Happy 4th of July!

What are you plans for this weekend? I hope all my American friends get a nice long weekend even though Independence Day falls on a Thursday. Me? I have to work Friday, so I'm going to make the best of my Wednesday night and all of Thursday. My holiday weekend started out perfect -- I come home to sunflowers!!!

Most of them look like this, but I have three sunflowers in full bloom! 

Just waiting for those finches to come feed on them! *birding heaven*

Today is also very special for another reason. This is the day my puppy turns the big ONE! 

We had plans for a grill out at one of our friends'. She is the owner of Scuffy's brother, Buddy. 

But she had a last minute trip to Florida, so we're watching Buddy instead! This afternoon, we're heading out to one of the biggest dog park in Charlotte to meet up with Scuffy and Buddy's other brother, Beckham! It's a dog playdate birthday party!!!

I can't believe how much Scuffy has grown. I know it sounds silly, but I never thought i was capable of raising this little munchkin from 8 weeks to now! What with all the potty trainings and spankings and snuggling and cuddling, this little baby stole my heart completely!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and beautiful weekend! 

We're off to the pet store to get some birthday treats for the puppies!

News from the garden : After the rain...

Since my next few photo-a-day entries revolve around the garden, I decided to compile everything into one post, to save you from the agony of my blog-bombing.




June 5 : Environment -- My garden of course.

Clockwise from top
| swiss chard | squash | herbs | mint |



Here's our very first squash blossom! Once they start blossoming, there's no stopping these plants! My marigolds are right next to them, and I'm so afraid they'll be overshadowed by the squash! My marigolds need plenty of sunshine!!





June 7 : Bright

My entry for today is our very first nasturtium! Did you know you can eat the flowers?
But after seeing the flowers, I don't think I can bring myself to eat them.
J is a little less sympathetic. This one he plucked right off and popped into his mouth. :(






June 9 : From down low

Somewhere on the ground, the Swiss chard is quietly growing.
I just love how Swiss Chard looks. Especially up close.
The hues, the patterns of the veins, the contrast of the yellows, greens and reds.





Then finally,
a very uninspiring picture of our harvested green beans.
But they do taste oh so delicious!

That's all folks!

June 3 : On my Table...

My co-worker brought us some flowers from her daughter's wedding over the weekend! It was a small but colorful wedding with a tropical theme. They filled mini vases with gerbera daisies dyed in different colors as their table centerpieces. It was a small wedding so we didn't get to attend, but I can only imagine what fun it was! These flowers brightened my morning, and I was able to take on the rest of the hectic day!

May 18 : Want ...

I would love to live in the Biltmore! 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms, a swimming pool and a gym in the basement - quite advanced for the early 1900s!! If you have time to visit Asheville, NC, you need to make a trip to The Biltmore Estate. I spent a full day there, but there are trails to be explored, and you can even do a segway tour! I'm sure you can easily spend a weekend there! Check out the website for the different types of itineraries.

We had crummy weather that day, but I took some pretty photos to share! They were all taken outdoors because photography is not allowed in the house.









Hope you had a good weekend!

May 7 : Something beginning with F

This one is easy! F for a Field of wild Flowers. I was walking Scuffy this morning and saw these flowers at the edge of the field. So I picked some for my mini vase and they sit in my room looking pretty! Thank you Mother Nature for the simple pleasures in life! Hope something small made you smile today!

News from the garden: The beginning of the madness!!

Our seeds arrived in the mail a few days ago.



Wheeeeeeee!!  Can you tell how excited I am?
We bought 2 types of marigolds to keep out the bugs.




As a result, these seedlings sit atop my craft table.  They have taken over my craft room, just as I found some motivation to start crafting.  *killjoy*

I can't wait for the warmer weather and when we can transplant them into the ground.  Meanwhile, the hardworking husband has tilled the land in preparation.
Spring, please come already.

Crafting: DIY Tissue Paper Pomanders

Alright here's the low-down on the tissue paper pomanders : they are super easy to make, but they are very time consuming. Especially if you are making them in large quantities, or making a huge-ass pomander.




Materials:

An 8" or 10" styrofoam ball
White tissue paper
Gauge wire
Acrylic paint
Spray bottle
Scissors
Wire cutter
Hot Glue gun and glue sticks



First, get ready to make a gazillion tissue paper flowers before we even try to make a pomander. So:



(1) You will need tons of tissue paper cut into rectangles measuring 5" by 10". Each flower is made up of 4 layers of 5"x10" rectangles. I stack 4 pieces of tissue paper at once before cutting them into the rectangles.

(2) Then you need to accordion fold each stack of 4 rectangles. Each fold measures about
1/2" - 5/8" depending on how you like your flowers.
Experiment with a few to help you decide!


(3) I use clothes pegs to keep my accordion folded stacks neat and tidy while I continue to fold more rectangles.




(4) Cut a piece of 6" gauge wire, wrap it around the middle of the folded tissue paper, before twisting the two ends together, like in the picture above.

(5) Rounding the edges of both sides of the tissue paper will give your flower a softer look.






(6) Carefully peel the layers away from the wire, towards the middle, one layer at a time.

(7) When all four layers are peeled and fluffed up, trim the gauge wire to about 1.5" - 2" long. You really don't need a very long stem!



I used white tissue paper because I couldn't find pink / coral tissue paper in large quantities. But the good thing about using white tissue is that you can virtually make ANY color pomanders to suit your needs.




