Kreativ Blogger

Thank You Homewood Garden Plot 41 for passing this award to me. I first learned about you through Geek Farm Life podcast and have enjoyed both adventures very much. Homewood Garden Plot 41 is a great resource for anyone interested in growing their own food and preserving it. Again, Thanks!!

To get this award I must list 7 things about me you might find interesting.

1. My husband, daughter and myself are avid crafters. He works mostly in wood, my daughter in jewelry and sewing, myself in everything else.

2. I have crafting attention deficit disorder. I paint, knit, crochet, sew, scrapbook, garden, cook, make jewelry, embroider, photograph, blog....

3. I'm a Respiratory Therapist

4. Yellow is my favorite color because it is such a happy color and brightens my day.

5. I aspire to have TWO backyard chickens next year, trying to sell darling husband on the idea, so far 'No way!'.

6. I just watched the 'Food, Inc' documentary that is in limited realease nationwide. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the worlds food security & safety to watch it too.

7. I have so many hobbies because my favorite hobby is 'Learning New Hobbies'!!

Next, I need to nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers. I nominate:

1. Tania Ho at Chocolate a chuva
2. Meg Mcelwee of Sew Liberated
3. Vickie Howell of Vickie Howell
4. Etsy Austin
5. Sharona of Raisinlike, a puppeteer on the roof.
6. Rachel of Average Jane Crafter
7. Jennifer Perkins of Naughty Secretarys Club

To accept this award please do the following:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. List 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Blogers.
6. Post links to these blogs.
7. Leave a comment on each of their blogs to let them know they have been nominated.

Crafting Curtains

I decided to make my living room curtains by hand. I realized I have made almost all my curtains by hand and really enjoy the creative freedom you have when making your own home furnishings. Purchasing ready-made curtains from big box stores can really date your home. Hand made furnishings allow for creative, unique functional art in your home that store bought, mass produced items from China cannot provide. I used the book Printing by Hand from Lena Corwin as a guide. Lena Corwin is a textile designer with very colorful, scandinavian influences. I love her work and wanted a little Lena Corwin design in my living room curtains.




The process is not complicated. The materials are easy to find in any craft supply store and there are templates you can use in the book. You can also easily design your own templates.




Here I am cutting foam and foam board in order to make stamps. After cutting and gluing the foam on the foam board, I used a paint brush to liberally apply acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium and firmly applied the design to the fabric. I then let dry and ironed for heat setting.


I am cutting a design from the book onto freezer paper. After cutting, I simply ironed the freezer paper, shiny side down onto the fabric. This temporarily adheres the paper onto the fabric, making it ready for screen printing. I didn't use my screen on this, I simply made the paper border large enough not to spill over the paint onto the fabric. I 'squeegeed' with a popsicle stick.




WARNING!

Hand printing can be addictive and fun!

Craftiness Gardens

Darling nephew and daughter graciously agreed to help me build my vegetable garden. First we started with building raised beds out of cedar, lining with cardboard and darling husband filling them with grass clippings for compost. Later comes the soil from The Natural Gardener. Then we fenced off the area with do-it-yourself fencing. Finally we made a gate. The main critter problems we have in our neighborhood are rabbits and cats. Not the wild rabbits you have in rural areas, since we are in the city, our pest is the next door neighbors pet rabbit they like to let loose and nibble on my ornamental grasses.

My fall planting list includes, Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Bioda Di Lyon Swiss Chard, a lettuce mix, Kohlrabi, Sweet Mild Yellow Onion 'Ailsa', 'Pumba' yellow onion, Antohi Romanian Sweet Pepper, Napa Cabbage, Spinach, Soybeans 'Black Jet', Purly Chives, Fortex Snap Pole Bean.

I purchased these seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds out of Winslow, Maine. I decided on these veges after reading Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening by Garrett and Beck. I had no idea Texas has a 10 month growing season. The fallow months are July and August when we only grow mosquitos and fire flies. This book has been very helpful since I am a relative newbie at vegetable gardening. I don't count the times I spent shopping too late in the season at a big box store for gardening supplies, planting poor quality seeds in poor soil. I have always wondered why I could never grow anything. Now I know. I highly recommend this book to any Texas gardener wishing to grow their own food.


I had a stellar crop of lady bugs that laid eggs on my dill plant. They went to town on the aphids on both my beans and my apple trees.

I will keep you posted on my journey to become an urban farmer*

Birthday Surprises!

Our Darling Daughter had a birthday surprise from Sharona of Puppeteer On The Roof Blog or RaisinLike from etsy. This is a custom made puppet made in her likeness. She's soooo adorable, sigh, now I want one:)

She is yet to be named but already she is making herself at home.

New in the garden*

I was able to harvest enough snap pole beans for two to go with our steaks. That was fun since I have never been this successful with vegetable gardening before. I have been really lucky with pests this year. I picked on two catapillars and fed them to the birds. There are some aphids on my pea plants now but I used insecticidal soap to rid them. There are dozens of lady bugs in my garden which really helps.



The swiss chard has germinated and is making it's debut. Chard is a first for me. I first considered it when listening to Geek Farm Life podcast and they discussed how easy it is to grow and described it's tasty merits.

The snap beans are all coming in at once. I don't know if it's the type where the more you pick them, the higher the yield. We will see.



The serranos are starting to come in. They are looking a little weak, I don't know how many I will get from this one plant.



The one Poblano plant I have is fruiting one large pepper, it remains to be seen if this is the only one.

Camping Craftiness*

Our Girl Scout Troop went camping recently at Camp Kuchina. The girls entered a dessert contest and made a cherry cobbler in the cast iron skillet. We usually make this in a dutch oven but we had a fire ban that day.

Our very easy recipe is as follows:

In a cast iron dutch oven, pour canned cherries to make a layer 1 inch thick. Then pour white cake mix to a depth of 1/2 inch. Place several pats of butter on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Place dutch oven over hot coals and place hot coals on the lid of the dutch oven. Bake approximately 30 minutes. When the top is golden, it is done. For more dutch oven recipes, browse the Lodge website.

To learn about dutch oven cooking, see Byron's blog.

David makes a Dibble!

I asked David to make me a garden dibble out of wood. He gladly created one for me in less than an hour out ot Silver Maple. A garden dibble is a hand tool used to make precise-depth holes for planting seed. The tool is notched and the first line denotes 1/2 inch. The subsequent lines are in 1 inch increments.



Here I used this tool to plant snap pole beans. It's very convenient to be married to a wood worker.