Scrap Material – How I Can Do That

Fill Up On The Fillings

The holidays are all coming up. And this can bring many feelings to different feelings. When adulting, the hardest part of the holidays are when finances are tight.

To help lighten the mood and bring a little cheer with the gift of flowers.

I’m going to show a simple and easy to make arrangement that you can personalize any way you want because it’s a blank slate. The beauty of it is that I reused some items and others were given to me. I had no out of pocket expenses to share this post with you.

So let’s start with the materials.

Vase

What inspired this post was the vase that my mom had sent me some flowers in.

Fall is my season. I love pumpkin everything. In fact I grow and purchase pumpkins to have all my pumpkin goodness that I can preserve for the rest of the year. And yes, I make pumpkin scones year round because their deliciousness transcends what is in season.

Unfortunately I can’t send you a picture of what the floral arrangement was that my mom sent. Mostly because I want to keep the blank slate in your mind and spark your creativity.

What I like about this white pumpkin is that if you remove all the floral it is literally a cookie jar. So feel free to use this idea any time of year and use cookie jars, old tea pots, water pitchers, even a shoe box (hello baby shower with baby shoe boxes!) Literally, use what you have on hand that brings you inspiration.

If you’re using a cookie jar or anything else with a lid, let me show you the parts of this vase and how it works.

This lid stand/holder is very specific for floral. I’m sure with today’s online offerings, you could find these. But you’re going to have to know what your lid size is and go from there. I have one other cookie jar, but the lid is smaller and this stand/holder definitely will not fit in it.

However I do have two options off the top of my head that I could use from items I have in my house.

I have porcelain dolls from my childhood, and this stand/holder immediately reminded me of the doll stands I have that go around my dolls’ waist. The tension part is too small to fill the lid like in this pumpkin vase, but with two or three I could position them in the smaller lid to make the tension and platform to raise the lid.

Another option is making one from a thick gauge wire. If your local store has a DIY floral department or aisle, you will find wire thick enough to hold its shape and hold the weight of a lid. If you want to price comparison shop, go to an automotive shop or aisle. You’ll often find that you will get a better price in that department, but also walk out with a larger quantity of wire.

Once you have the wire, you can make your own custom holder/stand by leaving several inches of one leg sticking out as you then go in and create a loop of wire inside the lip of your cookie jar lid. I would make a few loops inside that lid to ensure that when you move and manipulate the legs that you don’t shrink your loop and allow your lid to fall. Once you’re confident in you loop, bring out a second leg and then use wire cutters to cut the wire. You can always add more than two legs if you feel like you need to add more stability.

Advertisements

Inner Stability

For lid placement, you will need something to anchor the stand into.

I’m choosing to reuse the oasis that came with the flowers my mom sent me. This is an amazing product because it not only allows you to place flowers like a pin in a pin cushion. It also allow absorbs and holds water, keeping your flowers in water much longer than free standing in just a vase of water.

If you want to use silk flowers that you have on hand, feel free to use a Styrofoam ball or block. (I don’t recommend styrofoam for fresh flowers because the plastic will kill your flowers and won’t allow them to be properly hydrated.

Once you’ve decided what you’re using as a structure (of if you’re even using a structure), you may find that you need to piece bits together to keep them from falling into your cookie jar and becoming lost. Flower stems are enough to keep bits together. However if you need everything to be in place before you get started on your flowers, know that toothpicks or a couple inches of wire are your best friend.

As you can see here, a single toothpick is all that was needed to hold up a water logged piece of oasis.

This is a beneficial trick if you only have a small sliver of oasis that doesn’t touch the bottom of your vase. Or even if you find that your oasis fell apart on you. Or maybe some oasis you salvaged was a different size than the vase you are working with. You can certainly make your oasis fit the vessel you choose to use.

TIP: Please note that placing a toothpick or wire in a 90° angle is going to cause frustration. The weight of wet oasis and flowers are going to collapse. So instead, angle the toothpick at a 45° angle. That way when gravity starts to work against you, the toothpick will hold its place. This will be further reinforced by the flowers that you soon add.

Advertisements

Flowers

The Flowers that I was gifted after an event I attended was baby’s breath and eucalyptus. Often we look at these as just fillers to make an arrangement look larger than the more desired stems.

I wanted to use these fillers specifically because they are often overlooked for being used as flowers on their own. Maybe you have a lot of fillers left over from other arrangements that you made. Or maybe your budget is tight and these are the only flowers that are in your price range.

There are so many other fillers that you can find in your grocery store. So please keep your eyes open. And not all stores offer the same offerings. The grocery stores don’t supply very many filling options. However, stores like Trader Joe’s offer the best selection of filler flowers in my area. And their prices are quite affordable.

TIP: If your local store doesn’t offer many choices for filler flowers take a look at what is available for discounted flowers. They’re the ones that have the more delicate flowers that are wilted. These discounted bouquets are often cheaper than just fillers flowers, but the fillers used in these bouquets still have a long life to them. There are a huge number of flowers that will last weeks without even having water available to them. So know that even all that you can afford is a heavily discounted, on its last leg bouquet, if there’s a decent amount of fillers included, you can make a decent arrangement even if you have to throw out the wilted roses, lilies, and other delicate petal flowers.

Advertisements

Arranging

When looking at using long stems of filler, like eucalyptus, you will be happier in how these stems lie when you hold them up and see which direction they are naturally bending. (See the right picture below.) If you want the stem to cascade down, angle the bend down and also put it in the oasis by entering from the bottom and putting the stem upward. This can be seen in the picture on the left.

See the difference between placing firm eucalyptus stems. Using the left picture (above) the stems you see in the bottom right corner are the stems that I angled from the bottom of the oasis and pushed upward. The one stem that is in the upper left corner is the one that I pushed from the top and downward. But this stem I also used a second trick. Even with the curve of this stem, it had the tendency to stand upright. So I curved the stem in a C shape and kind of hooked the stem in the oasis. Then I put the pumpkin lid over this stem to weigh it down. Even with this trick, the stem never gave a cascading down effect like you see with the bottom right corner stems.

