Yo, Collard!

by Kimberlee

OK, I don't have collards growing, I just like saying collards, because it is a beautiful word. Oh, and eating them. I like that a lot!

After my bragging of how awesome all our plants were doing in my last post, we find ourselves at something of a standstill because the weather has decided to do nothing but stay cold or rain.  Trust me, where I'm at, I'm not going to complain too much about weather - we had a few touchdowns in the area and one unfortunate soul killed in his car because of a falling tree, but nothing as bad as all over the Midwest.  I have this primal fear of tornadoes, and didn't have to deal with it for 13 years in NYC. (True story, the day AFTER I moved from NYC, it had its first recorded tornado - in Brooklyn - in recorded history or at least close to that.) But we did get a big reward in the sky after some of the worst weather:

Doesn't it make you want to listen to this beautiful version of Over the Rainbow?

So the patio is now chock full of plants ready to go in the ground (in some cases) and ready to make the patio a beautiful retreat in the other cases.  And of course we continue to buy more seeds and seedlings, I've become pretty adept at reading packets.  I bought these wonderful seeds for Chinese Lanterns that are going into biodegradable pots today.

Chinese Lanterns

Aren't they gorgeous?  And if you've never tried bio pots, they're these awesome little starters that degrade when you plant them in the ground, so it cuts down on waste and mitigate root shock.  I think they will look amazing as cuttings

Striking Arrangement

In the bed news, my lavender from seeds was a big FAIL, sadly, so I broke down and bought them in slightly larger than seedling form and put them in the pallet.  Ahhh, the pallet.  it should be up on its side in its proper vertical position by now, but the weather kept me from planting the middle section until yesterday, so I should have it up in its vertical place in a few days after the roots take hold.  I'm thrilled with how it looks so far, and can't wait to make salad from the lettuce, little bouquets from the flowers and learn how to make soap/candles from the herbs.  Most of the flowers are edible, too, so we'll be eating some very pretty salads this year.

Just waiting for the roots to take hold!  Amongst other things, it has bee balm, lavender, mint, lettuces.

Several plantlets waiting for the big garden

This will eventually become butterfly central

I'm also very excited about the veg that Hubby is going to be devoted to, not only because it will be delicious and fresh and I love knowing where my food comes from, or that it's good for the planet, but because now I'm getting excited at the thought of jarring/canning for the first time since I was a girl.  We're probably not going to be pressure canning (we'll be freezing those things instead), but some pickling and tomato sauce will be in order.  He's also planned an amazing garden layout, which is not only attractive but where plants that are friendly with other plants nestle together, protected by herbs and annuals that naturally drive away pests.  He's also covered our plots with compost from our awesome Compost Site, which is free to individuals and a great resource.

I, however, need to plan out my garden spot.  I have most of the seeds/plants I need, but the set-up itself still exists mostly as an image in my brain that resembles an picture from House Beautiful or Home & Garden.  Because I'm sure it will turn out exactly like that, right?  Right? OK, pretty garden zen moments:

Better Homes & Gardens

 

Rye Castle

Lemony Zest

Martha Stewart

Better Homes & Garden

Well, a girl can dream, can't she?

Coming up next: a review of a lovely piece of jewelry, a different kind of fantasy garden, and how I spent the Rapture with the Gin Blossoms!

Hey mom, which of these do I get to eat?  All of them, right?

Itty Bitty Crafting Committee

Lately, I've been loving cute, tiny crafts.  I think it is because it's Spring (or so I hear), and the world will soon be full of teeny, cute animals and plants.  I hope you like these little pieces of inspiration, all with tutorials,  as much as I do!

Check out these Felted Sweater Mice from Mossy.  They're made from recycled sweaters, and are absolutely adorable, especially when they are wearing their little shirts.  Cute!

These Eggshell Candles would be perfect for Easter, or would be so pretty non-dyed in egg cups.  I love how the tutorial reminds you to not waste your eggs by scrambling them - though I say cupcakes are a good idea, too.

I love Martha Stewart's website, the ideas that she and her staff come up with are often seriously magical and amazing.  I saw this Tiny Terrarium Place-card holder and fell in love.  Wouldn't this be awesome for an outdoor or nature-themed wedding?

This Needle Book Holder from Em Ay Kay Ee is not only ridiculously cute, but would make a nice gift for any seamstress or embroiderer.  I absolutely adore it.

I love bird stuff, and Spring is a great time for making bird nests of all kinds.  I've never seen anything like this furry and fluffy Felted Bird Nest from 54 Stitches. Its adorable!