(8) I mixed some pink acrylic paints with water in a spray bottle, shake to mix well, then proceeded to spray ALL my flowers individually. I kept my flowers in the bathroom, next to a space heater so they can dry more quickly!


When you have all your flowers ready, you can start to make your pomanders. I bought my 8" and 10" styrofoam balls from Michaels (a craft store). Here, a glue gun will be very useful!

For demo purposes, I have used a spare tiny styrofoam ball for show because I forgot to take pictures while making the real thing.



(9) To make the ribbon loop for hanging the pomander, cut another piece of wire about 6" again. Cut your desired length of ribbon, knot in the middle to the wire. Again, trim the wire to about 1.5"-2".

(10) Push the wire into the styrofoam ball and hot glue around the wire (and knot, if desired)


Now you can start sticking the tissue flowers into the styrofoam ball. An 8" ball will take about 40-45 flowers, and a 10" ball takes 60-65 flowers. For additional security, with every flower i push into the ball, i hot glue around the base to make sure the flower stays.




Here are the results of the blood, sweat and tears! Ta-daaa!!! It took me a week to make four 8" pomanders and two 10" pomanders. Hope this was useful!

Birthday Celebrations

Thank you all for your birthday wishes! I had a long weekend of celebrations and fun!

First up, as I walked into my office first thing in the morning.

Balloons, confetti and a cup of my favorite Dunkin' Donuts coffee to greet me!

      

Then I got some flowers









Somebody must have sent out a memo, because everybody gave me coordinated colored gifts!



The J-man made a scrumptious meal of Spaghetti Vongole in white wine.

I had such a wonderful mid-week birthday!

A Giveaway and Harvests from the Garden!

Did i tell you, my favorite thing to do these days is picking beans in the garden?

We have two rows of bean plants. And every day, the plants yield this much.



The bean plants are very unforgiving though. Their leaves sting and my arms itch like crazy for awhile after. But the joy of picking the beans off the plants keeps me going. It's like an Easter egg hunt! Only much easier, and more bountiful!



This bean is the size of my palm!

Oh yes and then there are the snow peas.



They're a tricky bunch to pick. The snow peas are flat, so you don't see them until you move to a different angle. Then you wonder "It was right under my nose the whole time, how did I not see this one!" But I love the smell of the snow pea blooms, so picking the peas make me feel happy!



These cute carrots are super sweet and crunchy!



And our zucchini blooms are out!

Even our bearded dragons are enjoying the fresh veggies from the garden! I can't wait for the tomatoes!!

By the way, I'm doing a giveaway for my fellow blogger Jess of Avant Garde Living. It's her birthday and I'm giving away a cute little clutch on her birthday week. So hop on over to take part!! Hopefully one of you will win it! Good luck!!!
Happy birthday Jess!

Spring Blossoms!

Temperatures soared to a high of 80 deg F today!

Now isn't that a great way to start the month of March!


The weather has been so perfect that it's a shame i have to be at work all day. But the minute I get home, I grab my binoculars, jump outside and quietly bird watch.

Our cute little house (picture above) is flanked by two trees which are now beautifully dotted with pink flowers!

Does anyone know what tree this is? Here's a picture of its bloom.



And we might have started out too late with the gardening, what with the warmer weather now. What a gigantic plot of land! I can't wait to start! But first, we need to start tilling!!!



It's spring time loves!

News from the garden: Feeding the goldfinches...

with fresh sunflower seeds!

As i drink my coffee in the mornings, I watch the little finches perch and nibble at the flowers. I didn't know a single sunflower plant could yield so many blooms! I think our sunflower variety is the smaller kind, i would have preferred big big blooms. It's amazing how plants support themselves upright. This one must have an extensive underground network of roots! I feel like it is about to topple any moment, but every morning it never fails to surprise me that it is STILL standing!

 In other news,






our fall garden is in the works. There are plans for 3 types of broccoli, more squash, cauliflower, bak choy and more. We also bought a big tub for growing carrots. The North Carolina soil (aka red clay) hardens too easily for the carrots to grow. Our potatoes were TEENY this summer, so we decided to try growing the carrots a different way.

 Let's see how the fall garden takes off!

News from the garden: New harvests!

Oh no, don't think for a second we stopped gardening. We've been getting buckets of tomatoes and Armenian cucumbers that I didn't think you'd like to read about them ALL.THE.TIME.

But I figured its been awhile since my gardening posts so here's some happy news to share!




Our sunflowers are growing straight and tall (they're taller than me now) and this morning I'd just seen some goldfinches sit atop the sunflowers and nibbling on the seeds!



Then this long forgotten plant began to flower. It was growing up the support for the longest time, and then sprawled all over the fence. This morning, J and I spotted the prettiest purple flower. Bad thing is, we forgot which plant was there. I thought it was the snow pea, but somewhere down the road, I thought the snow pea plant died. Did we plant a second? What is this??? *furrowed brows*



The cantaloupe has taken over the entire garden patch. But we get delicious juicy cantaloupe in return. So sprawl all you want.



We planted some new summer squashes a while ago. Check this baby out. Isn't it cute?



Finally, grandpa gave us some peaches from his friend's peach trees.

We're looking at the fall seeds catalogue now. There're plans for carrots and broccoli and more! *excited*

How's your garden doing?