How you place the stems is everything about how it stands up or lays down.

The baby’s breath is much easier to shape the way that you want. For this cookie jar I used about four stems of baby’s breath and snipped them down into smaller branches. And with an arrangement like this, there’s no need for long pieces. All you need are the “scrap” pieces or bits that are the size of your hand or smaller.

If you “scrap” pieces or the bits that you cut down are too small, it just means that you need more of them to fill larger spaces.

One work around for filling empty spaces quicker is to take larger pieces like this. In the below picture on the left is a stem that is about the length of my elbow to my wrist. It could have been trimmed down into four smaller stems, but I wanted to fill a large hole with just this one piece.

To close up the gap spacing between these branches, slide your fingers up the main stem, gathering all the stems up the main stem. That gathering bunches all the stems up to achieve what you see in the right picture. You will have to hold you stem in this position until you push it into the oasis. At that point, the foam holds bunching in place.

Before you place your first gathered stem, I want to draw your attention to a stem feature that has the potential of causing you some up front frustration.

The weakest part of the baby’s breath stem is the joint where all the branches merge. The times that stems snap, when placing them in oasis, is when I try to push these joints in without giving them assistance.

If you have an arrow tip like you see above, it’s easiest if you just snip that off. It causes resistance, when pushed in the oasis, that you don’t need, because those stem numbs have no flowers.

Look further up on the stem and you see what it looks like when you have attached flowering stems. When I don’t need the height from the stem, I snip it right there at the base of where all the stems merge. Then I slide my fingers down to make more of an arrow point instead of a tear drop. That fat end of the tear drop is difficult to push into oasis. However, if you make a sharper point, or a smaller surface area to push in, the stem slides right into the oasis.

If there are any other merges in the stem, it’s easiest if you pinch it smaller to get it to go into the foam. Depending on how large of a cluster you have, there may be a few of these joints that you have to manipulate into the foam.

Advertisements

Final Adjustments

Once you’ve filled in all your empty space, there’s a few decisions to make.

Do you add more of one filler or the other?
Was there too much and some needs to be removed?
Does placement need to be adjusted?
Is something missing?

I looked at the final arrangement here and went through these same questions. All the holes I filled with baby’s breath as that’s what I chose to be primary flower out of these two fillers.

The thought crossed my mind to add more eucalyptus. But I opted with the creative decision of having less leaves on my pumpkin “vines”. So that meant instead of removing branches of eucalyptus I chose to weave the branches through the clusters of baby’s breath.

As far as “am I missing anything?” that is the question that is always there when you have a blank canvas for an arrangement.

Right now this is how my pumpkin sits in my living room. But it also allows me to keep this long lasting arrangement in season through the rest of the year. For Thanksgiving, I could add fall leaves or any other fall accent pieces. For December all the fall accent pieces can be pulled out of the oasis and winter pieces added. For example, I would put in snowflakes or mini presents. In fact, I’m eye balling some mini glitter snowflakes while writing this. The question is if I want to keep with the white color and add silver glitter snowflakes. Or do I want to add a splash of color and put in gold snowflakes?

But that’s the beauty of making a simple arrangement like this. I can dress it up and change it.

In fact, I could keep this up for the New Year and put in foil clusters that look like fireworks.

For now I’m just going to have to contain myself and not entertain my kids. It’s so easy to grab their small stuffies and other toys and use them as props to make little scenes. We don’t do Elf on the Self in our house, but just like there’s millions of Pinterest posts on Elf on the Shelf ideas, there’s just as many possibilities for arrangements like this. It doesn’t matter if you have a pumpkin cookie jar like vase (like I used here) or a teapot or coffee cup. No matter what you are using as a unique vase, you have just as many options to accessorize and decorate without limits.

How would you dress up a pumpkin arrangement like this?

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Make a Reusable Food Wrap

This past week I just had my application to a local Maker’s Market accepted. (If you’re unfamiliar with Maker’s Markets, think Farmer’s Market with a little more lean toward the things that you make.) One of the products that are on my list to sell is reusable beeswax wraps.

I’m super excited to present this item, not just at the market but also here because this is a traditional item that was used before the convenience of plastic that will it doubt come into popularity again.

There are so many reasons why you might be interested in how to bring a reusable wrap into your home. Maybe you’re budget is tight and $5-20 saved in a grocery trip means something to you. Or your family could be one who is looking to reduce the amount of plastics that are used and thrown away in your home. Perhaps you or a loved one is facing a health moment that requires you to reduce the amount of chemicals that are used in your home. Or maybe there is another reason that stands out in your mind.

Beeswax reusable wraps can meet those needs and many others because it’s made from very few ingredients; 100% cotton or linen cloth and beeswax are the two items that you have to have to make this. I also include pine resin (for additional tackiness) and jojoba oil (for flexibility that prevents the wax from cracking)

Originally I wanted to make these wraps for my family because half of our glass bowls do not have lids. And all of our lid bowls always seem to be in use and unavailable when we need something with a lid. So I have more usable bowls, but I can also meet other needs in my kitchen: my homemade bread won’t dry out on the cut end, less chemicals are being transferred into our left over foods, takes up less space than Tupperware, and easy enough that my kids can use them.

While listening to others who’ve been making these for years, I learned about a few other beneficial features. When the wax wears thin, these wraps have not met the end of their life. You can reapply the wax (or wax/resin/oil combo) and 5e wraps are just like new. But if the cloth itself becomes damaged, the wrap can be composted because there are no synthetic materials that are used.

Advertisements

How to make or revitalize a previously used wrap

There are a few different methods of making these. So please don’t think there is one way. Find a method that works for you and makes sense with the resources that you already have available in your home.

The oven method. You place your cloth on a cooking sheet, with your wax of choice (plain beeswax or a beeswax combo) scattered across the top of the cloth. Your cooking sheet is placed in the oven, around 200 degrees F, until the wax melts. You then use a brush and make sure to spread the hot wax evenly across the cloth.

