Garden Planning... in February? Perfect time to plan your garden

Spring is in the air already here in the inland NW...or at least it feels that way, however it is only February and we know better here that there is most likely some more cold & perhaps some snow in our future still - though it seems the NE has all the snow this month.  But this is the perfect time to start planning and figuring out this year's garden. I love to figure out what we'll be growing (or trying to grow) each year and planning out my raised garden beds. Last year I discovered a great source for seeds after being more interested in the quality and safety of the seeds that we use to grow our food in our garden. I was very happy with the seeds I purchased and the information and tips the company offers. This is a little bit of a plug and includes an affiliate link.  I just love being able to grow some of our own food and look forward to expanding our garden so we can grow more.

Now is the time to start thinking about your garden & start planning it - especially if you live in an area that is soon to have the green light for starting some of your seeds (warmer regions that have already or will soon have had their last frost).  I'm not an expert gardener, and I learn something each year... one of the things I learned in the past couple years is that where your seeds come from (organic, Non-GMO) is important.  Due to my limited gardening space I try to focus on the "Dirty Dozen" list and grow what we use that I can  for our region from that list (zucchini, lettuce, peppers are a few examples). We love salsa in our house and our garden plan reflects that with an emphasis on hot peppers and tomatoes.

Below is the affiliate link I mentioned for that seed source I was talking about. They have sample size packets that I love because they're perfect for backyard gardeners like myself who have limited gardening space, are trying different vegetables to grow or just getting started in their gardening adventure.  Growing your own food is fun & rewarding plus a great learning experience for all ages especially fun for families with children. I might be a little biased having grown up in a family that had a large garden every year and now having my small garden for my little family. 

Thank you for stopping by. I'll be posting some crafty stuff and probably more gardening stuff soon.

Affiliate Link

 

Back after a long break... and so are my Elf Skirts & Doll Scarves.

It has been a busy year for our family which has left my blog posts quite behind. I've been on a bit of a hiatus to focus on our family, life, health & fitness, and working toward simplifying & reducing clutter all while adjusting to a new routine of preschool four days in the week. Over the spring and summer I was busy with preparing/planning and then tending to our garden as well as tending to preserving the harvests. I am thankful to be done with canning for several months.

There have been a lot of personal projects I've been working on such as some autumn-ish table runners (hosted Thanksgiving this year), a Pinterest inspired Advent calendar, likely some other things I've forgotten as well as inventory of my handmade doll scarves for fashion dolls or Christmas Elves such as the popular Elf that is often sitting on a shelf or up to mischief while its family is sleeping.

Elf Tutu-style Skirts can be purchased here.

Doll scarves can be purchased here.

My Eco-Friendly Reusable Swiffer Covers Project

What happens when you run out of Swiffer cloths and some members of your household (including yourself) are not fans of the repurposed cloth baby wipes?  This is what happened in our house… I decided I would finally make some reusable Swiffer cloths using some of the abundant amount of fleece that I have in my fabric stash, starting with a cream color remnant that I had picked up for doll pants project that ended up a fail & determining factor that doll clothes is not something I enjoy making. So why not use the cream fleece for Swiffer covers since I have no other use for it.

Now first, I will say there is nothing really wrong with my repurposed flannel “Swiffer cloths” except they don’t like to stay put in the little "holder things” and they are not as cute or fun looking. That has been one thing I didn’t like so much and wanted to do differently this time around. Six cream color covers later I was ready to make more, and found a cheerful spring green fleece remnant that had been a bargain and happened to be the perfect size for my reusable Swiffer cover project. While I would absolutely love to had some super fun fleece prints for this project – I did not have any fleece prints left in my fabric stash to use for this project. 

The first evening I worked on this I finished six cream and one green plain covers. The second evening I felt I wanted to have them be more fun.  So after digging around in my scraps drawer (aka fat quarters that hope to become a quilt someday and other miscellaneous scraps that could be used for something drawer), I found some fleece scraps that I could cut cute shapes out of.  First I was going to try dots but in the end that was more effort than I wanted to put into floor sweeper covers (as if what I ended up doing wasn’t already a little OCD anyway) – hearts it is. 

