sweet pillows

This turquoise pillow was feeling kind of lonely or maybe there was just too much blue-green going on in this corner between the pillow, poster, table, and plant that there had to be some pop of another color. I think I slowly feel spring cleaning (and re-arranging) seeping into my veins and it started with this little pillow that took only 15 minutes to make. I checked my stash of fabric (I have way too much!) and found this cut up embroidered tablecloth, cut it up even more, picked a backing fabric, cut that up, sewed it, stuffed, and slip stitched it closed. Tada! It was an easy instant gratification project that filled a little need (for this corner).

Are you a good “pillow styler?” I am never good at styling pillows. My couches don’t have pillows because I’m not sure what to mix and match together! Though these two seem to work well together for now. I need couch pillow styling help. Anyone have tips?

Today was a slow day that involved pulling weeds and watering the vegetable garden while the girls sat out in the sun playing with their My Little Ponies. I meant to do a good house cleaning in the afternoon while the girls were resting (they’re all fighting a little something!), but I was way too tired that I kind of sat on the couch and internet surfed before getting up to make this pillow. I’m hoping everyone feels better tomorrow so we can have a little March 1st celebration! Starting it off sick would be no fun, but we’ll roll with the punches too. No biggie.

you are amazing

We went for simple Valentine cards. I went to the dollar store, saw these doilies and a bag of heart mazes, and just like that we had our cards. I knew there would already be a plethora of low-nu sweets passed around at their school, so something that would not encourage cavity growth is what we went with. The girls wrote the message and taped the little maze on and there you go! Happy Love Day to their friends!!!

They passed these out to their friends when they went to their enrichment classes yesterday. They’ve been counting down to Valentine’s Day, so once it gets here tomorrow, you can imagine the excitement that will be going on in our house. Plus, Grandmama (Ben’s mom) is in town, so it will be extra sweet for them! Things have been so crazy here of late that Ben and I have no plans tomorrow (and we both agreed to forgo any gifts). Anyways, I tell him I love him everyday and I try to make out with him everyday too, so it’s kind of Valentine’s Day here all the time!

What are you doing tomorrow to celebrate the loves in your life? This is what we did last year and I can’t believe how little Glow was!

we made posters for each other

For Christmas (yeah, so late in sharing!), Ben and I had no Christmas present requests. Well, I wanted sweats and he wanted his orchard and so he got me sweats and he got himself his orchard (it’s a work in progress that we will all benefit from one day). He’s such a hard guy to gift because he doesn’t ever really want anything frivolous. He’s so practical that his idea of a gift for himself is something for the kitchen, gardening, or something for us girls. Well, I decided to make him a poster that could go in our bedroom. I remembered this post by Jordan Ferney and fell in love with the giant galaxy poster from the hubble site. The best thing about this site is that they offer all the images for free downloads, so I downloaded the one I wanted, added my own writing in photoshop (inspired by this book cover) and voila! I had a sweet, little (well, it’s kind of big at  36″ x 36″) message for Ben. We’ve been in talks to redo some things in our bedroom, so this poster was a good start. I had it printed matte in wide format at Staples and it did cost a bit to get it so large (about $70) for this galaxy one and about ($45) for this poster, but it prints beautifully on nice, thick paper.

Now, funnily enough, after I gave Ben his poster on Christmas morning, he goes in the garage to get me this long tube and out of it, I pulled out my own poster that he had made. I had repinned this poster (originally from here) a few days before Christmas because the sentiment on it was something that really resonated with me regarding pretty much everyday of my life lately. I showed Ben and told him that was totally my motto and would love my own to hang, and so he made me one!

