The Adventure of Growing and Making New Things

Happy Valentines Day everyone:)




Today I want to share of some of the ways that I have begun to learn to be thrifty.

I was reading on line about how to grow an avocado plant. Apparently it is very simple. Here is the website:)
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/seed/2002114535011263.html

Here is the progress of both of mine. They have split and and soaking up water like crazy:) I hope to soon see some sprouts soon:)

 

I started cutting pieces of different ivy that I have around the house. They are growing like weeds:) I love growing things. I added a little blue dye to the water to make it blue...makes it nice and festive. 

 

This is one of the projects I took on when I saw some young saplings that had been cut down at Sandy Creek. They were going to burn them...I couldn't let that happen! So I brought them home and began the job of cutting and twisting them to make a curtain rod/ window decoration. It was alot of fun and it came out splendidly!

 The sapling wood story doesn't end with the window hanging. I decided to cover one of my candles with sticks. I thought it would look nice. It took a while to figure out the best way to get the sticks connected and secured...but the final product is as you see:) its rough and a little rustic, but I like it. I want the master bedroom to have that kind of  feel.

The next project I took on was really more of an experiment...I have had in the past your average rice or corn sack. I thought that why not make it smell good? So I added dried mint, spearmint, and other tea leaves in with a rice and corn mixture. The result was amazing! Every time you heat it up you get amazing refreshing smells. I used an old pair of jeans to make this one. I sowed sections in the fabric before i put the filler in there.

 I am excited about starting my first garden and learning to grow my own herbs instead of always buying them at the store. It is so much more expensive to buy herbs, and so easy to grow them, that it seems to be a no brainier when it comes to making it happen. I have Cilantro  here growing like a weed:) It looks beautiful!

 I am so excited about these chives too. I am in love with putting chives in every thing, so it will be good to have them on demand.


And lastly the best of them all, I have a strawberry pot that I am going to grow strawberries in. Why not??? It is so much fun to try to do new things. We will see what happens, but from what I have read, if you take good care of strawberry plants and keep them watered and fertilized they  will yield a good crop in this little pot. Since all I have is a porch, it seems like a good project to undertake. I just planted ten plants one in each hole. I am so excited to see if they grow! Wouldn't it be so cool to just walk onto the back porch and pick some strawberries or to make jam off of your own patch. I think that is just way to cool.

Well to finish off this inspiring do it yourself ideas, I wanted to end with a verse. 1 Peter 4:8 "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." Tyler and I picked this verse for our wedding day as well as to be our life verse together. We have to choose to love others the way Christ first loved us, not because of what they do for us or how much they love us...It says we are to love each other deeply. That's not just superficial, let me buy you flowers on valentines day love. That's deep in your face love. That is pursuing the other person no matter what they do or don't do, how they act or don't act. Christ loved us when we wanted nothing to do with Him. We despised Him and yet He pursued us. Should we not choose to love the same? Yeah I know its not hard. I understand that more and more as I see myself interact with my husband. I see the selfishness come out in me and the ugliness of my sin. Poor Tyler, I don't know how he can put up with me some times! When, however, we seek to love the other person as Christ does, as the verse concludes God gives us the grace to overlook the sin we see in others and learn to give grace and love them despite their sin.

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Recognize the people in your life and seek to love on them!