GARDEN PROGRESS TOUR

We've made some progress in the garden.  Yay!  Last time I showed you what it looked like this spring:

And here it is now...

I think it's looking a little better. No?  The biggest difference is the cedar raised garden beds that Tech Guy built for me.  We originally planned to just have the two larger ones with an herb snail in the middle, but then I thought it would look nice and clean to have the herb garden in a raised bed as well.

I really like that we decided to make the ends have this modern take on a dovetail joint.  

The bed on the left is filled with strawberries.  We may still have to build a net to keep the squirrels out.  The smaller bed holds the herbs.  I put the mint in its own pot since it tends to takeover.  The bed on the right is filled with some veggies:  peppers, leafy lettuce, peas, celery and carrots.  We'll see how they grow with our black walnut.

The flowers in the garden were mostly not flowering yet, but they were pretty much all transplanted from Mummu's garden.  I tried to mirror the plants on either side of the bed for some symmetry.  

The flower garden is going to be a bit of an experiment to see which flowers will thrive near the black walnut tree in our yard.  Mummu gave us some irises, echinacea, pin cushion flowers, a white bleeding heart, and flox.  We already had an iceberg rose in there and transplanted some tall flowers from our front garden (don't know what they're called).  I chose to put in flowers that were either white or some shade of purple, but may add some other colours once I see which flowers flowers do well.  It will also be fun to see how this garden changes once all the flowers begin to fill in.

There are a couple of other DIY projects near or around the garden as well.  Tech guy built the cedar fence to provide some privacy when we're on the deck.  We used this plan.  I planted some hydrangeas that are doing okay below it.  I'm really hoping they will continue to do well.  I think they will look so nice when they're mature against that fence.

We also have some hydrangea standards flanking the two larger raised beds and Tech Guy made the tree stakes out of some copper pipe from our basement reno, which is still on hold while we do all the waterproofing to the house. :(  I really can't wait to get that space going again. 

Were you worried that I forgot to add these guys to this post?

I wasn't able to get too many photos with the boys since Co-pilot kept eating the mulch. :)  

That's our garden for now and I'm really hoping it will fill in nicely over the years and that we'll have lots of pretty flowers (my fingers are crossed!).

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FROM TRASH TO BOAT

We are getting ready for a seaside summer vacation and I decided to make a craft with Little Pilot to get him into the seaside mood...

It's a little sailboat made mostly out of upcycled materials.  I am sure that I saw this craft on pinterest or something, but for the life of me could not find where it was from.  All I could remember was that someone, somewhere duct taped some water bottles to a board to make a boat.  So I had to come up with my own way of making it.

Here are the materials I used (I ended up not needing the wire - see below):  

• one 8.5" square piece of cardboard (mine was from a diaper box)
• two empty plastic water bottles
• a pair of chopsticks (mine were leftover from our sushi takeout)
• scrap piece of fabric & coordinating thread
• colourful duct tape (these were from the Dollar Spot at Target)
• kitchen twine
• I have wire below, but didn't end up needing it in the end

Here's how I made the boat with Little Pilot:

The Platform:  I wrapped the cardboard in duct tape.  On the ends I used one piece folded over the edge to completely seal the edge.  Then I wrapped the tape in strips all the way around leaving my tape seams on the underside.  For the mast I poked a hole through the centre and put one chopstick through it (the wider end created a nice stopper).

Floats:  Attach the empty water bottles to bottom of your platform with duct tape.

The Sail:  

1. Place your chopsticks together in a cross.  This is where I used the wire, but realized I didn't need it after I sewed my sail.  Use the chopstick mast as a guide to cut out your sail (a triangle).  Leave enough of a seam allowance to allow you to make a pocket for the chopstick to go through.
2. Sew the edges:  Hem the long edge (no chopstick will go there).  Sew two pocket hems for the other two edges for the chopsticks to go through.
3. cut slits in your pocket hems to allow the chopsticks to go through (see the photo below).  This is where I noticed that the sail was taut enough to keep the chopsticks in place without the wire!

You will have to take the sail off the chopstick mast in order to poke the chopstick mast through your hole in the platform.  I also added a little kitchen twine to the other side that I just knotted on.

This was one of the most fun crafts that I have made with Little Pilot.  He was SO excited!  He was able to help a little with the assembly part and watched carefully while I did the more tricky parts.  I also loved that this craft was made using what I had on hand.  The duct tape would be the only thing you may need to purchase.

Here are some pictures of the boat in action in Little Pilot's baby whale pool.  We had a crab as a passenger.  The crab kept falling over and Little Pilot kept standing it back up. :)  The duct tape worked well at keeping the cardboard dry too.

If you know Little Pilot you probably already guessed that the sailing ended like this:

I actually took these pictures the second time he dove in the water.  The first time I started to laugh and as we were heading inside he turned back and took another dive to amuse his mommy some more.  Gotta love our little comedian!

