Busy Day!

I did some major pruning in the front yard! The dinky bushes on either side of the door got quite the haircut. The above is the after. Before you couldn't hardly see that huge bolder, and the bush was resting on the stairs. Not pretty. But now it's nicely cleaned up! Next task will be to prune back the big bushes and get some mulch and plants in. Need to check out what works well in shade since the bushes will still be there.


Veggie garden has been planted as well. I went a little nuts over planting it, but the thought process was to plant like crazy, then I'll be able to weed out the extras. I planted 15 different veggies, not including the 2 types of tomatoes and 3 herbs! Above is post a good soaking. You can see all my little identification markers. and my stepping stones got a little covered in mud. Oops.

Here's a shot of my tomato plants. The closest is a "Big Boy" and will yield classic red tomatoes perfect for sandwiches. The further plant is a "Sweet 100" and should yield a poop ton of little cherry tomatoes. Hopefully they make it through the next couple days... In my planting impatience I failed to check the weather forecast. (sigh) I don't mind all the rain we're supposed to get... hmm... as long as it doesn't wash away all those seeds I just planted.... D'oh.

Next to the gate are my herbs. We have German Thyme closest to the gate, next is Sweet Basil - with its big beautiful fragrant leaves, and last is Rosemary. I'm hoping these thrive... the air smelled AMAZING after I got these in the ground.

And now my son is screaming, so I'll have to update more later...

Oh!

I almost forgot! I have more egg pictures to update! Below are my lastest egg creations. 1) Four Seasons - the only pic I took was of winter. 2) "Tangled" inspired Floating Lights - background color totally did not turn out like I wanted. I'm thinking of recreating this egg again to experiment with the color scheme a little more and see what happens. I may try a color "wash" before proceeding to the blues/greens after the gold... I think that is what tripped up my color scheme - too much gold underneath? 3) "Tangled" egg from the side view.

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BFF is coming over at somepoint tonight to play in eggs too. Yay!! So I should have more eggs to post over the weekend! Debating who to post on Etsy...

April Showers Bring...

May flowers? I couldn't resist any longer and planted a little garden in the back corner (the corner that borders the veggie garden and also the edge of the patio that now has the trellis work. I'm holding off planting my Clematis under the trellis just yet since I just got a notice that Consumers is going to be coming out to replace our gas meter at some point in the near future. Nice of them to do that for us. Too bad my house will get torn to shreds on the inside since the dogs will undoubtedly go nuts the entire time... I think I may have to put A's door back up just so we can shut the dogs out of the back rooms. Hmm... All we need is another broken out window. :-/

So back to my little garden! We have ivory and lilac Foxglove (SO PRETTY!!), Columbines, Bleeding Hearts, Hostas and Viola's. Not to mention the tiny little bird bath. I still haven't touched the veggie garden as I'm trying to hold out until May as to not jinx myself into planting before the last frost... but we'll see how that goes this weekend. ;) Here's a pic of the little side garden right after planting. Since it has been raining for a week straight post planting, I really hope that is helping to establish all my little plants! vs drowning them all...

The plants are all pretty dinky at the moment, but I'm sure they will all fill in and be fabulous. And of course now that I'm looking at it from this angle it looks horribly spaced and lopsided... but oh well! :) I have flowers in my back yard! Woohoo!!

Next gardening trick will be to finish tearing up the lillies of doom in the front yard and whip those hedges back into shape. Talk about unruly... Our house really is quite the eyesore of the neighborhood, but my goal is to get it back to fabulous soon! Not to mention the fresh coat of paint that the house is supposed to get in the next week or 2. I'm really hoping the J-man is cool with the color scheme I've picked out... Since we'll be buying the house on a land contract anyways, may as well be the colors I want.

Dark Blue anyone? With bright white trim and pale yellow accents... Tho just about anything would be better than the current "pewter" color (aka dingy grey... bleck).

Eggsellent!

So I've become addicted to making Pysanky... Here's my latest creations from over the weekend.
Flower/Cross:

No template for this one, so I was completely winging it and making it up as I went. I kinda like how it turned out! I will be giving this one to my sister in law as she really liked the design.

Deer/Tree:

This is my creation from the Pysanky party on Saturday. Took me a total of 5 hours to complete... The dyes were older and didn't quite set right, but it came out pretty beautiful just the same. I think I'll recreate this egg and post the finished product. This picture does not do it justice. I am really proud of this egg. It was also my first templated egg. I think I'll be sticking to templates for a little while yet.

Basket Fish:
Another templated egg! After the Pysanky party, where the hostess with the mostess had an amazing book of patters, I went back to the Ukrainian store that was closed last Wednesday and met up with an incredible ancient little Ukrainian woman. I told her that I was hooked and wanted to learn more. She showed me the books she had available and I ended up purchasing 2 books. :) The fish pattern was in the first book. The other book I purchased has the deer pattern above.

