Monday, April 18, 2011

10 Projects in 10 Days

Yeah right!  Sounds good but no way is it going to happen.  
You know it.  I know it.  The paint on the wall knows it...


But how about 10 projects in 21 days?  That sounds doable.  And just look at these great finds!  After an awesome bargain hunting Saturday I paid less than $20 for all of them! 

I'm giving myself just 3 weeks to finish all of these projects and post about them.  
Some are simple.  Others?  Not so much.

*

So who's going first?  The cute little McCoy planter raises its hand...





I love the shape of this planter with its curvy little handle.  The color is perfect, too.  I was over that chip on the front edge as 
soon as I saw the price --50 cents!

This was one of the easiest of the projects.  
All it needed was a plant and a photo op. 





I lined the inside of the planter with a heavy duty zip lock bag cut to fit, filled it with potting soil and tucked in some ivy I rooted in my kitchen window.



One down -- nine to go!









I AM INSPIRED.



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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tomatoes 101

 I grew up in the south where my next door neighbor was an elderly lady named Mrs. Ardis.  She could grow just about anything and spent her days in her garden where I was always welcome.  I realize now I learned about sustainable gardening from her although it was not called that back then.

8x6 Oil on Masonite
I painted one of my seedlings a couple of years ago...
I must really like tomatoes!


Mrs. Ardis rooted roses, azaleas, and hydrangeas by the dozens.  She planted her cuttings in old coffee cans.  Each was covered with a bread bag making a mini hot house.  She grew her vegetables using seeds she saved from one year to the next.  Once, she pinned a leaf to her kitchen curtain that sprouted tiny little plants all along the edge.

I was fascinated.

I was remembering her and her Dixie Cups filled with tiny tomato plants yesterday when I was working in my vegetable garden.  I have wonderful memories of my sweet little Mrs. Ardis.

*** 

My first round of tomatoes were planted 5 weeks ago when they looked like this...



Now they look like this...







Planting Tomatoes

  • Plant a few hills early in the spring.  If we get a frost,  I just cover them up.  I just planted 3 more hills and will add another 3, a month from now.  I stagger my planting this way so that when one planting begins to play out, another one is just getting started -- I don't get all my tomatoes at once.  
 
  • I purchase plants (shame on me) from the garden center.  I like Celebrity and Sweet 100's and I look for plants that are not too leggy, stand upright, have no wilted leaves and no blooms.  

  • Grow two plants for each member of the family who will eat lots of tomatoes, as a rule of thumb. If you plan on canning tomatoes or making fresh and canned salsa, use up to four plants per person.

  • Plant in  a sunny spot.  Place tomato plants in a site that gets full sun (7 hours or more daily). Tomatoes need lots of warm sunshine.

  • Prepare the garden bed by adding lots of well rotted compost if you have it. 

  • Remove the leaves from the bottom half of the plant and plant deep in the hole burying 50-75% of the plant.  This is hard for me to do when I buy such a nice, tall plant but it's a must!  It makes for a stronger plant.

  • Give each plant about 1 gallon of warm water within ten minutes of transplanting to avoid transplant shock.

  •  Space tomato plants 18 to 36 inches apart.  Don't forget to leave yourself enough space to get in between the plants to water, weed, and harvest. Those cute, little seedlings may not remain that way for long. 

  • Use a tomato cage or a tall stake to support the tomato vine about 14 days after transplanting. 

  • Choose whether to use chemical fertilizers. I am lucky to have chickens and all the chicken poo I want.  I use soiled hay from my coop as a mulch for each plant being careful not to let the mulch actually touch the plant.  This is the only fertilizer I use because I have a chicken tractor that's been on all of my planting beds so the chickens have already fertilized each bed.  If you choose chemical fertilizers make sure they are made for vegetables and not grass and follow the manufacturers instructions!

  • Shake your plant poles or cages gently once or twice each week for about 5 seconds once flowering starts to promote pollination of the blossoms (from one flower to another).


  I'll have to post about chicken tractors soon but here is a look at mine in last year's garden...

Click on the picture if you'd like a little backyard tour with some pretty shocking "before" pictures!


Ha! Notice the tomatoes gone wild!

***

I'll be hooking with these fun ladies...


May 27 - Favorite appetizer recipe
A Little Knick Knack 
Fireflies & Jellybeans
Tales from Bloggeritaville
Brambleberry Cottage
My Repurposed Life
French Cupboard
Beyond the Picket Fence

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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Thrift Store Table meets.....its match!

I paid only $15 for this little kitchen farm table so I don't mind so much putting it outside on my shabby carport turned breezy patio and hoping for the best.  The patio is covered but the ceiling is so high it still gets wet sometimes.  I think it will survive.  But if it doesn't,
I can still sleep at night. 



It needed a little livening up.  So, I broke out the (New Avocado by Valspar) spray paint and gave it the update it needed to be able to keep up with the blue chairs I snagged for $5 each at GW. 

 



What came next was a hard sell...

I may have added that last part myself.

*

 These are my tools of choice--



And this is the "damage" they can do--




A little stain...



And I love, love, love this color!








He'll understand when he's older.


***
I'm linking up with Donna @ Funky Junk Interiors




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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Black Bird on my Clothesline

 All my adult life I've wanted a clothesline.  My grandmother had one and I loved hanging clothes out to dry with her.  "Mac" had a washing machine right in her kitchen and a large aluminum dish pan she used to carry wet clothes to the line.  I'd give anything if I had a picture of her at her clothes line.



I'll have to be honest though, sometimes her towels were stiff as a board.  In later years she started using that new stuff -- fabric softener.  After that her towels were a "soft" kind of stiff.  I happened to like stiff towels.  I've never been better exfoliated in my life...




So, after living in a dozen neighborhoods hooked on restrictions (one being no clotheslines) I'm finally here, a place where I do anything I want.  

First on a long list of atrocities was chickens, check.  Next was my very own clothesline,  check.  


I did have one restriction of my own -- it had to be cute -- so I cut the cross boards a little curvy and added a "watch bird" for....... protection.  Yeah, that's right, protection.








I don't know what the other birds think of him but I think he's wonderful... 








Sheets on the line...


  Life is good.




I'll be linking up here:








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Monday, April 4, 2011

Re-pillowing (with video tutorial)



This is a good look -- if I may say so.


But, when we have guests over, they sometimes look around, like a deer in the headlights, for a place to sit.

I have to admit, with all those pillows, my sofa looks a little...well...complicated.
 

I decided to go for a cleaner look when I found this yard of fabric for around $5.  Jealous?  


I love the fabric with the rug -- the only real color or pattern in the room.

Using a queen sized down bed pillow I found at the "Maxx" for $14.99 and a scrap of bronze colored silk for trim, this ginormous pillow cost me around 20 smackers....what a deal!




Making the awesome trim is easy even if explaining it isn't.  

I cut 2-1/2" strips of silk 3 times as long as the length of trim I need when finished.  What on earth did I just say?  Let's try that again...

Say I need 1 yard of trim.  I would cut strips of fabric 2-1/2" wide and would need 3 yards of it when stitched end to end.  I hope that's better.


I fold the strip in half and stitch down the center, sewing little tucks in as I go. 


Grab some popcorn and watch the video for details.  
It's my first so I hope you enjoy it!!!




Once you get the hang of it, this goes really fast.  I was able to make enough trim for my pillow in about 10 minutes.  



Now you have the perfect 5/8" pleated trim with a perfect 5/8" flang for stitching.




Here's the new look...













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