New Additions

That seems like a title I would have used before. Again, I'm no longer up for checking over 420 posts to see if I have. :( I think that kind of makes me a terrible blogger in some fashion.

Here to share some pictures of recent happenings! Let's start with a creepy crawly visitor:

 One of the brothers had this little one fall onto him the other night and made him a little habitat.

 After much scouring of the internet, I found that it is a Hubbard Silk Moth. Wikipedia doesn't even know about it!

This is about 35 days after its hatching, the week that it's supposed to bury itself and pupate!

It's a pretty local resident and has only gained its reddish hue in the past week. Those light white-looking scales are actually metallic silver. Wicked-looking but gentle. It's been fascinating to watch and strikingly resembles the mesquite tree it was in. 

Next comes a quick update from the garden that I've deemed the Blooms and Suckers era.

 A few days ago, we had a few buds like this one. This is from Gryffindor.

 Each day, we see more and more flowers! If you look closely, there are three in this picture. This is from Slytherin, of course.

 There are not too many spots that have multiple blooms where each survive, but there's still hope! This is from Ravenclaw.

If you lean the right way, you can see what looks like tiny black seeds inside. The original seeds were not black so I don't know what to do with this information. This is from Hufflepuff.

I cannot wait for more buds to bloom! I cannot believe how much energy these chili peppers have to give because they have so much going on right now. Take a look at what else they are up to:

 Gryffindor is overcompensating for its sudden nakedness by popping out a ton of new leaves.

 Slytherin had started this project the earliest and now has a new branch that grows like mad.

 For the longest time, each plant had little nubs where each big leaf came from. Once that leaf is gone, like here on Ravenclaw, they put energy into expansion within a week or so.

I believe these new growths are what are "affectionately" called sucker branches and while I've plucked them off on the cherry tomato plants, I welcome them on the peppers. They were never supposed to have such giant leaves but in fact a couple of busy vertical branches. Yay for finally getting these guys into a more familiar climate!

Speaking of the tomatoes, look at how they are taking off! I really hope that I see signs of budding soon. They like leaning in whatever they please despite my efforts to correct this.

Next up, I forgot to share this sooner, but we've already fulfilled our new recipe a month quota! I don't know how it ended up happening, but it was yet another recipe that required quick frying. The difference this time was that I did not burn anything or anyone! I AM trainable! Sorta. Here is a snapshot of half of the skillet barbecued pork chops we had:

They came out week despite my inexperience and their thinness. We had some cheesy mashed potatoes, applesauce, and green beans with it. The household has voted for this recipe to be a repeat! Hooray! I am so enamored with this cookbook. Three out of four complete successes! Number four (the meatballs I told you guys about) is under personal debate for the next time I feel brave enough to try again despite the family surviving un-scarred from the first time.

Lastly comes something else I've been making with my own two hands. That reminds me that I made an odd purchase at Ace Hardware yesterday when we got the final pieces for a well-working bathroom sink faucet: plant labels, a meat thermometer, and pan scrapers. I used up all of my labels with the addition of various herbs and the lettuce, I got a meat thermometer for myself to help with my cooking journey, and I actually got the pan scrapers to help me open up my Simply Adorned charm more easily. My nails are not yet strong enough, but the first time I tested it out, it opened! Unfortunately, my hand kept going and proceeded to take a chunk out of my other hand's cuticle. It smarted. Not my brightest of ideas but it more or less worked. Anywho, the things I've been making with what's left of my two hands:

 I know you've seen the top two Outer Space inserts, but I like taking the pictures in groups of six now. :D There's a Bear theme that happens in FMIL's classroom twice a year now, and the last pair is Lunar/Asian New Year inspired. The Chinese dragon is cracking open a fortune cookie with a heart and peace sign as a fortune.

I just finished these before blogging. As an aspiring school teacher and the school year just starting, I had to make obligatory Apple themed inserts. Next week, I'm going in and they are starting their Plant-themed experiments, so I made a seedling and tree inserts. I believe that two weeks from now (the beginning of October probably), there will be a creepy-crawly Bug theme. I had to make pretty bugs after watching the Hubbard Silk Moth caterpillar crawling around its chalice and subsequently viewing hundreds of pictures of different worm-like critters. 

I had challenged myself to use every current Stampin' Up! color in these inserts and as of the last pair, I've already succeeded! I'm glad that forced me out of my comfort zone because I've loved these new color combos. I now have an entire dining table covered in various scraps and feel that I should probably celebrate this feat by cleaning up a little. >_<; Whoops. I still have plenty of theme ideas but feel that this is a pretty good pausing point.