Do you have any tiny crafts you like to do or would like to try?

All your fabrics belong to me

Can You Paint with all the Colors of Sherwin?

by Kimberlee

Before my current apartment, I lived with "Renters' White" for 20 years.  TWO decades - almost a QUARTER OF A CENTURY!  So when we were negotiating for a place in the complex we are in,we managed to negotiate one wall per room.  Until I was 17, I lived in a farmhouse, but the only truly bright wall in there was my room from 9 to 15 (it was lavender), but mom was a neutral junkie.

Luckily for both of us, my wonderful husband & I share a taste for bright colors.  Mine is for a bit brighter, so he's excellent for reeling me in a bit, and we're both happy.

The living room paint was used on the back wall, so it's the first thing you see when you walk in the door-

I can't remember the brand, but the color is called Daredevil Red.  I had a small can of it that I had hauled around for a year before we moved somewhere we could use it (and the other gallon we had to get).

A handmade vase with feathers & flowers looks great against the red!

This vase was made by Schaefer Ceramics & Crafts in Freeburg, IL.  They don't seem to have a website, but I do have their email address if anyone is interested.  Their stuff is well made and very reasonably priced for ceramics.

Another piece of theirs:

The Green for the dining room/galley kitchen was more challenging in that you can see it from the living room, so we didn't want anything that looked Christmassey.  We erred on the yellow side of the greens, and while it was close, we ended up covering it with  a slightly darker green to come up with this amazing fresh color:

I have a love of using orange as an accent color -

Many of you probably recognize this fabric from IKEA.  I need to get back  there for more fabric. And  maybe an area rug.





The bathroom color is the only other name I can remember, "Sapphire Lace."  It's such a beautiful, deep ocean color:

The Main Bedroom has been an ongoing process of making it feel more French/exotic.  The paint here, as was the paint in the bathroom, was put on the wall where it could be seen from the hallway.  I wanted a deep violet, one of those evocative colors, and I was thrilled with the results:

The painted wall is sparsely decorated, and we don't have much furniture in the room, but the pieces we have are distinctive...

For the other colors, we've used mirror, silver, soft grey, black and light turquoise.

The only room left that has not been painted is what we call The Relic Room, though we do have the colors narrowed down:

The orange is going to go really well with the antique bedroom set I inherited from my grandparents.  Look for more relics!

Thanks for going on a color tour with me!  I soo appreciated it!  Up soon is my first knitted goods, a contest for when I hit 50 followers, and a coffee table re-do.  I leave you with Scrabble:

Your un-redone coffee table fills me with loathing and disgust

You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch

by Kimberlee

This is sort of embarrassing to blog about, but I've decided to put a temporary moratorium on making clothes for myself.  I have been LOVING learning how to make clothes, but some of my cancer meds (steroids) has caused my weight to go up a couple of dress sizes.  Also, for whatever reason and unlike my last round of treatment, I developed a yen for sugar.  So many of these things are mysterious and vary from patient to patient - last time I lost both my hair and weight, this time I gained weight and kept the hair.  But in any case, I don't want to invest the time, energy and money in creating clothes for this current body when I have a good plan for getting back to my ideal weight.  OK, enough of that!  On to fun stuff.

I found some photos I had taken of my Valentine's decorations, and even though we are far past that, I though you might enjoy seeing what I did:

Lips n Love

I was smitten, and remain smitten with tissue paper carnations!  I don't think that, until recently, I had made them since grade school, but they were as cool as ever.  The original idea for this chandelier came from Kevin and Jessica, and I tweaked it with birds from Martha Stewart. I was super-happy with how it came out.

I usually make fairly fragile V-day crafts, and can't pack them easily, and usually can't bear to part with them, so I have started putting them in the overhead of our entryway closet:

A much better shot of Martha's Birds

Sweetness and Coats

You can see several of my paintings in this (the Unicorn is paint-by-number)

I can't lie, I get a kick out of this every time I open the closet!  It just makes me happy.  I seriously suggest that you try it - I have tiki lanterns and leis in there, as well.  Use any funky or pretty hanging things, garlands, whatever.  Only you will see it, and it will make you happy, too.

I also finished up another pillow.  I picked up this Southwest pattern in Jo-Anns scrap bin and it was crying out for an animal touch, so I made a crow silhouette applique in fake leather and  stitched it on:

 

This was also my first time making my own piping.  It turned out pretty well, the only place I had problems was on the closing after I had stuffed the pillow.  It looks right at home in the Artifact Room (ie the second bedroom - need to do a post on that).

