Life with plants

Indoor plants certainly add a vibrancy and joy to a home, but getting them to stay happy has never been my forté.
I have had a black thumb (Urban dictionary: A wannabe gardener who kills plants, opposite of a green thumb) my whole life. I want to change that so instead of avoiding plants I am submerging myself in them, making it my goal to keep all of them or at least most of them alive indoors.
As of today we have 8 indoor potted plants, I took a photo inventory of them to share and to see with luck if they would look the same in a few months. I have had a few of them for a while now but most of these are brand new, due to all the great hardware store sales they are having lately I bought some last week and today our local store was 20% off of everything! So I bought a few more challenges to add to our home.

Maidenhair Ferns
These two beauties are a plant that I have been coveting for months now. At just a couple bucks a piece today I couldn't pass up the chance, and if they don't make it I won't feel too bad, after all they are ferns. I haven't had luck with a fern in... um ever!


Keeping them in this frosted window and in the bathroom off our laundry room might be their only chance of survival. Humidity is supposed to be their friend, so here goes nothing. Aren't they beautiful though?


Zebra Haworthia
These aloe like little succulents grow great indoors and don't need quite as much direct sun as a lot of other succulents do. I got the one on the right about 2 weeks ago, and picked up the blooming one today. I didn't even know they bloomed!


Check out the tiny and odd little white flowers on this Zebra plant.



Giant Bird of Paradise
Although beautiful with just the leaves the flowers of bird of paradise is one of my favorites. Sadly my plant will probably never bloom indoors and its too cold here in the winter to plant it outside. I am happy to say I have had this plant over a year and its doing well.



ZZ plant
These Zamioculcas plants are supposed to be "idiot proof" indoor plants, I got it about a month ago from my mom and lets hope that what they say is true and it stays around. I just love the hardy and shiny green leaves.



Bromeliad
I love these and even if 3 years ago I successfully murdered one just like it, I plan to keep this one around at least for a bit. It was only $3 at home depot and SO beautiful. I love the color it brings into the house.




Snake Plant
Or what I like to call, Old Faithful. Also known as Mother in-laws tongue. This plant is great, it is happy no matter where I put it in the house, it grows. I can't kill it, not that I would want to.
It was the perfect gift from my mother in law to a beginner over a year and half ago. I am calling this one a success, which may sound premature at only a year and half, but in black thumb years that like decades.



Outside I also have some fun stuff to share. This succulent has been sending off these shoots with little blooms on it for weeks.




And I finally got tired of buying the same herbs at the grocery store for cooking and planted my own. Here I just planted sage, cilantro, and basil. I have also been growing thyme, mint and rosemary for a while.



Baxter also got a little treat from today's sale, a new toy for him to dismantle. Its his favorite pass time, besides eating.


I hope this encourages more plant killers like me to try at it again. I went a long time without plants and I now feel confidant to try it again with new ones. If there are any indoor plants that you have had great luck with please share them with me... just in case some of the ones above don't make it!

My first purse

I don't think it will be my last either. I really enjoyed sewing this bag from the beginning to the end. Which is rare for me with my sewing projects as I usually get frustrated and hit a lot of speed bumps.
I tend to make everything without a pattern, just using a basic idea in my head that I usually end up changing as I progress.
This purse was in my head for a couple days and I had to get it out! Its a bit off the wall for some but I'm really happy the way it came out. I wanted a casual sack that I can fit all of my usual junk in and my camera. I also wanted a long strap that I could sling it around to my back and across my chest and go hands free for shopping.
The "Day of the Dead" embroidery was something I really wanted on an accessory for a while now. I went with embroidery because it looks so custom and the colors are vibrant and lavish, it sure is time consuming so the look makes it worth it.


The purse is pretty basic, its really more of a casual sack, with a zipper closure, long strap and I sewed in a cell phone pocket for convenience. Its made out of natural brown linen I had extra laying around from other projects and the liner is blue cotton that I reused from a curtain I made and didn't like.



I had a lot of fun making this giant linen tag for the inside. I wanted it to look really fun and youthful.


I'm super exited to be experimenting with my sewing machine lately. This stitch on the tag is so cool, like a perfect scalloped edge.


Here is old skully pinned on before being stuffed and made 3-D.



I think it will be my "go to" bag for a while...until I make a new one!

The Silhouette

I must have one. This thing rules and it will be mine, oh yes it will be mine. Well I hope.
I entered in The DIY Show Off's latest giveaway for one. I hope I win, or someone that will love as much as I will, and if you want to give it a try enter your comment to win here.