I did not use this method because none of my cooking sheets have a lip on them. So I would end up having wax in the bottom of my oven. And I didn’t want to buy new cooking sheets just to have them for crafting. I don’t have the space to store them or the money to buy them. So I went with a different method that I already had the resources for.

Advertisements

The water bath method: I used one of my small saucepans and filled it halfway full with water. I pulled out a hot water safe container to put my wax combo in, and then set that inside the saucepan. It took a bit of time for the water bath to melt my beeswax and pine resin, but that step was a success. What didn’t work for me was pouring the wax combo on the cloth or dipping the brush in and brushing the fabric. This method was a fail for me because my brush clotted with the wax as it cooled. There was no way to warm that up to turn it back into a liquid or to clean my brush. I know some homesteaders who love using a brush when making beeswax wraps. I’m not one of those people. But I did try it.

The Ironing method: I’m going to walk you through the steps of this method below. This one takes a few additional manufacturing items to make. But once I was set up I didn’t have to prep anymore. And I kept making wraps until I ran out of one of my ingredients. This is not a zero waste method. However it is the method that minimizes the loss of wax ingredients and is the easiest to clean up.

Prepping for the Iron Method

Before setting up my work table, I needed to get my ingredients ready.

I buy my beeswax from local bee keepers. That means I generally get the wax in a brick form. And whether I’m using the wax for wraps or other products I make, I have to great it down to make the melting process a little quicker.

Foraging pine resin is on my to-do list. I have not done that yet. So I purchased pine resin. It arrived in a bag of crystalline chunks. Resin takes a higher heat to melt than beeswax, so I needed to crush the resin to minimize its melt time. The quickest way to do this is put some resin in a paper bag and hit it with a hammer until the resin becomes as small as you want it. (Powder is ideal for this method.)

What I learned when crushing resin— when you hit it properly with a hammer, the resin is going to break through a paper bag. If you use the wood handle you keep the bag pretty much intact, but the resin is let going to turn all the way into a powder. But if you use the side of the hammer (the largest flat surface of the metal portion of the hammer head) you maximize the amount of resin turning into power with very little resin escaping out of a crack in the bag.

With the ingredients ready to go, the next step is to set up your work station. Half the videos I watched had crafters working on exposed countertops. I DO NOT recommend going that route. The short story is that the wax combo got on my table. Fortunately I have my tricks to lifting wax off of my table. And I will not be doing that again!

So learn from my mistake and find an old towel that you do not mind using for crafting purposes from here on out. Shop rags are amazing for this. I just didn’t have any that were large enough for me to make my Rage wraps on top of. So I decommissioned a towel.

Since I knew I was going to work on my large wraps, I grabbed that size of cloth and set it on my towel. From there I sized out 2 long sheets of parchment paper with a few inches of over hang on all sides. (Your wax is going to spread and needs this buffer to keep the wax off your iron.)

The wax is going to slide through the sheets of parchment. To prevent this I taped my sheets together. This time I used a packing tape. And once I taped the parchment together, I flipped it over so that the tape side was down on the towel.

I placed the cloth that I’m making the wrap out of on top of this bottom sheet of parchment. Then I made a second double sheet of parchment to place on top of the fabric. This time I kept the tape side face up. And to keep the iron from melting this tape, I placed one single sheet of parchment over the tape.

Now it’s time to make a wrap!

Preheat a clothing iron to the highest/linen setting. Even if you’re working with cotton, don’t be afraid to use the highest setting. The wax, and especially pine resin, needs the heat to turn into a liquid and for you to work quickly.

In a cup I weigh out equal parts of beeswax and pine resin. (If you’re making just beeswax, there’s no need to measure the ingredients unless you figure out the precise amount of wax you need for the size of cloth you’re working with.) Then sprinkle your ingredients all over the face of your cloth.

Cover with the top layer of parchment paper and start to iron.

If you are using resin, and used some small shards instead of all powder, you will want to show patience up front here. Set the iron down on top of the stones and wait while the resin melts. If you immediately glide your iron back and corn, the resin shards are going to rip the parchment and then all the waxes are going to end up on your iron face.

As you can see in this middle picture, below, you will see your waxes through the parchment. This is useful because you will get a general idea of where the wax is in comparison to the edge of your fabric. Work in the center and push the wax out to the edges.

There will come a moment when you think you have the wax spread over all the fabric. Lift the parchment and take a quick leak. No matter if you’re working with light or dark fabric, you will be able to notice where I here are patches of fabric that have not been covered with wax. In the third picture above you will notice the white fabric that has obviously not been covered by the yellow tint of the beeswax.

If there are still pools of was on the cloth, lower the parchment paper and use the iron to push the wax over to those blank spaces. If the fabric seems a bit “dry”, with no extra wax to move around, add a little bit more wax over the dry spots, lower the parchment, and melt the wax into place.

Once you’re satisfied with your coverage, take a look at the amount of wax present. You want just the right amount where the fabric has a matte like finish too it. If it’s shiny or has pools of wax, you will want to absorb that excess wax off. You can do this by placing a new piece of fabric on top, lowering the parchment and ironing over the entire surface of the new cloth. Once all the excess wax has been absorbed, you can pull out the first cloth (and leave the second cloth to add more wax to any dry parts.

When a cloth is finished, pull it free from the parchment papers, hold it by the corners and wave the cloth back and forth. You want to cool down the wax before you set it on something to finish drying. (I use chair backs.)

A Pine Resin Problem to be Aware of

One bit of information I didn’t hear from anyone is a potential problem to look out for when working with pine resin. If there is a spot where the resin is not in equal parts with the beeswax, it’s going to act like glue to the parchment paper.

The first sign of this is when you go to lift the parchment paper and it feels like it’s locked in place. You didn’t do anything wrong and nothing is ruined. All you have to do is iron over that spot. When the resin is hot again, you can lift the parchment paper and it won’t be stuck anymore.

