Life of a garden - March

Well today is officially the first day of spring! My husband stuck his nose out (think groundhog) and declared: "It smells like spring." Despite all that it really still looks like winter here. However I dug around a little and did see a few signs of life in my perennial beds. The Heuchera is coming back, as seen by the little green leaves. This is a garden staple for me. They do well in shade and are resistant to the slug army in our yard.

The Sedum is also coming back, despite being a succulent type plant this again is a hardy workhorse of the garden, plus it can be propagated and divided with ease - almost accidentally sometimes. I love Sedum and have it planted in various sunny locations.

Our vegetable garden is still covered in snow, will be awhile before we get in here to turn the soil and plant our veggie seeds. The garden bed is about 10 feet by 20 feet, which isn't huge, but we do manage to get a fair amount of produce out of it. We can salsa, spaghetti sauce, hot sauce, sweet relish and pickles. Plus we froze more veg last year so that it didn't go to waste. I blanched and froze lots of spinach and peppers too.

Until my next post I'll be dreaming of warm sunshine on my face and arms, and the far away sounds of the sad and beautiful mourning doves.

Recycled T-Shirt Totes

Every now and then I get the urge to create. And being the spend thrift that I am I found some cheap t-shirts with really cute designs and was inspired to try my hand at making totes out of them!  These are my first attempts, and I think they look kind of cute. The t-shirt fabric however is hard to work with if you don't have a serger. What I ended up doing was zigzagging all the raw edges and then sewing the bags together, this seemed to work out a bit better. I even did a little applique on the handle of one of the totes. Although I have to admit, the "Kiss of Death" Geisha bag was my favorite!

I also experimented with felted wool sweater totes, and determined that I liked working with the wool better, it's much more forgiving, and when you block it you can reshape it a bit if needed. I'm now sewing up more recycled t-shirt totes, and so far all materials that are going into them have been either purchased at thrift stores or rummage sales. More to come on that project!

Life of a garden

Like many others in this area, I come from a long line of farmers. My parents and theirs before them worked the rocky, loamy soil here in North Dakota.

My mom would tell stories of working in the field with grandpa and grandma, wearing hats and grandpa's long sleeved shirts they would walk among the potatoes and in order to keep pests down they would knock off destructive potato beetles into a can of kerosene. For as long as I can remember, my parents had a huge garden at our farm. My mom would buy me special "kid" seeds from Burpee that I would plant excitedly. Years after that I would help with the harvest and canning. We would have baskets full of cukes and tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce and carrots. A day of picking cukes and canning might yield 30 quarts of pickles - it was quite the job!

My own garden is not so grand, but I like digging in the dirt and watching the little seeds grow. I am dreaming of spring even though it still looks like winter here. I've already orderd a bunch of seeds, I get them locally and also order from Territorial Seed out west. They have a unique variety of flowers and vegetables. This year I'm planting Nelson carrots, London springs lettuce mix, snow peas, Kentucky wonder pole beans, beets, radicchio as well as the standard tomatoes, cukes, spinach, basil and dill. Looking forward to planting, should be getting the garden ready around Memorial Day, want to make sure we are past the point of hard frost. Once things start growing I'll take pictures and show the plant progress. Here's hoping we have sunny spring days coming our way!

Catching up

Have gotten back to my blog, so much to update you on. Have been busy making mittens (I've made about 87 pair to date), bags, thrifting and finding little treasures, and creating displays at the deli. I had fun this fall with Halloween. Found a cool old book by Penny Nichols (get it?) and "The Mystery of the Lost Key" glad the book didn't sell. I added this skeleton key, and the book now sits on a side table in our house. I also created some spooky wreaths and other fun displays. My new thing is old bottles with grungy tags, very quick and easy to do.

Also had fun working up Christmas displays both at home and the deli. Found a horse collar, for $2 and made it into a wreath. Got out all my vintage shiny brite ornaments. Love the graphics on the boxes! Decorated the tree in vintage ornaments that I've collected over the years. All the dolls and stuffed animals that my mom made for me over the years got to come out and sit under the tree, a comfortable reminder of all of her crafty work. Speaking of crafty work, want a blast from the past? Check out The Complete Book of Retro Crafts by Suzie Millions. Have made several of these projects as a kid.

House and Garden

Well spring is finally here. Although we've had a cool start, the yard and flowers are looking pretty good. I planted some Allium last fall and they came up full force this year. I really like them, they kind of look like big exclamation marks, I love the purple color too. I moved my herb garden so that the herbs are a bit closer together they were a little too spread out last year. I still have them mixed in with my flowers I kind of like the informal effect. I liked the texture of the onions against the giant leaves of the hollyhock. My sister and I gathered the hollyhock seeds from plants that were growing behind the restaurant my grandparents owned. They were originally planted by my grandma 40 or so years ago. I guess they could be considered heirloom. I'm glad to have them growing, they should bloom this year, will be interesting to see what color they are.