Lol, I hope you have enjoyed these snapshots and will see you soon! <3

"Simple Adoration"

This is pretty much a copy and paste from my Stampin' Up! blog. :D

"I hope that you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend that was probably full of traveling, barbequing, and/or working on long overdue household projects. How's that for tradition?

Well, my shipment arrived Friday evening and I have been crafting (when I can) ever since! What I wanted to share with you is my customizable Simply Adorned jewelery from Stampin' Up! I had to put it back into the packaging so it's missing the tiny plastic bags but I wanted to show that each piece comes in a sweet Chocolate Chip box that's also great for decorating and gift-giving.

 

 

I am personally starting off with the 24-inch chain and the 1 inch by 1 1/4 inch charm. There's a shorter chain meant for bracelets and other charms in different sizes and you should check out the store yourself! They even introduced a few baubles and trinkets during the last Holiday Mini Catalog and I can't wait to add those to my growing collection.

Keep in mind that this is Stampin' Up! and as you can see in the picture above, you can decorate your chains with tiny charms, ribbon, and all sorts of goodies. I have seen some of the necklace chains with gorgeous satin ribbon weaved into the links and it's to die for! It shortens the length of the chain but that's okay in my book.

The charms are made of a nickel-plated zinc alloy and the chain is coated in the same alloy but is made of stainless steel. I believe this helps prevent allergic reactions that many people have to jewelry. The glass on the charm is beveled on one side but flat on the other and this allows for me to open up the locket and decorate both sides with inserts!

There's only so much space in between so that is something I have to keep in mind but I have had so much fun this past weekend making my inserts and I am no where near done. I had to tear myself away to start sharing them with you! They make such a beautiful and easy gift (or swap) because of their tiny size. It's right up my alley because I love nearly anything miniature. These have turned into my wearable canvases.

Note: They're not just for wearing! You can use them to accent beautiful home décor or to cards and scrapbook pages. A quick, simple, and classy way to get that "WOW" factor!

I make coordinating inserts in pairs and this is my experimental progression starting from the top pair. I found that I have a few favorite outfits that closely resemble with Rich Razzleberry and Bermuda Bay (now retired). I think that you can tell I'm new to stamping but I've liked the results so far! For the first and third pair, I actually used the cardboard that was wrapped around the Chocolate Chip boxes as my base.

Next, I realized that I wanted to have heavily themed inserts to wear to school because I have yet to develop the ultimate fun teacher-of-young-children wardrobe. As you can see, I am much more comfortable creating with my favorite products: the Card Stock and Stampin' Write Markers! I am free-hand cutting my paper sculptures because that's just how my brain works.

The themes are Ocean Animals (using some of the newest In-Colors: Island Indigo, Pool Party, and Wisteria Wonder) - Autumn (I'm "falling" in love with using Regals, hardy har har) - and Dinosaurs (I am no paleontologist!)

My absolute favorite out of the bunch I've made so far is this one:

Space! It's not so much that I'm obsessed with space, but how proud I am of the detail and thought put into this pair. One side is my "Don't worry Pluto, I'm not a planet either." and the other is the rest of the solar system! I have to get a little creative in fitting all of the planets but I'm still in love with the end product. 

 How adorable is that?!

I like to put the more detailed of the inserts on the flat side or showcasing one on the beveled side because it just makes things look that much fancier.

On the back of each insert, I try to jot down the date, as many of the colors that I used that I can fit, and sign my little piece of artwork. Like I said earlier, I am so proud of the progression and finished product!

I'm dying to get back to making more because I have so many ideas blazing through my head right now. Please let me know if you have any questions! Even if it's just what colors I used."

There. That saves me the trouble of repeating myself. :P See you soon! <3

Box of Treasures

This is me writing as soon as possible so as not to procrastinate. So soon, in fact, that I've cooled down but am still covered in dirt. Oh the priorities of my generation and neurosis. :D

This is another garden post but it's the SO's fault today! I accompanied him to our umpteenth visit to our favorite hardware store this month and wanted to show him the planted that I eventually wanted to get for the herbs (parsley and cilantro). Then he goes and brings one down from the top shelf for me and suggests that I grab more herbs to try out. Herbs are actually something I would consistently use that I could grow in my new garden (I'm terrible at the vegetable-game. I'm working on it.). So, while I'm deciding on one or two more common herbs to try, he looks at the selection and suggest I try one of everything. O_o. Well, one kind of each type of herb. Not every single one they had available. And we did. Oh boy. XD Here is what happened outside today:

I woke up to check on the plants and found that the family dog had run rampart right through the moist lettuce bed. I now have no idea how the two rows I planted will turn out. I've added a few obstacles around the area but who knows what that hot mess will do. Sigh. At least there was some really good news to see:

 Do you see that light spot in the middle?

