Time for playing in the dirt!

One of the most expensive projects after purchasing a new house is the landscaping.  Sometimes you get lucky and the previous owners had decent green thumbs and everything was to your liking....but in our case there was ZERO landscaping here....And as in everything else I have champagne tastes, and a Rolling Rock Beer budget.

With the outdoor cat population in our neighborhood, we decided to do a rock border, and some plants that would help keep them from using our fresh turned soil as a litter box.  As we are only part way through our project we have not totally agreed on the topic of mulch vs. rock.  I'm pro rock, he's pro mulch.

We found a place nearby that mines the local limestone, and cuts it into big chunks for commercial use,  of course we need the smaller stuff and at our first house we ended up purchasing three pallets of the stone at $115 a pop....and we would need about the same for this house...fortunately we were told of several large chunks at our church, that needed to be disposed of, so for the small price of labor and fuel for going back and forth we (We, as in DH and my dad) were able to bust up several chunks, enough for us to do the borders for the side garden, and the two front gardens.  There will be enough left over for us to use the same stone in the backyard for the raised vegetable garden beds!  Woo hoo!

On the East side of the house I have planted the irises my dad dug up for me at the last house.  Some of these irises I helped my mom dig up at Longview Farms before Longview Lake was a lake...some came from other places, but I do know several of the rhizomes are from my childhood.  And those memories make me smile.

We were fortunate to get help from my dad breaking up the huge rocks, and then our neighbor came up and helped us rip up sod, and get some of these stones in place, I wasn't much help!








Now for the real expense associated with our landscape project.  The plants.

And that isn't all of them!  I was able to get some in the ground already thanks to a neighbor who had some great black dirt and had too much for their garden!

Lilac and Lavender

I decided this year to concentrate on a few solid and permanent plants for the garden.  Perennials are more expensive, like 3x the price of the one season annual.  But, worth it, because if I do my job watering when mother nature isn't making it rain then I shouldn't have to replace these plants, ever.  Doing the research on the different types of gardens in the small area of my front yard has been interesting to say the least,  I actually have a true shade garden, two full sun gardens, and a morning sun only garden.

We have one spot in the front yard to finish, fill and then plant, but that should be done this week!

My advice to you, research the area you want to plant, choose a color scheme for your gardens, mine is purple and green, and then take your time selecting plants.  Water as much as the plants need, so read the tags, and prepare to enjoy all your hard work and planting!  Whether you selected plants that are fragrant, edible, just pretty, or a combination of all three, having a garden can bring a smile to your face!

Sometimes a deal is too good to pass up

I love shopping, for home decor, and I LOVE finding a good deal!  I went to Old Time Pottery in Independence, and found an awesome circle wood and metal art piece.  But it's broken, and instead of the original price of $60, it was discounted to $12!  Score for me!

It took some time to get the pieces apart.  But it was worth it.

Then it was time to fix the broken part, and get to painting!  I chose the blue from our bathroom as a base.

Once the base color is dry it's time to apply the crackle medium, then that needs to dry for 2-4 hours.

We went fishing...so when we got home it was time to put the top color on!

It was so pretty, but still looked too new, so I grabbed the antiquing medium and mixed up some weathering magic!

Unfortunately at that point it was too late to spray-paint the metal piece...but the next day I sprayed it to match the fixtures in my house, oil rubbed bronze.

I also had to purchase new screws, the original piece was missing one screw, and the two screws that secured the medallion were completely destroyed.  Because the screws were new brass, and they would show when I screwed the metal to the wood, they got a quick spray of matching paint.

And I sprayed a coat of polyurethane to seal the weathered wood.

Once it was all dry I was able to put it back together, and hung in my entrance!

Here is the before and after pic, for comparison!

I'm putting down my hook

Well I'm putting it down because I'm DONE with my wave afghan project!!!  Finally!  And I decided to post it to the Crochet Crowd on Facebook.  The response has been overwhelming!  I have over a thousand likes, countless comments and shares galore! See my post here.  Join the Crochet Crowd here, it's free, and there is soooo much eye candy and inspiration!!!

So without further ado, here is Leslie's Scrap Afghan!

And now that this is done I have started another project, and this time it's NOT crocheted!  Yeah I know!  Wow, but I needed to give my poor hands a small break.  In a few short months I will be hosting a table at a formal tea at church, and decorating my own table!  So I decided to make some place-mats, I used colors that match my decor at home, so I can use them after the tea.

The blue is leftover from my wedding, and the print I found at Wally World, on clearance!  After you cut a front and  a back for each place-mat you want to make you pin them right sides together

Then set up your sewing machine.  It helps to tape off the measurement so you make sure your seams are the same.

Sew up three sides, and part of the fourth, I left my opening in the middle of a side, it will help camoflauge it in the final steps.  Turn them right sides out.