If you try to force the peel, the parchment will rip. And if you’re not done making wraps, you will want to take a new sheet of parchment to cover the holes and rips. It’s just easier to get the resin hot again and then peel the parchment back in one piece.

Caring For Your Reusable Wrap

Everything about a beeswax wrap is oil based and meant to manage moisture. It keeps food moisture in and humidity out. Because of this feature, you absolutely do not want to use a grease fighting detergent when cleaning a wrap after use. You can use a gentle soap and the wrap will be fine. However grease lifting detergents are going to break down the wax and fat molecules in the wrap, which in turn will wear down the wax and make it less effective in holding to itself and your kitchen equipment.

Remember, we used heat to set the wax on the cloth. Hot water will warm up the wax and makes it easy for the wax to be removed from the fabric. So when you wash or rinse off a beeswax cloth, keep the water tepid. By keeping the water temperature cool, you will prolong the life of a beeswax wrap.

Advertisements

There are some things that you absolutely do not want to do with a beeswax cloth:

Do not use in a microwave.
Do not clean in a dishwasher.
Do not leave onto of a heat source (in a hot car, on a sunny and hot windowsill, on any heat source).
Do not use to store raw meats.
Do not use with hot foods. Cool them down safely and then cover cold food with a beeswax wrap.
Do not leave in standing water.

When properly maintained, beeswax wraps are absolutely safe to wrap your foods in. Beeswax has antimicrobial properties. Depending on how you care for a wrap, it is possible for one to last a year or several.

Advertisements

A Couple Ways to Use a Beeswax Wrap

As I mentioned before, I wanted these to use on bowls that I do not have lids for. In this example I have a standard glass coup bowl and my small wrap. Simply place the wrap over the bowl. Then press the wrap down much like a sheet of press and seal food wrap.

The heat from your hands is what softens the wax. Its tacky nature naturally sticks. To be fair, the wrap sticks better to itself over the smooth edges of a glass bowl.

I found that just pressing the wrap down formed less of a seal and more of a fitted cap of a lid.

For better results, crease the wrap and seal it on itself. As in the case of this bowl, the folding of the fabric and making it taper down the side of the bowl, this tapering down gives the resistance for the wrap to stay firmly secure to the top of the bowl.

But the wrap doesn’t need to have a structure to seal up. You can have the wraps become its own container and never have to buy a sandwich bag again.

Simply lay your sandwich in the center of a wrap and seal it to itself.

In the second picture, I folded the bottom of the wrap up and pressed the fabric down the sided of the sandwich and pressed the fabric into itself to create a seal. The sides I folded over over and the top down.

In this last picture, I wanted to show you that even when I stood the sand which up, it did not unwrap himself at all!

Again, these are only a couple of ideas on how to use these. Another idea is on a hiking trip. If you forgot to bring a foraging container, but saw something you wanted to gather, you could pinch together the sides of a wrap and make a little basket.

This is genuinely one of those kitchen utensils that have many uses and are user friendly.

For those of you who are local, come by the Maker’s Market on October 7th and you can play with the demo wrap and see just how user friendly these are!

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Same Flowers Other Styles

When looking at inspiration pictures it’s quite common to hear, “I like those flowers but….” You can be inspired by a pictures, take the flowers and do something else entirely!

The same is true with a style of arrangement and switching out flowers. Or even mix and matching different styles for your event.

For example, if you remember from Making Arrangements last week, here are the pictures from some of the pieces.

This combination would have been a wonderful addition as table swag and centerpiece. This eucalyptus table runner is outside of the garden bouquet style however the greenery is the unifying factor. The focus on roses (as the floral note) also strays, but keeping it simple and with that eucalyptus still evokes the garden feel.

I wanted to bring this idea from the high end weddings (where you see the amazing pictures of 100′ table runners made from roses) to let you know that even if you’re having a garden style wedding you can still borrow from that high end inspiration picture. Make that runner out of greenery or thin willow branches and you can utilize the idea on budget materials.

Tip: If you’re making a runner or wreath like ring for your table centerpiece, make sure you secure your elements with floral wire. Then go back in and fill in around the wire with more pliable greenery, tiny budded floral bunches, or your wedding flowers of choice.

Here’s a close up of the square vase floral arrangement that I paired with the eucalyptus table runner. I want to draw your attention to this because of the red flowers that you see below the rose. This is red yarrow and I wanted to spot light it for a moment. Two posts back, Making Flowers Possible, I mentioned how the sales person had pulled additional flowers for me that had inspired her when she gathered my order. Originally I had ordered a cream like yarrow to help tie in the yellow from the sunflower and yellow roses with red tips. However this red yarrow really made these red tips on the rose just pop. My original pick would have been great. But there’s just something about being in person with flowers one selection just makes more sense when you see them in person.

Tip: If you are going to DIY your own floral arrangements, try to make it in person. And don’t be afraid to stray a little from your inspiration picture. By straying, this is what makes your arrangements reflective of you.

Before I move on to more creative renditions of the same flowers from this style, I want to show you a couple of similar ideas that are closely related.

This one I absolutely love! Still keeping with the country theme, I have the long stem roses, Red Alstomeria, spray roses, Misty Blue Limonium, and Eucalyptus.

If I could do one thing, I would love to move people away from baby’s breath and urge them toward Limonium. It has the baby’s breath look in an arrangement but it gives a few features that are interesting to look at. I love how Limonium has a cascading effect of its blossoms. Think of old fashion candelabra and you’ll get a general idea of what you see when you look closely to these flowers. But even better than it’s structural beauty, these flowers have shades of color that is beautiful and doesn’t come from the flowers sitting in dyed water.

For this bouquet, I opted to dress it up with a deep red vase and ribbon collar. These accessories take the garden bouquet style and dress it up from a garden style to a vineyard style. It’s still on the rustic side, but just dressed up enough.