Slytherin has two tiny flowers that have started to open today!

Heeding some advice, I plucked off the sucker branches that have sprouted on the tomatoes in the past couple of days.

The SO helped me scavenge all of the rocks to put in the bottom.

I filled that sucker up good. With what exactly?

 Sweet Basil,

 Onion-flavored Chives,

Left a space for my peated Cilantro,

 Fern-leaf Dill,

 A ton of Oregano,

 More Italian Straight-leaf Parsley,

 

Round Leaf Sage,

 Some very sweet Stevia,

 Fragrant Tarragon,

& Common Thyme.

Oh good gravy. What have we done? That's ten different herbs in a 24 inch length of space. I am so excited to see what may happen in that box. At least I can still carry it around myself if I need to save them from the elements or rabbits. The seeds were all so tiny! I couple of them got away from me throughout the garden (>_<) and some went where they wanted inside the planter, but I sowed generous amounts of each in their respective sections. 

It's going to kill me to thin out the herd later on. I have yet to purposely do that because of how encouraged I was with my other plants. Nature has done the selection for me up to this point but I have planted so many seeds this time, there's no way they could all coexist together.

I suppose I should have started out learning how to garden this way but what's done is done! Lol. Upon some calculation, we've determined that we should have some lettuce to try around Halloween and cherry tomatoes to play with by Thanksgiving! That's... actually close! I have no idea what the estimate is for the Thai Hots, XD. 

I need to un-gross myself now. I'll see you soon! <3

Piece of Work

It's another one of those nights when I think that I'm going to put off blogging for another day until something happens and I think: "Ugh! I gotta blog about this because I'm so worked up!" Oh yes.

I'm just going to go in chronological order via the pictures on my camera. 

 Our ferocious jungle kitty.

His napping cousin not even two feet away. So peaceful.

Cat cousin and now retired classroom beta, Sky, squaring off while his bowl was being cleaned.

 So many roots!

 Getting pretty tall again.

Batch #3 of Cereal Pet Grass is ready for distribution!

What very well could be our last summer monsoon came in hard and full of dust.

 We got a visit from the almighty MOTHRA!

*Dun dun dun* The SO has a pic on his phone of the beautiful feather-like wings.

I'm still missing many, but I realized what a collection of Stampin' Write markers I've collected over the past two years! Gorgeous.

 

The newest seeds from our beloved Ace Hardware.

Gonna try the Jalapeños again, but with guaranteed to grow seeds. :P

The SO showed interest in the Cilantro/Coriander and I was more than game to try those after realizing that the Parsley is more of a biennial (every two years!). 

Lettuce is an experiment for the classroom. :D

 Very round. Cilantro is the plant while Coriander is the seed. Go figure!

 They kind of look like my old seeds.

So many seeds and only 45 days until harvest! Whoa.

 Dug up the old Jalapeño seeds. :(

Some of them tried to start growing roots!

The mini green house is being left outside for now.

The old Jalapeños are in the four corners, the rest of the top and bottom rows are cilantro, and the entire mid-section are the new Jalapeños.

Some separate cilantro already potted. Yay experimentation!

Some of the new Jalapeños already potted.

Didn't take a picture of the hole I dug, but I mixed existing soil with fresh soil for little lettuce bed. Whoa, my first thing grown in the ground!

Very hard to tell, but I tried to capture the ton of seeds I spread in each row. 

The stakes mark the beginning and end of each horizontal row of lettuce seeds.

Repotted the straight parsley anyways and combed them apart for the third time this week.

They are just one big hot mess.

Plants in every nook and cranny! XD

And my sweet blue watering can that I love!

Had plenty enough to update about, but what really set me over the edge was while I was cleaning up after setting my garden up for the day, I leaned to put something down while bracing myself on a patio post and when I pushed away to stand on my one, I got a freaking splinter! It's the worst splinter I've had (which wasn't terrible by many means) but when I tried to tweeze it out it splintered into smaller pieces that went deeper in. To make matters worse, I really do not enjoy needles and things piercing into my skin... So getting it out was a pain and a half in a multitude of ways. It's mostly out and rubbing alcohol hurts like heck. Sigh.

We're in the midst of replacing the bathroom sink faucet right now and I had to take a break from climbing completely in the cabinet underneath because I started hyperventilating a little because I may be a tad claustrophobic. But I had really wanted to help since the SO had spent quite a few of the past evenings cramping his tall lanky body in these inconvenient crawlspaces to figure out all of these issues. 

Meh, I feel a tad gross right now, so I'll go and see you soon! Lol. <3