We both chuckled that we happened to both give each other a poster with a saying of sorts. Seriously, we think alike most times. I tell people I’m the girl version of him and he’s the boy version of me. We really are so much the same that in all of our 3 years of dating, we only had 1 fight. I think it’s because we think so similarly, so we find it easier to be in sync with each other. Don’t worry though, we’re still definitely normal. We fight much more now that we’re married, but for the most part, we still think pretty similarly (just with a little bit more arguing thrown in for good measure).

p.s. totally has nothing to do with posters, but this weekend there is a cool vintage pop-up shop going on here and don’t forget Danni’s grand opening too!

instagram wall art

I took this picture while back on instagram (over the summer). It was of the BFF’s new (old) dining table and some fruit she put in a bowl for me to eat. It happened to look like a smiley face, so I took a picture. I love the editing that instagram allows you to do and how the picture came out. Though for those who follow me (@rubyellenbratcher) and wonder, I most often use vsco for my editing app.

My best friend has pretty much given me free reign to decorate her house, so whatever I tell her to buy (within reason), she buys. It’s a nice arrangement. She’s got a house to fill and I like to shop for house stuff, so I get to shop while not spending my own money. I love decorating! Anyways, she keeps telling me she needs wall art, so for Christmas I gifted to her (and John) this piece to put up in their home. It’s pretty large, I think it’s 24″ wide and whatever the coordinating measurement in height. I really love how the colors came out and I’m thinking about getting one printed for our home. I think it makes for such a fun print! Makes me wish I had time to have a little print shop of sorts because I think it would be fun to sell cute prints of pretty things.

While we’re at iphone apps, there’s this new one called vine and it’s like instagram, but it’s sharing little 6 second video clips. So fun and dangerous! If you wanna follow my videos just check out @rubyellenbratcher on vine! See my first little video here.

backyard orchard culture: 1

Well, we’re stepping into new territory and learning (Ben’s learning) all about how to cultivate a backyard orchard culture. Say what?!! Basically, it’s all about how to grow an orchard in a small space…

We live in your regular suburban neighborhood, in a tract home that we love (and are slowly infusing our own personality into), so while we have a decent size yard for being in Southern California, it’s still not that big. One side of it is already dedicated to our vegetable gardening (this side gets the most sun), but we wanted to venture out and start growing our own fruit trees too. Ben’s the lead on this project and honestly, I just have him tell me what it’s going to cost and what trees are going in, all the other stuff, it’s on him.

He’s been spending hours (and I probably should say days!) of research into this project and even with all his research, we have hit a few snags that has cost us more time (and money) to figure things out. He’s spoken to master gardeners, professionals, emailed people with questions, there’s just so much to learn and know that Ben really tries hard to do all he can to make sure he’s doing things correctly. First things first though, and we had to get all the grass ripped off from the side that was going to hold our mini orchard. Next, we had to go in and remove some dirt so that Ben could amend the soil. Here’s where the first snag came in, after we all have spent a day or so removing dirt, he did a drain test on the dirt and turns out we have really bad drainage even with the amended soil. After going back and forth for a solution that was going to be the most time efficient and cost effective, we decided to dig 2 feet deep and get all that dirt removed. OYE! Of course, that giant hole was going to be filled up with good dirt with better drainage and that’s what happened.

We found a company that came with a little bobcat to dig deep (can you imagine if we had to do that all ourselves?!) and then they hauled all that dirt out (we tried doing it ourselves first, but I’m glad we didn’t finish the job alone). While we were at it, we decided to rip up the rest of the grass in that area since we were doing such a major overhaul. We figured, might as well go all the way at this point and just take out all the grass since we had wanted to do that eventually. We had to buy giant trucks full of soil, which got dumped in our driveway, and Ben (and John, BFF’s husband) with another guy we hired to help, moved all that dirt to the back and filled up the hole. This beginning has been such an ordeal and has taken so much out of us already, but we know that the investment will definitely be worth it.

Now, we have good dirt in and so comes the tree planting. Last I thought, 23 trees were going in. Yes, I said 23!!! Ben informed me today that the number has been upped a little bit. Oh my world! Now, here’s the thing with a backyard orchard culture… you don’t let trees grow more than 5-7 feet tall and some holes have multiple trees in it. Sounds crazy, I know. This is just the beginning of our journey, so you can be sure there will be many posts to come and I will share more info soon. If you want to start reading about it, Dave Wilson has a plethora of information to get you started.

Do you grow any fruit trees in your yard? Any tips for us beginners?