The Importance of Being Native

Of the handful of people that have checked out the humble blog here, most of you know how I love to get up on the soapbox about using native plants in the garden. A customer lingering in the gardening section? Same thing: blah blah native plants blah.

I'll be the first to admit that I have been ridiculously lazy about the garden this year. In fact, I have done no gardening at all... and I desperately need to weed all of the beds in both the front and back yards. However, with nothing but neglect and last year's mulch, I present to you the native plants in the front garden (most of which were half dead and on clearance at the end of last summer).

Blackberry lily (with daisies in the background).

Double purple coneflowers.

Some spindly variety of black eyed susans.

The view from the front walk. There's althea in front of the windows, as well as a mounding sunflower and a cup plant. They should all start blooming in the next week or so.

crafting night 06.26.09

We bitched and kvetched and complained. We ate. We drank. Most importantly, we were able to get together and be creative in the company of friends.




(We are chock-full of awesomeness.)

Credits: beaded box by Arafel, diagonal scarf by Catheniale, assorted earrings by Zillah. Click on the photos if you want to see our mad skills in greater detail.

Breaking out the Zutter!

I finally used my Zutter machine and made some journals!

The covers are actually old buy campaign signs. They get placed on the shelves so they're sticking out and catch people's attention. Mostly they get bumped into and fall onto the floor, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, these were going to get thrown away and I thought they would make good journal covers. My original plan was to gesso or decoupage them and reuse them that way. But they're kind of cute as they are, you know?

It took a little bit of time to get the holes punched exactly where I wanted them, but once I figured that out, it was smooth sailing. I economized on the paper, so the pages are a little bit short (hence the half hole at the bottom)... but I thought it made more sense to get as many pages with as little waste as possible. I was able to get 4 pages per sheet of copier paper with minimal trimming. The wires are 1/2" in diameter, and work nicely with the overall size. Bending in the wires was super easy, and it only took a few minutes to assemble all of the journals once I had the paper trimmed and holes punched.

I think next time I'm going to put in some pockets and different papers. Oh, the ideas swimming around in my head right now...

A pretty picture for a quiet Sunday

I know, I didn't make the flower... but I will take credit for saving it from certain death on the clearance shelf at Home Depot last year.