I finally worked a few good hours in the garden this week and I am really pleased with my progress. Considering I was super pregnant last summer and couldn't do much work, the garden is not as bad as I thought it was. I do have some culprits that are trying to choke out my flowers though. Maybe you recognize some of these little buggers from your garden?
As well as some dandelions and a vine weed that I am unsure the name of. So, as you can see I had a lot of work to do digging up these invasive little plants and making sure I ripped out most to all of their root system. I'm not done with the little buggers but now some of my garden looks like this:
Wahoo! Progress!
Allium
Tulip
Viola
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This cute little creature slept for 6 1/2 hours straight last night!! That is amazing since she has been up every 3 hours during the night for the last 4 months. I didn't sleep all the way through that 6 hour stretch, but it gives me a glimmer of hope that she will, eventually, sleep like a normal person.
Yesterday was a difficult day. Although I didn't know Tim Bosma or his family, I was heartbroken to hear that Tim would not be coming home to his wife and 2 year old daughter. I thought a lot about how that heartbroken wife is going to answer her 2 year old daughter's question, "Where is daddy?". I cried for a long time. I can't imagine...there are no words to properly describe how hard this hit me. Yet, this is nothing compared to what Tim's family and friends are feeling.
Everyday, but especially today, I am thankful for these two:
Last week I just had one of those mornings where I was so tired from being up all night, that I didn't want to sit and properly feed my daughter in her high chair. I threw some rice puffs on the floor and let her go to town while I sat on the couch with a much-needed coffee. She was thoroughly stoked.
I share this addiction with many people out there. I just can't help it. There are so many amazing DIY tutorials, recipes, fashion and stuff - in picture form! I could spend hours just looking at all of the amazing pictures and website they lead me to. In fact, before and while I was pregnant, I DID spend hours at a time on Pinterest (when I wasn't nesting). Even when my daughter was a newborn, I would spend my late-night-nursing-sessions at the dining room table on the laptop while my teeny tiny baby ate. I now barely have time to brush my teeth, let alone go on the computer while my daughter is awake. So most of my Pinterest'ing is done while she is sleeping.
I have always been a visual learner, so pictures are important to me. When I discovered Pinterest I was in heaven. I can skim through 100 pictures in a minute, find something that catches my eye and go to that website (as long as it was pinned properly). If you go to my Pinterest Page you will see that I have a LOT of pins. They range from food to future house plans to specific holidays to (my favourite) crafts. My Things to Make board is getting a little out of hand since I have only accomplished a few of these projects. Instead of pinning more stuff, I really need to organize the rest of my boards and actually accomplish some of the things I've pinned.
These are my completed projects so far:
Plant stands made from old magazines
Each layer is 4 magazines. I offset them so that it would be sturdier. I put it beside the toilet in the bathroom because we have an unusually large space in between the toilet and wall and it just needed something there.
This one is on the bathroom counter and hides my husband's beard trimmer in the corner.
This is the top view. Since this is 4 separate magazines, I decided to hold them together with bobby pins. If I ever need to move it I have to take it apart anyways because the bobby pins are not a permanent fixture, but it keeps them from shifting too much if they get bumped (especially good for the tall one beside the toilet). I used this video to help me figure out exactly how to do it. If you search "DIY magazine plant stand/table" or "recycled magazine plant stand/table" you will find lots of pictures of these stands and written directions on Google. Like I said earlier, I am a visual learner so I understood it much faster by watching someone make one. Some of the tutorials say you don't have to use glue, but I found the pages slipped out from each other if you don't use glue.
Another completed project was a rag rug I knit with t-shirt yarn I made using this picture tutorial.
It is super wonky because I used t-shirts of varying fabrics. Some stretched far more than I wanted to and a couple (the white and grey parts that are the widest in the middle) barely stretched at all. I'm okay with it being wonky, it just let's people know that it is home made.
My most recent project was not at all inspired by anything I found on the web. I bought these metal garden mushrooms a couple years ago at the dollar store and left them out over winter so they got super rusty and a couple of them broke. So I decided to jazz them up a bit before putting them back in the garden.
Before
after a coat of Beauty tone Rust Coat in white
I covered up the stems with newspaper so I didn't get the coloured spray paint on it
Then put some circle stickers all over them
Then spray painted them various colours. I experimented a bit with the different colours.
Now they look much better in the garden and add a bit of colour before my flowers bloom
So, there you go. Evidence of my little addiction. An addiction that I have no desire to do a 12-step program for. Just look at the results - who would want to get rid of that kind of addiction? Certainly not me.
I would love to see some of your 'Pinterest Projects'. Share your Pinterest page in the comments and link up as well!
I love to garden. I didn't have much opportunity last year to do it since I was super preggers and we had MANY very humid days. So most of my time was spent tending to my indoor plants. This year though, my gardens will be well taken care of. Here are some pics from previous years.
My canvas. Spring 2009
This is the outline we started with. I wanted more.
It turned into this. Originally I wanted the whole front yard as gardens.
Summer 2009
Spring 2010
Hellebores
Hellebores "Green Lotus"
Pansies, Painted Fern, "Praying Hands" Hosta, Jack in the Pulpit
Tree Peony in bloom. "Shima nishiki"
Spring 2012
Spring 2012
white Columbine
purple and yellow Columbine
Hostas, Astilbe, Dwarf Goat's Beard
Majority of this is Bee Balm. I eventually moved it because it was taking over.
Early Summer 2012
I stopped taking pictures of the garden shortly before my daughter was born in August. I actually extended this garden a bit while I was pregnant instead of weeding. It was a lot easier than weeding. I have more gardens that I will take before and after pictures of this year (they are looking pretty terrible) and I will post more pictures of my front garden since the changes and our veggie garden. Can't wait to get out in the sunshine!