We got our veggie garden planted around Memorial Day. Planted the usual tomatoes, variety of peppers including: red bell, cayenne, jalapeno, hot banana and habenero. Now we need a little heat to make these babies pop. I also tried some red and green leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes and carrots. Everything looks pretty good except the carrots came in a bit spotty. Another week or so our lettuce should be ready to eat! We never had much luck at our old house with lettuce and spinach. I think our yard was too shaded by all the big trees. Our new house gets more sun, so it seems the plants do much better. The underground sprinkler system doesn't hurt either!




I did a bit of work in Jon's bathroom. I scraped off the wallpaper border (goodbye lighthouses!) and painted. I was kind of inspired to make him a travel themed bath. Nothing too over the top tho. I repainted a dresser that had been in the bathroom, black and added some cool checkerboard type knobs - they look kind of vintage. Added some new soft white towels in his suitcase, gave him some new rugs and a shaving mirror, plus the new black and white shower curtain. I think it updates the bathroom a bit, and Jon seems to like it as well. I even added some little baskets under the dresser so he could put his slippers and other items in there to stow. I made him some new artwork by framing some old maps of California. It was super easy and I like the pop of color.

June Bride

Well I guess I'm into weddings this month! I just finished the display for the deli. I was looking at Martha Stewart on-line and found a last minute project that (I think) really makes the window. Martha had the templates for the letters in the banner, it was so easy all you had to do was download A-Z letters, print out and cut out with a big 3" circular punch. Then I punched 2 adjacent holes in the circles so I could string them on a pretty ribbon. I think this idea would be cute for Halloween as well, on orange paper, strung on black ribbon!

Kind of a cute side note: after I had finished the window, a young couple walking down the street with their photographer stopped by. And he took their engagement picture as they gazed into the window and held hands. I'm assuming he caught their reflection. It will probably be a neat picture. Wish I could see it!

I also wanted to make something that looked like a wedding cake, so I pondered how to do that using exising materials I had. So I used some cardboard from a beer case box, formed it into 2 cylindars, and then topped off each cylindar with a circle so I could stack the 2 "cake" sections on top of each other. Then I wrapped it in lace-look paper, added flowers, ribbon and tulle and voila! The cake stand I made as well. The base is a plate I got at a rummage sale, and the stem is a glass candle holder - just a little hot glue holds it together.

For the tables this month I used old wedding patterns that I purchased for about 30 cents each, some color copy bride images and bits and pieces of lace. I pulled out the directions, some of the pattern pieces and just kind of layered everything together and put the glass back on the tables. On some of the larger tables I even used the patterns for the trains, the were still pretty long, so folded them in half. I had an afterthought of maybe sticking the lyrics for the song: by the light of the silvery moon in there as well, but we'll see. The lyrics are kind of neat, such old fashioned romance:

By the light, of the silvery moon,
I want to spoon,
To my honey I'll croon love's tune.
Honey moon, keep a-shinin' in June.
Your silv'ry beams will bring love's dreams,
We'll be cuddlin' soon,
By the silvery moon.

Mother's Day

Haven't blogged for awhile, so thought I better get busy. Have done a few crafts, mostly pertaining to displays for Mother's Day. I made up flower arrangements in mismatched china cups and saucers. I had enough in my stash to make 9 arrangements. These will sit on the tables at the deli. I hit a rummage sale this weekend and found 4 more cups and saucers for 50 cents/set. So I nabbed those to replenish my supply!

For the Mother's Day holiday, I wanted to use my stock of aprons and put them under the glass of the tables. I ironed up the old aprons gathered some apron patterns and printed off some mom type poems as well as My Mother's apron poem: by Marie Marshall:

My Mother wore an apron a clean one every day,
a part of daily living it served in many ways,
when she hung the wash to dry, her pockets held the pins,
the apron was a washcloth that cleaned our dirty chins,
when days were hot and humid twas used to mop her brow,
when hands were wet from laundry the apron was a towel,
here pocket hid the needle to sew the rips we'd get,

in Mother and her apron, our many needs were met,

sometimes it was a basket for eggs or baby chicks,

a bag for garden bounty and apples that she picked,
at suppertime the apron protected Mother's hands,
when taking bread from the oven or lifting lids from pans,
it was a fan in the evening to shoo away the flies,
but the apron's greatest gift was to wipe tears from childish eyes.

I also asked all the ladies at the deli to bring in photos of their mom's (and they really brought in some neat old photos) and I put all the items together under the glass, I like the the way it turned out, see the pictures. I guess I always knew I'd have a use for all of these aprons. I picked up most at garage sales and thrift stores and some are just too neat to get rid of! Speaking of neat aprons, check out the blog of Apron queen she has some awsome aprons, recipes and links.

