Growing Garden

Overall, things seem to be going well in the garden. I haven't been the most consistent waterer, so I'm actually impressed to see that things are still alive!

My cilantro looks a little sad (I'm thinking because of the lack of water), but the red leaf lettuce (in the background) and the thyme seem to be doing just fine. After the big frost, the nasturtium died, but everything else is still green and growing.

And look! The spinach is sprouting! Did you notice my little plant markers? I made them out of aluminum roof tiles.

And the carrots...

And the yellow onion!

I still have to go out and buy some tomatoes, peppers, squash, basil and zucchini.

Pretty Easy Bracelet

Yesterday my friend Lindsey showed me how to make a really easy leather bracelet. She bought an awesome one at a boutique, and then realized that she could make them on her own! So... she brought her supplies and shared them (along with her crafting wisdom) with us lucky ladies.
Look at all of these beautiful leather scraps!

First I cut out the base shape of the bracelet out of a thicker leather, then I cut little circles for the flower layers out of the thinner, softer leather. I snipped some slits around the perimeter of each circle, then held them over a flame from a candle for a second or two until they started to curl. Isn't it amazing that a little fire can do that? I guess this would be a good time to tell you to be careful, and also that it's not a good idea to do this craft with little ones.

Then I layered three or four petal circles on top of each other, chose their placement, and hand-sewed them on. A thimble is a handy tool for this step. I also sewed a few seed beads in the center for a little extra sparkle. Then, I cut the slit for the button hole (notice that mine is a little crooked :), sewed on the button, and voila!

Cute, one-of-a-kind leather bracelet!

The great thing about this project is that you don't even have to break out the sewing machine! No finished edges needed.

Fun, right? Now you just have to go out and try to find a place that sells leather scraps. If you live in Phoenix, they sell them at SAS Fabrics on Indian School.. just don't clean them out before I get there!

More Birds

I'm sorry. I just can't help myself. More birds. In fact, I just bought a whole book of birds to cut up and use for craft projects.

So, these are my supplies...

Here's an example of a page in this AWESOME book!

And here's my little craft project :). I still have to glue it all together, but I thought it would be fun to post, even if it's not finished yet.

I have a TON more supplies, and I'm excited to make more of these little guys. I think I might use my little letter stamps to spell out some words and phrases next time around.

Kind-of Homemade Margherita Pizza

First of all, I must apologize that I don't have a photo for this one. BUT, I figured this recipe was worth sharing. Also, I don't have the exact measurements for things, so you'll have to use your own discretion.

Ingredients:
1 pack of fresh pizza dough (I love the kind from Fresh & Easy)
3 Tbs(?) Olive Oil
2 cloves minced garlic
mozzarella cheese
2 Tbs(?) romano or parmesan cheese
2 sliced tomatoes
fresh basil cut coarsely chopped
*chicken apple sausage from Fresh and Easy is awesome too!

Pre-heat your oven to 450.
1. Put some flour down and roll out your dough.
2. Put olive oil in a pan and saute garlic until just turning golden.
3. Use pastry brush (or whatever you got!) to spread olive oil over the crust.
4. sprinkle with just a tiny bit of sea salt if you want to.
5. Add the delicious cheeses and tomato and sausage (if you want).. but don't add the basil just yet.
6. You can add a bit more cheese on top of your toppings if you'd like
7. put it in the oven for 10 minutes or so.
8. When it looks almost done, pull it out and add the fresh basil.
9. Put it back in the oven, and take it out when the cheese is nice and bubbly, and the bottom starts to get a little bit golden.

Let me know if you try it out. This one has been a big hit around my house!

My Beautiful Birds!

I LOVE my new wallpaper! And I realize it's a bit of a cliche, but I can't help it... I love birds! Apparently, a lot of other people do too, hence this video:

Moving on.. Here's my fun before photo:

And after!

It's so pretty and peaceful!

AND... to make things even more exciting, I bought this new jute rug at Ikea this week! It warms up the room so much. (side note: I don't know why there's a missing chair. Dave took this photo :).

The dining room is almost complete. I just need to figure out what i'm going to hang on the walls. We might want to get a buffet (to put on that right wall) and/or a piano (to put against the wallpaper wall) but for now, I'm so very pleased :).

Square Foot Dreams

We're actually underway... my sister-in-law, Jes, and I are embarking on our very first square foot garden. Our awesome neighbors (and dear friends) are allowing us to use their yard to grow our plants. They are tending two of their own 4x4 gardens, while we wrangle ours.

I've always considered myself to have a black thumb, so I'm honestly going into this with pretty low expectations. It would be SO WONDERFUL though, if we could grow and eat our own food!

This was our original plan, and we pretty much stuck to it except that we decided to swap the locations of the carrots and herbs, and we're going to do only one square of cucumber, and add a square of squash.

And here's our cute little box that our neighbor built for us. We filled it with a combination of top soil and a mulch type mix (sorry for my lack of detail!).

And this is what it looked like at the end of yesterday. We're going to fill the empty squares with bell peppers, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers in a few weeks when the risk of frost has passed.

And that's what's happening so far!

So Pretty

Look at this fantastic project

I ran across today! I just thought I'd share the genius. This brooch would make a great Valentine's Day gift.

Look What I Found!

I went to one of my favorite stores in Phoenix the other day (it's called Rust and Roses), and I found this fantastic green chair!

The wood is painted green with gold highlights, and the upholstery is allegedly vintage linen from Europe (I know. Fancy shmancy).

Anyhow, I thought it was a pretty great price (which I can't even remember now, and I don't feel like looking it up... I do know that is was well under $100), and it was a welcome addition to our office.

Butterfly Cards

I decided to branch out and do something crafty that I've never done before. I made a few cards for my mom. First, I bought a blank card set at Michael's for $1 (don't tell my mom... then again, she might be proud of my thriftiness :). I'm pretty sure they always have cards like these stocked in their discount section. Then, I used a butterfly shaped hole punch by Martha Stewart, an alphabet stamp set, and my sewing machine.

I love the way all the elements work together.

There you go. A hand-made card set for not much money. These make great gifts!

Poor, Poor Powder Room

This little half-bath has been neglected ever since we moved in.

We DID add the bead board which helped a lot, but other than that, it only has a mirror with broken pieces, southwest-style copper accessories (not my style), a decent but not awesome light fixture, and no artwork on the walls.

First, I really like the idea of putting a big mirror on the wall that stretches over the toilet and the vanity. (I found this photo here).

Now, about those blank walls... I was thinking about having it wallpapered, but then I had an interesting idea: I could possibly stencil it. It would be much less expensive than wallpaper, but I'm sure it would be quite a time investment. Before you get scared, hear me out. I typically think of chickens and grapevines when I think of stencils but that's why I was blown away when I found these pretty, modern ones. This store has some really cool Moroccan styles like this:

And here's what the actual stencil would look like:

And then I found this AWESOME one with birch trees:

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it worth the time?