Fairy Garden Experiments

I became interested in making fairy gardens after a visit to my friends house that lives near Minneapolis.  She had the sweetest little fairy garden that was planted up in a wicker window box.  It had a stone path, a diamond dust plant, some Irish moss, and other little attractions.  We admired it while we were relaxing on the deck.  I had to make one when I got home!  And of course, I have more that one and have encouraged other people in my life to make them too!  This gardening hobby can be very contagious.

Starting to assemble First Fairy Garden

      My mom and I got a lot of our materials at the local greenhouse, La Crosse Floral. Two of our fairies were purchased there at very reasonable prices and so were the trellises and the planting urn.    They are really into promoting fairy garden planting and have scheduled some classes on the topic.  They have made a place on their Facebook page to submit photos of individual fairy gardens as well.

     I am in the process of looking for more small items and I noticed Hobby Lobby had some cute picket fences that I may get and then handpaint myself.  They also had some cute wooden doors that could be added to tree  trunks if a person wanted to make one right on the ground in the garden landscape.

My First Fairy Garden

The cute little gingerbread style house is really a tealight candle holder and I picked it up for a very reasonable amount at the Goodwill store.  Isn't it great that someone else's junk can be a treasure to another???



My Mom's Fairy Garden with a Creek and Bridge

Her garden was placed into a coco mulch liner for a hanging basket and it is held in place by a metal basket she found at Goodwill.

The little turtle climbing out from under the bridge is a perfect little touch!  The little maple leaf fairy is resting on a flat rock.  I think that icicle plant in the background is a lovely texture!



My Friend, Debbie's Fairy Garden with a Raccoon



Debbie's garden has a really neat idea for a container.  This was planted up in a upturned glass lamp shade.  It already came with the perfect hole in the bottom for great drainage.  She has a blue fairy, a trellis, and a cute little raccoon in the scene.  Be sure to notice her unique floorcloth.  She made it after she visited a quilt shop in New York.  She met the author of the book, "Floorquilts" and took a class from her.  After her return home she made this unique home decorator mat.

My Second Fairy Garden

This little scene is planted up in a white wicker basket and I have been enjoying it out on the patio.  Notice the mossy covered rocks in the foreground.  I picked those up quite inexpensively at Walmart in the floral dept.  So far they look decent and only one was bitten into by our pesky squirrel.

Abundant Blooms on the Rain Lily

What an amazing plant !

All it takes is a bit of a good hard rain, and my favorite potted lily blooms like crazy.  Zephyrhantes grows along all summer with it's healthy looking leaves and you can count on a flush of blossoms 2 or 3 days after a soaking rain storm. 

Someday I'd like to collect the rainwater in a sealed container and trick it into blooming when the weather  is really dry!

Zephyranthes aka Rain Lily = one of my all time favorite tropical plants!

Read more about this cool plant at the following websites.

• Wikipedia
•  additional images
• excellent photo guide showing other colors
• 
  

See what I had to say about zephyr lilies last year.

Wordless Wednesday

Apple Core Fun

Perfect Cutting with the apple core block

Ready to Sew

Lucky me!  My friend has gifted me two of the larger cutting dies for the AccuQuilt that fit on the Mark IV tray.  I am so happy that they work so well to cut through 8 - 10 layers of fabric.  One trick that I learned this week is to lay one sheet of scrap paper over the top fabric layer.  This works somewhat like the template plastic that is used with the AccuQuilt cutter.  Only that thickness of plastic would not go through this smaller Mark IV cutter because the roller is set closer to the tray. 

This simple addition of the paper prevents the top layer from sticking to the roller.  It is such a simple fix for an annoying problem when cut on the older style machine.

 



Placemats Ready for Bias Binding



This project was a wonderful opportuntity to brush up on some free motion quilting.  Shown in the photo below I was using a design marked with sharpie on some golden threads paper. 



I  find that I can do a more complicated design with this easy to remove paper.  I like the fact that I am not marking on the fabric. 



Design marked on Golden Threads paper.  Follow the line with the feed dogs lowered.

Using Red, White, and Blue Scraps

I've got to get back in the swing of things with the Colorful Scrappy monthly challenge.  I need to sew a couple of my string blocks to catch up on several months of color.  Summer vacation days are dwindling away and I want to get a few finishes within the next 2 weeks. 

I totally missed out on making blocks in pink, purple and yellow, but if I put it on the very BIG

To Do List, I think I can get something done before the end of August.

My mom pieced this pretty table topper and I did the quilting on it last week.  I did meandering in the background and over the center motif I did a combination of diagonal lines and curves from corner to corner.  It got the binding on pretty quickly because I used a machine button hole stitch to stitch it down.

I've been at school running the smaller tumbler cutter through the accucut machine.  I decided my throw for the white wicker sofa must be increased by several rows.  I want it to be nice and cozy and cover my toes when I use it.  I cut quite an assortment of red and white fabrics and a Bliss charm pack was used already.  Now I'll be adding a Strawberry Fields charm pack and I was lucky to find an early released pack of Ruby Charms, so they will be mixed in among those that are in my charm basket.

Strawberries All the Way



Stawberry Preserves Cooking on the Stovetop



I made another batch of my most favorite berry preserves.  It is quick and easy to do on the stove top and this recipe does not need any boxed pectin.

Just Enough Strawberry Preserves

1 pound fresh strawberries

2 1/2 cups white sugar

1 Tablespoon white vinegar

less than a pinch of salt

Hull, then slice or chop the strawberries.  In a saucepot, combine the strawberries, sugar, vinegar, and salt.  Bring to a rolling boil and cook, stirring frequently for 15 - 20 minutes.  Cool and refrigerate.  Keeps 1 week in the refrigerator, if it lasts that long!  I like to spread it on one side of a bagel and put cream cheese on the other, then sandwich it together for a breakfast treat.  It is also delicious when served over vanilla ice cream.

I worked on making a set of freezer jams too. That recipe is just about as easy as this, but I don't know if it set up as well.  It seemed a little thin when I poured it into the freezer jars. 

 

Growing Lemons in Wisconsin

Meyer Lemon in Summer 2010

My little lemon tree put out a lot of growth since last spring. 

This summer, it bloomed out with tons of surprisingly scented white blossoms.  However, that many lemons will not be developing.  Shortly after this time of beautiful blossoming many of the older leaves became netted with yellow and it dropped nearly all of those stressed leaves within a week.  After some research on the internet, I learned that I should be feeding my little lemon some acidic fertilizer and some diluted epsom salts for the magnesium content.   Apparently lemons are very heavy feeders during bloom time and need to put all their nutrients into formation of fruit.  It looks like I'll be getting 2 lemons if the last two little green lemon buds can hang on!

Same Meyer Lemon in June 2011



 

Meyer Lemons harvested from my Friend's Tree in Spring 2011