Now we have a stash of 16 reusable Swiffer covers. Pretty sure I know which covers my girl will want to use on her “Swiffer”.   May have to go back with some other cute idea to embellish the plain ones without having to rip out stitching to do the heart appliqué idea. Now I’m optimistic and hoping that those in our household that had not been fans of the previous reusable Swiffer cloths we had will like these.

I was on a mission and did not take any tutorial photos or notes as I had not really thought or planned on a tutorial for these. If that is something you’d like to see, comment on this post & I’ll work on one for the future. :-)

I am still toying with the idea of making “unpaper towels” but we do like our paper towels in this house with a precocious pre-schooler. The main hang-up is that I know some members of our household will not be a fan but I may get around to that project eventually.

BuzzNet Tags: Eco-Friendly Swiffer Covers,Reusable Swiffer Covers,Money Saving Ideas,Green Swiffer Covers,Reusable Swiffer Cloths,Eco-Friendly Swiffer Cloths.

Been a little quiet & busy working on some personal projects

I know it’s been a bit quiet on the Crafty Obsessions front and for good reason as I was taking a much needed break to spend quality time with family, enjoy the Holidays and a bit of a break as I regroup a bit here and there. 

I’ve been able to tackle my mending pile which to be honest had gotten out of control and was in dire need of some downsizing.  It’s not completely done but it is much smaller (and usually that means it will soon grow again as it always seems to do so when I put a good dent in it).  I’ve also enjoyed taking the time to work on some personal creative and crafty projects that have been ‘nagging’ at me.

One project in particular was my beach jar which has been a project in the works for years but finally came to life with the perfect find – a vintage blue Ball Mason jar (there will likely be a post about this project eventually). We have had fun baking our own mini donuts for the first time with a pan I’ve had for far too long & was still in its original package. We are now addicted to homemade tortillas & love making them knowing just what is in them – so long store-bought tortillas, ours are better & easier to make than one would’ve thought.

Organization is the never-ending project on my list of projects which has taken to the closets – in the form of purging & parting with things. It has been great to part with things that are now too big for me, as I continue my quest to get fit and healthier (more emphasis on the fitness side which maintains and improves the health side which is good). So with that purging has come some selling of items on Ebay which I enjoy, especially when it generates some money. So life in general and my various projects have been keeping me busy and things quiet on my Crafty Obsessions pages.

Today’s project was to make a second pair of fleece fingerless gloves since I cannot find the first pair that I made which were a little snug but worked to keep my hands from freezing while working in my basement creative space. I found this tutorial via Pinterest. The first pair I made were the small size adult pattern and I followed her instructions for modifying the pattern to a size medium glove. I used the same fleece remnant I had for the first pair. I like the fit of the medium size better for my hands & while they are a little ‘loose’ at the wrist & forearm – it is nice for slipping over long sleeves.  My hands have been toasty warm as I’ve been writing this post wearing my new medium sized fingerless gloves. I do have a wonderful knit pair my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday that I Love – but some crafty projects are not as friendly with them & I want to keep them nice.

Stay tuned for future posts. I’m sure I’ll have something fun to share – it maybe food related, crafty or something in between!

Slight Change of Venue

Well, it seems the time has come for a change of venue for my selling platform.  I’m in the process of setting up my inventory in my new Bonanza Booth. http://www.bonanza.com/booths/lragan I appreciate your patience as I work to add my inventory to this new selling platform and apologize for any inconvenience the unexpected and sudden closure of my Etsy shop has caused - it was beyond my control and has caused a great deal of work to restore, rather recreate an online shop for my handmade items.

