Easy Onion Grass

It is raining this morning and I couldn’t work out in the garden, so I had to plant something inside! :-)
I saw this project over at This Blessed Life:

I knew that I wanted to do a  grass type project and when I saw that Dollar Tree had onion grass I grabbed some last time I was there. It’s been waiting on a day with time for an inside project!
I knew I wanted taller grass and a metal container  in my finished project, so I went upstairs and shopped my “stock room” and found this metal container:
 
It’s a recent thrift store find that I knew I would use for something.;-) It’s the perfect size and shape for this project, just the wrong color.
So bring on the ORB! 

I LOVE using pizza boxes and the round cardboard tray for my painting projects, especially when I have to paint inside! The boxes provide a backstop for the overspray and the rounds are great for lifting and turning your project so you can get all the angles and keep your hands clean!

Looking better…definitely more like something that would work in my master bedroom.
Next, I gathered my Dollar Tree supplies:
Two bunches of onion grass (I had already started taking one apart), floral foam and floral wire. Then I put three of the small foam blocks down in the metal planter.

I took the onion grass bunches apart to give me smaller stalks to place where I wanted them. They came apart easily and had plastic on the ends which went down into the foam easily.
The outer edge was wrapped in a long piece of the grass, so I cut it into sections of about 8 grass stalks each and wrapped the ends in floral wire.
 
Then they went down into the foam easily too.
So I started poking the grass down into the foam. I’m not sure if I should have but I started on the outside edges to make sure they were covered.   

I just kept filling it in til I ran out of grass and then put some moss in to cover the little bit of exposed foam.
 

     

                           Finished Product

It’s going in my master bedroom, which I will show you when it’s finished…which my be after gardening season! ;-)

Happy Saturday!

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My Experience Spray Painting Plastic…

I received a comment on my Easy Stone Look Planter from Tru that made me stop and think..She asked “Does the textured paint adhere to the primer? Does it rub off? When I contacted Rustoleum earlier, they told me only paint for plastic could be used over the plastic primer.”

I guess that I was so excited and in such a hurry that I never thought to ask…I just took Rustoleum at their “word” on the can:

It says “paint plastic with any color and superior top coat adhesion and durability.” So I primed with the plastic primer assuming that it would “prime” the plastic for paint.  Then I used the MultiColor Textured Paint that is not plastic specific.

They looked good when I finished but  I haven’t planted in them yet. I went ahead and checked them out for durability.

I started on the inside where it was mostly over spray and not much if any primer         (I don’t really spray the inside very much as they will be filled with dirt!) and (cringe) I scratched…you can see below that the paint did scratch up.

 

In the next picture, it is still on the inside, but closer to the top where there is more primer and definitely more paint. Nothing came up when I scratched, but when I dug at it, I did get some to come up. 

Then I held my breath and scratched the outside where I had primered twice and sprayed several coats of the paint.

NOTHING came up! :o) Yay! and I really tried!

In the next one, if you can see it, there was a spot that got messed up during painting.  I thought for sure that if I scratched here where the paint was already weak that it would come up more, but it DIDN’T!

They have cured about week and I didn’t scrape them with anything metal…just my fingernail, really hard but  I am comfortable saying that these are pretty durable.

I may have to share with Rustoleum how well this worked for me! :-)

Paint away!

My Stone Planters are being shared @ Dollar Store Crafts!

Dollar Store Crafts is one of the first craft sites that I followed. It is right up my alley! Heather shares projects made mostly with Dollar Store items. I have found many things to make there from decor to crafts and sewing! Today she is sharing my super easy “Stone-Look” planter

 

made with a Dollar Tree Planter and Rustoluem’s Textured spray paint! Go check out Dollar Store Crafts, You’ll stay busy for months!

Today's Parties:

The Mud Cats Won!

My two younger sons are playing baseball for the first time this year. They are 9 and 11. They are just far enough apart to be in different age groups and on different teams! We have spent several nights walking back and forth between the fields watching two games at the same time! Anyway, the 9 and 10 year old team has done pretty well, but my son’s 11 and 12 year old team was 0 and 7…til tonight…they had their first win!! Go Mud Cats!!! They played well and deserved the win. I hope they are on a winning streak! :-)

My son was walked to first,
Stole second,

Led off to third,

But was left on base,
 
and had to return to the field.