Tip: Your choice in ribbon or other accessory is going to greatly influence the tone. Remove this vase and ribbon choice and set this arrangement on top of a tall glassware vase with chandelier crystals and you’ve gone straight past garden wedding to Queen’s High Tea.

This next idea may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I wanted to show how changing up the quantity of particular flowers is going to change up the overall esthetic of your flowers. While this arrangement is highlighting the Limonium, I’ve been making similar arrangements from my personal garden. White Yarrow is my most plentiful flower that is growing. Actually Chamomile is giving it a run for its money. But my floral garden is not predominantly show stopping flowers. So if I were to keep a weekly arrangement from just my garden alone, it would look something like this; mostly small buds with accent pieces of larger flowers.

Obviously this isn’t a wedding arrangement by any means. This is a cheer-me-up or maybe a brunch arrangement.

So if you have the idea of keeping your floral budget pared down, bulking up on the smaller blossoms may or may not be what you want to aim for. This looks completely different from a bouquet bulked up with greenery sprinkled with more premium blooms.

If you want to have more of a wow piece on a budget, consider a more minimalistic approach.

Here I have a single Asiatic Lily with a sprig of Eucalyptus in a monogrammed glass tumbler.

Now if you’re looking for a wedding favor that doubles as a table centerpiece, this just might be the idea you’re looking for! Set this tumbler in a circle in the center of a table with a large pillar candle in the center and you have a budget friendly decor that pulls double duty and is absolutely elegant.

This is also a great use of Lily blooms that snap off, because let’s face it. Lilies snap off so easily if you walk too closely past them. Or you’re arranging your bouquet and you hit it funny. I’m aware of how lilies are and I still snapped off nearly a dozen blossoms.

Life happens.

Another simplistic option is this beauty with a floating candle.

To be honest, this 3″ floating candle is over kill for this 4″ wide vase. But this is what I had on hand to get this concept across.

Never be afraid of ever using a single blossom.

The trick is always to make the single flower look interesting to look at. And this is the reason why I played with the lily leaves I had ordered to offer contrast to the plethora of eucalyptus.

This arrangement is easier to see the lily leaves. The garden bouquet comes back again. But notice how when you change the focal flowers that you get a completely different feel. Over half of the bouquet here is Asiatic Lilies. But when you incorporate the blooms in different stages (open, soon to open, and still very green), it creates difference and interest almost like three different flowers even though they’re exactly the same.

Another interesting thing to notice is the floral rule of thumb of keeping flowers in odd numbers. You can’t tell with the lilies, but there is an odd number of stems. What is obvious is the single stem of purple stock. If you were to take a closer look, you will find 3 stem of Dark Blue Delphinium. And topped off with enough of the Misty Blue Limonium to fill the gaps and make this minimalistic bouquet look full.

Even though this picture is beautiful, it does the bouquet no justice. Part of the beauty that is not fully captured is just how amazing the purple complements the orange lilies. If you’ve taken an art class, you’ve heard of a color wheel. And you are familiar with how orange and purple complement each other. When in doubt, definitely use a color wheel to help choose what colors to put together. Even if it’s not a color combination that you are familiar with, these colors and flowers really do go amazing with each other.

And here is a minimalistic version of that bouquet.

This one is my absolutely favorite picture out of them all! And this is just 5 stems of Asiatic Lilies and 3 stems of Dark Blue Delphinium. I’m just going to put a pause right here so I can just stare at this eye candy just a little bit longer.

Advertisements

Besides just playing with flowers for my personal amusement (and yes, I took great pleasure in making all these), I decided that I was going to make a little something for the men in my life since I’ve been so focused on this job.

The one thing that I learned while making these boutonnieres is that men rarely get flowers from their women. And yet, it’s interesting to watch to see how they respond when you make flowers for them. My boys absolutely went gaga over waking up and finding that I had made flowers for them to wear to church. One, I made something for them and they love it when I make things for them. Two, they got to wear the flowers and it made them feel special, because no one wears flowers to church. And because these boutonnieres had magnets, they were able to move them to keep from their seat belts from crushing them. It was interesting to watch them move their flowers around.

Even my husband enjoyed having flowers to wear. He purposely went out of his way to choose an outfit to go with his flowers.

I also took the opportunity to finish using up my flowers to make these mini bouquets.

If you find that you have flowers left over, I highly recommend making simple bouquets like this and randomly handing them out to people. These flowers were made up so that my boys (while wearing their flowers) could hand them out to whoever they were inspired to hand them out to.

It doesn’t matter what day of the weeks, people go through “stuff”.

I watched from a distance as my boys picked their person.

One was another child. I was amazed because how often do children hand each other flowers. It was a perfect moment to watch.

Advertisements

Another bouquet of flowers was handed to a mom who had just checked her kids in for the next church service. Who knows how her morning had been going. (Being a mom I can just imagine the craziness we all go through.) But you could just see how her morning had been disrupted in a very pleasant way.

The last bouquet went to another mom. There’s a whole long story to this one, but the quick point is that this bouquet reminded this mom of a story of when her adult son was a little boy.

These stories may or may not mean anything to you personally. But I just want to cause a thinking moment. Here were three acts of kindness that I set my boys up to be a part of. And it was a worthwhile moment. All those were made possible because of a job I did and had left over materials. They weren’t the best of the best flowers. And yet, to these three different people they were the best flowers because they were unexpected.

Speaking of unexpected, I wanted to share this last arrangement that I made. While this is not practical for an event, I wanted to make a couture version of an arrangement.

No one says that your flowers have to look like what you see every day.

Be creative!

Look for ways to be different.

Flowers are an amazing tool.

It doesn’t matter what flowers that you have. You can create a feel with whatever is in your means to use. You can pick out specific flowers. You can select an option that is in your means to recreate something that is outside your means. You can be inspired by ideas completely outside your means and recreate within your means. And you can jump completely outside your box and come up with something new.

The bottom line is that you are not limited by your floral choices at all.

