crochet hangers......

Many, many years ago, someone gave me a set of 3 crocheted hangers.  I don't remember who gave them to me or why but they are the best hangers ever.  Nothing ever falls off of them.  I've always thought I'd make more but never did....(I'm slow like that.)  

Until now.
    
I decided it was nuts not to make more and started on this little summer project to pretty up my closet.

There are tons of "patterns" out there but they are all basically just crocheting around hangers so if you can crochet, you can do it.  

I wanted mine a bit sturdier so I held 2 together before crocheting around them.   If you do this, just make sure your hangers match up in size/shape.
Some people skip the hook end but the ones I were given went to the end and have lasted all these year so I decided to follow suit.  To secure the tip, I slid the last stitch up, applied a teeny bit of E6000 and then slid the stitch back down and tapped the yarn together.  

I added a little picot trim at the bottom and a flower at the neck. (I found the cute little flower pattern via creativejewishmom.com's blog here.)

By the end of the summer, I hope to have most of my mismatched hangers tossed and replaced with these pretty ones instead.

What a weekend!

This weekend went by in a flash.  I spent some time sewing new collars for the dogs and then I crocheted around wire hangers (more on that later...) and did mundane things like laundry.  But in between all that, I tried new recipes and had a surprise!

Saturday morning,  Dean and I were watching Pioneer Woman and decided to try her Olive Bread recipe.  
Oh. My. Goodness. it was good.  I love green olives but not black....but I am so glad I didn't change the recipe because it needed the blend.
Anyway, if you like olives and cheese you will love this bread so here is the link to the recipe.

Saturday night, Dean and the kids surprised me with dinner out at one of our favorite restaurants.  It is always good and we can laugh and visit without being afraid of being too loud.   As we were leaving to go, I let the dogs in and noticed THIS guy in the backyard and did a little jig!    

I named him Gimley the Giant Tortoise and promptly planted him with a pretty geranium.

Then late Saturday night we had company arrive,  so Sunday I made something I found on pinterest.  
Everyone at work was raving about it and since we had more to feed, I thought I'd try it.  Everyone liked it and voted it a "keeper"....here is the link.

I hope everyone had as wonderful a Mother's Day as I did!

little gardens....

It was no secret that I was not thrilled with our yard when we moved here.  Dean and I always had large yards with large veggie gardens and this yard just didn't give us the space we were used to. 

I fought against it at first,  but gradually I gave in and got creative and over the years, we've made it work.  
Now we only grow what we have room for and REALLY use all the time.  Fresh herbs, tomatoes, lettuces....things like that...although I would love to grow some onions and potatoes.......hmmmmmm.

For those who don't believe you can grow things successfully in containers.....my herb garden tub is exploding!  It is growing so fast that I can't harvest it quick enough.  

FYI: It is filled half way up with empty water bottles and I think that is why it does so well.  Nothing ever gets root bound.

The basil, which always does well...and I use it constantly!  I started with 6 plants the first year and went to 4 plants a couple years ago.  This year I only planted 2 and I still have too much to use without harvesting as I go along.   I'm not complaining though, my basil butter and cubes are always good to have in the freezer.  

I have the entire length of the small veggie garden planted with nasturtiums...in fact you can't see the lettuce or arugula behind it because they have grown so tall!  Our tomatoes are happy though, they are a natural deterrent. 

Nasturtiums are also edible and have a peppery flavor...and their blooms are gorgeous!

We've had several salads with the lettuce and arugula already....if you've not had arugula, you are missing out.  It is peppery and nutty at the same time.  Just delicious and super easy to grow.

The mint is spreading out.  This year, I need to make Dean some mint jelly.....I don't actually care for it in food (I know, weird...) but I do harvest it for the bath tub.    If you've never tried mint in the tub after a long day, you really should!  It smells heavenly.

This year's addition......blueberry bushes!  We love them and since it doesn't look like we'll be leaving anytime soon, we planted some along our fence line.  

So, how does your garden grow?

pretty and pink

I love the color pink.    Years ago, before I was married,  I painted my entire house pink.  I used Waverly fabrics and the entire house had this lovely, girly vibe.   
Thankfully, Dean is comfortable with his "manliness" so he really didn't care that he lived in a pink house for 6 years!
  
I don't have pink walls or pink flowery curtains anymore.  I don't have much pink in my wardrobe either.....but I am still drawn to the color....to me, it is such a happy color.

With pink on the brain, I did a bit of crocheting over the weekend and made 2 more scarves for the "Pink Scarf Project."  (2 left to reach my goal!)

I got this pattern out of "Stitch n Bitch" Crochet.

same pink yarn, using a different pattern I found online at hook and press

Then Dean and I went to the garden center and found the orchids on sale!  

Well, we decided on these 2 lovelies for his May "Orchid of the Month" club gift.

This was one I felt we couldn't pass up...I love the speckles...somewhat like Cheetah spots.  I love pink and green together and this just worked with the rooster picture behind it.

But this one is Dean's favorite.  It is huge with 3 large sprays of flowers.  It takes up half the space on the piano!   I took several photos of it but the close ups show it off the best.

Pink is the perfect color for May, don't you think? 

" Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose From out night's gray and cloudy sheath; Softly and still it grows and grows, Petal by petal, leaf by leaf." 

growing celery and other pinteresting things...

I have posted about growing green onions from their roots before.  If you want to see that post, click here.

I've been doing it for years....long before pinterest came along.  I think over the last 20 years, I've spent a grand total of 5 bucks on them...maybe not even that much, and that is only because sometimes when I've moved, I've left them behind in the yard.

