Crafty Wednesday {string gardens}

  We got home from D.C. late last night and and I'll have my last post about that fun trip up tomorrow.  We had the best time but it is good to be home and to sleep in my own bed.  Today I had a crazy, busy day at work so I'm just getting the time to do my crafty Wednesday post.  

Last week I had some friends over and we made kokedema string gardens.  They are easy to make and they are the perfect craft for spring!  Here was our inspiration picture-so pretty!!!!  

 

Here is one I bought a few years ago at my favorite garden store. It still looks great!  To care for these little plants you just soak them in water for 15 minutes once a week.  Honestly a lot of weeks I forget to water this little plant and it still looks good.  

 

For this project you need:

Peat moss

Sphagnum moss

Sheet moss

Bonsai soil 

Fishing wire 

I got most of the supplies at Home Depot and I got the Bonsai Soil from Amazon. We made about 10 string gardens and I still have enough of the supplies left to make more! 

 

Here are the step by step instructions to make your own string garden.

1.Gently shake most of the soil from the roots of your plant. Be careful not to damage the roots when doing this.

 

2. Wrap you roots with spahagum moss.  You will want to set you moss in water for a few hours before you start your craft project.  It is easier to work with the moss when it's wet. 

 

3. Make a planting mixture using your Bonsai soil and your Peat moss.  Using a 7:3 ratio.  I did 7 cups of Bonsai soil and three cups of peat moss.  Add a little water and mix the soil and moss together.  It should form a clay like substance.  Shape the mixture into a ball the size of a grapefruit and then break the ball in half.   

 

4-You put your spahagum moss covered roots in the center of the ball and shape the ball into a grapefruit again.  Does this make sense?

 

 5- I did not do a good job about taking pictures of this step..but you cover your soil ball in sheet moss and wrap fishing wire around the sheet moss.  You want your string garden to stay together so we used A LOT of fishing wire.  I will be making more of these so I will get better pictures of this part of the craft and post them 😉

Here my friends and I are happy as can be with our new string gardens!  

 

Here are the three I  made three for the sun room of our new house. 

 

This is a great spring project!  And these make great gifts!  I hope to make a few more to give away as gifts. 

 

Happy crafting!

Xoxo

Washington {Day 1}

Ava, Anne and I are in D.C. for a few days for spring break with my friend Sabrina and her daughter. Yesterday we did a full day of sightseeing.  There is SO much to do and see here and we are having the best time.  D.C. is  a great city we have walked almost everywhere, the people are so friendly, and we've had some amazing meals.

We got up right and early yesterday morning and took a quick picture in front of our hotel before walking to the White House.

 

Our hotel is only 5 blocks from the White House so that was our first stop.

 

Yesterday was the annual Easter Egg Roll so we saw a ton of families all dressed up in their way to the White House which was fun.  One of the volunteers explained to us that they do reservations by lottery so we are going to try and get in next year!  

 

After the White  House we walked over to the Washington monument.  It was spectacular. 

 

We then walked over to the World War II monument.  We took pictures by our favorite states.

Wyoming where my Dad had a ranch

 

And of course New York where we live

  

Easter 2017

Hello friends!  I hope you had a great Easter.  We had an egg-cellent Easter Day!  We  started out by going by going to mass which was a lovely. It was great to have Anne with us too.  This is her last week with us on Friday she will go to her new host family.  Thankfully she is going to our neighbor's/friends house so she'll be close.  We have loved having her!  

 

After church my dear friend Rachael hosted us for Easter  brunch. We've gone to her house a few times for Easter brunch and it's always fun.  

She always makes everything look so festive and she is a wonderful cook. 

 

 

 

I brought her this cute plant called a wave plant that I got at a farm stand. She loved it!

 

All of my best friends came to brunch which was so fun!!  

 

 

We had an Easter egg hunt and a water balloon toss for the kids.  They loved it!  It was a glorious day and it was wonderful to be outside in the sunshine.

 

 

 

 

After brunch we sar around and talked and laughed.  Isn't that the best part of Easter?  It was great. 

 

  

 

After Brunch we packed up our car because we are headed to D.C. for a few days with my friend Sabrina and our girls. We are so excited!!!    Our kids are on spring break this week and we wanted to do something fun with them.  We are going to the zoo, we have a tour of the Capital and Supreme Court planned and we plan to make the most of our two days in D.C.

 

Xoxo 

Friday Favorites

Today I am linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea to share my Friday favorites.  I am  happy it's Friday!  This is a weekend is Easter and Saturday we are going to work at the new house and Sunday we are leaving on a little spring break trip to D.C. It's going to be a great weekend!

Here are my favorites from this week.

1.  I've been reading this book about the staff in the White House and it's fascinating.  Most of the household staff-butlers, cooks, florists, and housekeepers work at the White House for decades.  This book tells their stories about working  at the most famous house in the world. 

 

2-last night I had a few friends over and we had a little craft night.   I haven't laughed as much as we did last night in a long time. 😂. I made spring mojitos as a signature drink for the evening and we ate pizza, popcorn and brownies.  It was a fun night!

