What's Growin' On: Wildflower Meadow

I love, love, love wildflowers, with all their delicate shapes & interesting, bright colors.

I wanted to create a wildflower meadow in a not-yet-landscaped area of our backyard...

but we couldn't get the crazy, overgrown weed-heap in the back corner where I wanted the wildflowers whipped into shape quickly enough.

Lucky for us though, we scored several of these giant plastic tubs (used feed buckets) from my dad. So we just planted packets of wildflower seeds in 'em & voila!

A container wildflower meadow is a great substitute for the real thing. Unfortunately, the bluebonnet seeds were victims of a frost; only one super-strong little plant survived. See him in the otherwise-empty bucket on the right? He's just to the left of that big rock. We don't have an abundant display of bluebonnets like I'd hoped, but the other 2 buckets are overflowing with prettiness!

Clever Easter Egg Dyeing Tricks

I've been seeing a lot of great Easter crafty goodness here on the interwebs lately, so I wanted to share. The technique above is my absolute fave - these eggs, spied on Craft, were made by using electrical tape to create stripes. That's genius! Great results that look pretty fancy, but this would be so easy to do!

Design Sponge also featured an egg-dyeing stroke of genius:


This technique would be more time-consuming than the electrical tape one, but still looks quite easy to do. It's a simplified version of the traditional Ukrainian hot beeswax technique, which I wrote about last Easter. Design Sponge has a full-on, step by step tutorial that makes it look like a cinch!

Do you have any plans to dye eggs this Easter? What's your preferred method?

What's Growin' On: Mystery Plant

The tag has faded & I can't remember what this is. Anybody know??? It's about to burst into bloom, whatever it is!

{UPDATE: It's Hyssop - check it out in bloom!}

Pretty Pics: Golden Gait Mercantile

All of the above pics were taken at Golden Gait Mercantile in the exceedingly lovely Victorian village of Ferndale, CA. Ferndale was a stop on the second leg of our big Seattle to Austin road trip of August, 2008.

Yes, the trip was a while ago, but I'm still going through all the photos, editing them & archiving them in my Flickr Travels collection. Better late than never, right?

What's Growin' On: Grape Soda-scented Yard!

Have you ever seen a Texas Mountain Laurel in bloom? These southwest natives are simply amazing, with pretty purple flowers and an unbelievable aroma. They smell exactly like grape soda!

I can't decide which is prettier: the full-blown flowers or the delicate little buds with just a hint of purple peeking out. What do you think?

We have two of these trees, one in the front yard & one in the back, so the delicious fragrance is adrift throughout our whole lot right now. I wish this blog was in Smell-o-Vision so you could experience it for yourself.

Recap: New Media Fashion Brunch & Boutique Crawl

{Re-posted from Get Crafty, Austin}
The New Media Fashion brunch and boutique crawl was an all day fashion networking event held March 12, the first Friday of SXSW. This awesome event for fashion-minded individuals who run online style sites, communities and fashion blogs was hosted by Indiana Adams of adoredaustin.com & it was the first of its kind here in Austin. Way to go, Indiana!

L to R: Anna; Kelly; Katy; Pamela; our fabulous hostess, Indiana; Kristin; Diya & Rachel

This delightful brunch was sponsored by Polished Two and EtsyAustin, whose members provided amazing handmade & goody-filled swag bags for all of the guests.

The WonderCraft also sponsored the event, bringing a trunk show from Stella's Boutique for the ladies to shop. We also donated our DIY obi-style belt kits for the goody bags & demonstrated how to fashion the fabulous belts from vintage neckties. The belts were designed by Kim & are shown here modeled by the Beths.

The gals all had a great time picking out ties & sewing them together to make their own stylish obi belts!

L to R: Rachel from Austin Style Watch & Cassiday from Mix 94.7 get some tips from Beth A; Grechen of Grechen's Closet & Janette of Fashion Loves People sewing with Beth H

L to R: Janette, Pamela, Grechen, Rachel, Kelly, Indiana, Diya, Kayla, Tiffany & Jacqueline

After the brunch, we all headed down to the 2nd Street District for a super-fun boutique crawl! We started at Eliza Page where we browsed the beautiful jewelry displays with champagne in hand.

Beth A got these awesome shoes at Girl Next Door. I found a beautiful blue retro-styled (& magnificently marked-down) dress at Estilo.

clockwise from top left: Merritt, Tran, Diya, Indiana, Kayla & Rachel at Cru

Along the way we enjoyed wine & chocolate-covered strawberries at Cru Wine Bar and amazing cupcakes that lived up to their name at Delish. We visited so many fabulous boutiques that I can't even remember them all, so be sure to check out the handy 2nd Street District directory to get the deets on all the great shops & restaurants in the area.

