Shadowbox Landscape Scene

I made this shadow box last summer, and finished modge-podging the frame a month or so ago. Enjoy.

Wow, what a long over due post! I'll try to get caught up soon. I haven't made a ton of things this fall, and I get so hung up on taking pictures. Not even so much taking the pictures, but actually taking the time to put them on my computer and sort through them! Enough excuses I suppose.

Back in September I made myself a new keychain. When I first saw Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie children's books, I thought that Elephant looks just what Henry would look like if you drew him as a children's book character. I mean that in the most loving way, in that Henry is the most adorable nerd you'll ever get to meet. I decided to pay homage, and make myself a keychain of Elephant. We took this picture after using the keychain for a while, so its a little beat up. But its still pretty cute right? I made the head out of sculpey, added the glasses out of wire and sanded it as smooth as I could get it after baking it. 

For Henry's birthday, I thought I'd make a keychain for him as well (this shows how late I am in making this post!) I wanted something to make him smile so I made a walrus. We've had an inside joke about walruses since high school, and have collected them ever since. Again, the picture was taken after a few months of use. Maybe I should add a layer of glaze to these so that they would be a little harder and scratch resistant. 

 

Antique Ladder repurposed as a plant rack

My kitchen was boring. White walls, and no counter space. This summer, Henry and I've been trying to fix up our apartment, make it more us, and more comfortable -while trying to spend as little as possible. We painted the walls a sunny yellow, and added the freezer and microwave shelf. I'd wanted an antique ladder to use as a plant rack above my precious south facing kitchen window for a while, and finally got it up last month. Now I'm actually getting around to sharing it! I found the idea on the blogosphere somewhere, and as a plant nut with no window space in my apartment, I'm always looking for creative ways to take advantage of my limited light. After unsuccessfully hunting at thrift stores, garage sales, and antique stores, I found this website: A Rustic Garden offers garden  accents and fencing, and they sell antique wooden ladders by the rung! Maybe it cost a bit more than I should have spent, but it was too good an idea to pass up, and it was such an easy way to get exactly what I was looking for! Isn't the interwebs great?

The ladder was hung with ceiling hooks and chain, very easy-peasy, and I like the mix of wood and metal, just wish I could have found white or silver hooks. 

I wanted to add some more color, and even though in these pictures all the accents look black, they are actually a pretty navy blue. The baskets I found at Stein's Garden and Gifts for a couple of bucks a piece, and I glued a navy ribbon around each to make them match the window swag. I hung the baskets on a bit of chain wrapped around the rungs of the ladder.

 I also attempted to make some candles, with the thought that the would make a really cool atmosphere for nice dinners. The mason jars were great, but since they are so big, I thought I would fill them partway with coffee beans so I wouldn't need so much wax. I didn't count on half the beans floating. I also ran out of wax, so I couldn't do multiple pours as the wax shrunk, so I wound up with essentially hollow candles. The coffee beans also smoke a lot when they catch fire, so I think I'll need to remake these before using them for a romantic dinner! At least they look cool unlit, right?

Over all I'm super happy with how this turned out, and I love looking at it in my much prettier kitchen! Plants shown by the way are Vanilla, Peperomia (Rugby Football Plant), Kaffir Lilly, Rose Geranium, and Tillandsia.

Repurposed Drawers as Shelves

A while ago I saw a magazine cover at work where an entire headboard was made out of old dresser drawers. I've been trying to find the picture of it online, and I think its a lost cause, since I can't remember the name of the magazine. In the mean time I've found other concepts, such as this:

Drawers used to make a modular bookcase

Finding the drawers in the first place was the hardest part of this whole project. I was hoping I would just serendipitously find them on the side of the road, but that hasn't happened yet, so I wound up posting an ad on craigslist. 1 person actually responded, and I picked up these 4 great drawers. They were the perfect size to use as mass market bookshelves. 

The paper in the bottom of them needed to come out, and they needed a good cleaning, but otherwise they were in great shape. Any they had awesome handles!!! 

I removed the hardware and spray-painted them my favorite moss/sage green, and then re-installed the drawer-pulls. I didn't feel like doing the measuring and math, but luckily Henry wanted to play, so he hung them up on the wall for me. We used "large safety spring Flush Mount Hangers"to hang them, and they seem to work really well. 

