Terrarium Tutorial

Hannah and I had a fun little field trip to some Antique Malls here in St. Louis last Friday.  Hannah ended up buying this really cool glass container thing-y, though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to put into it. 

We decided to stop by the local farmer’s market before we picked up her little boy from pre-school.  We were just going to pick out some fruits and veggies for dinner when we saw a bunch of succulents, staring at us, begging us to take them home.  And they didn’t have to beg very hard- I’ve been looking to get some for a while now, and so has Hannah!

Then, the idea started brewing… we could make a succulent terrarium with the above glass thing-y!  Well, it would be a terrarium sans lid, since succulents need to stay mostly dry.  So we picked up some soil, some stones, and she picked out three different types of succulents (don’t ask me the names, because I have no clue!).

We lined the bottom with some medium sized stones (these can be picked up at many garden stores or Michael’s or Hobby Lobby).  Then, we packed some soil onto the top of the stones.  This will allow for drainage of excess water since succulents need only be watered once per week/two weeks.
Then, we took each succulent out of their respective containers, took some of the soil off of the roots (not too much, just enough so that it is easier to re-plant it into the terrarium), and placed it into the soil of the glass container.

Once we re-planted the succulents, we added some more soil and packed it loosely around the roots of each plant.  Then, we added another layer of the stones to make it look pretty!

   
We encourage you to find a unique glass container of your own, visit your local farmer’s market, and make your own tutorial.  When you do, we’d love for you to share it with us!

Homemade Gifts

This year, like many in the past, I made a lot of the gifts I gave out for Christmas.  I know I teased you a little with last week's post of all the wrapping I did, but I didn't want to give away any clues to my family in case they were reading!  So here are some of the gifts I crafted:

I started off with this blue box that housed something in it's former life, then sanded it and painted it black

I bought some pens

a booklight

(I stole borrowed his a couple of years ago)

and found some great printables online including library cards

library envelope templates

bookplate templates

and some cute little list books (this gal also has some super cute books for sale in her etsy shop!)

and put it all together to make a little library kit for my son:

He and I share a love of books and feel a twinge of sadness that it all seems to be going digital, so I thought he'd appreciate this for the books he already owns.

When my son was in town for Thanksgiving, we went to a craft fair and he saw a scarf that resembled this one, but it was grey and it was crocheted.  He asked me if I could make one like it in black; I told him I could try knitting one and see how it turned out.  He loves it!  I'm so glad- it looks great on him, too.  It's an infinity scarf, so he can wear it like a chain, or double it up to keep warm. 

I decided to "tea stain" some coffee filters and flour sack towels for a few projects.  I live in an apartment, and it was 30 degrees out, so I opted to dry them right there in my kitchen window.  Once dry, the filters flattened out nicely and held a little texture to make these snowflakes that I used for wrapping the presents.

 And with the flour sacks, I ironed them and used freezer paper stencils to make these cute little kitchen towels for my sister:

Other than that, I just printed out some other "freebies" I got off the web, cut them out accordingly, and packaged them as nicely as I could so they could pass for a gift:)

We hope your holidays were filled with warmth and joy and that this new year brings everyone great happiness.

Hannah moved to a new home with her fiance and son over the New Year's weekend and her sewing studio is no longer in the dungeon (the basement)!  She couldn't be more excited- so no more pictures with bad lighting- at least from her house.  I'm still a night owl, so I'll have to work on that!

Cheers to a great new year!

We're Still Here, We Promise!

It's just been, well... December.  I'm impressed with how many bloggers have been able to post so regularly during such a hectic month.  I've taken to a more reflective process and have been busy making gifts.  Hannah, her husband, and her son have been passing around every flu bug known to mankind and she has still found time to make several custom orders this month!

But I thought I would show you a little bit of what we've been busy making- mostly stuff that won't give away any Christmas surprises like tags and wrapping.  We'll show you more after there is no chance of spoiling any surprises. 

It's going to be a very homemade Christmas this year:

I found so much wrapping inspiration on the web this year- love the yarn!

I dyed a bunch of coffee filters, cut them into snowflakes, and added them as an embellishment.

Here, I carved a stamp and used red ink and silver paint pen to spruce up a plain brown gift bag.

On this one, I just used an eraser tip and some white paint to stamp on polka-dots.

I also used an exacto knife to cut out a triangle shape from an eraser to make mini-bunting stamps.

I used all sorts of scrap paper, card stock, stamps, and my sewing machine to make my tags.

Hannah made her son, Jack, a crayon roll- so cute!

Don't worry, he's only 2, so he won't be reading this blog tonight;)

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  Don't forget to look for our new website coming soon, in the new year.

Thanks!

I totally forgot that I had promised some Thanksgiving pics of all the decorations I made (okay, so I didn't really make a lot, but I'm pretty proud of the ones I did make)!  It was a great day and felt wonderful to celebrate amongst family:

The beautiful table (my momma brought dishes, napkins, and some other table decorations, too)

I made the place cards from printable tags that I printed onto adhesive paper and stuck onto folded cardstock.

We placed the tree in a few different areas before dinner so that people could just jot down things they were thankful for as they passed by.  I supplied pens, pencils, and paint pens for those who wanted to get real fancy!  I wrapped twine around an old container I had and used some Mod Podge to seal it.  I brought everything over in a little basket and used pine cones I found in my neighborhood to fill in the blank spaces and also to use as decoration for the final centerpiece.

another view of the tree

For those of you that know our momma, you know this is one of her tags!

 

We put the tree as the centerpiece right before dinner; it was really funny because we decided to read, out loud, the different "tags" randomly during the dinner conversation.

This is the banner/garland I made using more printables, cardstock, mod podge, and twine.

My mom and my son:)  Yes, she is wearing a moose hat- she's got a thing for crazy hats.

just a little watercolor thing I made

yet another printable- just punched some holes in it and strung it with twine

I loved this little printable when I came across it online; there's a lot of variations out there on the "Keep Calm and Carry On" and I really thought this one was cute.

I couldn't have done it without all of the printables I got online.  If you are interested in where to get them, see this post.  Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying the season!