Peanut & Purls: Golden Birthday!

Peanut, what in the world am I going to do with you? Peanut was always been the fluffiest, cleanest, little fluffer-nutter in the whole world (notice the past tense?). Part of settling into the new house for Peanut means digging in everything, all the time, everywhere. Because there's a garage attached to the house, she has quick, easy access to dust and dirt. Would you just look at those paws!?! She's been prancing around with these dirty mittens for days. I think a bath is in her future.

Make: Springtime come early

Is it springtime yet? In Burbank it definitely is, and to celebrate the season we (Dawn and I) are making our springtime nest bloom...

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...)

You Lit up my life.

 My lovely friend Dawn loves her lamps and she does it so well.

Allow me to introduce LIT, run by a custom lamp maven.

My weekend in Spokane.

Busted out the watercolors.

Started painting the solar system.

Added glitter and glow-in-the-dark paint...obvi!

We painted wooden beads and made necklaces. 

Matilda slept in her special box and played with her sparkle balls.

Christine has lots of plants in one window (weirdo).

That includes this venus flytrap that we fed 2 bugs to.

It was a wonderful weekend.

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?

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)

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.