Pick the flowers that make you happy and inspire you. Set yourself up for success by engaging in prepping your flowers before your work day. Be flexible when you start assembling. Plan A may not work, and that’s okay. Move on to a backup plan without causing yourself additional stress. And don’t be afraid to mix up styles. Find a unifying commonality and create the flowers of your dreams!

One response to “Same Flowers Other Styles”

Kristopher

August 2, 2023

Hi there, I ound your ste by means oof Google at tthe
sqme tije aas looking for a comprable subject, yor siye got here up, it
lookms great. I’ve bookmarked iit inn mmy googlpe
bookmarks.
Hi there, somply became alesrt to your weblog via Google,
and locqted that it’s really informative. I amm goping
to watcxh out for brussels. I wikl bee grateful in casse yoou contiue tbis inn future.
A loot oof folks shal bbe benefited from your
writing. Cheers!

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Make A Container You Will Love

More and more people are moving to containers for growing their home gardens. So what do you do when you get sticker shock over the container prices online or in the box stores?

You build one!

Everyone talks about pallet projects. But I want to introduce you to crate raised beds.

My husband works for a company that builds machinery. The crates that are used there are tossed. Being resourceful and having access to free crates to reuse and repurpose, this is the way I build the majority of my container garden. This also has the added bonus of solving my time problem. I have so much on my plate, that building raised beds from scratch isn’t an option.

AND if you know how to use a pair of scissors and a staple gun, you can absolutely make this garden container!

There are so many different crates out there. The ones that I have and use as raised bed were formerly forklift crates. (They originally housed large machinery parts.)

With the crates you source, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

If there is plywood (whether the floor or sides), you will need to remove it and replace with wood that hasn’t been chemically treated.
The crate floor should be solid. This will help contain your soil.
The sides are okay if they have gaps. We’ll line this and the soil will stay in.
Is this going to be a permanent or temporary container for your garden?

Advertisements

This last question is very important. It will determine if you need to source other materials for your container. You may find that you need screws, power drill, or even other parts if you plan on turning into a cold frame or want to add features like hoops.

The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together.

The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together. I know that these crates were not built to last forever. They’re not even sealed for weather. But being limited in time for my garden builds, I opt for leaving my crates as is.

Tip: you can weather protect wood by scorching it with a torch.

If you find that your crate is stapled together, this feature is going to limit how many seasons you will get out of your container.

For example, the boards of my 36″ x 36″ potato crate (above) started to pull away at the start of the third year. The wood is weathered but still as strong as the day the crate came home. This is one crate that I wished I would have reinforced with screws before filling. This crate got place before filling with dirt. And with the exception of this front face, there’s no easy way of coming back in to push the board back in place and screw in. It’s tightly spaced with other structures.

Tip: My hindsight advice is to increase the longevity of your crate container, reinforce the boards with screws, right from the beginning. This will prevent awkward maintenance in a few years.

Let me walk you through how I make my raised beds from crates

I’m using the smallest of my new crates 12″ x 32″ and about 18″ deep. (This one has been sitting for a couple months waiting for me to decide what I wanted to plant in it this season. I was gifted some pepper starts and knew exactly where they were going to go.)

Items you will need:

Wood Crate
Garden Weed Barrier
Scissors
Staple Gun

The first thing I do is fold over the edge of the garden barrier, to make a smooth finished edge, and staple it down across one edge of the crate. It’s not necessary to make a finished edge. I just like this step because sometimes the cut on my roll of barrier is slanted. So by making a new straight edge, this makes it easier to lay the barrier without worrying about it running sideways across the crate.

Note: When I line a crate larger than the width of my garden barrier, I line one side of the crate. Once that first piece is secure, I run a second piece for the opposite side of the crate. The overlapping of the barrier happens in the middle of the crate. There is no need to secure in the center floor of the crate because the weight of the soil will keep the barrier in place.

With this first edge of the crate secure, I drape the garden barrier across the top to make sure I’m laying it in centered and straight. Then I push the barrier down into the crate and make sure that the barrier has enough give to accommodate the full size of the bottom of the crate.

As you can see in the second picture, I trim my garden barrier a little longer than I need to fit inside the crate. One reason is that I usually don’t cut a straight line (obviously seen here). But more importantly, I learned over the last two years that you want more barrier inside the crate than you will think.

The crates I lined the first year, fitting the liner tightly to the inside. The following spring I noticed that these barriers started ripping out at the staples after the first winter of water and freezing. The barrier needed some flex that I did not allow for. So now I give some allowance.

Before I put my garden barrier away (and focus on securing the lining), I cut the width of the short side of the crate. Then I fold this strip of barrier in half and cut. Each half will line the sides of the crate. These side pieces I set aside (or stuffed in my pocket for this crate because of the wind). I set the roll of barrier to a side and go back to folding over the edge of this second crate long side, and staple it down in place.

Once the long sides of the crate are secure, I secure the edges along the short side to hold them in place before securing barrier down the short sides. This keeps them up and out of the way. And if you’re lining a crate while it’s windy out, you will thank me for having the barrier stay in one place so you can move through this project in the least amount of time.

First I take the overlap, from the edge of the crate, and fold this corner down before stapling. This gives a reinforced edge as well and bringing the excess barrier down inside the crate. This doesn’t look pretty, but this is all about telling the barrier where you want it to go and keeping it contained.

Can this excess be trimmed off?

Of course it can. But you will see in just one moment, by keeping the excess length and tacking it up the side, you are creating a barrier that will keep all your soil in your raised bed without having a completely sealed liner. I use the weight of my soil to work for me so I have less steps to take.

For the next step, I pull out one of my side crate pieces of barrier that I just cut and line my first short side. I fold the edge of the barrier down, just like I did with the long side of the crate, and stapled down this top edge and pushed the rest of the length of this side down over the rough edges that were tacked down from the longer side. This flap is great because not only does it cover the edges of where dirt could go down and over time wash out of the bottom of the crate, but it also redirects any of this soil movement back toward the center of the crate.

