Moving Day
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imported
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Tomorrow I'm moving into the apartment, so posts will be a bit slower coming than usual as I'll be without internet for awhile.
Summer days
These little guys grow fast...the leaves are now bigger than my hand and we've got the start of some blooms. Originally I was worried about them getting over watered with the heavy rain we'd been getting, but it turns out the more water you give them the faster they grow.
Someone turn the oven off please
Labels:
imported,
there's a season called summer
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Trash Fashion by ~stasha-pistachio on deviantART
Another day of record breaking heat and I'm ready to call it quits. It's just too hot to do much of anything. The weather service says it was 95 at the hottest point yesterday, but the temperature display across the street read 99 at about five last night. Thankfully it's a bit cooler inside, but I'm wondering how miserable this summer's going to be if this keeps up.
I haven't gotten anything planted outside yet, I'm worried about the heat killing the seedlings off. It's hard enough to keep them watered when they're sitting inside on the window sill.
On the etsy front things are going better. I've been having a lot of fun browsing through all the new summer stuff and I've been pumping out the paper. Who knew cold paper pulp would feel so good. I've gotten quite a bit behind on all my blog reading though. I've been keeping up with crunchy chicken and burbanmom, but nothing on the etsy side of things. As soon as it cools off I'll be powering up the laptop and totally binging. I miss all the funny stories and the crafty inspiration.
Jack and the Beanstalk and other Fairytales
Labels:
playing in the dirt
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And the planting begins
Labels:
imported,
playing in the dirt,
second hand goodness
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Time flies when you're having fun, that's for sure. I started an entry on Saturday, but I never got around to finishing. The nice weather was calling to me.
I've been doing a lot of cleaning. I packed up and shipped out a lot of stuff to local charities and finally got around to recycling all the paper little old packrat me had saved. It's nice to have the space to store the stuff I've started collecting, especially the glass jars, wicker baskets, and ceramic bowls.
I also helped clean out a couple of the flower beds outside, although we've still got a bunch of work to do. Hopefully we'll get most of it done by the time I've managed to coax my seedlings into plantable size. Which as of now is still quite plausible as nothing has actually sprouted yet. I keep hoping I'll wake up to little green shoots, but that might be a while off.
Cooking up a Storm
matted 4X12 orange creamsicle triptych by phoebec
Well I'm long overdue for a post. I'd love to say I've been off crafting up a storm, but things have been pretty quite on that front. I did do up a couple of scarves, and a few more of the mini-notebooks, but other than that it's been a lot of cooking.
I made up a bunch of crepes last week Monday and was pleasantly surprised with the results. The recipe was easy; flour, eggs, and water, and they went perfectly with the strawberries I had on hand. What was most exciting for me though is the fact that it's another recipe I can add to my local foods list. Now all I've got to do is wait for strawberries to come into season. Which is going to be hard. I'm all for local food and fully support the 100 mile diet but it's so hard to resist when you walk into the supermarket and see a whole display of California strawberries and prepackaged shortcake. The farmers' markets should be opening soon and then it'll get easier, until then I'm trying to make little concessions; strawberries from California instead of blackberries from Chile or Mexico.
Unplugged... at least for now
Labels:
every day is earth day,
imported,
unplugged
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Shut Down Day is this Saturday May 3. There's still time to join in if you're interested.
I know for me it doesn't seem like a big deal until I try and do it. What's a day without a computer? It's something about voluntarily giving it up that makes it so hard for me. Sure if I'm too busy or if I've got something better to do it's not an issue. Staying off the computer on an unplugged night isn't usually much of an issue either, but staying off for a whole day?
It's going to be interesting. Especially since it's on a weekend this year. It'll be me, my camera, and my ipod for most of the time. Maybe I'll even get around to finishing Kitchen Literacy.
And while we're on the subject of unplugging, there's a great article over at electrolicious (the home of 52 nights unplugged) on etsy, the alchemy feature, and a jacket.
You can't dream for me now.
I spent a lot of time this week poking around homesteading and gardening sites. I looked at everything from square foot gardening, to container gardening, and building houses on rural homesteads. All in all a very interesting bit of research, I learned a lot but I still haven't decided what I want to grow. I know I want to start some herbs inside on the window sill, basil, parsley, thyme, coriander and some stuff for my tea, mint, lemon balm, chamomile, maybe some stevia. Thing is I haven't decided what and how I want to grow stuff outside. All I know is I want to grow something, and badly. I'll figure it out eventually. I'm not too worried, although I'm hoping I don't get sick of it the second the temperature gets into the high eighties.
I also spent a lot of time this week on etsy looking for birthday presents for a couple of friends. I haven't found exactly what I wanted, but I found a bunch of really cool stuff in the process.