Overall, loved how this craft turned out and how excited Little Pilot was about it.  We'll see if the boat survives long enough to make it with us on our trip!

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8 MONTHS

Co-pilot is 8 months. He's changing all the time and growing so fast!  This month I picked up the blue Finnish fabric from Fabricland?  Pretty random!  It's called "halkolaituri" and I'm planning to make something for the boys from it...though, I haven't totally decided what yet!  His onesie is also short-sleeved now for the summer.  

I'm in love with the first photo.  I think it's his eyes and expression (almost smiling, but not too serious).  Co-pilot continues to be a great sleeper and is quite easy going.  He loves watching Little Pilot and has started to want to be a part of the action. :)  He's also very vocal about what he wants and doesn't want.  He's babbling quite a bit, sitting better, but no official crawling yet (he can get across a room no problem though by pivoting and rolling).  Also, some good news on the feeding front!  Co-pilot eats everything now and actually prefers pieces of food to puree.  It was as soon as I posted my concerns that he started eating everything.  Within half a month he's already eating pieces and using his little pincer grasp to pick them up.  He loves songs and rhymes and is initiating peekaboo by covering his own face.

I took some photos with Nalle this time since it is Nalle's birthday month (he's 7 years).   Co-pilot loves Nalle and thinks it's hillarious when Nalle slobbers all over him!  I also ended up taking some photos with the patio flowers since I took his photos outside.  Little Pilot used the fabric as a landing strip (love that I captured him playing in the background).  The best picture that shows all of Co-pilot's 5 teeth was a little out of focus, but I included anyway.  

Overall, I love the photos this month.  I'm starting to realize that there are only a few more months until he'll be one.  It's so crazy how fast it goes!

To see more of the monthly baby photos click here.

SUMMER PATIO - SEATING AREA

As promised, I'm back with the second half of our patio/deck.  Yesterday, when I showed you the dining area I left you off with this sneak peek of the seating area:

We purchased the outdoor sectional already last year, but didn't get around to finding an umbrella and the other finishing touches such as the pillows until this year.  I think being preggers, working and running after a toddler took up most of my energy last summer.  The sectional worked fine last year, but the shade from the umbrella really helps from the morning to mid afternoon when the deck gets a lot of sun.  

Opposite the sectional is the Ikea lounge chair.  I loved this chair so much that we also got the armchairs for the dining area.  The chair got a lovely planter as a side table. You can actually use the bench on the deck for a place to put things down if you don't want to get your glass all covered in 

dirt. :)

Here's another view of the sectional and all the pillows.  The small black and white pillows were part of a set that had two bench cushions and a square tablecloth.  The set was a nice yard sale find from a couple of years ago.  I used the tablecloth to make two larger pillow covers (one on the sectional and one in the dining area).

One end of the sectional has another planter side table.  The stacking planters I picked up from Costco and I planted Dahlias in them.  Can you spot Nalle in the photo below?

Here's the other end of the sectional.  The square ottoman floats around and is often used as a coffee table.  I leave the cushion off of it since Little Pilot is always climbing on it with his muddy shoes.  This side also gets an official side table.  Yippee!  Whoever sits here actually gets a place to put their Birch Beer.  The side table was another yard sale find at, wait for it.... $1.00!  I don't think it's meant for outdoors, but at a dollar, I don't mind using it outside.

Little Pilot woke up from his nap while I was taking the photos and quite enjoyed my set up on the side table. :)  He's recently gotten into "reading" text.  He runs his finger across the words to pretend he's reading.  Pretty good print awareness for a two year-old. No?  It's also a good thing he doesn't know how to open bottles or he would have downed that birch beer in a second!

I thought I'd add this photo to show you how long our deck is.  It's really hard to tell in photos, but it's about 40 feet.  You can also see where the garden that we are working on is (on the left)  as well as all the exterior stuff we haven't tackled yet:  

• paint back door and trim
• paint garage door
• paint or remove shutters (any opinions?)
• something to dress up the plain brick walls (trying to figure out some kind of art that would work outside)
• Is there a way to camouflage those mechanical pipes?
• etc. etc...

The sectional in action with all my human boys... Nalle must be there somewhere or maybe he was off chasing another squirrel. :)

Oh, and on another note.  Co-pilot is 8 months now.  I still need to get to editing his photos to share here, but here's one that I quickly chose to share.

 Life is really full right now in the best of ways.  I hope you're enjoying your late spring - almost summer and finding God's blessings in all the small and big moments.  I really appreciate you taking the time to visit my blog today.

In case you are interested, here are the SOURCES:

sectional - Home Outfitters *they don't seem to have the exact same one this year, but something very similar the "glenna"

lounge chair - Ikea

umbrella - Target

white planter - Ikea

black and white stacking planters - Costco

Ikat, mint, yellow poppy, floral pillows - Target

Side table - yard sale

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SUMMER PATIO - DINING AREA

We had lovely weather this past weekend and managed to finally get our outdoor dining and seating areas completed thanks to a great sale and our dining chairs being back in stock.  I got a little carried away with my photo taking so I had to divide the reveal into two parts so not to overwhelm you with all the pictures.  First off is the outdoor dining area!  