I'm a Green wrapper

I declared my hatred for wrapping paper years ago, around the time I started getting invited to lots of baby showers, bridal showers, and kids birthdays. Seeing those trash bags full of colorful wrapping paper just got me peeved.
Okay okay I don't want to be a "Debbie downer" here. Sure who doesn't love a lavishly wrapped present with bows and shiny paper.

But when it comes down to it that wrapping paper just gets ripped off in seconds and thrown in the trash. Not the recycling bin, as its printed with non recyclable materials and laminated, and those plastic bows are just the same.
So instead of adding non biodegradable materials to a landfill I decided to get more eco-friendly with gifts and still manage to make them look pretty.
When I was around 22 I just went the easy route, with the color funnies from the Sunday Paper for family gifts. But showers and weddings presented a problem. These gifts were on display and the comics were not quite appropriate for those occasions.
The wrapping paper section at stores don't usually have a "green" or recyclable option, and to make it worse the options they do have are not cheap! On average a small roll of decorative wrapping paper will set you back about $5.00 for enough paper to wrap one large gift and the ribbon another $3.00 minimum. Gift bags are even worse. With tax that adds on about $10.00 a gift that's just getting thrown away.
That just doesn't make sense to me. I rather spend the money on the gift and come up with a cheap way to wrap them without damaging the environment.

This year I have been invited to a couple of bridal showers in the spring and we are going to the weddings early this summer so that means gifts! Here are a couple of make shift wrap jobs I came up with just using supplies I had on hand and a roll of what I call "every occasion wrapping paper".
This 3 foot x 140 foot long roll of builders paper I picked up at Home Depot for $9.00 puts those $5.00 rolls of 6' long colorful paper to shame. I can wrap over 50 gifts with this baby, and recycle the paper!



I took a scrap piece of linen fabric from my scrap pile and hemmed it with a contrasting green thread.


I enjoy a earthy more subtle look to wedding gifts and white is always a good choice.


The brown, white and green combo are very typical "me" colors but this paper works with any colors you want to pair it with.
I took the linen runner I whipped up, wrapped it around the mysterious brown box and finished it with a raffia bow. The raffia (comes from a palm tree) I had in bulk from a hula costume I made a couple years ago. I customized a mini card with green initials of the bride and groom.


Here is the bride's shower gift. A bit more color to hers came from this up-cycled gift bag from a retailer.
A gift I received recently from Anne Taylor Loft came in this beautiful white paper bag with amazingly fun big grosgrain ribbon handles.


Normally it would be a big "no no" to stick a bridal shower gift in a reused bag with a retailers name on it, unless the gift was from that store. In this case it's not. But I think that's silly. Why throw this perfectly good and pretty gift bag away when it can be re used?

So I cut out some large hearts from my roll of brown paper.


Stuck them over the "Loft" on each side of the bag with a little wood glue.


Let that sit with weight on for about 10 min.


Then reused the tissue paper in a crinkled technique.


I cut it into strips and rolled it up in the shape of 2 roses.


Glued those roses to the hearts and drew on the bride's initial to make it personal.


I think they look pretty darn good for practically nothing in cost. I find it fun and really personal to wrap gifts in these unique ways. I hope that this trend catches on as its good for the pocket book and the planet!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope you all spend the day with someone you love!



I am loving white flowers right now! These 24 white roses were picked up at the local farmers market and I just love how they look in that deep red glass vase.
Below the white begonia pot is covered in blooms...for now. We will see if I can keep them coming.

More vases!

I seem to be doing a lot of posts on vases and arrangements lately. I think I'm in the spirit of spring a touch early. Things do seem to be beginning to bloom around here and I have even started with seasonal allergies, so I guess its probably not a good idea to surround myself with flowers and greenery, but I just can't help myself!

I bought these 3 vases last week from Macy's awesome White Sale and with an extra 20% off of the sale price, score!


I have been wanting to put out flowers every week but with nothing blooming in our yard quite yet, I got a little inventive.

Olives! I have never seen olives in a vase acting as the main attraction so I gave it a try. After all this year the trees are loaded. So much so that if we don't cut them they might take limbs off. Olives are heavy, and they were challenging to put in the tall vase as they wanted to pull it over.




This is the perfect time to cut them for an arrangement as they are in the middle of turning black. So its a great mixture of green and black shiny little round cuties.