CELEBRATIONS: Cinco de Mayo Succulent Cans

It's almost Cinco de Mayo friends! In honor of the Mexican holiday which is widely celebrated here in Southern California, I whipped up some fun Salsa Can Succulents and decorated them with some diy papel picado flags.

HOMEWORK - READING: Martha Stewart Living

Hello friends! I’m always excited to share beautiful inspiration from Martha Steward Living. The June issue is brimming with beautiful summer ideas, décor and creativity.

FRESH LOOK: White & Gold Painted Pot

When you have a creative and craft blog, people give you all kinds of goodies because “you can do something with this”. I recently received a bunch of pots and they all have tons of potential.

The Dirt: Oz the Great and Powerful Fairy Garden

Have you seen Oz the Great and Powerful? Oh my goodness – the movie is amazing and the visuals are breathtaking. I won’t go into the whole movie since you may not have seen it and the DVD is just coming out but I was inspired to create this pretty little garden inspired by China Town, home to China Girl, a character in the movie.

The Dirt: spring japanese vegetable garden

I’m so excited to get my vegetable garden going. My mom brought over these little seedlings the other day. Her neighbor gave them to her and my mom passed them along to me.

The Dirt: a simple avocado seed gift

The other day, I had the best avocado I’ve ever had. It was so perfect – ripe, creamy with none of those weird bruised parts. I love avocados. You can use them in sandwiches, make guacamole, add them to salads or top off traditional Mexican dishes with them. And what would a California Roll be without the avocado?

Celebrations: mother’s day centerpiece

I found these sweet pink birds at the local dollar store. I was at the checkout and had already paid for my items when I saw a box of these by the register. Yup – I was that person – I held up the line so I could buy some of these birds.

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I wanted to make a topiary birdcage like the one above but ended up creating a simpler project that I can use as a centerpiece for Mother’s Day.


Since I already had an ivy plant in a pot, I decided to make a scaled down version of my tomato plant cage. You can see that post here.

Once the cage was constructed out of twigs, I gave it a light coat of white spray paint.

I love how the natural wood still shows through but the twigs are now lighter and brighter.

Since I may want to reuse the birds, I used a little dab of Quake Hold to secure them. Quake Hold or Collector’s Hold is a putty that secures items but is removable. It’s great for plates or décor items that are breakable – especially if you live in a quake zone like I do.

A little piece of vintage ribbon softens everything up.

Once the ivy starts growing up and into the cage, I think it will look even prettier.

Thanks for visiting.

Carolyn

I link at the wonderful parties listed here and

   

The Dirt: dollar store steamer to flower basket

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Here’s a fun and budget friendly idea for a Mother’s Day gift {or any occasion gift}. 

I found this wire steamer basket at the dollar store. You could do so many things with this basket. Hang several for kitchen storage, use them for ribbons or scraps of fabric, or actually use it to steam vegetables.

I decided to use mine as a planter for a Mother’s Day gift.

I lined the basket with moss and gave it a good soaking. 

The steamer basket handles double as legs. Or, you could hang the basket using the handles. 

Once filled with potting soil, I planted Forget Me Not seeds. 

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Forget Me Not flowers are so pretty and delicate. I love the gorgeous blue color and the cheery yellow center. Here’s how legend says the flower got it’s name.

According to Wildflower Information.org, legend says that the forget me not received its name when a medieval German knight picnicking with his true love along the banks of a river decided to gather some blue flowers at the water's edge. As a flash flood appeared and swept him away, he threw the bouquet to his lover and cried, "Forget me not!"

 

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I can’t wait for my basket to start growing and I’m envisioning an abundance of pretty blue flowers like the ones above. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, this dragonfly plant stick will stand guard over my seeds. 

P.S.
{One week later...}

 

Thanks for visiting.

Carolyn

I link at the wonderful parties listed here and

   

The Dirt: gardening for dessert

This post brought to you by Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed a lot of posts about my garden lately. My new tomatoes {above}, herbs and strawberries are doing nicely and I’ve weeded and prepped my flower beds for spring. Now it’s time to take care of the plants until the harvest is ready in the summer.

One of my existing and neglected plants is a dwarf lemon tree. It’s been in a pot for years and I think in all that time it’s yielded one sad lemon. I recently moved the pot to a better location and was so surprised to see tons of lemon buds on the tree. Check it out - look at all those buds.

I would be thrilled if my tree actually produced lemons this year. I’m going to really take care of it {uh, watering it regularly might help} and give it proper plant food. Hooray for Whitney Farms®. They sent me two bags of their Plant Food and Tomato and Vegetable Food. It’s 100% natural organic plant food containing only ingredients from the Earth. I like that it’s natural with low to no dust and no manure odor.

I added the recommended amount of the plant food to my potted tree, mixed the food into the soil and watered it.

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It’s nice to know that my produce will be naturally grown in organic soil. Especially since I want to make some of my favorite desserts - like these lemon bars.

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Or, if I really get a great crop, some preserved lemons.

So hopefully, my little lemon buds will go from these

to...

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these!

Thank you Whitney Farms(R).

I can't wait to make lemon bars with my home grown organic lemons.

If you want to try out Whitney Farms® click on the link for a $3.00 coupon.

Thanks for visiting.

Carolyn