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Tuesday, May 03rd, 2011
4:31 PM |
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Spring has arrived here in Massachusetts, and it is lovely! The past few days have been 70 degrees, breezy, and sunny. And with spring, comes gardens!! I am still stuck in the city with little hope for a real garden, not that I could really keep one alive. Dave's parents gifted us a rosemary tree this past Thanksgiving, and well I think it barely made it to Christmas. We did try though, I think maybe we tried too hard. (Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Runkle!)I had been itching
to build something for a while, and was almost going to build a small
outdoor patio set for Dave and I. But we are moving again in a few
months, and will be moving across the country in the next 2 years or
so, so I shouldn't really be building permanent things for myself. I
was a little bit inspired by my friend Jess, who made a lovely planting table. And so when my Mom mentioned getting some planters for her garden, I thought this would be a great item to build.
 My mother, who has the luxury of having a sweet back yard, wanted to beef up her garden with some lovely planter boxes. After a bit of a push from me (anxious to get some saw dust into my lungs) she decided it would be great to build them! We followed plans from the ever so lovely Ana White. If you haven't checked her site out, you should!! In Ana's plans she found some really cheap cedar fencing, which ended up putting the boxes at $10 a pop. We weren't so lucky, but we were able to make 3 boxes at 6 feet by 18" (roughly) for $40 each. Looking around, I found some similar raised beds for up to $230 ... EACH!
As you can tell from the pictures, I made my mom do most of the work! I don't mind screwing up my own projects, but I did not want to ruin anything for my mom, so I was more of a helper. I glued, I marked cuts, and I made lunch! This was a bit longer than the "20 minutes" Ana claims on her site, but an easy Sunday project. We ended up making 3 boxes and I think they look fabulous! I can't wait to see them filled with veggies and herbs!
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Thursday, April 28th, 2011
3:34 PM |
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As some of you may know, an online community that I am a part of is hosting a craft exchange. Basically this is just a bunch of random people swapping crafted items. For this "challenge" I decided to quickly teach myself how to crochet, then make an owl (my swap-ee likes owls). Well, this whole crochet-thing is a lot harder than it looks, especially if you don't have a teacher.
Lets start with what I actually was able to make, then I'll let you know some of my resources.
 I crafted the "hamster", that kindof looks like a mouse, first. It was a pattern in one of my how-to books. Then crafted the owl, which is a bit messed up (one wing is longer than the other). At first I was sure that the internet would be able to save me. With youtube and many tutorials online - there's no way I could fail. I found that many of the youtube videos were way too fast, and the style and order of steps they were taking were just not logical. I then turned to my friends, who I knew could already crochet (see here), and asked how they did it. They pointed me in the direction of this book: 
I ultimately ended up using this book for the owl pattern, but the tutorial part in the beginning just wasn't enough for me. I then bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amigurumi:
 See the hamster? This was the most useful book I used. It had step by step instructions with a real picture for each step. I only ran into trouble when I skimmed the directions (don't do that!). But I found myself using this as a resource even when I moved on to the owl pattern. The patterns given in the book are kind of lame, I wasn't a fan of the hamster. If you know nothing about crochet, I would highly recommend this book to be the one that you get.
The last book I ended up purchasing was actually a beginners set. It came with a few hooks, a threading needle, and most importantly a box of stitch markers. The tutorials in this book are OK, but not as good as in the Complete Idiots Guide. There are also a few patterns as well, but are not specific to amigurumi. It took a lot longer for me to get the hang of it than I thought it would, but I finished the owl in the nick of time. I really enjoyed making it, and am absolutely looking forward to making more!
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Friday, April 22nd, 2011
2:34 PM |
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I am an avid follower of Megan over at notmartha.org. She has the most amazing ideas for crafts! She is also nerdy and unlike most craft bloggers out there (which have 4 kids and are super religious). A few weeks ago I was planning on making her chocolate eggs, but that was a lot of work, so when she posted a simpler papier mache egg - I went for it. Also, since we actually have a young kid in our family now, I can do fun stuff like this and not have it go to waste!The only thing I really changed about the eggs were the craft paper. My whole punch did not work well with the tissue paper, so I made butterfly punches. I also made a few 1 color eggs, because the butterflies were a bit time consuming.
I filled the eggs with "grass" and lots of candy. I also made a quick flower pin (which I will HAVE to make for myself, it was so easy), and threw in some seeds and some money. I felt kind of guilty putting so much candy into the eggs, but that's why I'm the cool aunt.
I was too excited about how the turned out to wait for some "in action" shots. The eggs came out really really well!! And I am so excited for my niece to see them!
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