recent finds

a} A signed and numbered blue jay print: I thought this was supposed to be for mom (as we were shopping together), but she left it at my house so it's mine now. I know; I have a lot of bird stuff. But blue jays are rare in art form, aren't they?

b} An 'A' pin.

c} A container of various sized crochet hooks: I don't crochet in the traditional sense. I've been trying to put together this idea for a while now and I thought what was holding me back was my poor choice of crochet hook. I had hoped to find something at the thrift store, and I did find something larger and I wanted to get just that. But mom convinced me to take the whole lot up to the cashier to ask how much they'd be and she gave us all of them for 99 cents. (If you need one, email me!)

d} A calligraphy pen: I'm pretty excited about this one. It comes with a bunch of tip sizes, all I have to do is find some ink.

e} Ticket stamps: They've never been used and they're so cute. One has an owl on it, so naturally I had to have it. And despite them being tickets, I don't feel like you always have to use every part of a stamp. Colour in the owl alone and you've got something completely different, right?

f} Rolls of ribbon: I've been looking for pink and since it came in a bag, I had to buy the whole thing. But that's cool. One can never have enough ribbons and the rest were pretty great colours, too.

g} Number stamps: I don't know where the little figure on the top is from, but I really liked the font of the number. I'm going to use them for addressing envelopes.

h} An amazing metal outdoor chair: it's uber comfortable and it just happens to match our house pretty damn well. I may or may not spray paint the metal black. Maybe.

i} A little wicker basket: it's for balls of yarn, is it not? I liked it cuz it's sculptural. I really want to paint it teal blue.

J} A side table: because you need somewhere to put your drinks. And it's wicker. And I know it's a hideous shade of brown right now, but that's where some black paint comes in. In the soonish future.

k} I'm only mentioning the second chair because I got this one for free! It was totally by mistake, and I definitely would have mentioned it had I noticed it at the store. But I didn't notice until the next day when I was reviewing the bill and wondering why everything came up so cheap.

Our front porch is starting to take shape, right? I'm also pondering this little storage bench I spotted at IKEA last week (the one at the store was black). I think it would fit perfectly by our door and look a bazillionty times better than the garbage can that's there right now.

happy walking music

I have to mention these songs for nostalgia:

Fine Young Cannibals {She Drives Me Crazy}

The Proclaimers {I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)}

Talking Heads {Psycho Killer}

If you've got any good suggestions for music, please tell me. I'm getting into a bit of a music slump now that I'm listening more often.

DIY project: planter barrels

This is kind of an obvious and easy DIY. It's just a project that's been on my list for almost three years now. Crazy. I am a crazy procrastinator.

Mom gave me these barrels three years ago. I have no idea where she got them, but since she did, they were probably quite a steal (because she never buys anything unless it's on clearance).

I've been intending to make planters out of them since I got them, but I couldn't decide where to put them. And that is the one and only reason they've been on my procrastination list. I thought it would be smarter to figure out where I wanted them before planting them since they'd be heavier when full of dirt. And moving them seemed like work compounded since I'd definitely have to empty them in order to do it.

So what have I been doing with them so far? I've been keeping crap lawn junk inside them as storage. As soon as we got some rain and both barrels filled with water and all of my lawn junk became sunken treasure, I used them as make-shift tables for tomato plants by turning them upside-down. As soon as some wasps thought the inside of them would be the most perfect place to build a nest, I nervously fumigated them and turned them on their side in a corner.

After the wave of mosquitos this spring, I finally decided not to convert one of the barrels into a small water feature (another reason for my procrastination), got out the drill and made some holes. For drainage. Cuz like I mentioned earlier, these don't look like they'd hold an ounce of water, but they totally do. So if you find yourself with some half wine barrels and want to make them into planters, you're going to have to drill holes.

I don't know what size my drill bit was either, I just chose the largest we had. The reason I drilled so many holes is because I felt that the largest we had wasn't large enough.

Obviously, if you can, try to put the barrels where you want them before filling. These two aren't going to be on our deck forever, but it's fine for this summer. They're out of the way but close enough for easy watering and I like that we can see them out the window. I know this goes against my idea of placing them in their permanent home before filling them, but I won't have a better idea of where to put them permanently until they put the grass in and we get a fence up.

I've finally decided that I'm ok with moving them later. It'll be a drag, but I shouldn't be so lazy as to limit myself on plants this year because of it. Honestly, if it weren't for these barrels, I'd have absolutely no where to plant and barely any greenery this year at all. I HAD to plant them for my mental well-being.

Next, I filled half of each barrel with perlite. Do you have to? No; So why did I? Long answer: Because mom gave me a humongous body-pillow sized bag of it when she gave me the barrels and then some stupid little creature felt it necessary to chew a hole in the bag and then water got into the bag and then the bag weighed more than a small truck. So I've been tripping over, stepping around, and getting strong men to move this bag for long enough. I can't tell you how satisfying it was as I slowly emptied it by the scoop-full into buckets and hauled them from the garage until the bag was light enough for me to carry. Short answer: I didn't know how else to dispose of it and I just wanted to get it out of my life forever.

There are so many different types of dirt to choose from these days! Geeze! I was overwhelmed and I didn't know which would be best so I thought back to my life on a cattle ranch. Composted steer manure was the only dirt we ever used, and everything we ever planted grew amazingly with no help from fertilizers. So that's why I chose it. It's probably not the best dirt for seeds, I realize now, because it's a little clumpy. But they won't be seeds for long and I don't plan on using seeds every year so whatever. My philosophy when it comes to planting things is that if they are determined to grow, they will. I'm not worried.

Now all that's left is the fun part of planting. My future plans for the barrels will involve moving them to the front yard and planting them with cactus and succulents. I'll probably paint the outsides to match the house a little better, too. Until then, they're going to act as a garden, so in one I've put all of my herbs (purple and sweet basil, oregano, parsley, and mint) and the other I have vegetables (spinach, lettuce, carrots, and radish). I was going to plant my tomatoes in them, too, but I didn't think there was enough room (since I almost always buy way too many each year). They'll be going into individual pots as usual.

I'll keep you updated on everything's progress!

if you need more diys to ponder, the list is here

warmed cinnabun and cherries

I snuck out for groceries this morning and came back with cinnamon buns.

The perfect end to a rainy May long weekend, wouldn't you say?

I hope you're having a delicious long weekend, too!

spring rotation

I was gifted some new, springy clothes last week and my first thought was that I'd have to buy more hangers, but then I realized the overwhelming amount of clothing hanging in my closet that just screamed winter at me. So I had my moment of clarity and went through the entire lot, folding up and packing away anything that felt snowy. I must have been invigorated by the process cuz I soon got down to the business of changing around tchotchkes in the house. You know, getting rid of that easter bunny that's been lying on the floor since March etc.

And then I thought to bring up all my flower vases so I could switch them out with the tins. It was the perfect time to wash them, too. I think a lot of those vases had never been washed before. There were still some thrift store tags on the bottoms! But now that they're clean, the difference is amazing. The crystal crystals!

how it was

I've been thinking about doing that for some time now, I'm just a terrible procrastinator (and sometimes, it feels as though the stars have to align just so for me to get something finished). The vase situation was starting to become dismal since I've been getting more flowers lately and was having to resort to using the same vase over and over again whether it fit the flowers or not. Which then becomes especially annoying when you know you have two boxes of paper wrapped vases in the basement.

Doing this couldn't have come at a better time as I found some cheapy bunches of gerbera daisies today that I just couldn't pass up!

And in case you were wondering what was holding the straws, it was a vase. They're proving to be useful for more than just flowers!