A week-ending we shall go...

The weather just turned here in, recently not so sunny California, and I am taking advantage to the full effect. How you may ask? Well to start off with I'm sitting inside and enjoying my light drenched living room and indoor foliage.

Handmade Home: It's growing on me

This is the next phase to my new year new space, greenery. One thing that makes me happy is that every so often Ben will say that he wishes we had more plants in the house. I love house plants! So we went out and made some new purchases to bring in the green...

Made and Found: House Warming!

First off I just have to comment on how the internet is a devious marketing machine. Every website I visit, including the blog, is showing me an add for a designer, or store (down to the item I was looking at!) that I recently visited. It's really creeping me out, and yet again makes me realize that the internet is too smart.

Okay, now for the real post! You may remember Dawn and Jay, from Dawn and Jay our roommates, well they moved on and moved out last month. Boy, oh boy, did they find a lovely new house.

There are so many wonderful things about their new home, it's spacious, a great location, and it features fun accents that definitely prove to make any added decor smashing. Also, there is a chicken coop in the back, and yes, there will be chickens.

So for this addition of Made and Found, I would like to share the secrets I found at their house!

Handmade Home: Bless this Mess

So things just recently started shifting around the homestead, and the mantle is no exception. I rearranged, threw together, and mashed up some things, made, found, and given to create a lovely focal point in my living room that makes me smile. I do think it's a bit cluttered, but the Nicolai Sisters, although they would love to be simplistic and stylish, tend to always backslide in to collectors (and maybe slightly hoarders) of various pretty and sentimental things. Now for a closer look...

Handmade Home: Framed Flora

Recently I have undertaken freshening up some spaces around the house. The first undertaking was to utilize some amazing things that I already have, or intentions that I already have. I've been thinking about those flora pressings that I got when I was back in Tacoma last year for Christmas, and was more than ready to get them up on the wall...

Make: Spring come alive.

I haven't had a lot of time lately with (work and being lost in transitions) to be creative in a real productive way. Hopefully that will change soon as life's pace steadies for all of us. I have to say that this weekend there was some furniture moved around in the homestead, and that typically stirs things up in the ole' creative brain pan, so fingers crossed.

Bu the furniture wasn't the only new arrangement introduced in to the house this weekend, the decor got a little Springtime makeover as well...

Succulents and Cacti, never too many.

So, I recently acquired some more little succulents and cacti, and I was so displeased to be forced to find yet
another home for them...and even more upset to have to throw up some curtains and hang some pictures to
dress their new home. (Obviously I am being completely facetious, decorating for succulents is a heavenly treat...)

summer mists

It's Milo, the mist assistant!

All of my complaints about the unseasonably cool summer disappeared over the last couple of weeks when Spokane has made the sudden transition to hot weather. How quickly we forget, or at least I forget, once the temp jumps to 96 degrees. Ughhhhhhh. But while flipping through an old Martha Stewart magazine, as I am wont to do while eating my cereal in the mornings, I came across a simple summer pick-me-up: the all-natural mist. Part of my routine for keeping cool is to put water on every bit of exposed skin and just let it evaporate as nature intended. But this definitely seems a step above splashing over the kitchen sink. Plus, it's so simple and so instantly gratifying, I swear you'll mist the summer away. 

You'll need: an empty mini spray bottle or two. I picked mine up in the travel minis section of Target: 97 cents each. 

Backyarding.

It was a beautiful weekend in Burbank, and I enjoyed it by doing some backyarding. It is not uncommon for us sisters to disappear in planting and various backyarding activities. Here is a taste of my day.

Succulents from a friend's clipping.  My, how they've grown.

Pachycephalasaurus enjoying some greens.

Lovely large succulent going crazy...

...really crazy...

...whoa, this happened in the last two weeks.

Little ceramic buddy and a little succulent friend.

Hibiscus tree, the bees love it!

And I love a PB&J snack!

Unfortunately so do the furry ladies.

Sorry, Lucca.

My view of Griffith Park.

Yea, for backyarding and PB&J!

bottled water

OK, I'm not big on ketchup, but I do enjoy it from time to time...say if hot dogs happen to be involved. However, as a result of my sporadic ketchup use, I've had a bottle in the fridge which expired in 2009. I can feel Catherine, with her complete suspicion of anything past its expiration date, shuddering over this bit of information. But it's not like I'm still using it, sister. Anyway, as I dumped the old ketchup (and the kitchen began to smell overwhelmingly of processed tomato product) and prepared to recycle the bottle, I wondered if I might repurpose it somehow. I've seen these bottles used to dispense even piles of pancake batter, so I thought maybe I could use the bottle to water some plants.

