Painting Bliss

String Me Up - String Gardens

 

 

 

So lately I have been a bit of a Pinterest whore... but hey, aren't we all? Pinterest, a place full of idea sharing is just a tip of the domino that knocks down others until there is a plethora of ideas all having a giant orgy together. You naughty naughty Pinterest with all your loose ways...

Anywho! my top search on Pinterest as of late has been garden ideas... whoa, big surprise right!? You totally couldn't have guessed! Be honest, your completely floored! No? fine then... guess I'm just a silly transparent window then! It's ok, no feelings hurt! But seriously, I have found a pretty cool thing I think I'm gonna give a whirl... string gardens. Not really a "garden" per-say as much as a really modern - cool - funky garden add in.

 

 

It appears to be simple, and I like simple! Especially when simple looks so damn cool! A string garden is basically taking a plant, wrapping the root ball up in twine, then covering with moss or grass seed - then wrapping again and hanging it up like a Christmas ornament! Now, these contraptions can be hung indoors... but the problem I see with this... is that when you water it, your bound to have puddles on your floor! Funny... none of the tutorials mention the mess. Sooooooo I am going to make mine and hang them outdoors from hooks or trees.

Here is a super cool, nice, and visual tutorial if you would like to join along with me! I take no credit for this idea as my mind just didn't create it and well it's gone to big for me to even try and take the credit! Plus, taking credit for other peoples ideas is just a big NO NO! (I don't partake)... I also take no credit for the images posted here today, each picture is linked to where it came from (see me covering my artsy non photo stealing ass?).

Now, I do promise to show you my hangy thingies once I make them! I really can't wait... I went all ass ho on my gardens over the past month and so they are already done and waiting for mulch... being a creature who desires to get her hands dirty I now must supplement my need to garden with ideas such as this!

Rock on with your gardening self!

 

 

 

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Cultivate my Soul

Cultivate my Soul

 

 

 

There's is mental relief to be had in the dirt. The release of bottled up emotions just seem to sink out through your feet and back into the earth. The ground is so receiving, malleable, and reliable. I don't pretend to be a master gardener, know every single plant by name (although I do know a ton), or think I can grow every little seed in the Burpee catalouge. What I do know is I need my garden as much as it needs me. That this winter was so long and so cold that it seemed like forever until I could get dirt under my nails and into each crease of each of my palms.

My garden never stays the same from year to year. I'm never patient to just let things grow and tend to themselves. My ADD tendencies need to move, relocate, and dig up what grew in one spot last year but seems oh so much better over here this year. I split the day lillies into smaller mounds and sink them into places that my eye has decided is just right. As I decorate my patches of dirt like I would a piece of bristol board, smoothing the surface and making things to my liking... I envision the growth to come. In my mind I can already smell the peonies and hear the buzzing of bees.

 

 

 

This year another piece of lawn is gone... less to mow right!? HA! Every pleasant and warm day has been spent building blisters on my hands and collecting mosquito bites like girl scout badges. It's a game of connect the dots from my ankles to my neck.

Tis the life of a gardener!

 

 

 

This year I will be taking a more serious approach to vegetable gardening. My husband is making a beautiful raised bed for me and I have already put up chicken wire fencing complete with burgundy green beans that turn green when cooked planted below. I want to have enough vegetables to not only provide for my own family but to give to neighbors and friends. I know that sounds a bit ambitious, but I'm an ambitious kind of girl!

What about you!? Garden plans?

 

 

 

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In Like a Lion - Out Like a Lamb

With Just a Little Water and Air

Fruits, Veggies, and Bruchetta, OH MY!

 

 

 

The excitingly warm spring weather here in the north east really coaxes my stomach toward a summer palette. Dreams of market bags filled with farm grown fruits and veggies makes my heart smile with delight. Spring and summer are obviously the best time to eat your heart out on things that grow by root. Until the near future when I will be able to tip toe through the market, tote over my shoulder, I will start to crave things like farm fresh produce and recipes like bruchetta.

A few days ago I carried an abundant armful of tomatoes, basil, garlic, and other ingredients out into the warm sunshine where I chopped, diced, and danced while doing so. Good tunes, good sun, and good company makes the world go round. Feeding what you made to the ones you love is a whole 'nother pleasure entirely!

 

 

 

Thankfully cutting onions outside kept them from stinging my eyes, another plus to cooking outside! I loathe cutting onions. Onions and I have only recently become friends. My whole life I have shunned them from my plate... and still only selectively allow them in dishes that I make or eat. I was a picky eater growing up and still have my moments, but allowing myself to at least try something and not turn my nose up at it has greatly opened up my culinary world. There is so much to taste and enjoy!

