eat your heart out, anthropologie

These. Look. Awesome.

I nearly did not see this project through. I made a couple of pieces this spring and thought it was just too much work with the thin yarn and tiny hooks. Mom offered to pitch in and do a few, which gave me some extra oomph to get over the doldrums. We also found a few great artificial (non-yarn artificial...) succulents to add to the mix. I like that they both are bulky and take up space and add a different texture so the whole thing is not just fuzzy. They're also in shapes that I think would have been just ok with yarn but really look super in the plastic. 

I had some dense foam from something, making an ottoman top I think, that I used to fill in the bottom of the fixtures and the succulents are just kind of poked in (store-bought have stems) or perched and squished into place. It worked out surprisingly well and I think they turned out looking even better than I had imagined. They're a matched set in the stairwell and they make me smile every trip up and down the steps. 

seed packets and pouches

It is Christmas Eve, and in true procrastination style (or: I had a sweater to finish before the 17th) I am a little late on getting friend gifts put together. I have been saving seeds from my garden all year and am going to share them with folks that I know are fellow green thumbs. They all also happen to be horse people - I wonder if the two are connected. 

I had my box of labels, bags, and bows out already so I took out the winter scrapbook paper deck I keep in there (for the occasional tag) and worked out how to make some seed packets using folding and a few pieces of scotch tape. I was pretty impressed with myself! 

I also decided they should be delivered in pretty fabric pouches. I used an easy drawstring bag tutorial and some larger fabric leftovers. In the future I will have to remember that a 5-inch wide piece of fabric ends up being kind of a pain to sew around the opening on my sewing machine. The purple print was 6-inches wide to start and much nicer to work with than the other three. Still, it was all improvising and scrap play so little snags are to be expected. 

In the end, each pouch held the seed packets just fine which is the most important part. The seeds included Chocolate Cherry Sunflowers, Grandpa Ott Morning Glory, Yellow Giant Sunflowers, and Black Knight Pincushion Flowers. It's great to be able to pass on seeds from my own garden, and I'm looking forward to seeing them thrive elsewhere.