2011 Garden and Random stuff.

I wanted to pop a post up here about our 2011 garden plans so you can follow and see how it works out. As you can see from all our pictures we have a bit of a rabbit issue. Thus all the chicken wire.

We planted veggies this year in our raised garden. It is not a very big garden so it will probably get a bit crowded in there but we have Tomatoes, Summer Squash, Green Pepper, and Zucchini.

I have a friend who is pretty good at the whole gardening thing... She uses this method to water her tomatoes.

It is a 20 oz bottle with the bottom cut off. Then you bury the open top, where you drink out of, in the ground by the bottom of your tomato plant. Then you fill the bottle to water your tomato. Once they are big they will need 20 oz of water per day to produce so it is also a great way to measure. Tomatoes like being watered from the bottom better, tomato plants don't like being wet on top as much I guess. So we are going to try it this year.

In the Children's Garden this year we decided to do our usually easy to grow Giant Sunflowers in the back buckets. You can see our three year old sign is starting to fade a bit, and our buckets have a couple rust spots, but three years outside all year round. Pretty impressive. 

This is also our third year for our Tepee. We decided since we have our main veggies in the raised garden we are going to try to make our mini pumpkins climb around the tepee. Wish us luck!

Yesterday we planted our last few things, and made some new wooden garden signs.
While the paint was out for the garden signs the kids also had fun painting some rocks.

Also since the kids were doing some hammering yesterday to put together the plant signs my daughter got creative on her own. With the scrap wood we have, a hammer, some nails and some crayons she made this awesome project all on her own we were not allowed to look until she was finished. Pretty cool huh? This is why we keep scraps of wood around for the kids to create with. You never know what a 6, 4, and 2 year old may come up with.

Wanted to end with a couple photos of our garden in the past so we know what to look forward to.

 

Scrap Wood Garden Signs

I have this pile of wood in the backyard from the old roof on the swing set. It is pretty warped but I have managed to make some pretty cool things out of it so far including this bench.

Well our scrap wood pile from the swing set is getting smaller but we still have a pile left. My husband cut it down so we can burn it in our fire pit, but it is really not the greatest burning wood.

We got our garden planted this year and we are going back to veggies. More than last year or the year before when we cut back on veggies because I was too busy with babies. Well now that the babies are all settled in and getting bigger... Back to veggies.

But we were short on signs. We have made signs before here out of rocks, and in our children's garden too, but we needed a tomato, cucumber, and green pepper sign...

I took a couple boards off our pile. I trimmed them down to a good size. Took some other scrap wood and make a stakes for them. Had the kids hammer them together, and pant some veggies on them with craft paint. Then when they were dry I covered them with a couple coats of clear spray paint to seal them. This way the craft paint won't wash away in the rain.

Cute, Kids had fun, and now they know what is growing where in the garden.

Even better I can get rid of even more of our wood, keep my kids busy, and teach them about giving to others all at the same time by making a set for a friend who has a VERY LARGE garden. They had so much fun painting these. They did some in the morning, then wanted to do more in the afternoon.

Linking up here:

A cute garden is a happy garden!

Kids Watering Cans from Plastic Bottles

Super simple!!

 Take an empty plastic bottle. We like the juice bottles the best.

Poke holes in lid..

 you can do this a number of ways.

- use a hammer and nail.

or....

- use a power screwdriver with a small bit.

or....

- or stab it with something poky. This way is the fastest. Today I gabbed a letter opener and started jabbing away. Be careful not to jab yourself though.

Fill it with water.

Put on the cap.

Turn upside down... and squeeze!!!

Just enough comes out when you squeeze so it is less likely that the kids will over water anything including themselves. This is our third year of plastic bottle watering cans.

(by the way if you are wondring what is going on here with the green can... read here)

We water our plants with water from our little wadding pool. It has not been warm enough to swim yet, but our little pool has a nice collection of rain water that we have been using to fill our watering cans. Plants like this water better anyway.

The kids love them because they are fun to squeeze.

The plants love them because they are not drowning from large watering cans with large flow.

Kids stay remarkably dry!

linking up here:

Guest Blog over at Elegant Mommy

Hello everyone! I guest blogged today over at Elegant Mommy about how I teach my kids to be aware of the environment, and how I learned myself. Ever wonder why many of my projects involved reused items? Be sure to read it and check out what makes me tic. Read about how I was taught these things from when I was little.

To read my guest blog posted over at Elegant Mommy  Click Here!