 

What are your favorite spring eats?

In Like a Lion - Out Like a Lamb

 

 

It may be snowing but that just means that March is arriving like a lion, and so will exit as a lamb. Last weekend we took a drive to a local greenhouse/grocery store called Adams where we enjoyed their garden show set up.

As the flakes fall outside here on the east coast today, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to share some photos I took at the spring show.

Adam's had an entire greenhouse set up like an outdoor landscape. It smelled of earth... like lilacs, tulips, and hyacinths. Water trickling from a handmade pond seemed to intensify the reality of our upcoming spring. I could of stayed there all day just smelling and looking.

 

 

 

 

It may have been too early to take home anything that needs to be planted outdoors, but that didn't stop me from choosing some lovely cacti to feed my dreams of summer months and warm breezes.

 

 

 

I'm sure your spring minded too, wherever it is that you may be. For me I'm dreaming about laying in the yard on a crocheted blanket, moving things about in the garden, and soaking in the warm sun. My bones are cold, they need a good de-frosting and no matter how bad it is for me I feel like I could use a sunburn as well. I like when the sun is warm and the air is pleasant, when the piercing rays warm the top of my head and it feels like I can feel the nourishment of vitamin D seeping in through my scalp.

Soon I will be taking a trip to Texas to visit my soul sister Jacquie from Hand of Bela Peck. Seven years we have been the closest of friends, yet we have never met! The U.S. is vast and it is amazing how it can keep to artistic souls apart... only in body though, for we are pretty inseparable.  In just a few short weeks I will be flying solo (eeek!) to sunny Texas where I get to pal around with my girl and also get an early jolt of warm weather. I can't wait! It will be sandals, full wine glasses, and so much more that I can't even begin to imagine the fun and adventure that awaits.

 

With Just a Little Water and Air

 

 

Last week I shared with you my newly happily planted succulents, and since then I have added two little air plant babies to my dining room hippie shelf of found things. I wasn't sure where to buy them locally so I hopped on the grand ol' Etsy site where I found a super shop with super plants for a super dee duper price! Not only did they come in GREAT healthy condition but they came fast as well. I have to admit it was fun ordering a plant through the mail, knowing that the inside the box upon delivery was something alive.

Purchasing only 2 and now seeing them in their pretty hanging glass globes that I found at the craft store, I definitly need more. Plants bring such life to a home... and fresh air! It's a beneficial happy thing for sure where you enjoy them and in my silly playful mind, they enjoy me too! If I can't get outside yet and sink my hands in the wet cold earth, I sure as h-e- double l am going to bring some green (and pink) indoors!

 

 

 

My kids were so amazed at the fact that air plants don't need soil. They were all... but mom, no dirt!? And I was all... nope! Cooooool right??

YES! Next I think I would like a few more small ones, and then a big one. Wall mounted!

 

 

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Succulent Love

Succulent Love

 

This in-between not quite spring, not quite winter stuff really gets the gardener in me going! About now I'm digging in the snow looking for daffodil heads popping through the frozen earth, and guess what... they are! My poor little succulents in the dining room window have been looking pretty sad. It's not their time of year... so when I saw that pots were 40% at the craft store I thought, hey why not?

Some sand, cactus soil, and wee stones and my succulents already look happier! Not to mention it's pretty not to see them planted in ugly ol' terracotta. Terracotta really has a way of sucking the moisture out of anything and into itself. I love my new soft colored pots in hues of cream, robins egg blue, and burnt sienna.

 

 

When I plant succulents, and I have no idea if I'm doing it right (but pretty sure I am) I put a layer of little stones in the bottom of the pot first, a layer of sand on top of that, then my cactus soil. When I have dug a wee hole and placed my plant in place, I like to cover it up with more pretty stones around the sproutling.

It just looks so clean and tidy!

I bet these beauties will thrive come summer, outside in the warm air and hot sun that they adore so much. Soon it will be time to start seeds and scold that cat for gnawing sprouts! It will be game on once I have a window sills supply of summer nom noms!

 

 

Winter and Spring I Think About Thee

 

 

I'm love with the snow, but dreams at night of sunshine and garden blooms has me a bit longing for my garden. I pine for my garden all winter long as I imagine all the first of springs flowers sleeping with heavy heads inside their bulbs, beneath the ground... just longing for me like I long for them.

The snow is beautiful, we have already gotten more than I thought we would get in this entire winter season. The gentle flakes that fall like embers from a fire entice me to the window for a glance. I like the crunch of it under my feet and the way the morning sun hits the drifts just right so that it looks like perhaps fairies laid mountains of glitter upon the ground instead of clouds emitting frozen ice chips.