That is as far as I have gotten on them so far, I still have to press them and do the final stitch, more blog on that later!

A feast that will make you "green" with envy

Every year on St. Patrick's day I try to make something "authentic" Sunday we had family over for "bangers and mash" and yesterday I made home made Reuben sandwitches.

They were delicious!  And as a side dish I decided to make fresh potato chips!

Making chips is super easy!  Especially if you have a mandolin, it will make it easier to get everything even and thin!

Once your potatoes are washed and sliced, rinse them off and prepare to soak them in cold water for AT LEAST a half hour.  I learned the hard way, do NOT skip this step!

Once they have soaked, take them out of the water and dry them off!  I found that putting them on a clean dish cloth is easiest, then blotting the top with paper towels.

Get a heavy pot and some good oil, I prefer peanut oil for frying.

The temperature needs to be around 300, you can also use a test chip.  They need to have a good sizzle.

Then once they are nice and browned to your taste take them out and let them cool and drain on a rack.

Salt and eat!  When they get room temp they will be crispy, but they taste great warm too!

Enjoy!

This is why you should plan ahead!

Last year we purchased a quarter of a cow.  I was sooo sure that we would go through that in a years time...well this last year has flown by and we still have quite a bit of meat in the deep freezer.  So I pulled the brisket out of the freezer because the sky is getting dark and it's gonna rain...so no grilling!  I found a recipe I wanted to try (click here) and I realized that making a brisket is an easy 24 hour process!  I used my microwave's defrost mode to get it started defrosting and gathered the rest of my ingredients.  I did not follow the recipe exactly, I substituted a lot of the seasonings.  I used onion powder, celery salt, Durango Hickory Smoked Salt, minced garlic and a secret ingredient.

Every recipe I read said to line the pan with foil, and I used three layers to make sure that cleanup would be easy.

< Meat goes in the pan

Then cover with liquid smoke >

and sprinkle on the rest of the seasonings.

then cover with foil and let it marinade overnight...the next day pour off the liquid smoke and add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. And by a few dashes I mean cover it with liquid.

This gets put in the oven at 250 for six hours, I cooked mine from 8:30am till 4pm, 7 1/2 hours total

The original recipe says to  pull the foil off, pour a bottle of BBQ sauce on it and bake it for another hour . But I didn't want BBQ, so I left it off and as I stated before, it was baking for over seven hours.

So yummy I couldn't stop tasting this!!!

I used the liquid that was left from baking it as a gravy, and served this delicious meat with mashed potatoes, corn and toast.

Enjoy!

Tarry not, for the hook awaits thee.

 Yarn is an addiction for me, it is my happy place, and gives me peace.  Seriously!  Now there are times that I growl in frustration at whatever project I'm working on...but for the most part, crocheting makes me smile.  So when I get the chance to feed my stash I do it with GUSTO!  This past weekend was once such chance.  I am not a fiber artist that can afford the really expensive yarns so when there is a sale, or coupons you can find me taking advantage of that!  I was shopping for an afghan request.  I got to choose the colors.
















The pattern I will be using is a broomstick pattern, so I also got a dowel and had my DH sharpen one end to make it easier to draw up the loops and to crochet them off.

I also got a pom-pom making set because anyone that has ever made poms knows that they can be difficult and tricky.

And I didn't stop there!  There were a few more skeins that called to me.

I love blues

I see a teddy bear...

And I have started one project already!  A hat for me.

The pattern was a bit confusing as the stitches just don't look the same in the pictures compared to what mine looks like

And I have some custom buttons, designed by me, made by my dad! These go on the brim of my hat, well two of them will!

I hope I get this hat done soon, otherwise it will be too warm to wear it!

It was a sheet...now it's yarn

I finally found a pattern that my brother and sister-in-law would "allow" me to crochet for them.  It's a cat nest, or a cat poof...so of course I was ready to get started on it asap!  The poof doesn't use "yarn" it calls for fabric scrap yarn.  Click the picture to go to her site.

Today was an adventure in making my own scrap yarn.  After a mostly failed attempt to do it at my house because the dogs thought they should lay on it, or that it was time to play because I was on the floor I packed it all up and headed to my parents house, and their dog free wood floors.

After removing the hemmed edges, and ripping out the top hem cause that added almost a foot of extra fabric, we trimmed an edge so we had a straight edge to start.

The cat, liked the scrap edge.

Fortunately she didn't disturb us as we lined up the edges and started cutting!

And balling the yarn

I had no idea how to make a sheet a continuous strand of yarn and I'm so thankful for the "interwebs" because I found a fabulous blog that gave excellent and clear instructions to make this yarn.  It took the better part of today to get two sheets cut and rolled into balls.  So the cat nest will have to wait for another day.

Maybe tomorrow.