Jack - Swirl Bubble Pendant with Onyx Bead by enca
I love the sort of French style curve in this one, especially with the contrast between the two colors.
life is bitter, but sweet by nanako
I'm not usually a fan of Polaroids especially when the processing can totally ruin the original effect, but all of the prints in this shop are breath taking.
Wine by eclecticchaoscreated
Grilled Cheese Pendant/Charm by OneElf
I love OneElf's collection of spunky charms. There's everything from ice cream sandwiches to robin eggs and bird's nests. They really look like miniaturized objects, it's the neatest thing.
Moonstone Necklace with Charm by eastsidejewels
This was actually the first necklace I picked out of the bunch that I was looking at.
Earth Day aka "Green Love" 2008
Labels:
every day is earth day,
imported
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Leafy Tree Pendant from OneElf
Earth Day’s fast approaching and I’m super excited. My ‘hug a tree’ shirt’s ready and waiting and I’m impatiently counting down the hours. Yes I’m a giant geek, but it’s the one day where spreading the green love is totally socially acceptable. Although I will still try and refrain from yelling at people who chuck plastic bottles in the trash; I will not refrain from rolling my eyes at people who look at me funny when I remove perfectly good rolls of wrapping paper from the trash.
It’s going to be fun. However since it is Earth Day I know everyone’s being berated with things like ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and ‘turn the water off when you brush your teeth’. Important, yes, but I think there’s a bit of a bigger picture that gets missed in all that, so I’m going for something different. I’m not going to talk about it, at least not today. Today I’m talking about worms.
Yes, I’m finally writing a real entry about something, and yes it’s about worms. I happen to think they’re cute, most people don’t, but that’s not the point of this whole thing. The point is that they’re very useful little creatures.
They help aerate the soil and provide nutrients in forms more useful to plants. They also are quite useful in composting. Composting is important in so many ways from reducing the amount of trash that ends up in landfills to providing nutrients to plants that you grow. It can, however, be difficult for people who live in apartments or in houses with small or nonexistent yards.
If you're in the above group you can go the indoor composting route, invest in an indoor composting unit, or try bokashi (which is awesome if you’re looking for ways to compost meat and dairy products) or you can go the worm route.
Vermiculture, or composting with worms is something of interest to me; not only because I love worms but also because I hate throwing things out. Long before I found out that landfills produce methane, a greenhouse gas, I thought composting was cool because it took something you couldn’t use and turned it into something that you could. Worms it turns out are particularly good at this. Plus you can put together a bin for little to no cost.
First you’ve got to fine an empty bin, something the size of a dishpan and add bedding, worms, and a little bit of dirt. The worms you can get from your backyard by laying out a piece of wet cardboard overnight and harvesting the worms in the morning. You want the ones that live near the surface, not deep down in the dirt, so don’t start digging. Then all you’ve got to do is start feeding them.
Simple, yet effective. If you want some more information try a google search, or check out a couple of sites that I really like:
...and things move along
Labels:
arts and crafts,
imported,
second hand goodness
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It looks like I'm going to be playing catch up for awhile so I figured I'd hop over and update before I got started with all of that.
I managed to make it to a local rummage sale last weekend and found a lot of really interesting stuff, some for myself and a couple of things for projects I wanted to start. They had a couple of old cookbooks that I snagged and a few Mary Higgins Clark books to add to my collection.
I haven't gotten around to binding any more books although I'm hoping to soon as I made up a couple of thicker sheets for book covers in my last batch. I think I might have actually found a more efficient way of drying the paper, but we'll have to see how it holds up for a second time.
Things on the crocheting front have died down a bit now with the backlog of hats I have to post. I might save them for next season, although we'll see. I'll get the paper listed in a week when things calm down a bit and we'll go from there.
I haven't got any interesting finds to post this week, but I've got to say I really liked the interview etsy did with gaiaconceptions. All of her stuff is incredibly beautiful and yet it's simplistic, it's very eco-friendly, and I love the fact that none of it's covered in patterns. Normally I might disapprove, but in this case there's no need for all the extras.
and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
I finished up another batch of paper last night. I finally got around to using the pressed flowers I had lying around. I only wish the paper would dry faster so I'd have pictures to show everyone. I love paper with pressed flowers and to be able to say I made my own was realy exciting.
The process reminded me of reading Hamlet back in high school, or at least the character Ophelia. I always found her death to be just as beautiful as it was tragic; something of the frality of both life and nature. Watching the flower petals float in the water reminded me of watching eddies flowing in streams and milkweed in wind.
Needless to say, I can't wait till stuff starts blooming around here so I can get some more flowers and leaves to dry. Until then I'm going to have to tide myself over with some more crocheting and maybe some book binding.
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