Long Sleeves to Short Sleeves No-sew Refashion

So maybe you may have heard about my new shirt. I got it on clearance at a store that is over an hour from my home.

 

I got it home had it on for a few hours one afternoon and these showed up...

Holes appeared... now there could be two explanations.

1. They were in the clearance because there were issues with them.

2. The Deep Cycle battery that my husband picked up at the same store, and that shared a cart with my new shirt, had some battery acid on the outside that with the help of children got onto my shirt.

Both plausible. I didn't spent much on the shirt to be honest $10. I was not about to drive an hour back to exchange it, and honestly we do not drive to this place maybe but once a year...

So....

I had to figure out a way to make it work!

I had seen a video of this refashioning technique a year ago or so and have never had a chance to try it out. I searched again for the video and could not locate it. So my bad photos will have to do.

Cut off the sleeves. You will start close to the armpit of your shirt. You will be very close to the seem. You may want to leave an inch or less. When you cut. You will angle out away from the shoulder of your shirt. So it makes a triangle type shape. Long on the shoulder and short under the arm.

Then take your scissors and cut from the long point of your triangle up to your shoulder seem. So you split the triangles down the middle.

The video also cut the collar off the shirt, to make more of a scoop neck, but I was not wanting a scoop for this shirt.

Then take your sleeves and cut two strips the length of the sleeve that are one inch wide. Once you cut the strips pull them so they turn into skinny rolled strips.

Next take your strip and thread them through the collar and out thought he slit you cut in the sleeve.

Pull them tight so they gather the fabric at the shoulder (this is what hides my holes) and tie a double knot. Another bonus idea is if you are worried about a bra strap showing.. especially if you decide to do the scoop neck route, you can always untie your strip and slide it under your bra straps to hold your shirt in place.

                               

My shirt is saved... and I must say pretty darn cute. I will be bringing this shirt on all my camping trips this summer.

For this shirt less is definitely S'more

If anyone can find the video tutorial I saw of this project please let me know. I would love to post the link.

Muffin Tin Makeover Somewhat Flop

The ever popular Muffin Tin Meals for kids have been popping up all over on blogs everywhere including this great blog Muffin Tin Mom who hosts Muffin Tin Mondays.

I did have the muffin tin meal idea in my post on funky lunches.

 

Yep I too have jumped on the muffin tin bandwagon and made some pretty yummy meals that were gobbled up by my kiddos, let's face it, because they were in a muffin tin. But I had a problem...

I have three kids, and three muffin tins that are not in the greatest shape.

Please notice the two different kinds I have. A light colored non-stick air bake on the left and a dark non-stick on the right.

They were old and put into the dishwasher one too many times. Yes that is rust!

I was about ready to toss them and buy new ones. Yet anyone who knows me knows I am not one for tossing things without at least trying to give them new life.

Thus my plan...

Spray Paint!

In the kid's favorite three colors of course.

Whenever possible we use green for my daughter dark blue for my older son and orange for my youngest. I was super excited!!!

I started to spray, I had used spray paint before on a few projects so wasn't too worried. But...

If you look closely the blue and green muffin tins were originally the dark non-non stick muffin tins the orange in the middle was the air bake variety. I guess the air bake, although the more rusted of the two, also had a really good quality non-stick coating on it because the spray paint just wanted to slide off the surface and made puddles in the bottom of the tray. It would not stick and provide an even coat. So when all was said and done I was left with two finished muffin tins.

 One green and one blue.

They look really cool don't they?

Once they were dry completely and after I let them sit and cure for a few days. We washed them up and tried them out.

They seem to be ok...

But...

After a friend who has a degree in Ag pointed out that it really may not be a wise idea to have children eat off a spray painted surface if I didn't know for sure if it was food safe. I did think of this but thought it should be ok since they showed serving trays on the side. But honestly I really wanted it to work and I was just going to toss the trays anyway if I didn't try. But look at that poor child in the photo above who is now slowly dying faster because of eating the food that touched this muffin tin. Makes me feel guilty!!!

 I decided we won't be using them again unless I purchase some silicone liners to fit inside them to hold the food. Yet I am not sure if I will even do that since even weeks after spraying them they still seem to have some paint odor to them.

Yet!!!

I am but one mom with one idea and you are many many others who may have a better idea of what food safe paint to use to pull this idea off.  If you do, please leave a comment!

AND...

they did look cool didn't they?

Oh well... can't win them all.