Books
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Weekly Roundup: Woodland Wonders Crochet Along and Lotion Bars
Last weekend I went out of town for a show, and was a bit busy during the week, so I didn’t get to do a weekly roundup. As a result, this weekend I really needed some at-home time – I always do when I feel like I’ve been out too much. My daughter was on vacation this weekend, too, so we didn’t get to have our usual Sunday outing. So I spent the entire weekend at home cleaning, cooking, relaxing with my cats, and making things. This included testing out different recipes for homemade lotions bars, and in the process I learned that although it is really soft and moisturizing,…
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Weekly Roundup: Feels Like Summer Splendor
While it’s still officially spring, with 90-plus degree days it feels like summer here in Oklahoma. The garden is starting to fill out nicely, berries are ripening on the bushes, and swim season is upon us! Yes, the warm season at this time of year is splendorous. To encourage climbing for my moonflowers and heavenly blue morning blooming vines that I planted from seed, I added two trellises to my apartment garden, and their tendrils wrapped around them and started climbing within hours. My daughter’s boyfriend got me these cute, tropical solar lights for the garden on Mother’s Day and the plants are climbing them as well. Also, I’m really…
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Weekly Roundup: Bee-Inspired, Sea-Inspired, and Banyan Moon
This week I made a soy wax candle from some of those bee and honeycomb shaped wax embeds I recently made. I wanted to make it like a cupcake, but it was much more difficult than I remembered when I last made some cupcake candles about ten years ago. Piping the wax at just the right temperature was the hardest part, and at one point I poured the wax in the cake piping when it was too warm and it made a big mess all over the counter, which I had to scrape and scrape to get it all up. After a few messy tries I finally got it to…
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Weekly Roundup: First Blossoms and Re-Reading
This week the first little blossoms of my potted balcony wildflower garden bloomed with a few delicate white petals, a peek of red, and drops of purple. It’s exciting to see this handful of seeds transform each week, and I’m surprised at all of the growth I already have! I just hope I didn’t overcrowd them! In other gardening news, against my better judgement, I planted some watermelon and strawberry plants in my shady apartment garden downstairs to see how they will grow. Sometimes that’s the best way to garden, plant what you want in the soil you’ve got, and see what grows. So far, so good. As for reading,…
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Weekly Roundup: Sea-Inspired Crochet, Bee-autiful Wax Embeds, and Reading
This week I’ve started some new little projects, including making a sea-inspired blanket of my own design and some bee themed candles. I’ve also picked up something different to read, venturing into a genre I don’t read much of, sci-fi and fantasy. After participating in the “Postcards with Love” crochet-along a couple of years ago, I bought a lot of coral, aqua, blue, and cream yarn to start my own sea-inspired blanket, and have finally started on it this week. For the center, and after a lot of experimenting with the five sides, I made this pink starfish. The next part will be the trickiest part, getting this to fit…
