Baby Brady

I just got back from vacation…my mom and I flew out to Colorado to visit my niece Jess, her husband Mike and their new baby Brady.  They are such a wonderful little family.  It has been fun to see Jess, my oldest niece, to become a mommy herself.

Brady is the most laid back baby…he sleeps well at night for being just 8 weeks old and he smiles like crazy and is starting to coo in response to another voice.

They have a beautiful home with a lovely view of the Rockies.  Jess and Mike are wonderful hosts…we definitely got the royal treatment during our stay.

Brady has such personality!  He is usually happy…sweet snuggle boy!

Occasionally, he gets grumpy like the rest of us!

Burping is so stressful!

Cute tootsies!

The house is beautiful.  This was the first time I had been there.

Love the pergola…it makes a great place to hang out!

We did some shopping and some crafting and some planting and just hung out, playing with Brady and talking.

The only problem was the vacation was too short!

Planting succulent gardens

My niece Jess (from Colorado), my mom and I made a bunch of succulent gardens.  Jess had been wanting to make some succulent arrangements and so when mom and I went to visit, we worked on that!  Jess took us to a wonderful place, Windsor Gardener in Fort Collins, where we found a ton of great plants!

Our assistant Brady showed us how to pick the best plants, he was such a big help!

Flying pigs always distract me…I forgot momentarily what I was looking for!  So, anyway, we looked around and found these plants…

I found this beautiful flower pot, but thought it might be too tall to fit in my carry on bag!

At home, Jess found all sorts of pots and glass containers (the white pots came from Ikea, $2 each, and the giant Brandy sniffer came from Home Goods, $8). 

We also used various and assorted glass vases that Jess had on hand.

First add some rocks to the bottom of the containers for drainage.

Just make that layer about an inch deep…

Then add some soil.  I know there is a cactus/succulent mix but the folks at the garden center said they use their regular mix.  Well, if it works for them, that was good enough for us!

Add just a half inch or so of soil to the container, don’t shake it and mix it, just layer it on top of the rocks.

Next, decide which plants you want to use in the container.  We picked a tall plant and a “roaming” or vining succulent and then added some moss.  Pull some of the dirt off the root base, a few of the plants I trimmed the roots if they were really tangled and tight.

Just try them out and see what looks good where, rearrange the plants as needed and use the soil to fill in the spaces around the plants, tapping the dirt down around the roots.

I used a pastry brush to clean the dirt off the plants.

And I further cleaned off the plants with a stream of water from a oil/vinegar shaker (or a dishwashing soap dispenser which is what I use my shaker bottle for…you get the idea!).  Add some more soil if needed to even out the surface.

Add just a few decorative rocks and you are done!

If the container needs to be wiped off, use a paper towel lightly moistened with glass cleaner.

Now stand back and admire your handwork!  We went on to fill these other containers…

This plant was aptly named cobweb hen and chicks!

Here we mixed a hen and chicks with a jade plant and some crawling ground cover…

Then we had a great time scattering them around the house. 

Succulents like north or west sunny spots and infrequent watering…however if you add any non-succulent plants, they may need to be watered more frequently.  Yellowing leaves usually mean that the plants are getting over watered, but it can also mean the plants are too dry. 

Here they are catching some morning rays.

A jade plant in the office with a succulent arrangement…

A few on coffee table books…

and a grouping on the kitchen counter…and that’s a wrap!  Seriously we had a blast creating…

And mom was engrossed in a really good book on her iPad, she kept moving around to avoid being in the background of a shot.  We might have had some distraction with this little guy too!  He is too irresistible!

I am linking to these great parties!

Map Lampshade

I have had this lamp forever…think I bought it at an auction…it’s one of a kind, I use it in my bedroom on my nightstand.

I used old maps and pieced them to cover the shade, using Mod Podge to attach the paper.

I think I used the New York page and the Missouri map, you may have noticed…yup, that is St. Louis snuggled right up to New York.

The lampshade didn’t take very long…I put some narrow black velvet ribbon around the top and bottom.

Isn’t this shell cool?  I love the colors!

I am linking to these great parties!

Knotted Burlap Wreath

I have been wanting to make a burlap wreath…I bought the burlap a several months ago.  It is actually a burlap tree wrap, four inches wide with a few blue threads in it. 

I couldn’t decide how I wanted to do this…trying to figure it out, I came up with the idea of knotting the burlap every so often (sorry, but I did not measure it out) and gluing the knot onto the wreath base.

It’s not perfect, but it is quite cute.  I suppose if a person wanted to be perfect, you could make the distance between the knots exactly the same.  Not my thing, though, so I just knotted willy nilly!

Here’s what I used:

I started with a grapevine wreath, but you could also use any other old wreath (my grapevine wreath was an old one that I had pulled the old decorations off of).  I bought the tree wrap here.  I got a 100 yard roll of it for around $10. 

I started knotting the burlap and hot gluing it on!

The whole process took no more than half an hour.  I am going to use it outside on a tree near my driveway.

I am linking to these great parties!