Little Girl's Apron

A birthday gift for a cute little 5 year old. I just love making aprons. This time I also included a set of matching pot holders. I don't think they will offer much protection from the heat. They are more for play.
I stepped it up a bit and tried some embroidery on this apron. Can you see it? I chose white thread so if I made a mistake it wouldn't be super obvious. I wish I had thrown caution to the wind and used a bright pink thread instead.

A little card to go with the gift. Handmade of course!

Aloha Grass Skirt

Of course I waited until the day of the luau to look for a grass skirt. Since I stole my daughter's bloomers to make brother's shirt she now needed something to wear with her shirt. Would you believe that Michael's didn't have any yet? I grabbed a bag of raffia and a piece of ribbon. I used the ribbon for the waistband and simple looped the raffia over the waistband until it covered her bum. It took me less than an hour and cost less than five bucks. I also had to trim the skirt so she didn't step on it all night.She loved it! She loved it so much that she took it off after about five minutes and almost refused to put it on for this picture. Oh well! Can't win them all.

Aloha Boys Onsie

We had a luau to go to and only three of us had something to wear with a Hawaiian print. And they all matched so my little guy would have totally felt left out if he didn't also match. What to do? My daughter's outfit was actually a 2T. She could still wear the dress even though it was now a shirt on her. I stole her bloomers to create something for brother.

A little wonder-under

A bit of ironing and this is what I came up with.

So we all had matching outfits. Adorable, right? Well the family that dresses together stays together. haha

My Garden

When we moved into this house it already had a garden. :) I didn't have to figure out where I would put one, someone had already done that for me. It had pretty good bones to it also. They had placed a water spigot in the garden.

My sweet hubs rototilling for me. The ground was so hard. We rented a rototiller for about 25 bucks and it was worth every penny.
Last year I simply planted straight into the ground. No raised boxes. No mulch. No fertilizer.

Three times I cleared/had people help me clear my garden of weeds. I grew tomatoes, zucchini, beets, tried pumpkin, corn, carrots, snap peas, strawberries, etc. But then I got pregnant and as I got bigger so did the weeds. Below are a few more pics from last years garden attempt.

rows, rows, rows

Strawberries and Artichoke.

Before the weeds came-The last beautiful shot of my gardening attempt last year. I had put up a picket fence to help my 3 year old daughter know where she could walk without tromping on plants.

Now fast forward to 2010:

Crabgrass

I can grow weeds like no one else.

After weeding. So much better. But I had a plan this year. I tried to think about this garden in terms of years and not just this year. So I spent a few dollars. I pulled all my weeds. Then I asked my gardener to till and amend the soil. Then I laid weed blocker cloth over the entire garden. I bought a roll at Costco for about 30 dollars and covered my entire garden with one roll. I did have to buy more fabric staples.


After laying down the weed blocker, my husband helped me to build raised bed boxes. Now, my garden dollars were starting to add up. So instead of building the boxes completely I only built them halfway up this year. However, I built them so that I could continue to add on in future years. Notice the 4x4 posts that stick up above the frames of the boxes. I used redwood for my boxes. The posts also go 4 inches into the ground to help anchor them.

Some boxes I filled with dirt and other I did not. It just depended on what I was planting. Again, as the years go on I'll add more dirt.
Now if you remember the pictures of the weeds above.......I did not want to have to pull weeds like that again. I even put cardboard in some of the walkways. I didn't want to have to stuff the cardboard into a recycling bin so this seemed like a great solution. Then in all the walkways I put down mulch. I used Scott's Nature Scapes for the mulch and Kellogg's soil.
I even have a box for my daughter. She is in charge of growing carrots and radishes. One day we painted rocks for her little garden. For her I also plant strawberries and sugar snap peas. She loves to eat the peas straight from the vine.
See the cardboard peeking out below? Need a few more bags of mulch.

Corn sprouts!!!

Lastly, I couldn't' forget irrigation. I could totally picture myself watering my garden everyday. But I'm realistic. I have drip line going to each box and a timer to do the watering for me.

So now I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that all goes well. I can already see some critters starting to nibble on a few things so I'll be looking into organic pesticides. This was a project that took me almost a month to complete but was definitely worth it based on the time it should save me in the future.

Digital Scrapbooking

I'm really starting to like digital scrapbooking. I'm not very fast but I am getting better the more I try it out. I won't be giving up my traditional scrapbooking anytime soon. There is definitely something about paper, ink, die cuts, etc. that are fun to work with and move around a page. But when you want to create a duplicate page for a sibling a highly recommend going digital. You only have to make one page but can then make multiple copies quite easily.

Right now I print out my pages through Costco.com. I simply upload them and they are ready in one hour. I also choose "lustre" when printing. I think they look better in a matte finish as opposed to glossy.

Sites I like so far for digital scrapbooking:

Jessica Sprague-great classes and supplies

Designer Digitals-supplies and they even have free stuff!

Design House Digital-saw this on Thirty Handmade Days (Thank you Mique!) also free stuff

I don't have a huge list-I'm just beginning. :)