It was a GREAT game!

So What is Lasagna Gardening?

I first heard about lasagna gardening last year, but I don’t remember where. I have always wanted to garden as naturally as possible and to use what nature has provided me; so the theory behind lasagna gardening was really appealing.
The theory is  fairly simple: layer your organic materials with a ratio of 3 parts brown to one part green into a mound…the same way you make a lasagna! Layers!!
I mentioned lasagna gardening to someone recently and they asked if that was planting the herbs, etc. needed for preparing a lasagna. Although that’s not what it is, the question has inspired me to plant a lasagna style garden bed of lasagna ingredients! I usually do a “salad bowl” bed. So this year, I am going to plant “lasagna” next to my “salad”…I think it will be fun!
Back to the original topic…lasagna gardening.
This is a picture of my  very unkempt garden at the beginning of spring. I started out with raised beds. The lumber for the sides was probably the most expensive part of my garden. The next most expensive and time consuming part is the topsoil that it took to fill the beds.

Lasagna gardening does away with these two “expenses”, by simply building a mound (bed) in  layers of organic materials and planting directly into the layers!
I have put some lasagna layers on top of my raised beds in the past, but I have just finished my first real lasagna bed.  Our ground is extremely rocky, even where it doesn’t look rocky, rocks  are hiding everywhere just under the surface.

This type of gardening does away with this problem too. Instead of removing all of them, you just move the big ones and garden ON TOP of the smaller ones!
So I started with cardboard and piled old hay on top of it.

I threw several inches of topsoil on top of the hay.

Next I piled on shredded leaves and hay and since I want to put sweet potatoes in this bed, I included some sand.
For the next layer I put on last years manure and then covered everything with more shredded leaves and hay.

TAA DAA! My first real Lasagna Bed!!

I planted my sweet potatoes right in this bed. I’m going to test the idea put out by the author of the Lasagna Gardening book that you don’t have to wait for everything to break down before planting.

Looks good to me! I’ll keep you posted on their progress!
Back out to the garden for me!


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Taste of Home Magazine for only $3!!!!

I found this through Rockin Deals and it worked for me! I LOVE Simple and Delicious by the same company! I couldn't pass this deal up though...It's through Tanga, and you do "create an account" with them, and then "buy now" and enter the promo code TASTE and the $17.99 price goes down to $3.99!! You can buy more than one year and even pay via Paypal! What's not to love?!

Happy cooking!

My First Chalkboard Project

When I first started reading creative project boards, I was amazed that painting with chalk board paint was the thing to do. The more I looked at them the more I thought I would like to try it and started finding things at thrift stores that would look good as a made over chalkboard. As  usual, I bought everything I saw that said “I would look good with a coat of chalkboard paint…” but did I actually paint anything? Uh, that would be a “no”. :( So, as I was cleaning up my thrift store dumping grounds in the corner of our living/dining area I found this:

The first piece I ever bought to make into a chalkboard. It is a huge ceramic tray. I thought it would be nice to write a Bible verse on or a birthday wish or something… but it ended up at the bottom of the pile. So as I was cleaning (yes, cleaning) I thought, “how long could it take to give this thing a coat of chalkboard paint?”. I decided to go for it even though I was NOT going to get involved in any projects til that corner was cleaned up. Sitting on the shelf, next to the pile was this stand, that I think is perfect to hold the chalkboard…another reason to paint now, right?

So off I went to find the paint!

I have been spraying everything with primer first, but the chalkboard paint said it could be used on glass, and I was in a hurry as my pile inside was still calling my name, so I took Rustoleum at their word and skipped the primer…we’ll see…

I taped the edges using the blue paint tape. I was hoping for a nice clean edge, but the tray didn’t have straight edges on the inside, the fruit and scrolling went in and out of the flat surface. I covered the outside with newspaper ads.

And sprayed away!

 

Here it is waiting on me to remember to bring home some chalk to “season” it with.

Now I have my first chalkboard and an almost cleaned up corner!

Back to work!

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