Big thanks to Indiana for hosting this & inviting us to participate - we had a fabulous time! We enjoyed meeting all of these awesome bloggers - every one of them is so cool and so sweet. Check out their blogs. More great pics of this event in our Flickr set & Fashism's Flickr photo set & in blog posts by Diya, Rachel & Cheryl. Also, be sure to check out Anna's News 8 story & video!

A Zandra for Zandra!

I had to share this story with y'all because it's so cool! As you may have read, The Snuggle Herd was recently featured on Little Austinite with a giveaway of one of my Zandra the Zebra stuffed toys.

This caught the attention of a gal named Shannon, so she visited my Etsy shop & the EtsyAustin blog & left a couple of comments about what she found. When the contest ended, a commenter was picked at random, & Shannon was ecstatic to learn that it was her. She sent me an email explaining why:

"There is special meaning to this for me. I have a very dear friend who lives in Minnesota (where I grew up) and her name is Zandra (we call her Zandy). She never finds anything with her name on it, so she will be completely blown away when I send her my awesome Zandra the Zebra!"

Cool, huh? Zandra the Zebra is now on her way to her new home with Zandra in Minnesota. I'm sure both Zandras will be very happy to meet each other. And here I thought I had made that name up!

Bunnies.

It's really feeling like Spring around here, so it's high time to get some bunny things out into the world! I first mentioned my new Betsy Bunny design back in December, and I was all excited about being "ahead of the game."

yeah... and now it's March and I'm sitting here with a huge pile of half-finished bunny clothing in my work room! I did have a few bunny shirts & onesies in the tote full of stuff I took to The Oasis gift shop last Friday, so there's that to feel good about. At least I haven't been totally unproductive!

My brain just keeps spinning around with thoughts like, "oh my gosh; it's already March! I've got to get the bunny stuff listed in my Etsy shop & out to the boutiques I consign at right away!" Like I won't sell any of them otherwise & then I'll be left with a huge pile of bunny stuff nobody wants come May. Is this crazy of me? Do you other crafters out there suffer from this same kind of self-inflicted hysteria? Do people buy bunny-themed stuff after April? Someone reassure me that the world won't end if I don't get these bunny things done today. Please. Because I really don't feel like finishing them today...

But, lest you all think I'm a lazy good-for-nothing, I have also done a cute little bunnies coloring sheet for the activity book I'm (still) working on. You can download & print it for your favorite little artist!

And I've been meaning to put that image on some coloring cards as well... geez! So much to do, so many distractions!

What's Growin' On: Agave Pups, Crocus Bulbs & soon, Patio Furniture!

Well, it's a very dark & rainy day here in Austin, so my plans to take pics of our growing-like-weeds wildflowers have been foiled. So instead I'll share a couple of photos from a recent sunny day that we spent gardening.

On that particular day we transplanted a bunch of pups from a big Century Plant that we have next to our driveway. This type of agave is very common in Austin, & you see some humongous ones planted in the front yards of houses in older neighborhoods. For some reason it was popular to plant them right at the edge of the yard, which means that the old, huge ones are often overflowing into the street. Anyone know why they so often planted them in what seems to be such a poor spot for them???

Here's Patrick sitting in front of a giant one in the beautiful Krause Springs garden, just to give you an idea of the scale of them. They can get even bigger than this one!

Anyhoo, we have the one next to our driveway (in a very inconvenient spot), plus a second one at the edge of our yard, which we are not quite happy with either. We plan to dig up both of them & transplant them to very large containers that will go in front of the window of my work room. But that will be another post down the road...

We also planted some Crocus bulbs at the edge of our little pond. Patrick rigged up a DIY filter system & bought some new fish & snails this weekend, too. Plus, we got some really cool planters at Miguel's Imports, so I'll have to take pics of all that when the sun comes out again.

Last pic of the day, our empty patio, for which I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new 4-piece set!

Want to win a Zandra the Zebra toy? 4 more days to enter!

I've been featured on Little Austinite this week! It's a great website & I'm so honored by the write-up. You can read my interview & leave a comment for a chance to win your very own Zandra!

You have up to 4 ways to enter this giveaway so do all 4 and increase your chance of winning!

1. Visit The Snuggle Herd or The WonderCraft. Leave a comment on Little Austinite in this post about something interesting that you saw or learned from either website.

2. Visit EtsyAustin. Poke around and find an Austin Etsy artist that you like.

3. Post about this giveaway on your blog. Leave a comment with a link to your blog.

4. Retweet about this giveaway. Leave a comment with your Twitter name.

This giveaway began March 1, 2010 and will end March 7, 2010 (Sunday) at 11:59 pm CST. A winner will be randomly drawn and announced the following Monday. Good luck!