This egg was given to my mother for Easter.

Flower Pots:

This is another templated egg. Same book as the fish pattern above. I really really like how the coloring turned out on this one. White, Gold, Orange, Scarlet, and Dark Red. Very pretty!! This egg is currently in my crystal cabinet waiting for a coat of varnish. I'm tempted to put it up on Etsy and just see what happens... I'm thinking I'll be making eggs year round and see what happens!

Crafting Impatience...

How's that for a catchy title?? Me like!

And yes, I am the most impatient crafter there has ever been. Ok, maybe not EVER, but the most impatient person I personally know who does crafts! Ha! In anticipation of the Pysanky party tomorrow, I prepped an egg with Jesus and a lamb. I was so excited to get cracking (ha) on dying my egg that I simply couldn't stand it and found a local Ukrainian gift shop that sells dyes and kistka and wax and everything I could possibly need! So I bought 10 colors (yet somehow managed to miss yellow?? d'oh) and 2 sizes of kistka and some wax. Then began the hunt for Mason Jars to magically find them at Meijer. It's official, they really do have everything. Mixed up my dye as A was gearing down for the night and set the jars out on the porch to cool. When they were cool I prepped my little penciled in egg with a dilute vinegar solution and contemplated my first application of wax...

Should I have taken a before picture? Why yes I should have! Did I have that much forethought? Yeah, not so much. Read above about impatience... Heh.

So after 3 hours and minimal swearing, I present to you my first official attempt at a Pysanky - Ukrainian Egg. Don't laugh too hard...

Back of my glorious egg:

(yeah, don't look too closely at those lines. I'm looking at it and cringing. Pretty sure G can draw a straighter line)

And the Front of my glorious egg:

So Christ's face is slightly mangled and he's got a bit of a thick neck... But I'm pretty darned proud with how he turned out! Not too bad for a first attempt! Not sure if you can really see it in the pic, but he has multi-tonal shading in his robes and hair, and blue eyes! Yes yes, I know he was probably not a blue eyed white guy, but I'm going off of Medieval stained glass, so ya get what ya get! And now I've got the Pysanky bug... Thinking I'm going to be doing these year round... Maybe once I "hone my skill" I can chuck a couple up for sale on my etsy page that I haven't actually activated yet! :D

I can dream, can't I?

Pysanky!

Random side note for those of you that do the easter egg thing... Blowing eggs is HARD. Friday I will be going to a friends house to dye Ukrainian Eggs (aka Pysanky) and I wanted to have a couple designs ready in my head (and penciled on my egg!) just to make the task of dying a little smoother. So I blew out an egg the other day and think I may have blown a couple blood vessles in the process! Holy COW that was hard! But I penciled on a stained glass Christ with a lamb... We'll see how it turns out. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be called an egg snob for penciling him in... I didn't pencil in the whole egg (that would be smart tho...) but we'll see how it turns out. I haven't made a Pysanky in YEARS.

My plan is to make a couple eggs. One for my in-laws, one for my parents, and I'm supposed to make one for my buddy E too... Whew, thats a lot of eggs! Especially since they take a couple hours a piece to make! Multitasking... Going to need some multitasking vibes!

Ah spring...

Here we are on April 18th and it has been snowing since last night. Of course after an incredible weekend of working in the yard, Mother Nature decides to throw a party and is supplying the confetti. ;) Here's the view out my office window (I use the term "my office" loosely. I have a 3 foot tiny desk in a corner).

But on to the incredible weekend! A great deal of time was spent outdoors in the back yard and that makes me super happy! Saturday I met up with my bro at Home Depot to have him help bring home some trellis' that were not going to fit in my car. I also got 2 box planters, some potting soil, stepping stones for the veggie garden, and a few plants: Columbines, Phlox, Pansies and a couple Clematis to grow up my trellis'! Of course I completely forgot to take before and after pictures... But Saturday afternoon was spent pounding in the trellis' as the winds began to pick up and it began to sprinkle. Not to be outdone by weather, I decided to quickly throw together my planters too. Ha. By the time I had finished them, it was pouring rain, 35 degrees, and my arms were covered solid in mud up to my elbows. I was in heaven. Got everything cleaned up just in time for the clouds to really open up with some nasty rain and wind! Here's the trellis' as seen through A's window.

You can also juuuust make out the stepping stones I have scattered around the outside of the veggie garden fence too. The inspiration for the trellis work surrounding the patio is this lovely design from Better Homes and Gardens:

My little patio area isn't going to look hardly ANYTHING like this, but like I said, this was the inspiration to get some garding started in that area. I'm only allowed to tear up a very tiny portion of the back yard, so I gotta make it fabulous where I can!