Some background on our deck:  The deck is pretty big.  It's approximately 16' x 40' (that's almost the size of our first condo in the city!). We have a sectional, lounge chair, barbecue and a table for 8 and still have room for Little Pilot to drive his Little Tikes Car around.  The deck was already there when we purchased the house, but was painted a dark grey-blue colour.  We sanded and re-stained it the first summer we lived here.  The colour we used was called "woodpecker" from C2 paints (opaque stain).  I chose the colour based on the bark of our walnut tree.  There's a bench that wraps around the entire deck and we painted the bench supports in a slightly lighter colour.  Oh, and, yes, that is a huge metal pole on one end that holds the laundry line.  It was like that when we bought the house and we left it since I love to hang my laundry to dry.  It's one of my favourite things to do for some reason?!

So now that you know all about our deck, let's look at the fun stuff. :)  This is our outdoor dining table.  Tech Guy built the cedar table for me last year.  We really couldn't find a patio table that was large enough and really had to make our own.  The chairs are all from Ikea.  We had the two end chairs already, but were waiting for the Urban chairs to come back in stock and were finally able to pick them up this past weekend. Yay!

The great sale that I mentioned at the beginning of the post was at Target  (50% off pretty much everything for outside).   That's where we were able to get the much needed umbrella and a bunch of throw pillows.  The price really couldn't be beat for the size and quality of the umbrella so I decided to go with it despite it being a non-neutral colour (i.e., minty aqua).  The umbrella along with some black and white yard sale pillows I already had dictated the colour scheme: black and white with accents of mint and yellow.  I'm really happy with how the dining area turned out and love the simple, clean lines of the chairs with the more rustic cedar table.  I think I will just let you take a peek at some of the gazillion photos I took and try to list the sources for everything I can remember at the end of the post.  Enjoy!

Little Pilot loves to entertain and he is always the first one at the table inviting everyone to come and eat.  I think he would love some company at his new dining area!

Sources 

Dining Table:  DIY from this plan

End Chairs:  Ikea

Side Chairs:  Ikea

Ikat Pillow:  Target

Flower Pillow(on lounge chair):  Target

Striped pillow:  made by me from a yard sale table cloth

Glasses:  Iittala Aino Aalto (I got mine here)

Tray:  Marimekko Unikko from HomeSense

Vase: Vintage

Plates and Napkins:  Marimekko Unikko and Kaivo patterns from Crate and Barrel last summer

Here's a sneak peek of the seating area which I am hoping to post tomorrow. 

Don't forget to come back now! :)

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WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME TODAY

I'm over at 4 Men 1 Lady sharing a tutorial for these DIY dip-dyed curtains:

The curtains are in Tech Guy's den.  Did you notice them in my last post?  I think they turned out pretty well and Tech Guy really likes them which is good since it is his space after all . :)

Go on over to Michelle's blog to see the tutorial and check out all of her amazing projects!

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VINTAGE AUDIO REEL ART

Today I have a super simple DIY that would make an awesome gift for Father's Day.  I made this vintage audio reel art for my pilots' Daddy as part of a Father's Day office/den spruce up.  

When I first grabbed this audio reel from my dad's collection, I thought I would hang it on the wall in Tech Guy's office/den.  When I started laying out some of the picture frames that  I wanted to put up along with the reel I felt like it needed a little more three dimensional interest.  I turned to Tech Guy and asked him if there was a way to mount this reel on a stick.  He then came up with the idea to use a threaded metal rod.  It was a pretty simple process:

1.  Find an empty vintage audio reel and a threaded metal rod (available at the hardware store)

2.  Put glue (we used a contact cement) on both your rod and the reel where they will be touching each other

3.  Slide the rod in to the space where the audio tape would have been and let the glue dry

4.  Obtain your pieces to assemble the base: 2 nuts, a washer and scrap wood for the base (we used leftover cedar that was cut to 5 1/2" square and sealed it with Waterlox)

5.  Drill a hole through the middle that is the width of your rod. To countersink your nut on the bottom drill the bottom again with a bit the size of your nut and drill to the depth of the nut.

6.  Assemble the pieces together as shown in step 4. - tighten the rod to to the base using the nuts and washer.

That's it!  Not too bad. No?

Here are some more pictures of it in place.  I love how it flows with the art on the wall, but adds a little depth.

The other side of the reel is actually black which I think is pretty fun (I should have taken a picture to show you!).  I could always flip it around if I feel like the room needs another hit of black.  This little DIY is perfect for Tech Guy since he is in the home technology business and perfect for my audiophile dad as well.  The same concept could be used for any number of items you want to turn into art by putting them on a rod/stick (movie reel, steering wheel, driftwood, etc.).  I kind of like Tech Guy's shiny, vintage lollipop art.

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