Last month, I read on pinterest that you can do the same thing with celery so thought I'd give it a shot.  Since mine had no roots on it, I scored the bottom with a knife.

 Then I stuck it into my herb garden on April 11th....

Not quite a month later and we have this....new life! 

If it continues to do well, I will make a spot in the garden and do a small row of it.

While browsing sewing ideas, I saw this one about a toothbrush holder made from a hand towel....

and liked it so much I made 3...

then I found this pin on home made Rosemary Mint fabric softener and had to give it a try.  

It works quite well which makes me happy since it cost just pennies to make.  I found this on the same site as the eye makeup remover I posted about   She has other cleaning recipes I am going to try out too.....

Turns out , I'm not the only one playing on pinterest.   

Kaela  found this pin where you freeze yogurt into little dots.  She used strawberry flavored yogurt and squeezed it out of a plastic baggie....

....and liked it so much she has done it several times.   Don't you love her "bowl?"   hahahaha!

nothing like eating out of a cupcake liner container! 

last of Cancun

The week we were in Cancun was wonderful.....the last 2 days were spent between the beach and sight seeing.

Kayaking with the family.......

trying something new...

We spent one entire day at  Chichen Itza.  The name means water hole of the Itza tribe.  The Mayan civilization had a population of over 12.5 million people and those who had water holes were the most powerful.

The main ruin is still under restoration but this side it complete.  The Mayans were amazing mathematicians and astronomers....which is quite interesting since they didn't have telescopes.  (Dean kept saying stuff about aliens.....)
Serpents going up meant it was a shrine and serpents going down meant it was a temple.  

The serpent shadow ripples as the sun moves which makes it look like the serpent is moving....this is a temple.  The serpents were going down.

if you stand in front of the temple and clap your hands, it will sound just like a bird call.....amazing!

here are some heads of the serpents....these were on the platform across from the Sun temple

.Here was a shrine.  They call it the Shrine of 1,000 Pillars.  They don't know what the pillars represent.  It was creepy knowing that people were sacrificed here.   They ate their hearts.  (ewww)

the table where the person to be sacrificed was behind this....

Way  across from the shrine and outside the stadium was this.....each stone was engraved with a skull.  

There were over 1,000 skulls, each depicting a decapitated captain from the game.   Historians argue over whether the victor or the loser actually lost their head.  Since human sacrifice was an "honor," many argue that the victor was decapitated, not the loser.

Outside view of the stadium...entrance....

The stadium...you can see how large it is from this photo.  Royalty would sit while everyone else would stand on the top of the walls.

See the small building at the end of the photo.  It had a mirror image building on this side.  If you stand in front of one end and shout, you can hear your voice clearly at the other end.  

The hoop the ball went in to.  If you ever saw the Disney movie "El Dorado," it will make you think of this stadium....I think they used it for inspiration.   The ball was made of rubber and weighed roughly 9-12 pounds.  They had hip belts....hands were not permitted.  These hoops were on the tip top of the wall you see in the above photo!

On each side, the walls were decorated with engravings of the team......

Here is the water hole which the place is named for.  A GORGEOUS and large sink hole of fresh water that goes down to 150 feet.  They have found human remains.  (another tidbit from the Disney flick....they called their's Shelbalba.....this sink hole is named something close to that.)

I opted not to go....the water was too cold for me and I wanted to take photos.......this place was beautiful!  

 the specks in the lower left photo are PEOPLE!

This was one excursion that we need to do again just to finish it.  There was simply too much to cover in one visit.  Our tour guide said we needed about 3 days to really see it all.  After spending the day there, we all agreed he was right.  We didn't get to do any poking around or looking at the minor ruins....just not enough time.

De-stash Challenge...April

I joined Ana and Lynda's Destash Challenge this year.....and have done remarkably well.    I've made scarves and cozies and beds and such. 

This month, I was preoccupied with end of the year work stuff and other things so I didn't de-stash as much as usual.

In fact, I ADDED stash by going on a quick trip to a yarn store in Mississippi with a co-worker.   It was SUCH fun.  The drive was a quick 30 minutes and we had a blast.   After shopping, we had a really good lunch and headed back home with our goodies...  Some of this will be made into finger-less gloves, some into a scarf and some into who knows what...

I'd also been looking for a particular yarn for about a year...and looking HARD for well over 6 months.  
I finally found it on Ravelry but it took an additional 2 months to find someone willing to sell it to me.
The yarn is so lovely, it was worth the effort...I can't imagine why this lovely yarn would be discontinued!

Then I found these on sale 50% off and couldn't pass up the color....teal, light or dark is seriously the BEST color!

Then I bought some more yarn to create this shawl for our trip to Cancun.   I thought it would be fun to make this instead of a toy for my "drop" this month.  I left it for the lady who did our house keeping every day.  Dean wrote her a sweet note in Spanish....we saw it on her cart later that morning when we checked out.





I did manage to make 3 more pink scarves for the Pink Scarf Project.  Since I am making so many of them, I am only buying yarn I find on sale.   I have now made 8 scarves!  My goal is 12 so I have 4 left to make before October.

I made 2 of this light and lacy one.  This yarn is incredibly soft and was perfect for the open weave.   I love the pretty fringe.   

 I only found 1 skein of this yarn so made a long, chunky scarf out of it. It is also very soft but it looks best doubled and tied close to the neck........

I also made another cell phone case...I seem to making these constantly....

Going to a yarn store is like a kid going to a candy store.......but the good thing is that you don't rot your teeth out....and you get to create pretty things.......