And rounding up the odds and ends...I've been admiring the idea of framing fabric.  I had an old gold frame & matting lying around, but unfortunately it had no glass.  So I decided to use some batting and cardboard, wrap it with fabric and with a few good hits with the reliable staple gun - voila!

I'm super-happy with how it turned out.  The fabric has a burlap-quality to it, and though you can't tell from the photos, it is very textural.  I want to do something more with it, but I can't decide what.  I could hang earrings from it, but I was also thinking of using it like a scrapbook, since it can take thumbtacks.  Well, we'll see.

I have some fun stuff coming up in the next few posts!  I've been making some improvements to the bedroom using some French touches and finished my first knitting project.  And, awesomely, my friend Jill sent me a HUGE BOX of vintage patterns from the 80s, which are clearly cool enough to deserve an entire post of their own, as I am certain you will absolutely want to see a lot of them.  I love them, and it will be fun to start making some clothes from them as my weight loss progresses.  Until then, at least, I can touch and pet them. 

And speaking of pet, I'll leave you with Scrabble!  Talk to you all soon!

I swear, I'm innocent!  I've been framed!!!

A Home Made by Hand

by Kimberlee

One of my favorite things is seeing a creative home - I love walking into someone's living space and seeing it filled with objects that are handmade, altered or are used in unusual ways.  I am blessed to live in such a place, and to know & love so many creative people.  Today I'm focusing on some of my own objects, and in a following post, the objects from others.

If anyone wants a tutorial of anything presented here, feel free to ask via the comments section.

 

I love birds.  This garland is made of felt red-winged black birds.  They have bright button eyes.

 

Yes, it's a cow skull.  Many, many years ago, a boyfriend purchased a used car and found said skull in the trunk.  So he gave it to me, and since then it has been lovingly called, "The Room God."  He's been decorated in a variety of ways and, much like the Mannekin Pis, is sometimes dressed for the holiday season.

Currently, he is whitewashed with black horns and carries the motto "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate."

 I wishwishwish I had a "before" of this dresser.  I found it for big trash day on the side of the street in Hartford, CT.  If I recall, it was painted black (badly ) and had herringbone wrapping paper modge-podged to the top, and the knobs were the cheapest white plastic you could find.  But it was old, so it had a solid wooden back and dove-tailed all wood drawers, in short a really well-made piece of furniture.  I took it home, cleaned it up, painted it with several undercoats and this beautiful shade of red, and gave it new pulls.

Then, just a short couple of weeks later, I moved out of this house, and the dresser lived in a small storage closet in a U-Haul in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut for about a year and a half!

My wonderful father drove all the way from Southern Illinois to Connecticut, retrieved it along with several other items, then drove all the way from there to here in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota.  I cleaned it up and added beautiful golden rub-on birds found in the scrapbooking section of Michael's.  It now holds patterns and pattern pieces.

A hanger, purchased raw and painted bright blue.  The deer are fuzzy stickers!

One of my early attempts at flower-making.  ALWAYS keep the magnets from those fridge notepads (best found in the dollar section of Target) because they are great for making impromptu fancy magnets.

The bathroom can be difficult to decorate with wall art, if only that things get easily ruined in the moist environment.  Photos melt to the glass, etc.  This piece of art, which looks like hieroglyphs on papyrus, are simply acrylic-painted stamps on craft paper.  I think I am going to do another, with different stamps, but on fabric instead of paper.  I love this piece because the more the bathroom makes it look older and beaten up, the more authentic it looks!

I found this awesomely shaped branch during a fun time my husband and I had camping with friends.  I cleaned it up with linseed oil, and my father added hangers and hooks.  We have it right next to the front door, and hang our keys on it.  (The candles are from this year's Ren Faire)

This is the rug that wanted to be a bowl.  I love The Generation T books, and this is the braided rug project.  But no matter what I did, the rug desired to become a bowl - so I just let it happen.  It now sits on top of the fridge, holding onions and potatoes. 

Flower Pens.  A classic.

These chairs were part of a dining room set my wonderful husband and I found at a yard sale.  The seating cushions were predictably bad (once again, sorry for no before shot).  Many of you probably recognize this fantastic IKEA fabric - it really brought the chairs back to life!


Thank you so much for visiting me, and I'd love to hear about any of your favorite projects involving altering home objects.