If you head over to A Beautiful Mess you can get some basic gardening tips if you are itching for a green thumb. We aren’t pro gardeners, but we just enjoy the process and making memories together! Plus, it feels good to be outside, we like to eat good food, and have pretty flowers. Learn more here.
Ben is the garden plotter as he meticulously plots all the veggies that go in. I was going through some old garden pictures and was so amazed at the different things we have grown over the years (see here, here, and here). We kind of forget because we start again for the different harvest seasons.
We haven’t done a winter garden in so long because the past few winters we either just had a baby or I just got pregnant. Though we always make sure to get our summer garden in. We just love tomatoes too much not to! Ben already ordered 14 tomato varieties so those are coming in mid-April. Last year we grew 34 different kinds, I wonder how many he plans to do this year!
Do you have an edible garden? What are your must haves in it?
Today, I had a nice little brunch with Danni and Lillian sans the girls (Ben was the lucky guy who did homeschooling with them today). When I came home, Brave immediately introduced me to her new pet Strawberry. She had gathered this tiny sprig of flowers from the garden yesterday, requested a teeny vase, and now she had put a pet on top of it. It was quite a heart melting little sentiment despite the fact that bugs kinda creep me out.
Brave carries this teeny vase around keeping her flowers and Strawberry near, but she won’t ever touch Strawberry herself and Ben has to do it all the touching. Strawberry did get moved from her sight a bit during lunch because Strawberry started moving, which freaked out Soul causing her to go ballistic, so we had to move Strawberry away. It seems that Strawberry just likes to chill out on top a sprig of chives, which is the herb these flowers came from.
We finally made something with some of our fresh tomatoes. Last night, Ben made a mean pico de gallo using our tomatoes, cilantro, serrano peppers, lime, and some salt. It was so yummy and there was a lot of it, but we loved it so much there isn’t very much left. This batch and this batch is now all gone, and I can’t wait until we can harvest another big grouping of goods. We all eat the little ones like grapes and the big ones like apples morning, noon, and night!
Today, I am off to a homeschool conference all day long so you can be sure I will be soaking up all I can. I am glad that the week is flying by cause there are some fun things I am looking forward to this weekend.
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
