Rewarding

To grow your own home decor.

{My bright orange geraniums with my favorite owls.}

DIY: Recipe Cards

I purchased this 3 ring Recipe book at Border's a million years ago.

I love the simple design of it. However the lined paper for your handwritten recipes was less than desirable. So I came up with my own DIY recipe cards on Microsoft Word.

I made them to fit 1/2 sheet of a standard printer paper, so I can get 2 per page. I spent Sunday afternoon retyping my recipes to fit into the new template. This helped me to have all my favorites orderly and neatly presented, but it also has the added bonus of having them all saved on my computer = easy access, so when a friend loves one of my creations I can easy email it to them!

One more thing off the never-ending To Do list. Actually there may be 100 more things, check back for details...

Surprise Dinner Party

Saturday was spent in the dirt. That has been a common occurrence in these parts lately. It is just too darn nice out to be inside, so if that means I have dirt under my nails than so be it. After I spent time tending to the weeds, planting some more herbs:

{ Rosemary }

{ Ours on the left, Graham's on the right }

and helping Erik build the structure for the veggie garden, the neighbors and I decided that a patio dinner was a must do. So I buzzed around the house cleaning and picking up to make sure all was tidy for our impromptu dinner guests.

I used some of my beautiful geraniums and snowball blooms to decorate the porch tables. We had delicious kabobs, asparagus, potatoes, and an amazing blueberry cobbler, a BYODinner courtesy of my awesome neighbors and lovely sister. We ended the night with a little Wii bowling, to which I can proudly announce, I RULE.

It was a great night.

Fighting the Rut

I have to be honest, I haven't been in the best blogging or creative mood lately. My dear hubby has been busting his tail at work, and the students and I have been longing for Spring Break and now that it is finally here I just tuckered out. I don't want to do anything, and when I feel like I have to do something it makes it even less desirable. However, I have decided that I must power through. I want to be able to stay home with my future family one day, so I better stop being lazy and start getting busy! After a fun afternoon with my favorite little lady and her awesome mama, I came home and started working! I will be adding this Ruffle Cluster Clip to the shop momentarily.

Also my itty bitty clips will soon be sold in groups of 2! They are the tiniest things, perfect for the cute girlies in your life! I hope all is well, thanks for sticking in there with me...

The Hostas are coming!

I love perennials! It is so fun to see my spouts pop up after a long winter. The hostas are making their entrance this week. They shoot up in little tubes, beginning with a beautiful eggplant color and then turninig to their varigated green. I separated these last summer so I can't wait to see how they fill in this year.

Shouts to Homemade Grits for featuring another star of my front garden on her site today :)

Colors & Labels

There are some new faces 'round here:

{ Phlox }

{ Snowball bush }

{ Creeping Jenny }

{ Geranium }

{ My camilia busting out! }

Erik and I are going to be making our first herb and veggie/fruit gardens this year. I'm excited to be able to pick out our own growin's for our dinners. Our planter box is almost complete for the herb garden that is going to be placed on our back porch for easy access. I wanted a DIY way to label all of my herbs. I found lots of cute ideas and products on Etsy, but I knew I could make something myself. I found plain metal stakes at Pike's for a couple bucks, and thank my lucky stars our neighbors happened to have metal stamps.

So my hand-punched garden labels were born. I couldn't be happier with them. Once we establish which veggies/fruits we're going to grow, I'm going to get copper ones for those beds. I can't wait!

Are you growing anything good this summer?

Inventory is growing...And a GiveAway!!

The shop has a few new additions. Clips are now available and new a headband is also featured. Please come stop by! Or if you would like a FREE piece, head over to Homemade Grits and enter to win your choice of any piece from the shop!!!

Sewing Struggles

I like challenges, but I only really like them when I choose to participate in them. Not when they sneak up on me unannounced and at the last moment. One such challenge arose when I was making a paint brush holder for a 5th grader that I give painting lessons to. Her mom is a colleague and she asked if I could be her daughter's Christmas present (meaning that I would give her painting lessons to go with the Art supplies she got for Christmas, not me with a bow under the tree. gross.) Anyway, the girl is adorable and she has her brushes all ready for paint each week, but they have a sad means of transportation- a ziplock baggie. It breaks my heart every time she pulls out her baggie o' brushes. So I decided to stretch my sewing muscle and make her a brush holder.

I took a cute polka-dot fabric and lined it with fusible fleece for softness and added linen for the inside fabric. I stitched up pockets for her brushes to rest in, a ribbon to tie it up, and I hand- stitched a B for personalization. I was so excited that I finished it until... I realized that it was 2 inches too short! Panic sets in. What am I going to do!!

Breathe.

I, thank goodness, had just picked up a cute pattern for some new Etsy items that just so happened to match the polka-dots, so I added a band at the top to extent the length. Crisis diverted and I am doing OK. It wasn't as simple as I had intended but still very cute for a 10 year old novice painter.

P.S. She loved it.

Budget Blooms

{ Bulbs in Bulk, Walmart-style }

When I do my trips to Walmart to pick up random assortments of items I usually enter through the Garden center because the parking lot is less full and there is a shorter line. As I entered yesterday, I was greeted with an awesome site: $1 bulbs! Now these are not just plain bulbs that I have to wait months for a showing, they were already sprouting! Hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils in a variety of colors! I was so happy that someone did the work for me and I get to reap the rewards for a buck. No more planting in the winter, or forgetting to! I just planted my lovelies yesterday and will get to see them soon.

{ my selection }

{ the little ones snug in their new bed }

Thank you Walmart for making our lives easier, except when we have to try and survive the lines at Christmas, find a parking spot that is semi-close, and try to not let the fertilizer I bought touch the fruit snacks or the new casserole dish that I just picked up.

A View from the Top

{He's my mountain man...}

This weekend found Erik and I in the woods. Well actually we were in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains on the start of the Appalachian Trail. We packed our gear and drove up to North Georgia. We started at the base of Blood Mountain at around 11a and trudged through an awesome coke-float lookin' path made of snow and mud.

We got nice and dirty and reached the summit at around 1p. You could see the still snow-capped peaks of the mountains and because it was a clear day, we could see the Atlanta skyline more than 100 miles away.

We had planned on staying in this shelter, but plan B ensued. It was full of snow and other hikers which meant that we spent a couple hours enjoying the sunshine (I got a nice little sunburn on my nose from the sun and snow!), eating lunch, and relishing the view.

Sadly we headed back to the car around 3p and headed home. I wish we could have stayed but it was too far to the next shelter and we didn't bring our tent to sleep under the stars. But we did make it back in enough time to sleep in our own bed for the night. I have a feeling that we will make the trip again soon...

How about you, do anything adventurous this weekend?