I basically have one window with sufficient light, so all my succulents (and my sad little African violet) are clustered there. Matilda also clusters there, in her cat bed because she thrives on sunlight as much as the plants. Anyway, my pots are tightly packed and some of them aren't super easy to reach with a standard watering can. See my aloe pot?
I planted little aloes in the saucer, and its not exactly a picnic to water that sort of arrangement. 

That's where the ketchup bottle enters the picture. 

Specifically, the cap.

The cap allows you to direct a stream of water wherever your heart desires. And my heart desires the water go here. 

And here.

And here. 

Easy as pie. Just remember that you're shooting a stream of water, and if you're not careful, you can blast out your rocks or dirt. So shoot gently, my friends. 

Now all you have to do is consume 32 ounces (that's 2 lbs!!!!) of ketchup. Yeah. Good luck with that.
Um, happy hotdogs, I guess. 

Sweet little stricta.

The sisters of On My Honor love air plants. Don't believe me? Check out all the evidence.

I was gifted my very first air plant last week by a thoughtful coworker. She gave it to me as a thanks for my hard work during the Legislative Session, which if you're keeping tabs...is still going on. Blargh. Luckily, I have this lovely little blooming blossom to keep me company when those days drone on and on. This particular kind is called a stricta.

Isn't it dreamy?

It was delicious.

See that, my friends? That is the shadow of a bug body inside one of my hungry little traps!
Yes, they were quite enterprising last night. Quite enterprising, indeed. 

FEED ME!

Yep, I went and bought a little Venus fly trap. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that this isn't the first time I've come home with a carnivorous plant. The other times didn't turn out so well...for the plant, I mean...

neon dream

Upon seeing Monika's terracotta pots, I became obsessed with the idea of getting my own terracotta pots and painting the rims gray with neon stripes. SO OBSESSED. Yes, an obsession worthy of all caps. What obsession isn't? Anyway, after finding several serviceable pots at an estate sale, I knew it was time to make the dream a reality...

Saturday Succulent Success!

On Saturday, my mother came down and we ran a bunch of errands. One of those errands was to go by the bark and garden store across town. Wouldn't you know it, I came back with two new succulents! Adding two more succulents meant it was time to shuffle things up a bit. I also purchased a couple of new pots since I had big plans to combine lots of little pots.

Without further adieu, Peanut proudly presents...the succulents!

I picked up some charming little plastic animals in the Target dollar bin last month,
and I finally found the perfect place for my little giraffe.

 She's about to eat my burro's tail succulent!

I noticed after these pictures were taken that the little price tag end is still sticking out of the giraffe.
(It almost looks like a giraffe penis...ssssshhhhhh.)

 I made sure to mix it up a bit.

 This is one of the new additions. It's a sedum and also a form of donkey's tail. I love it.

The yellow pot was picked up at an antique store in town. The pale green and the yellow compliment each other nicely.

Peanut approves!

In case you were lucky enough to pick up some of these budget-friendly animals at target, 

here are a couple of other crafty ideas I've found on Pinterest:

Animal valentines (actual Target animals)

Painted animals

Glitter animals

(my favorite) Animal bookends (actual Target animals)

new plant best friend!

I made Mom accompany me to Watson's Nursery in Puyallup because I wanted another tillandsia.
And isn't it lovely? I don't know if it's evident in the picture, but this tillandsia has a wonderful fuzzy coat.
New plant best friend!

Merry Potter

I recently discovered this amazing $0.98 store down the street from my house. It's great! I have already purchased a gold sequin headband, miniature dinosaur skeletons, tape, glue sticks, and now these great terracotta pots!
The most amazing thing about this store is its legitimacy, these pots were actually $0.98 each.

While I love these pots, I wanted them to be more jovial--you know how some pots are more jovial than others.

I decided to just paint a little colored rim around the top to set it off.

Using a cream acrylic paint I put down a base coat so the colors would show up brighter.

I had to narrow my colors down because I only had five pots; I went with cream, peachy pink, red, blue, and yellow.

Olive watched my back when I was painting so no other dogs (Lucca) would run into my work area. Thanks, Olive.

These pots certainly do cheer me up when I see them. What lovely new homes for some of my growing succulents!

I always have plants waiting for more room.

I added some other smaller succulents to each pot to fancy them up a bit.

All-in-all, an inexpensive project and one that brightens my mornings.

Happy in their new homes.

The lesson here is don't be afraid of the dollar store, it often does have amazing things. Sometimes they are really only one dollar. If you do go there, see what type of miniature animal toys they have, you can always make your topiary a miniature menagerie.