

Small but they are still juicy and ripe

Photobucket

Ellie ate them up

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

YUM!!!

9.22.2009

I've got it together.


Ever have one of those days where everything is running smoothly?

Everyone is up fed, dressed, and cleaned up on time.

You make it to the bus stop early and get to preschool on time?

You come home and think to your self, "I've got it together."

Then you open the fridge to grab a Dr. Pepper and you see this

Photobucket

You then realize you are not as together as you though.



note: that pic was taken when Ellie was a newborn, hence the lack of food and abundance of Dr. Pepper and coffee creamers, but since I am having one of "those" days I thought it was appropriate.

9.21.2009

Weird.

Has anyone ever seen these?



They are so weird!!

The first time I saw someone wearing these I could not help but stare.

They just look so.......

weird
.



I wonder how they feel on your toes?

Do they make them feel claustrophobic?

What if your toes are too short?

or too long?





I don't think I would like them.

It would be cool though if they made some that were flesh colored and painted faux toe nails in funky colors on them for girls and put faux fur on the big toe for guys.



It would make a weird shoe.......

weirder.

9.18.2009

Herloom Party on Emma Calls Me Mama- A very old hutch.

Sorry about the lack of craft post yesterday, I lost my camera. It has since been located and I will post my Thursday craft tomorrow.



Today is the Heirloom Party on Emma Calls Me Mama. I am very excited to participate today although if you would have asked me a year ago I would have barfed declined.

Here's the story:

We bought our house last summer. The owners were moving to Florida and, to save them the hastle and expense of shipping and storing all thier stuff, decided to add all their furniture into the sale price of our house.

It was all pretty much brand new. They left all the receipts, warranties, and manuals in named files in the office for us.

AWESOME People.

Along with all the new stuff there was something old in the dining room that they wanted to sell us. It was a GIANT hutch made by the owners great-great grandfather sometime in the late 1800's early 1900's.

Photobucket

They wanted $900 for it and I said NO WAY! It was ugly, it was HUGE, it smelled old, the glass was melting, it was rusting....it was not my style

at. all.

We respectfully declined their offer.

On closing day they asked if they could leave it. They were unable to sell it in such a short period of time and it was too expensive for them to ship it down to Florida. So in our dining room it stayed.

I hated it.
It creeped me out BIG time.

I took pictures of it and tried to sell it to antique dealers. I got some offers but never excepted any of them.

I am now glad that I didn't.

As time went by that huge, ugly, smelly, rusting, melting hutch has grown on me.

I started using it to store all the kids messy activities in. Crayons, markers, paints, play dough, paper...... than when I got into sewing and crafting I started filling it up with all that stuff.

It has actually worked out great.

As you can see when the doors are shut it looks like a regular hutch with my wine glasses and serving dishes

Photobucket

but when you open it up you have all of mine and the girls crafting stuff.

Photobucket

Photobucket

It has quickly become my most favorite piece of furniture in the entire house.

Besides the fact that it hides all of my crafting supplies away it has great detail.

It amazes me that someone was able to carve these legs without the use of a rotery saw,

Photobucket

and hand carve the molding at the top(the corner pieces are sitting on top, they fell of at some point),

Photobucket

and hand make this glass that has warped and melted over the past 100 + years,

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

and put these knobs on and make a key hole,

Photobucket

Photobucket

I have come to realize that this hutch was not whipped up in one day by a machine in a factory or put together in a week but a skilled craftsman using modern tools, it was hand built, over a period of time, by someone who labored and put all of their pride in making it.

So, out of respect for the man who made this hutch, I have decided to embrace and love this piece of furniture for what it is,

A
FABULOUSLY BEAUTIFUL

piece of work.

9.16.2009

Trash to Treasure- A Medicine Cabinet Redo.

Monday night while I was driving around(trash night) I picked up this medicine cabinet.

Photobucket

I took it home and immediately (after taking a before pic)
detached the mirror and frame and threw the cabinet part to the curb.

Photobucket

I really like the detail on the frame

Photobucket
Photobucket

I knew this mirror would go perfectly in my living room with my newly painted desk.
Yesterday, I spray painted the frame the same ivory color that I used on the desk

Photobucket

and glued the mirror back on with Gorilla Glue.

If you have never used Gorilla Glue before and plan on using it in the future PLEASE! read the directions first. I (unfortunately) did not and later found out (the hard way) that it is activated by water (my poor fingers).

So after scrubbing and scrubbing the glue off of the front of the mirror I was finally able to hang it and admire it.

Photobucket

Pardon the ugly brown shelf and the outdated lamps. I am going to refinish all of it eventually.
But back to the mirror, it looks good there but I defiantly need to hang some other stuff around it because it is too small for the space.

9.15.2009

Inspired by Evelyn Fields- Reusable snack bag tutorial.

I have been wanting to buy these reusable lunch bags from Evelyn Fields but ouch! are they expensive! So I decided to make my own.

I bought a snack sleeve pattern awhile back so I decided to try it out. The pattern was OK but I was not 100% satisfied with it(I did not like their sizing nor did I like the position of the Velcro and I wanted a bit more stability) so I tweaked the pattern a bit and this is what I came up with.

Supplies:

Photobucket
1/2 yard fabric of your choice ( I used muslin(unbleached cotton))
1/2 yard rip stop nylon(or similar nylon will work just fine)
scrap fabrics
fusible interfacing
scissors
rotary cutter and mat
Velcro ( cut in 6 in. strips)

Step 1:
trim up your fabric and cut into one long 8.5 inch wide strip.

for snack bags cut the length 9"
for sandwich bag length cut 12"

Step 2:
line right sides together and sew the tops(the 8.5" sides)

Step 3:
trim the nylon down almost to the seam and turn right side out.

Photobucket

Step 4:
press the seams and sew across the top again about 1/8" from the top.
***NOTE***This is a step I tweaked for stability. You don't have to do it but in my opinion it helps keep the seam trim and stable.

Photobucket

Step 5:
Center your 6" Velcro strips about 1/4" down from the seams and sew them on. You can either stitch them to both the nylon and the outer fabric or to just the nylon. Stitching to just the nylon gives the bag a cleaner look and hides any bunched up thread from sewing the hook strip of Velcro and it also hides no-so-straight sewing lines.

Photobucket

Step 6:
Sew up the sides together using a french seam.

Keeping the bag right side out, pin and sew closed with a 1/4" inseam.

Photobucket

Just like in step 3, trim nylon and fabric down to just above the seam. This helps keep the sides trim.

Turn inside out and sew up the sides again using a 1/4" inseam. Make sure to use a pencil or pen or something to push the corners of the bag all the way out so that they looks like this

Photobucket

Step 7:
Turn right side out, trim off all strings, and you are done!

Photobucket

If you want to add an applique like I did follow this applique tutorial over at Lil Blue Boo. Ashley has some great tutorials.

Once you have the pattern down you whip these in about 15 mins. each. Isabela uses them for her lunch every day and LOVES them. The pink cheetah print heart one is her favorite :)