So if you have the choice of having a generous flap (like seen here in picture two) or trimming it down, make an educated decision in favor of what’s going to help you maintain your soil. After all one of the problems with container growing of any kind is the loss of soil, mostly through drainage at the bottom of your container.

Once you secure the second short side of the crate, you will see here in picture 3 that you have a fully lined crate.

The first time I lined a crate, with no one telling me how to do it, I must have taken an hour to do this. Even with taking pictures, this only took me about 15 minutes. The larger crates don’t take any additional steps. So it really is time efficient to take a fully made wood crate and line it to make your own raised bed.

If you did not line your crate where you want it’s forever home to be, make sure that you move it now. Even with this smaller crate, the weight of it filled is more than I can move on its own. Even with a hand cart, I still wouldn’t want to move it because I could just see myself knocking it over and spilling all my soil all across my yard. For my sanity (and your own), I just make sure I place my crate raised beds before I fill them.

Advertisements

How I fill my raised beds

I’ll start by saying that I don’t fill my raised beds like everyone else.

One reason is that I don’t have the gardening budget to buy as much soil as I would need to fill all my crates, especially the large ones.

Another reason is that I’ve talked with many people about different types of gardening are available for each of us to choose from.

The drawback to container growing (even raised beds) is that there comes a time where there will be a depletion of nutrients in soil. So even though I do top off my crates with raised bed potting soil, I choose to think long term with my raised beds.

Hugelkultur and Mound gardening have beautiful foresight in them. Both of these forms of gardening is that they put long term “food” into their structure building. Both contain wood (usually in the form of branches and limbs of trees, logs in larger structures) which is slow release nutrients that takes many years to decompose and incorporate nutrients back into the soil. If fact, this is the best way of getting the micronutrients into the soil that standard commercial fertilizers do not ever put back into your containers.

For this reason, I went back to my yard waste and compost. I grabbed some pine branches that we recently trimmed off of our trees, and a couple of handfuls of grass clippings. Especially with the large crates, these fillers are going to be amazing.

In the bottom of my crates I put the largest branches. Normally I put in camp fire sized pieces of wood in the bottom. This small crate doesn’t have depth for that. So I started off with what I consider my second layer, thin branches. Ever green boughs are perfect, not just because of the thicker needles (which take longer to break down than leaf waste) but also because they take up space.

Next I put down green grass clippings. One, they take up space and leave nice medium for plants to spread out their roots. Two, the grass fills in the branch gaps and holes perfectly.

Think of that science experiment where you’ve seen rocks added into a jar first. Then it’s followed by pebbles, then sand, and then water. It’s a perfect example of maximizing the fill of a contained space with an incondensable material like rock.

I pack my raised beds with as much long term nutrients as I can. And this method of packing with larger material first, working your way down to the smallest, is the best way of packing your container box.

From here, I went back and grabbed a couple of pitchforks worth of raw compost (complete with some of my worm residents) and the last of my current supply of raised bed potting mix.

Of course it was the moment that my kiddos saw me grab the compost that they came rushing at me. My youngest dove in and tried to rescue the worms from being placed in this crate. He was acting like I was kicking them to the curb and evicting them. It took me a moment to tell him that he didn’t need to take them back to the in ground garden, I need them here.

And that’s one thing that I haven’t heard anyone talk about. We all know that worms are great for our garden. In fact we don’t give them a second thought in our in ground garden. So why aren’t we talking about them in our container gardening?

Worms are very much needed for a good growing biome. They help break down materials. And since I put in some large materials, I could let them do their own thing, or I can see if I have some worms who want to take advantage of this new home. (And this is another reason why I don’t fully seal off my lining in the crates. The worms are free to come and go as they move their way through any loose openings that take place over time. (And these openings do happen, but they’re more controlled.)

Anyway, I chased my youngest down and got my worms back in my compost. Then I quickly dumped the potting soil down on top to keep him from digging them back out. (I swear that child loves worms!)

I finish off with the raised bed potting soil because that is ready to go and host my pepper starts.

The down side to this layered nutrients in a raised bed

You may want to choose to do straight soil. Especially if you’re planting starts that will shortly need to have structures to assist in their growth. Just like these peppers will need some structure.

This layering, especially in this smaller size of crate, makes it impossible to add bamboo stakes for my peppers. They were just falling over. Fortunately, I have some carbon fiber cold frame hoops. I haven’t added them yet to this crate, but I’ll put in a hoop over each row to drop lines for the peppers to grow up.

I mention all of this, because if you choose to layer and expect it to hold up a stake or tomato cage, this first year just doesn’t give it the soil density to hold up a structure. So be prepared to come up with an alternate plan.

Another disadvantage to this layering is that as you can see in these pictures, I filled my crate up to the top. Over the course of this growing season, and especially over winter (when the rain helps to draw all the smaller soil material to settle into the branches in the bottom, I will see that this crate will only be half full next spring.

In the spring, I’ll add more compost and soil into this crate. At this point I can add mulch on top and the volume of the crate will not go down any further.

Again, this isn’t a horrible down side. It’s just one to be aware of and plan for. But this crate is now set up for many years of container growing. It will be sustainably nutrient rich, especially when I add the mulch and keep that going every season.

How do you like to container grow?

Here are a couple items I find useful in my garden.

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. These items listed here are from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets.

10 ft. x 16.5 ft Plant Covers Freeze Protection with 6 sets of Greenhouse Hoops

3 ft x 180 ft Premium Garden Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric

One response to “Make A Container You Will Love”

Clove One Clove All – How I Can Do That

October 28, 2023

[…] Make a Container You Will Love is how I start off all my new boxes. This time I reused one of my existing boxes. My onions didn’t do so well in it this past grow season, so I’m changing it up to see how my garlic will do here. […]

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Surprise Gift

It never fails that a moment in life comes when you forgot to get someone a gift or you received a last minute invitation. What do you do?

There’s a couple of things that I keep in my craft room all the time: fabric, ribbon, card stock, picture frames, paint, beads… You get the idea.

