My Vday Gift

This year I received:

Near as I can tell it's a Phalaenopsis, one of the zillions of hybrids of orchid out there.


It didn't come with any info at all, not even a plant tag so bumbling away I go...awaiting my organic orchid food from Amazon...

How to Make a Personalized Garden Card

A few months back I had a post about the Postcarden that had just come out. A pretty nifty gift there, perfect for a girlfriend of mine, but discovered too late for her birthday.

So I just had to start constructing one from scratch. Inspired the by the above version of the Postcarden I decided to make one that looked like her home. Yeah, I'm sort of new to planning an organized post, and it didn't occur to me to document the process until halfway though...sorry.

So here is the practice mock-up. Knowing I was bound to screw up since I just jumped right in without a plan :D I started with scratch paper. First I took measurements of the Priority Mail box it was gonna have to fit into, I think it came out to 8"Lx4"Wx1.5"H. I wrote down the dimensions of each piece directly on it so I wouldn't lose anything in translation.

The base is a large piece, about 8"x7", that make the floor and the two longest fences by folding up 1.5" on each of the long sides. The two short end fences I made with flaps to glue to the base and adjoining fences (5"x2"), the flaps were 1/2" on 3 sides. The walls of the house I cut the full height of the house (4.5") so they could be glued the full depth of the fence to be very strong since they had to be folded down to fit the box. The two walls making the front and back of the house (4.5"x5", 4.5"x4" for the edge wall) I added 1/2" flaps to the upper portion to eventually be glued to the other two walls (by the recipient after opening). I lightly scored the walls where they needed to fold at the top of the fence so it would be clean. The wall down the center of the garden card - I made with a 1/2" flap to glue to the base and it just fit laying flat on the base when folded (5"x4"). The roof was one piece (5"x4.5") folded along the center lengthwise, I did not make any attachment flaps for the roof since it is optional (if you grow sprouts inside the house portion they will need light). For the growing trays I cut the bottoms off of two 1 quart sized milk jugs to a height of 1.25", they happened to fit perfectly!

base, fences and walls taped during testing, milk trays in place

full test mock-up

mock-up in folded position for the box

mock-up folded and inside gift box :)

now that I know the dimensions of each piece I carefully marked up the final pieces on tinted cardstock paper

by now Felis silvetris catus "Gojira" has decided I have been paying too much attention to something 'not-me'

I used two colors of cardstock - one for the base, fences and roof; another for the walls

Here you can compare the final garden card to the mock-up. I only screwed up on the final garden card once so the hour spent on the mock-up was well worth it. In the back are the reference photos of my friend's house and "Gojira" now that she's finally interested in what I'm doing.

I pencilled on fence slats, wall boards, doors, posts, windows, etc. I also cut out the windows for fun. The mini-clothes pins are from Michael's, they are extremely cute and useful for gluing small things. Here they are holding the fence pieces in place as their glue dries. The ones on the walls are just so I can see the progress, they are not glued since the walls need to fold down later. I'm using the trays from the mock-up for the final.

the final Garden Card with roof before being folded and packed into the box

1 hr mock-up, 30 min cutting & assembling final, 15 min appeasing "Gojira", 1 hr decorating final & gift box = 2.75 hrs total

the opened Garden Card

I also ended up creating a 8"x4" backdrop piece with sky and trees for everyone who chipped in on the recipient's other gift to sign. Included with the garden card are two snack size zip baggies with seed starting soil and a packet of baby greens seeds to grow. I wanted to have lemon or wheatgrass seed since I think that would work better, but I couldn't find any in time.

Anyway, the Gin Master loved her card and immediately recognized it as her own home. Big smiles for both of us :)

Now go make your own!

Herbal Vinegar Hair Rinse

While going through The Bountiful Container cover-to-cover (this books is awesome, thanks Fern!) I came across their instruction for making herbal vinegars. To sum up it involves soaking herbs in vinegar to extract culinary or medicinal properties into the vinegar, herbs are strained out at the end. I don't cook much with vinegar (yet) but I was entrigued by the recommendation of using it for a natural hair rinse. Further online and book research says:

• Hair and skin naturally are slightly acidic
• Most hair and skin products are alkaline
• The regular use of hair and skin products upsets the natural pH balance of hair and skin
• Using vinegar as a rinse for hair and skin can correct the pH balance

Well, I'm up for using my green children in new and fun ways, so I decided to try it out. The most common recipe I found is to soak 1/4 Cup herbs to 2 Cups of apple cider vinegar (reportedly the best because it is closest to natural hair acidity, but any type would work) for 2 weeks.