 

 

 

 

 

3-I made these little flower arrangements for Easter.  There are so many pretty flowers at the store now.  I'm loving it!

 

  

That's my Friday Favorites for this week. I'm looking SO forward to the weekend!

Xoxo 

Friday Favorites

Today I am linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea to share my Friday favorites.  I am  happy it's Friday.  This has been a long week and I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend.

Here are my favorites from this week.

1-I got two new succulent plants this week and I'm in love! One is called burro's tail and the other is string of pearls.  I have been looking for both of them and I was thrilled when I found them at our local greenhouse last weekend.

 

2-I got a new recipe book and I have been busy writing my recipes in it.  It's called the Keepsake Kitchen Diary and it holds 200 recipes.  

Last weekend I made us Mississippi Mud Pie as a great.  It was so good!

3-My family spoiled me this year on Mother's Day.  I love being their Mom and these two are my biggest blessings.  

4-Tomorrow is our Farm Retreat!  I have a small craft business called Branch and Bloom with my friend Rachael we host monthly craft classes at her organic grocery store.  This month we are teaming up with our friend Jenn to do a Farm Retreat on her farm. At the farm retreat we are going to do 2 yoga classes (Jenn is a yoga teacher), Rachael and I are going to lead a craft class on windowsill herb gardens, we are going to have a healthy farm fresh lunch and Jenn is going to give us a tour of the farm and we will get to see all the baby animals.  It's going to be a great day!  

 

5- On Monday I started Whole 30. It's a program where you eat healthy, whole Foods for one month-no dairy, no bread, no sugar, no alcohol for 30 days.  I've been cooking a lot and so far so good.  I do miss cheese but honestly I haven't had too many other cravings. I like this chart that explains what you'll feel like each day on Whole 30.  Today is Day 5 for me!  

 

 
 

That's it for me this week.  I hope you have a great weekend!  

Xoxo

Life Lately

Here's a little sneak peak into our life lately....

1-we are enjoying the last week that Anne will be with us.  At the end of next week Anne is going to her new family.  Lucky for us she'll just be one block away but we are going to miss her!!! We are taking her out to Easter church and then dinner in Saturday night, Sunday we are taking her to Easter brunch before we head to D.C. for a few fun filled days.  We've had a great time with her. 

Anne with Ava and Grandma Jan

 

2-I'm the Vice President of the Garden Club and it's my job to organize the speakers every month for our meetings.  Monday night I had a four of our members do presentations on flower arranging.  In June of every year the Garden Club does an exhibit at the art gallery in town it's called Art in Bloom.  We choose a painting and arrange a flower arrangement to go along with the painting.  It's so fun!  I'veparticipated  with my friend Rachael for three years.  

 

3-our nephew Gave turned 5 on Saturday!   He is getting so big.  We love him so much ❤❤

 

4-it's been BEAUTIFUL out this week!!!   I put my poor, neglected houseplsnts outside in the sunshine and they have been loving it!  

 

5-Speaking of houseplants tonight some girlfriends are coming over and we are going to make string gardens and plant stakes.  Everyone is so excited and now I know we are officially old 👵🏼👵🏼 because we at excited about these things.

The plant stakes we are making are going to be similar to these I bought last year from Magnolia in Waco, TX. 

 

6-After Easter brunch on Sunday Ava, Anne and I are heading out to with my dear friend Sabrina and her daughter to D.C. for a few days.  We are going to tour the Capital

and go to the National Zoo.  I love Washington!  I went last fall for a few days with my sister and I'm excited to go again.

I hope you've had a great week!!

Xoxo

Crafty Wednesday {Summer Sign}

Yay friends it's Wednesday!  We are halfway through the week and  it's time for crafty Wednesday!  This week I made a sign for the sun room in our new house. 

I used my trusty vinyl cutter to make the sign.  I have the smaller version of the silhoutte called the Potrait.  I can make things up to 8.5 x 11 on my machine. 

 

I chose a design from the online store .  There are thousands of designs in the online store.  It's fun to go and look at all of the designs and think about what you can make. I always get a ton of ideas when I look around the online store.  

 

I wanted something summery and fun to go with my new pineapple pillows for our sunroom.  Here are the pillows I got them last week at Wal-Mart.

 

I did Make Your Own Sunshine and I put it on wooden sign that I already had that I painted white. I did a tutorial on using a vinyl cutter here.

 

Here is the finished product!

 

I love how itt turned out and I can't wait to put it in our sunroom!!

 

My friend Rachael helped me with this project. She  is going to use the same saying and put them on canvas bags to sell at our local farmers market.  She has already made a few and they are adorable!   We also made samples of two crafts hat we are doing this summer at Branch and Bloom events.

In July we are having a monogram wine glass class so we made samples for that class.

 

 

And we also made a sample of a herb garden pot  we are going to make at  our upcoming farm retreat.

 

It was so fun to work on these projects!

Xoxo