Garden Markers

My sister, Molly, and her husband, Bill, are expert crafters!  Molly is an accomplished artist and enjoys using her artistic talent to make interesting crafts. I love the garden stakes she makes:

Cucumber,

Pumpkin,

Potato

Cabbage,

Garlic,

Corn,

Beet, and of course, peas, beans, carrots, squash, that I do grow but don't have stakes for yet,

And a whole bunch of things I'm not growing (yet).

Children, Motorcycle Rides, and Christmas Cards

Oh, I know, I've been terrible about updating the blog for the past couple of months.  I probably did have time - after all, it's hard to stay busy for 24 (or even 6 or 8) hours every day.  However, it has been summer, and that is our busy time of year.  We've enjoyed visiting the south sound family:

Where the lucky grandchildren who live here not only have a pool, but the pool has a spectacular view of Mt Rainier!

The good weather has kept us out on the bike several days each week.  This trip took us all the way up to the Blue Mountain Grill in Whatcom County. 

This ride takes us through several pretty towns - like Clear Lake,

 

where my third cousin who has researched the family says one branch of our family once settled.

 

And where we have mountain views all the way from Big Lake to the Blue Mountain Grill.

Lots of blue showing on Mt. Baker after a warm summer!

oh, and I've been making birthday and Christmas cards in my spare time.

My sister, Mona, introduced me to collage several years ago, and I have never looked at anything flat the same since.  A simple pretty leaf is fun to work into a card.

As I deadhead my flower beds, I collect some to dry and use later in the collage cards.

Tissue wrapping paper that I used to discard now becomes the base for cards. 

Today I finally cleaned up my mess and finished making cards for a while, but I actually hated to do that.  I'll still remember all this fun labor as I clean up glitter for the next month or so.

 



Seed Organizing

I saw this idea on Facebook, and thought it sounded like something I could do.  Since planting fever hits me early in February while we are still in Florida or Georgia, when the weather turns nice and the seeds and plants start coming into the marketplace, and my planting is done when I get home to Washington, my seeds are pretty disorganized.  Often I buy new seeds when I already have plenty.  Then I discover I don't have some essential seeds.  So on a cloudy day, time to get organized!  First step - accumulate all the seeds from years past and all the ones I've bought for this year.

In my "abandoned crafts" area, I found everything I needed to get started.

I labeled sheet protectors with holes for a 3" binder - coming down a bit of a learning curve - originally I put each seed packet into a separate envelope.  I think I'll do better with grouping seeds.

I'm thinking that I can insert a blank sheet into the envelope with the seeds saying when I planted them so my garden diary will be all in one place.  But I'll probably not get to that.

I'm starting to feel very organized, and inspired to head outside to do some planting.

I'm trying to stay within my available materials, so it took two one inch binders.  A 3" binder would have been fine for all the seeds, but I didn't have one on hand.

Heading to the garden as although it's cloudy, it's not raining, and I know just what I need to plant!

Building a better bat house

My conscience wouldn't let me displace 100 bats when we replaced the roof on our house without trying to provide them with a new home.  We like having bats around as we never have a mosquito problem, but having them in our roof just doesn't work.  At night it can be hard to sleep with hundreds of bats coming and going.  And speaking of "going" bat guano isn't something you really want in your life.   


So once the roof was replaced, I went on line to find a bat house.  My choice was to order one for a minimum of $50 (for a small bat house, not including tax and shipping), hope it was in stock, wait for it to be delivered, etc. etc.  Since I hadn't had my "craft vaccine" lately, my eye immediately went to the "Build your own bat house" title.  


The instructions were from National Wildlife Federation, and looked pretty simple.  I was pretty sure I could find all the materials in our life long collection of building materials in the garage.  I printed out the National Wildlife Federation Instructions, and headed for the garage.


No problem finding the plywood and 1x2 pine, the main parts.  My plywood was 27" wide instead of the 24" it called out, but rather than rip a 4' piece of plywood by myself (Ron was busy)

Tony and Jesse helped put in the last of the uprights for the carport, but there was a ton of work still to do taking down the bracing, cleaning up debris, removing the woodshed walls.  There was no way I could tear Ron away from that to help me build a bat house.


I decided to adjust the size to make it 3" longer (we have LOTS of bats after all, so bigger would be better), and I couldn't see myself ripping 3" off the side of the plywood I found.

Next step:  "Cut into 3 pieces"  Oh great - what size?  I actually read all the instructions, and nowhere did it mention the size the pieces should be.  Back to the computer where in the fine print it said "First I printed the plan from the Bat Foundation site."  Okay - I can do this - Here are more detailed instructions from there (at least it told the sizes for the pieces - the pictures of how it went together were a lot less helpful.) Detailed Instructions

Now the fun began:
It suggested making 1/32" to 1/16" cuts every inch in the back piece or put a big mesh screen on the piece for the bats to use for footholds.  The only saw I really understand is the radial arm saw, and since the plywood was wider than the saw would reach, it was hard enough making the plywood into the three proper size pieces.


I found some window screen, but it is pretty fine mesh.  Nevertheless, I cut it to cover the back and stapled it down. I thought the bats might like something better to roost on, but any boards I found were as wide as the space where the bats could roost.

So I looked around our building supply collection and found an old plastic crate.  

I used the radial arm saw to cut off the sides and stapled the grid on top of the screen.

As I was putting it all together, Ron came by to check on me and couldn't resist helping finish.

Now we will see if the bats move in.  It is only a few feet away from their old home.

If they do, we will build a couple more houses for them.  And, for all you construction critics out there, "It ain't a piano, it's a bat house."

Carving School

First Step - lay out the sign on a paper the size of the wood.

Our grandchildren, Sara and Jesse, came to visit for a couple of days after school got out.  Since swimming weather hasn't quite gotten to us we decided to work on a project.  Ron and I used to carve signs, but haven't done any for several years.  We still have all the tools and the wood, and Jesse had just shown an interest in carving, so we set up a carving school. 

Second Step - Small bit to outline the art work

3rd step - use larger bit to go around art work

 4th Step - sculpt out extra wood around art

 Finished product!

Feeling Crafty

This morning, Mom and I made collage greeting cards. Isn't she cute....she is the most active 90 year old woman I know! Very artistic too!











Here are a couple of the cards we made. Collage is so much fun. Very forgiving, and anything goes. Our specialty is the dried flowers and weeds we collect. I think pure collage uses only paper, but the real plants add a special touch.










Martha says you need to spray this sweet gum wreath with white paint, but the colors were so beautiful that I didn't spray it. We have an abundance of Sweet Gum trees here in SW Georgia, so on this beautiful day I gathered the cones(?) - Martha calls them "Fruit" but they sure have more the consistency of cones than fruit. So in addition to a wonderful walk in the warm sunshine, I have started my Christmas decorating. :)