 

 

There are footprints through my yard placed by little boys, squished down powder that prevents the sidewalk from a proper shoveling. My wee pond with it's wee fountain is in suspension... I think about my favorite frog Worts, also in suspension... cozied up at the waters bottom - heart in a slow slow pitter pat maintaining himself until the water temperatures rise.

I think about what it must feel like to sleep an entire season away, not really aware of what goes about above. Perhaps rabbits would run over me, snickering from above. Perhaps, mice would burrow near me... sniff at my papery skin, wondering if I was edible and deeming I was not. Perhaps I wouldn't be cold at all, but completely insulated with the dirt and snow blanket, like layers of quilts and lace.

 

 

I think the deer wonder about the winter and spring too as they lay in my woodland cuddled together generating body heat. When I startle them, they stand up and stare at me. Any sudden movements and they're off! I do wish they knew I mean them no harm. The ones in the photo above are a mother and child. They had been laying so long under our 3 enormous pines that they had a coating of snow on their backs.

My thoughts of gardening and rows of lavendar will only increase as the months pass. For now though, I'll enjoy the piling flakes and warm scarves round my neck. Perhaps a new crochet project is in order!

 

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From Snow to Snowmen

Jack Frost at Play

 

Jack Frost has been visiting every single night. I don't remember so many hard frosts in a row in... well, I can't remember when! Every morning has been an artistic act of nature I am immediately drawn to. It's beauty outlines everything with ice crystals, and depending on the plant or object... different kinds of crystals form!

 

 

Every vein in every leaf is a dance with decadent ice. This lambs ear is the prettiest it's been all year, even when it was at it's most lush.

 

 

These elongated crystals look like you could break them off and keep them, alas they are a moment to be captured before the sun does it's work of warming away Jack Frost's talented brush strokes.

 

 

There may not be anymore butterflies fluttering around this butterfly bush, but it's sure got my attention!

 

 

Just when I think the beauty diminishes as the world freezes, I am reminded of how very wrong I was to ever make that assumption. I look forward to more chilly and beautiful nature surprises!

It's Official it's Over... Watch Out Here it Comes

 

 

I think it's quite official that anything that was still summer in the slightest tiniest way is gone... that the long haul has started with the seasons first 3 New York frosts and the cutting down of my entire garden. Cutting down the garden is always hard for me, but seemed especially so this year. I almost felt like a murderer, loving something only to hack it to pieces and dispose of the remains.

And so it starts, natures long sleep.

The farmers have been attempting to obtain one more hay, in as a struggle to beat the cold that will soon wipe through our region. I'm no weather predictor, but I do have a good sense of things, and the seasons. Just by watching the garden, the trees, and the woodland creatures I truly predict a cold harsh winter. My grandmother always said if you look to the hills and you can see not a space between the trees, it's going to be a cold winter. The deer are grouping nightly in fields by the numbers munching down as much green grass as they can, they know... and so does the fat skunk that visits our yard every night. He too has put on a bunch of weight and I wage it to be mostly fur. The acorns dropped early... walk through the woods and you will see there aren't any whole ones to be found anymore.

It's time... for my part of the world to take a break.

 

 

I'm not sure how I feel about the impending season this year. I know I have been happy to wear warm things like socks and sweaters, a decorative scarf and my fall boots. There is Thanksgiving to look forward to, the hiss of my studio heater, and Christmas... but past the holidays is a big empty question mark that only time will reveal.

 

 

This time of year makes me feel restless. I feel the change and don't know quite how to function within it. I guess it's almost primal really... that even though we have come so far and evolved so much there is still that feeling that comes with an impending season of snow and ice will affect us mammals.

Just because we are so domestic, doesn't mean we still don't experience the call of the wild. Perhaps I'll hunker down like a bear for the winter... or atleast like the cat. He knows where it's at!

 

 

My Week Through the Eyes of Instagram 10/7-10/13

 

Wow I didn't realize how little I instagramed this week until I emailed myself all the photos for this weeks "My Week Through the Eyes of Instagram". That's probably due to the fact that my days were busy and I have been fighting a little bit of a cold. Anywho! Here is my week through pictures. Enjoy!

 

This week brought the seasons first hard frost, halloween costume re-decides, and saying goodbye to garden critters. There was of course lots of artwork, some naps, and tissues for each family members runny nose.There was a drop of work to Orange Magazine (hee hee) and craft fair preparation. Busy daysi ndeed!

If you like my photography on Instagram feel free to follow me...

@Paintingbliss

Thanks!