Vaseless?

Hydrangeas are in abundance this time of year (even in areas where no one would care if you took some, I'm sure!) and Agee preserving jars are a great (and cheap) way to display them. I just popped a piece of lace around the vase to dress it up a bit but you can use ribbon with a bow or a diamante on the front, a shell and rope, anything! Lisianthus or roses look so lovely in hydrangeas. The hydrangea foliage is good and lasts as well.  Florists usually bash the stems with a hammer (as they need a lot of water and can't take up enough from just the cut at the base of the stem apparently) but I've never had any problems with them drooping. I just cut the stem on an angle and place in shallow, just boiled water, then top up 10 minutes later with cold water. You have to change the water every few days and you should have them last a month.

Use a little hot glue or PVA or just use tape if you want to remove the lace later

I have these displayed on my dining room table in a row (unfortunately I couldn't get the right light for a pic)

A Special Vase

Unfortunately I lost both grandparents last year. Both much loved and such inspirational people. I went back to the old house for the last time before the new owners took it over the other day. I was lucky enough to be allowed to take this beautiful vase home to keep. It's very special since it was theirs.

Some kind people helped me narrow down what it might be (make etc). Thankfully with this new information I managed to track down a lovely man who told me a bit about it. It's a 1960's Shell Vase, pattern #275, made by Dartmouth Pottery (1948-2002) at Warfleet Creek. Dartmouth Pottery made a large number of moulded vases, bowls and planters in different sizes and colours following on from producing traditional Torquay style pottery. Flower arranging was a big hobby during the 1960's in the UK and although the mould numbers go up to the 800's, there only seems reference photographs of about 180 numbered items, so some may be scarce or may possibly be unmarked.

I can just imagine some lovely hydrangeas etc in this vase.

1960's Shell Vase, pattern #275, made by Dartmouth Pottery

Let them have cake!

A friend gave me all her old wedding magazines the other day for inspiration on wedding flowers. I saw this cake and thought it was awesome! Might have to keep that in mind for if I make anyone a birthday cake sometime (less the wedding look in white and tiered). I'm a sucker for paisley!

Cake by Cake Couture - Akld.

Garden dilemmas

We built a house recently and oh my goodness, being a Greenie hurts sometimes when you have to tame the wilderness. So our yard is a number of dirt piles covered in weeds and littered with stones from the fill of the foundation. SIGH. So we want an awesome veggie patch (all organic of course) but we need to get rid of the paddock look to start with. Once the fence is fully painted we can level out the land and get rid of the stones (not looking forward to that hand-picking job). Then we are going to try false seed bedding to get rid of the weeds in order to lay some grass (and make a garden).

So I am busy trying to find some cool inspiration for veggie patches, but there's not a lot out there really (online). I thought I would consolidate what I like here however (over time).

From a Home and Garden magazine

From Griyakulo blog - bricks for planters

Herbs

Great use of space for herbs!

Plumbing pipe for veggies to hang in!

Planter box trio Tutorial

Achieving balance - a word on happiness and time

I belong to a group of lovely (and very smart) individuals who meet every Sunday morning to discuss the things that matter most in life. There are some very interesting topics and debates! It's our turn to host this week and I decided after just having watched Eat, Love, Pray, that we could discuss "balance"; what it means to us and how we achieve it in our lives.

So I got to googling, as you do for inspiration and came across this post I thought was quite a good way of looking at "balance". The thing that struck me in my own life, is how I felt I was on a certain path (happily single and childless) and then added a hubby and child to the mix and felt I no longer knew myself - for quite some time - and I wondered if I'd ever find balance again. Something the Balinese guy said in Eat, Love, Pray made sense in that “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” Funny how things strike you at a certain time and it's like an epiphany! This post HERE is by Adam Khan (an author) and it makes sense about how we are continuously trying to achieve balance then things change and we're unbalanced again! This is key and something we often haven't thought about: "Since you sleep (or should) eight hours a day, you get 16 waking hours every day. You have simply the question: Given your sixteen hours, how do you want to divide it up? Given that you want to be successful, given your desire for a close and satisfying relationship, given your desire for good health and a general feeling of contentment with your life, how are you going to divvy up that sixteen hours?" I also like THIS from simplesapien on keeping life simple. 

For me, balance comes from meditation and mindfulness. Much easier to keep the other stuff in balance when you've trained your mind to recognise  when things are OUT of balance. 

Hope you enjoy the articles.  :-)  Sorry about the strange fonts or colours, I have no idea at all why this post has started adding some strange things in all by itself!

Valentines Cards

I found this cool idea for kids cards (or for kids to make). Super easy. I just used Word for the printing part and my hand as the template after it had printed. Concertinaed the "this much!" words with  tabs blank at the end for gluing to the hand. Make sure you use sturdy card for the hand part or it collapses.

The lady who made this has a blog: Here
I also made a card for hubby.

Inside the card. Tutorial Here

Hope you've all had a great day and been spoilt by someone who loves you - if not, go buy yourself some flowers instead!

Valentines Heart Pocket

This can really be used for any kind of gift, not necessarily just for Valentines Day. I'm making this for my daughter and going to put some love heart shaped things in it. Some sweets, a stone I found, some stickers, so love heart shaped leaves - the only limit is the imagination! So I have seen some of these online, first seen on Pinterest but there didn't seem to be any tutorials with them. If you can't sew, you can glue this whole thing together with craft glue (as long as it's invisible). You need a big enough piece of one colour of felt to fit the heart shape here heart template  I am using white for this piece. You need enough to make a little scalloped edge for across he top of the pocket too. So 1 A4 sheet is ample. Then you need another sheet for the red parts. You don't have to use the heart template, you could just use pinking shears. If you want to do a scalloped edge version, here is a template for cutting out the pocket top (the straight edge): PDF Here is the flower template you will need for the back (to cover the ribbon hanger) and for the front (if you want a flower on it). Flower PDF

Front

 

Back

Print out the flower template from link above. Pin it to the felt background colour of your choice and carefully cut around it. (NB. I had already used the template in this picture for another one).

Cut the heart out of the centre of the template and pin to contrast coloured felt and cut out felt around it.

Rule a line across the heart just above the half way mark and cut the template in half

Pin the half heart on the felt and cut around it for the pocket.

Print out the straight edged scalloped border, pin to felt and cut around.

Pin the scalloped edge to the half heart and trim sides.

Sew the straight scalloped border on to the half heart pocket.

Sew on the handle (on to the back of the back scalloped heart). End off all threads on all pieces.

Put all the pieces together with the handle at the back. Just like picture. Sew together around the outside and end off threads.

Cut out the flower template from the link above. Pin to felt and cut around. Glue with PVA craft glue over the back of the handle where you have attached it to hide the sewing and make it neater. Cut out a small circle of felt in contrast colour to place in middle of flower with glue. You can cut out another one to put on the front if you like and add a button with glue to finish it.

All done!