Sunday was spent running errands and more playing in the back yard. We got the boys some new shoes and headed off to Toys R Us to get some sand for our little sandbox in the backyard. While we were there we started looking at little play structures for the kiddo's. The one I really really liked was out of stock and had to be special ordered. My second choice was available in store and also was 25% off! Score! So we got the sand loaded up and realized there was NO WAY the box was going to fit... so we took what we could home and Daddy went back with the Neon to pick up the cottage. It didn't fit. He ended up opening the box and shoving what he could in the little car while I took the car seats out of the PT at home and got the car ready. Long story short (ha) he brought the first load home and traded cars, then brought the rest home in the PT (everything fit just fine). So Sunday afternoon was spent in the backyard again! Assembling the cottage, getting the sand in the sandbox, and watching the babies run around and thoroughly enjoy themselves! Here's a pic of the new little "house" and the sand box way off to the right:

Here's someone elses children displaying how fabulous the Neat and Tidy Cottage really is: And the interior... Both A and G were sitting on the little seats sharing a bowl of grapes on the little table. SO CUTE. A was walking around on the little phone, chatting away and G was perfectly content just hanging out in the sandbox. Much sadness and tears when Mommy and Daddy said it was time to come inside to thaw out... which makes this Momma very happy. My children now have something to DO in our backyard! It brought me such joy to see them so excited and having a good time. :) Great weekend! Oh, and I brought in the planter boxes so they wouldn't be covered in 3-5 inches of snow... and the Clematis didn't make it into the ground yet, thank goodness! It claims to be a "very hearty" plant, but I didn't want to test that out just yet... ;)

Can't... Take... Much... More...

It's been BEAUTIFUL this week and I'm about to go nuts! I just want to tear up the last of the dirt in the veggie garden and get cracking already!! Granted I have to wait for our tax return to hit the checking account before I can really wrap up the prepping process. I need to get stepping stones or something along those lines to make a nice path down the middle of the garden - to make a clearly defined area that is "ok" to walk on. I had some cheap slate walking pavers at the old house that unfortunately remained there after the move. As did our beautiful retaining wall... sigh. But I was thinking of picking up basically the same walk way as before since they were pretty cheap and already on a grid, so I wouldn't have to worry about them shifting around too much. Something like these Flagstone pavers on mesh would be lovely... We shall see!

I'm already throwing around idea's for what to plant in the front yard too. I need to get all those day lillies out of there before they take over the world. There are a couple irises mixed in with that lot too, but it may not be worth it trying to save them... and there are chives EVERYWHERE on the side of the house! I don't remember them being there last summer, but apparently I have enough chives to donate to all the local Wendy's for sour cream and chive potatoes for a year! Ack!!

I'm also starting to piece together a little "secret garden" idea in my head for the back corner too... Nothing too insane, but definitely inspired by my Auntie Grandma. :) I'll have to start sketching it out to start formulating ways to make it reality... I want a pergola too over the patio we have in the back currently being taken over by grass... HMM...

Seedlings...

So I had started some of my veggies and flowers in the little greenhouse. It's been a learning experience for sure... I planted snap dragons and delphinium on one side and a bunch of veggies on the other. Apparently I had a little bit of a moisture issue as my snap dragons have all pretty much succumbed to mold. :( Definitely been a learning experience! The photo to the left was when everything just started to pop up and you can't really see much of anything.

Now the delphinium have popped up pretty well and the snap dragons are hanging on by a thread... on the veggie side the peppers are kicking booty (sweet peppers and 4 types of hot peppers) and the rest are failing pretty badly. Kohlrabi, broccoli, cabbage, sage and basil all looking pretty horrible. One the right is a picture of the plants today. You can see the peppers coming up nice and strong and green. Everything else looks like bean sprouts, haha. Other than the peppers, the stems are all white and flimsy and the little starter leaves have rotted off. Again, an issue with moisture. The lid is now off 100% of the time, and with the weather playing nice, the whole little bin has been spending the day out on the front porch in the sun. Maybe there's hope for some of these little plants yet!!

Weight is down to 167.5, so I'm down over 6 lbs! Woohoo! I've also signed up for a 5k challenge where I have daily walking goals leading up to a 5k at the end. My 5k will be the Race for the Cure which I've already enrolled in. :) And if I work my little tushie off, then I'll be eligable for a fabulous trip! If nothing else I'll get a cool little charm for the WW keychain I'll be getting when I lose 10% of my body weight. I've got 10 lbs to go for that goal! Woohoo!! Once I get my keychain and charms I'll be sure to post pictures of those too. :)