We had the privilege of meeting our neighbor’s parents, who came for a visit from halfway around the world. It’s amazing to see how much you can connect with people, especially when you don’t speak the same language. And even more amazing when you find out that you share some similar interests and find commonality.

It’s even more special when you receive an invitation to be a part of celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

I’ve been married for over a decade. So much has changed in the world since that day. I tried to think of how much the world will change in another 50. It blows my mind.

What is it like to celebrate a 60th anniversary in another country–one you may or may not have thought you’d be in when you were younger?

Of course I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to celebrate and honor a long lasting relationship like this. And while thinking about how to give a meaningful gift, with little personal history, and something that’s not burdensome for when they return home, I chose to focus on the memories. Celebrating the last 60 years of their memories together and giving them a memento of this trip, this moment in time.

Advertisements

My husband had taken a group picture at the end of a visit where we had them over and made for them their first American meal. I chose a picture because it travels well and is minimalistic for those who gravitate to that way of life. But I also couldn’t pass up giving some flowers because it’s something that brings happiness in the moment.

So for this quick to gather gift that’s pack full of memories and meaning, here’s an idea for you to consider the next time you need to find a gift in under two hours.

Pick a photo of you and the other person from your phone and send it to a local place that can print it out in an hour.

While that is processing you can stop by a shop, florist, road side stand, farmer’s market, or garden and gather some flowers that have meaning.

In this instance I chose sunflowers because with our guests, they saw the sunflower I had grown from seed and we talked about sunflowers and sunflower oil for quite some time. Sunflowers may not be their favorite flower, but in this gift, it’s a nod to something we connected with in the middle of a language barrier.

It just so happened that at home I had a vase on a shelf that I was saving for a time to reuse by gifting to someone, and I had some fabric with sunflower print on them.

As you notice here, sunflowers can be awkward if they’re not bundled. So I decided to bundle the flowers with a strip of cloth.

For a professional look of wrapping a bouquet, you want to first trim down the fabric you want to use into a strip. No matter how nicely you cut, the fabric will always fray. To give a clean edge, you want to press the strip of fabric. First, fold and press the raw edge. Then you’ll tri-fold and press the fabric into a wide ribbon. Now the edges won’t fray on you and you didn’t have to sew.

To make this wrap, you want to put one edge of the ribbon between the stems. Then you can wrap it tightly around the bouquet without the ribbon slipping on you.

When you get to the end of the ribbon, you want to fold the ribbon up at a 90° angle. The tuck this final edge down behind the wrap, between the stems. If the wrap is snug, it will hold the ribbon in place without using tape, pins, glue, or any other fastener.

The beauty of making a wrap like this is that the person you are gifting this to can use the fabric after the flowers are long gone. If this person is sentimental, they will no doubt find a way of repurposing and reusing this strip of fabric.

Don’t forget to use a small scrap of the fabric to make a card that matches.

Here, I took a piece of 8.5 x 11″ sheet of card stock and trimmed along the short edge a strip 4″ wide. This strip I folded in half to make a blank card that is 4 x 4.25″.

Using the left over sunflower fabric, I decided how wide of a ribbon I wanted to glue to the front of the card. You can be as precise as you want to be. I chose to wing it and just cut the fabric into a small strip.

This time I had to be careful about the edge because there’s no room for a folded seam. This fabric print looks good with a frayed edge, so I saved time by just removing the stray threads and embrace the fray. (As opposed to if I need to have a very clean edge and have to cut a straight edge.) Now the sides and bottom of the card need to have a straight edge, so I leave this ribbon large and will cut it down after I glue it to the cardstock.

For gluing the ribbon down, you want to decide where you want to place it and mark off the area. You will need to liberally apply glue to prevent fraying on the card, so drawing a glue line is very important. Make sure that where you draw the line will be hidden behind the ribbon, so make sure the line is lower than where you want it. Apply the glue and spread it evenly across the whole section, even over the edges. If you don’t put glue on the edges, the fabric will lift from the cardstock.

Gently lay the ribbon on top of the glue and make any adjustments that you need. When you are satisfied, take a scraper or plastic card, place it in the middle of the ribbon and press it to the edge of the card. Then place the scraper/card in the middle and press down in the opposite direction. This will secure your fabric to the card and remove any air pockets that may have been present.

Now that your ribbon is secure, you can flip the card over. With a pair of scissors, trim off the excess fabric.

I trim from the back because I can see exactly where the edge of the cardstock is.

The blank card is now ready for you to write you message on.

By now, your pictures should be ready to pick up. Once you have them, you can place them in a picture frame and you’re ready to bag or wrap your present.

From this gift given, the part of the gift that meant the most was the blessing that I wrote inside the card.

In today’s world, a blessing spoken over another person is something that’s not talked about. But it’s the most powerful gift that we can give another person. And to have those words writing for the person you’re gifting to read over and over again is life changing.

If you are unfamiliar with a blessing, it’s what you tell someone that you see in them now, but you also what you desire for their future. Instead of “I hope you have a happy birthday” or anniversary, I tell the person what I want to see in their lives for this coming year or the years moving forward.

In a time where people are struggling to see their purpose in life, why they matter, the most important thing you can give a person is a vision of something to look forward to. And the best part about a blessing that you speak over a person is that it’s not something that can be bought. It shows the person that you see them, you value them, and that they have a purpose to live for.

Whether you’re looking for making a meaningful gift on a tight budget, don’t know what to give a person, need an impactful last minute gift, or any other reason, know that you can speak into a person’s life and it means more to them than anything else you give them. So no matter what your gift giving situation is, know that a blessing from you can be the most impactful thing that you can give another person.

Never underestimate the power of your words.

And don’t hesitate to gift a blessing!

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

One response to “Surprise Gift”

Roy

September 5, 2023

Hi to every one, tthe comtents prsent aat this web pzge are really remarkable foor peolle knowledge,
well, keerp up the good wotk fellows.

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Advertisements