Fabric Flower Pin

We found this craft idea on Pinterest and immediately got super excited! I love crafts. My mother made lots of crafts with us when we were kids. I guess I caught the bug!

http://pinterest.com/pin/67413325643187575/

I first started with some colored felt cut into 3 different sizes of squares. The sizes were roughly 1.5" square, 1.25" square and 1" square, but please refer to the link above to check.

Then create petal shapes out of the squares. A point at the top, rounded sides and a flat bottom.

Next, place a dot of fabric glue into each corner of the flat edge and fold in to create the individual petals.

For the base, cut out a circle of cardboard, a matching circle of felt and another circle of felt about 1/4" to 1/2" larger all around. Glue the larger felt to the center of the cardboard and wrap the edges around the sides. Take the remaining felt circle and glue over the remaining exposed cardboard.

Once you have the base set, start gluing the petals to the base starting with the larger petals on the outside edge. I kept the pattern simple, working my way in with smaller and smaller petals.

Largest petals on the outer ring. Be sure to glue down firmly.

Next ring of petals are slightly smaller. The overlapping petals can hide glue imperfections.

The final or smallest ring of petals will leave a small empty circle in the middle of the flower. I filled it with a rolled piece of felt. Cut a small strip of felt. Be sure that the rolled size will fit inside the leftover space. On one side of the long length of the strip, I cut diagonal lines creating a jagged "tooth" look. Roll the strip up and glue closed, then glue down to the center of the flower. 

VIOLA! Sew a pin or a barrette to the backside of the flower and you are good to go! Beautiful!

Try experimenting with different colors and sizes! 

Have fun!

A Few Months Later...

In a few months time, we had quite a bit of growth starting in our garden. Before some of the plants got too big, we wanted to put up some frames for them to grow on. The tomatoes, peas, green beans and even the cucumber all require a bit more growing room, so why not grow upwards?!

We have been attending a few free gardening classes at the OC Great Park this summer and picked up a few tips. Some cheaper tomato frames can be made with steel frames and rebar from your local hardware store. We soon discovered that the tomatoes need frames on all sides of the plants. They reached nearly 8 feet in the air!

The cucumbers needed smaller frames, something to climb all over. When the fruit start, tie them up with old pantyhose to the frames. They will stretch as the fruit grows.

We learned that butternut squash needed alot of room to creep and crawl.

Even just two plants needed more than 6 square feet of space that we had given it.

Peas especially needed some vertical frames. They really wanted to reach for the sky! We were very surprised to see any peas this summer, since they are more of a winter vegetable. We just got a little overzealous with the "companion planting".

The radishes, lettuce and spinach did initially well in the wall mounted gutters but the heat of this summer stunted and wilted the plants after a few weeks. We plan on moving the radishes and lettuce into a movable planter box that we could place into the shade.

The basils in the back planter really went gang-busters once we got them into the ground. We had to be out there twice a day to pluck off the flowers from all three plants. We should have left it to just one in the end. We have made alot of pesto without even making a dent in these plants. One of our friends is getting a free basil plant sometime soon!

One last tip: green onions can be planted directly into the ground from the store and trimmed when needed. Though as a warning, they get HUGE! If you don't want to plant them in dirt, you can also place them in a glass of water on a window sill.

Hope some of these small tips can help with your garden! Goodluck!

First Plantings

So the garden boxes are in. What is the next step? 

Let's plant!

We thought we would start with something simple.

Garlic 

(note: not so simple)

We just bought some garlic heads from the store, broke them into individual cloves and planted upright into the ground. Be sure to leave as much paper on the cloves as you can.

Good job hubby!

We also purchased some items from a nursery to get our garden a leg up in the growing season. Here is an artichoke plant.

Guess you can't guess what this....Asparagus! Who knew that it was so ferny...

We love cooking with fresh herbs, so we bought alot of herbs to plant directly into the garden. Basil, parsley, thyme, sage, cilantro, mint (in it's own pot since it is a weed!), rosemary, dill, and lavender. 

In the back corner, we added a few strawberry plants as well. Yummy!

We want alot of other summer vegetables so we started the rest as seed in homemade seed pots we found on Pinterest.

Cannot wait to start eating all the yummy food we are going to make with this garden!

The design of the garden boxes was found through Pinterest. Check out the link below!

Planting containers

DIY Fountain

When we were designing the layout of the backyard, we had always envisioned guests coming into our home looking out the back French doors and their eye being drawn to our backyard to a fountain. 

The pot itself was such a find! We were looking for plants at a nursery in Laguna Beach when we happened upon a blue distressed pot. It didn't have a price tag so we asked, expecting them to say it was close to the price of the others around it. $80...$100...even $120... It is Laguna Beach after all.

"Fifteen dollars." 

"$50!" we exclaim. 

"No...$15". 

Needless to say, we took the pot home.

Once we got home, we immediately went about finding a website on how to make the fountain ourselves. Pinterest was extremely useful. See the video link that we used.

We ran an exterior power cord out from the house to the base of the fountain.

And then promptly found out they had solar powered pumps...for serious? That was a very long and deep trench that we dug! Oh well. 

The end product doesn't look too bad. It has a nice burbling noise. Very soothing.

Garden

Come March and we are thinking, we are going to have to get our butts in gear before the planting season catches up to us. 

Where to start? We have such a big blank canvas with our backyard!

Key points we wanted to hit before the seeds go into the ground: 

Separate sprinkler zone for the vegetable garden

Fencing to keep out our dogs (no one likes pee on their peas)

&

Raised planting beds

So we dug up all of the existing sprinkler pipes and replaced them with a grid work of pvc organized into the approximate planter locations. Getting the pvc into the back retained planter was tricky since we had to dig under the short retaining wall. I was all for leaving it exposed but my husband was determined. With a bit of help from our dog Bacon, he managed to do it. Good job hunny!

Next was the fencing around the garden. We used the same components and design as the dog run on the west side of the yard.

Here is a look at the finished fence (minus the door). One of the only plants we saved from the original yard is seen here in the foreground. It turned out to be a Julia Child rose bush. Bon Appetit!

All we had left was the raised beds. But more on that later...