My bookshelf was stacked double thick with mass markets, so these drawers were great to actually be able to start organizing them!! Don't judge our nerdy science fiction tastes... I love how they turned out! 

Now I have three other blank white walls in our spare bedroom to deal with, and still have trade paperbacks double stacked on the bookshelf. Anyone got any drawers?  

Kitties!

So one of the many reasons I've been so negligent of my blog this summer is we adopted a new fuzz ball. I've wanted a blue eyed siamese ever since my childhood one (Bucky) died, so when I saw her picture on the humane society's web site, I knew we had to meet her. Henry was a little dubious about adopting a second cat on a whim, but once we saw her, we both agreed that she would be a great pet. So we came home from the humane society with Sofie! She left behind some two month old kittens, but we think she was glad to not have to be nursed anymore.

Introducing her to Sheldon has been an interesting process, to say the least. She is very outgoing and friendly, and Sheldon is, well Sheldon is kind of an anxious ball of cat. We followed the advice of the adoption councillor at the humane society that the slower the introduction, the better. I also read some good articles online about the multistep process. It took about two weeks in our case, and I'd saw we are still... adjusting.







Phase one was keeping them totally separate. Sofie got our spare room, and Sheldon got the rest of the apartment. We tried to split our time between them, getting to know Sofie, and trying to convince Sheldon that we actually do still love him. We pretty much had to keep a blanket against the door at this point to keep them from interacting, because any interaction ending in lots of hissing under the door. Sheldon would even hiss at us if our hands smelled like her the first couple of days.

 They both were very interested in what was on the other side of the door, and once they had both settled down a bit (about a week), we started letting Sofie around the apartment while Sheldon was kept in the bedroom. This way her smell would get around the apartment and he could get used to it. Slowly we kept upping the anty. I'd sit by the door and hold it open so that they could see each other, and eventually they were playing a bit under the door. 

Now they are both free to go where they please, and its going pretty well! Sheldon likes to play a bit rough, and follows Sofie around a bit more than she'd prefer, but they are getting along really well. They cuddled for the first time this morning, which was really great. I'm hoping to not become a crazy cat lady, but these guys are pretty darn cute, so try to just humor me with a few oohs and ahhs whenever I can't resist putting up pictures of them! 

Spiderwort

I'm back!! The last few weeks have been a bit crazy. Highlights include painting our kitchen and our bathroom, a trip to MN to see family, a trip to Eagle River for Henry's family reunion, a birthday party, a promotion and a new kitty! Uffda! I haven't had much time for crafts outside of apartment fixer-up stuff, but I finally broke the slump yesterday with a new piece based on Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis). Spiderwort is one of my favorite midsummer flowers. I love that the flowers open in the morning, but close again when the sun gets hot. At my parents farm we had a huge patch, and it was beautiful in July.

 

Amelia Flower and Garden Shoppe

Henry and I are on a super-mini vacation to visit family in MN. I got to spend a great dad/daughter day today, and went with my dad on his plant delivery rounds. He's worked out some cool partnerships for Landscape Alternatives, and they have plants available at Amelia Flower and Garden Shoppe in Minneapolis, and at Fluegels Farm Garden and Pet Supply  in Rosemount. While we were at Amelia's, Dad wanted me to show the owner some of my stuff, since he thought it might sell there, and she loved it! Yay!!!! Soooo..... if you are in the Twin Cities area, go check out Amelia's and pick up some plants, flowers, and maybe a Botany Boeh item!

Veggies!

I may live in an apartment now, but I dream of having space to grow my own veggies. Here are some plant stakes that would look adorable in a container vegetable garden. I don't have any of these growing successfully right now (I do have some lettuce, but the cat has eaten half of it, and the rest of it looks sickly since it doesn't get any sun -funny how plants seem to need sun, isn't it?), so forgive the veggie stakes in my Tradescantia. :)

(Thanks to Adam to giving me a bunny to base this one on. Of course his
 original drawing was much cuter!)

Country Inspired

As summer has been approaching I've been thinking more and more of nostalgically about where I grew up. I don't know that I entirely appreciated it at the time, but I grew up on a beautiful small farm in MN. The space, the flowers, the animals, its an incredible place. 

I used my idyllic inspiration of home (even though the white picket fence is from the house I was born in, not the farm) to create these plant stakes.