It can't be denied, I've had bees on the brain all Spring. The neighbor's honeybees buzzing over to pollinate the flowers in my garden are helpful and lovely, but I couldn't help but pine away for a hive of my own. There are those times in life where pining pays off, and this was one of them. For my birthday last week, my husband and son surprised me with a handmade honey cow. Maybe ...
DIY
Garden Fairy Houses
Making miniature homes for wee folk is a wonderful pastime for folks young and old. At our last house, we built a whole fairy house village all throughout our garden under the big old shrubs. We made little houses, roads, gardens, ponds and a dance hall. Interspersed throughout were delicate little plants like Irish Moss, violets, and ferns. It was a great outlet for ...
How to Make Yourself a Damn Fine Cup of Coffee
Every morning, a cup of coffee is my simple pleasure in the middle of the morning hustle and bustle. After getting two nine-year-olds out of bed, fed, coached through getting clothed and presentable, reminded to do their chores, equipped with lunch baskets and hopefully out the door on time (while I'm multi-tasking like mad and doing more chores), that cup of coffee is like a small vacation. Heck, ...
Handmade Valentines
One of my absolute favorite grade school memories is the yearly Valentine's Day party. I don't recall any specific one, but I just remember having a ball making little paper crafts with hearts and doilies for all my classmates, exchanging them to fill these giant envelopes we made out of construction paper, and then having an all-out sugar extravaganza with candy and cupcakes galore. Even the kids ...
Deck The Halls: Do-It-Yourself Holiday Greenery
When the weather turns cold, and outdoors-people like myself are spending less time in the great outdoors, there's nothing like bringing a little outdoors indoors! There's also something really nice about making a home festive for the winter holidays. It just warms your bones. Over the past several years, I have made a lot of efforts to decorate with natural materials and reduce my ...
Miss Fancy Pants
This past week I finally finished this pants project I was working on for my daughter. I was invited to a sew-your-own-pantaloons party at a friend of a friend's house, where I had the good fortune to meet the talented Usha Davis, who taught a group of ladies how to recycle old flare-sleeved blouses and pants into these fancy pants creations. She makes some of the most amazing clothing with ...
The Resourceful Greenhouse
This Spring, we finally built our first greenhouse. With all the other projects to do during our first year on our property, starting small seemed wise. In spite of limited monetary resources, my very resourceful husband managed to build our greenhouse for around 30 dollars with scraps and salvaged materials we had around our place. Some extra panels of heavy duty livestock fencing made the 12 ...
Plant and Veggie Dyes for Colorful Spring Eggs
For our Spring Equinox egg hunt, we made our traditional plant and vegetable dyed eggs. We have been doing this since my children were four, and it is something they look forward to every year. This year I let them color pictures on the eggs with beeswax crayons first to try something new. There were baby chick eggs, fairy eggs, eyeball eggs, mother earth eggs, you name it. While they were doing ...
Getting Organized and Coming Prepared With Camping Bins
A few years ago, I realized that it was taking us a very long time to pack for a weekend camping trip. Our goal was to get out more frequently, as many weekends as possible, and no less than once per month. We had friends who went nearly every weekend (who did not have kids), and we decided we could do it too if we could just get organized and always be ready to go. I remembered when I was in ...