Feeling a little festive and fun

Inspired to work in ‘miniature’ the other day I started on a limited availability project – Christmas Elf accessories in the form of hand knit scarves and hand made tutu skirts that fit perfectly & are absolutely adorable on a certain popular Elf that often spends time sitting upon a shelf and sometimes being a little mischievous. These fun tiny scarves and tutu skirts are great to accessorize any Christmas Elf or even Fashion dolls. Now originally I posted photos of our family’s personal Elf that is a certain brand but have since changed them in this post after having some issues arise that required me to do so elsewhere. That said, my handmade little accessories for dolls, snowmen or Elves are currently available in my Etsy shop – Made to order tutu skirts in white and scarves in-stock and made to order (see shop listing for more info).  Now the fun part will be deciding when our Elf will come back to visit this year… a lot of people welcome their Elf back right around or after Thanksgiving.  We’ve been thinking December 1st more like December 5th in our house… though this year that will be much closer to Thanksgiving after all – so we shall see… I am starting to think going with a 12 days of Christmas visit would be fine at this point – less work and without going into the issues I’ve had on this project… I’m a little disenchanted with a particular Elf.

   

As shown below, Vintage Skipper Barbie models the white scarf – a great accessory for Barbie or other Fashion dolls.

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Quietly working…

I’ve been quiet here on the blog I know – it has been a learning curve of balancing managing a home, raising a very busy pre-school age child while keeping up on our family life & blog, my creative and crafty projects in addition to my home garden and its bounty  that kept me busy in the kitchen canning and preserving the harvests.  Blogging here continues to be a work in progress as I find my groove with it.  I have been working on stocking my Etsy shop with inventory including a couple new items not offered before as well as more wonderful scarves in time for the chilly Fall & Winter weather.  Alas so many projects and so little time holds quite true in our house this year with many home projects big and small, long hours for the Mister at work which means long days for this momma (translation: one tired momma both mentally and physically), and some personal craft projects (completed & new ones in the works), as well as some much needed family trips and travel early this year.

This year despite my efforts to take the easy way out for Halloween gently suggesting that perhaps my girl would like to be the cute Lady Bug she was last year in the super cool Old Navy Love Bug costume that still fits her – It became quite apparent that wasn’t working and she really wanted to be a Fairy with wings and a wand this year.  So,  after much thought of how I could come up with something we have already (tutu and pink butterfly wings)  I spent many hours on Pinterest looking at various ideas for fairy costumes and wands.  A couple weeks ago while thrifting , I looked at the Halloween costumes hoping to find something to work with what we had at home when I stumbled upon green fairy wings just the right size and had already found just the right green tank top super cheap (with next summer in mind actually).  A trip to Hobby Lobby for tutu supplies, a second trip to Joann’s for ribbon (to wrap the dowel I got at Fred Meyer while grocery shopping) and now my girl gets to be a Fairy like Tinkerbell.  I have to say it was fun & she’s going to be adorable & have a great dress up outfit to add to her very limited collection.  Oh, I also picked up tulle and a little something to make my own Fairy inspired festive costume (minus wings) to take her trick or treating.  Pictures below are of the fairy costume closer to finished (added little ‘flowery tulle accents on each shoulder), long sleeve white top that will go under the green tank top.

  

 

Fun part is we live in the Inland NW and while last year was actually kind of “warm” for Halloween this year will not be quite as “warm” but won’t be freezing – so last year would have been a better year for Fairy wings & those things and this year cozy Love Bug would be perfect!  Oh Well! So we may end up with a little Tinkerbell inspired Fairy  who loves Hello Kitty being bundled up in her warm HK coat. I will get a picture of the whole costume later & update this post.  Below is my ‘cosutme’ – easy peasy over a black skirt & tights with black top & perhaps my cozy lime green vest – we shall see.  I was going for coordinating a little with my girl & ability to repurpose into different costume(s) without spending a whole lot.

 

Technorati Tags: Halloween Costume,Tinkerbell Fairy Costume,Tulle Tutu,Fairy Tutu,Scrapbook Collage,Scrapbook Page Shadow Box