Chop up 1/4 Cup of herbs, get your vinegar and your measuring cup. I used parsley (reported to intensify dark hair and make hair shiny) in this batch.

I used an empty wine bottle since glass won't affect the vinegar. The funnel held the herbs while I used a wood paint brush handle to push them down the bottle neck. This was little time consuming and can be frustrating. On another batch I used a jam jar which didn't give me any trouble. I also did a batch in a Pacifico beer bottle which has a standard opening but a very wide neck which I was able to stuff herbs into easily by funneling them with my hand and pushing them in with a finger.

After the herbs are in add the 2 Cups vinegar, then toped it with a bottle stopper. The mixture should be left to soak in a dark location for 2 weeks, and shaken once a day. I keep mine in the closet, when I dress in the morning I see them and remember to shake the mixture up.

When the 2 weeks are up strain out the herbs, most instructions recommend a brown coffee filter but a fine mesh strainer worked just as well. These last two photos are a different batch than above, made with lavender (reported to cleans out oil, encourage hair growth, and sooth the scalp).

It would be a good idea to label your herbal vinegar if you're making several. Also mark the date, a couple of resources mentioned herbal vinegars should be used within 6 to 12 months, although I am not entirely sure that is the case.

To use: wash hair with shampoo as usual. Mix 1 Tbsp of herbal vinegar with 1 Cup warm water and pour over hair, massage into scalp. The vinegar scent will evaporate as hair dries but the herbal scent will stay. You do not need to rinse out the vinegar, but if you really dislike the smell you may. I have found it easiest to pour the vinegar into a mug and take that into the shower with me, when I'm ready to use it I hold the cup up to add the water from the shower.

So far I have been using a herbal vinegar I made with lavender, rosemary (reported to encourage growth, make hair shiny, intensify dark hair, condition hair and reduce dandruff) and parsley for 2 weeks and I love it! I have been using the herbal vinegar instead of conditioner and I think it's a lot better in many ways. My hair feel softer and cleaner, it gets less oily between washes (I wash it every it every 2 days), I need less mousse to control the frizz (which is now not even very noticable if I forget to mousse), and according to friends it smells nice. I have to rely on my friends reports for the scent, my hair is too short to pull up to my nose for a sniff :\

A few days ago I had to use a regular conditioner instead of my vinegar and afterwards noticed right away that my air was not doing as well. It felt heavy and oily. I am now going to be sticking the herbal vinegars!

The experiment continues, I have made a few comparisson batches using lavender and parsley with white vinegar and with apple cider to see how much difference there is between them. If it's not noticable I'll be using white vinegar in the future since it's much cheaper! I need to collect more of my herbs to try out the different uses and properties. I have collected several glass wine and beer bottles to store them in and looking for more small sized ones to makes gifts in the future.

For Mother's Day

I made two bouquets for Mother's Day this year, one living and one traditional. Oddly neither went as planned but both turned out very nice O.o

This was the living arrangement. It was meant to go into a wicker Goodwill basket I had but darn it they wouldn't all fit. Luckily I found an empty pot forgotten at the recipient's place :) One of the little ones I babysit helped me put it together for her mom, it was fun. I didn't have enough of the right seedlings in my stash so I picked the big yellow gerbera up from a garden center, the alyssums I grew.

And this bouquet was for my momma, cut from our own garden :) Calendula, amini rose, ranunculus, zinnias, cosmos and a couple of California poppies. Oh and a sprig of parsnip, I just love their leaves....

And that's it for now, hope you had a nice Mother's Day too.

OMG! Coolest Card EVER!!!

I was just searching for instructions on how to make a nice Bday card for a friend and came across:

POSTCARDEN.COM

They come folded into what looks like those tourist packets of a set of postcards, from which you slide out the main card and unfold. There is a hidden PVC tray with a paper board to use as the growing medium. It comes with cress seeds which are easy to sprout and yummy to eat. They say a Postcarden should last about 2 weeks and is fully recyclable.

It's made in the EU and there's only one US distributor: B5+10 Postcarden who's selling it for $12.95

If only it weren't too late to order it for the Gin Master's Bday!

...I shall have to try to make my own...mwuahahahahaha......