Easter Favors

I've made a few of these paper cones for the deli display. Found old sheet music and glued the cones together, then added a piece of ribbon to hang on the tree, stuffed in some shredded paper and tah da - a vintage looking paper Easter cone. I've added some small eggs inside, but you could put any number of things inside: Easter candy, chocolate rabbits and other little treasures.

I might also put these out again in June, they might look cute on a "Wedding Tree". I also got some little metal glitter letters that say "I do", and some little clear shoe favors and of course some wedding bells. Thought I could put all of this on a small tree branch (I'll have to do some curb shopping this spring and find some cuttings) to make the Wedding Tree. Will post pictures of that in June. Also found some neat old wedding dress patterns really cheap, will use those somehow in a display as well.

Be My Valentine

I don't really do much decorating for Valentines Day, but I do like to put up a few vintage Valentines around the house. I just picked these up at an antique sale for 50 cents each. They are fun images and wording from a much more innocent time. I use metal flower frogs as a mini easel of sorts - works out pretty well. Enjoy!

Family Ties

I've been thinking about my mom and dad lately. Both have passed away, my mom just a year ago. So I've been transitioning into life without parents. Anyway in order to work through my grief, I've been thinking of doing some sort of craft project that incorporates them into it, and I think I've found what I want to do. I got this "Legacy" project book from my sister and I found these cool cigar box mixed media art pieces. See the example of Mr. Twigg.

I'd like to use photos, and I do have some scrabble tiles, old paper ephemera, and other small objects that I can add to these pieces. I like the aged look, will have to look at the directions and see if they used some type of wash.

Here are the pictures of my parents that I'd like to use, I'll probably title them: Cowboy and Teacher, as that is what they were. I really like this picture of my dad, and his horse Dakota Harry, probably from the late 1950's I would imagine. The picture of my mom was taken in high school. I may have another picture of her as a teacher in Medina, where she taught 4th grade.

Buttons and Bows

Ok, I got the heart completed. Spent quite a bit of time on it, picking out buttons from a large supply that I had, some were my mom's, some were from garage sales and thrift stores. I used an off white sweater vest that I felted. I kind of like the tone on tone look, and liked the sweater material too. Then I had to sew all these little puppies on, that was the most time consuming part. Note the tiny key hanging from the heart - found it amongst all the buttons! I had gotten this idea from an image I saw on-line.

Side note on buttons, I remember my mom cutting up old clothes for rags and we always had to cut the buttons off and save them before tearing the clothes into rags. Reuse and recycle, that depression era mantra was instilled in her, and us to a certain extent as well. Sometime I'll take some pictures of my button "collection" I seem to pick them up whenever I see them, have several jars of them. The brightly colored ones look like bits of candy peeking out through the glass.

....lace and paper flowers

Here are the pics of some of the paper flowers I've made for the deli display. I've got about 8 done and want to make about that many more. I found a very easy pattern. If you can find square tissue paper, just put 5 full sheets together, fold accordian style, at the center cut a notch on either side and then wind wire or a pipecleaner over the center area and begin to pull the petals up and out, and then scrunch and fluff. I've found the more scrunching makes for a more realistic flower. BTW, the lace and paper flowers title comes from lyrics in the Stevie Nicks song Gypsy You'll be humming for the rest of the day!

I also got into mitten making this winter. I had been buying wool sweaters at rummage sales, so I felted a bunch and used a pattern out of Warm Fuzzies by Betz White. Some sweaters work better than others. I scored a really heavy hand knit sweater at a rummage and made 3 pair of mittens out of that one. I think I made about 8 pair so far, these pictured are the ones I have left. I'm going to plug away at making more and see if I can sell a few next winter. I also saw a cute hanging heart that I think I could use sweater material for - more on that later. I'll see if I can make one up.

Triple Word Score

I found this image on the Better Homes and Gardens site. I bought a scrabble game at a rummage sale and was thinking of making the tiles into fridge magnets, but this is kind of a cool idea too - you could change out the sayings for all the different holidays.

I did something similar with an old chalkboard that I purchased, I'd look up neat poems and quotes and write them on the board as kind of a greeting for all our guests.

In the beginning

This is the first step in blogging for me. Thought it would be a great idea for organizing my thoughts, ideas, photos and craft whatnot.

Today was one of the coldest days this winter with morning temps of 31 below zero. CC did not want to get out of bed yesterday, he probably didn't stray far from the covers today either.

I hope to post some photos soon. I've just started to make these giagantic paper flowers for a display. They really look cheery during this especially brutal cold snap.