the DIY: CINDER BLOCK RAISED GARDEN BED

We decided to add on to our garden to accommodate all the tomatoes that Casey wanted to plant. As you can see, we are probably going to be drowning in tomatoes... IF we keep them up the right way. We made our first raised garden bed with wood sides but when we realized you could do the same with cinder blocks, our lives were changed. The wood one really wasn't that hard to make (our guy friend may have helped out a little) but this just made it even easier. You will need:

1. Cinder Blocks

2. Cardboard Boxes

3. Organic Garden Soil

4. Mushroom Compost

5. Mulch

6. Tomato Plants

7. Tomato Cages

First, pick a spot in your yard for your garden. Pick the sunniest spot possible. You can see our other garden to the right.

Outline the area in cinder blocks. We are using the fence as a back wall because we didn't buy enough cinder blocks in the beginning. We only had 10 so this is what we came up with. We ended up buying more and adding another bed in front of this one.

Lay down cardboard to cover the ground and grass. This is much easier than tilling up the ground and ripping out all the grass. We also have 3245345 boxes from moving so we were happy to utilize a few of those.

Fill your bed with garden soil. We ended up using 4 bags total. In this step though, we only used 3.

Then add a layer of compost, we used 2 bags. Then we added one more layer of garden soil and mixed the top layers together.

Measure around your plants and space them as far as they need to be.

Plant those guys. We just stuck the label in the ground that comes with the plant, maybe we will make some cute ones later? At this point we sprinkled in some plant food and watered really well.

Then cover that bed with mulch.
Then put in your tomato cages. One cage per tomato plant. Maybe we have 5 different kinds of tomatoes...

We hope to put more of our gardening adventures on the blog so stay tuned!

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the DIY: STRING FEATHER NECKLACE

To make this necklace, you will need:
- Embroidery Thread/String
- Wire
- Wire Cutters
- Scissors
- Mod Podge
- Paintbrush
- Wax Paper
- Chain
- Jump Ring

Cut a strip of Wire, this is 18 gauge.

This piece is about 4 inches long.

Curve the end of the wire into a loop.

Choose whatever colors you want your feather to be.

Cut strips of your embroidery string about 4 inches long.

Tie a piece of string around the wire, making the knot right in the middle of the string.

Repeat over and over with the strings.

Put the strings and wire on wax paper for easy clean up.

Brush the strings downward with Mod Podge to create a feather-like shape.

After the strings have dried a little, turn the feather over and brush again with Mod Podge.

When the strings have dried, cut them into the shape of a feather and snip off the extra wire.

Connect the feather to a jump ring and then to chain.


And you're done!

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the DIY: JEWELED BRACELET WITH MARTHA STEWART JEWELRY

We received so many things from Martha Stewart Jewelry to create some pieces of our own. There were so many options but I really loved all the rhinestones so I decided to make something using those. Everything was so easy to use and so cute! I'm looking forward to playing around with the rhinestones more.

To make this bracelet you will need:

-Jewelry Glue

-Rhinestones

-Rhinestone Settings

-Round-nose pliers

-Flat-nose pliers

Glue your rhinestones into the rhinestone settings.

I'm using the settings that have loops on both sides.

Connect all the settings with jump rings.

Now there is a chain of 4 rhinestones.

Measure around your wrist and subtract the length of the rhinestones. Whatever is left is how long you should cut the chain. Cut three strips of chain. You will connect them all with a jump ring to the strand of rhinestones.

From left to right there should be a jump ring, then the rhinestone strand, then another jump ring, the three strands of chain, another jump ring connected to a lobster claw.

And you are done!

The chain hangs down a little bit on the back side of your wrist.

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the DIY: MARQUEE LETTERS/ NUMBERS

So glad I finally got around to making these letters/ numbers. We've had the supplies forever! We can't afford the beautiful metal marquee letters that shops and restaurants have so I made a budget friendly version. Here's what you will need to make your own:
- Poster board, I used about 3 sheets
- Foam board, I used 2 of these
- Pencil
- Scissors
- X-acto knife & cutting board
- Hot glue
- Spray Paint
- Strand of Christmas lights

Start off by drawing your letters or numbers on your foam board. I just hand drew our numbers but you could print out a stencil from your computer if you'd like.

Cut out the numbers with the X-acto knife.

Here are ours all cut out.

Draw lines on your poster board with 4 inches in between each line.

Cut out the strips.

Hot glue the middle of the strips to the sides of the foam board shapes.

Here's a better picture of how the poster board strips have 2 inches on both sides of the foam board.

Here is the "8" finished. This part takes patience.

Spray paint the number and mark with a Sharpie where you want the lights to be. Our bulbs are smaller so we want to have a good amount of lights in each number.

Use the X-acto knife to poke a hole where the Sharpie marks are and twist the knife to make the holes big enough for a light to push through.

Push the light bulb through the hole from the back.

It should look something like this, a.k.a. kind of messy.

Here's what it looks like in the front...

And all lit up!

You could leave your letters all white if you'd like but these are going in our kitchen. Our kitchen is extremely colorful so it only seemed right for these to be colored.

See what I mean? hah.

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