Wee Wonderfuls

little flowers

Lots of tiny little flowers in the garden today.

Sorta makes up for these guys which I think were duds this year. Or maybe they're still gearing up? Can't tell.

Thanks for the etsy love yesterday. And yes, more are on their way!

dolls in the shop

Aww, look at them all in a row. I can almost hear them singing it's a hard knock life. These gals and their teddies are looking for new homes. You know, when they're all together like that a few seem more cheerful than others. If you'd like one I've put them on up etsy. Maybe you'll get an almost smiling one :)

post holiday rambles.

Guess I can't keep pretending it's still the 3 day weekend. But how fun was that?! We had three unstructured days of parks, sprinklers, cooking, gardening, shopping for plants and laying around. I can tell we've been crazed and overbooked when sitting at the park watching the kids playing in the sand seems like a spa vacation.

I have many pics and things to show and tell but today I'm just too lazy. I got the cutest books for Phoebe for her birthday that I can't wait to share. And a bunch of gardening progress to document (and advice to beg for). Oh and thanks for the love for the printed dolls! I started going through them and sewing them up into puffy doll form. I think about 8 of them will make the cut and head over to the etsy shop. I'm working on the 2nd batch now, same design but modified a bit and new colors. Next I'd like to take a shot at the gal in my header. She'd make such a cute doll pillow gal for my sofa.

What else? I've got nothing. What's the gossip? Anything juicy happening in blog land? Any new fabric I have to have? What was the deal with that new Heather Ross selling out so fast. Where was I? How about tv/book land? We're in a lull, nothing exciting coming on the netflix. We've been through all of Buffy, Smallville, Kyle XY. All our regular shows ended and now bleak Summer reality tv is freaking me out. Flipping through channels we caught the premiere of Jon and Kate's new season, good grief. How's that for depressing tv. I need my teenage sci-fi fix. Or maybe it's time to start Battlestar Galactica over from the beginning. I'd much rather watch robots take over the world. Although with Summer upon us, our whole tv watching habit might just go out the window. It's getting awfully hard to get P & O to stick to 7:00 bedtime when it's basically still the middle of the day. I know, 7! Aren't I a mean mom.

screen printed folkster dolls

I've been wanting to make silk screened printed dolls for the longest time now. I bought all the supplies and picked out the spot in the basement to set it up. I watched dvds and read online tutorials. And never did anything about it, for years. Now I've finally figured out how to do it. I found myself a willing high school art student to do it for me! Thanks Tess :)

We've been thinking about printed dolls for a while now. We were thinking Spoonflower and I've been playing around with designs, but I just couldn't get too excited about it. The digital printing wasn't doing it for me and I thought we'd print our own through the printer and had lackluster results. I'm so happy with the screen printing. I knew I'd love it. I love the imperfections and how no one is the same. They each have their own little personalities, just like their 3D versions. This gal turned out a little grumpy which I think is so cute. And her expression totally matches her body language, in fact, I think some little might be looking at me exactly like that right now. Better go!

gotta love a library that never weeds

Oscar and I are reading this book.

We're loving it! Oscar thinks it's hilarious and I'm just so glad to be getting a break from the magic tree house books he loves.

On deck for us, more hi-jinks

And these are for me. These are the books, probably the exact books, I read as a tween... in the 80s. Nothing like heading into high school armed with vital morality tales like the Luckiest Girl who realizes of course how lucky she is to have a pink raincoat with black velveteen buttons and how mother always knows best.

And some Lois Lenski because I can never pass up Lois Lenski.

my puffs are up!

Aren't they so pretty? I love them so. They keep my spirits up. And I'm hoping they'll attract fairies. Tiny little helper fairies. Maybe writing fairies who have succinct explanations at the tips of their little tongues for attching stuffed limbs with a blind stitch. Or maybe cleaning fairies who would like to address the bathtub I've been avoiding for weeks.

We checked out some fun books from the library this week. One of which was Twig, which is why I have fairies on the brain. I'll do a book report post tomorrow about the rest.

Happy Monday :)

sunny top on a rainy day

sunny top on a rainy day, originally uploaded by Hillary Lang.

our big box!

Ok, here's the big gardening project we've been working on... our very first vegetable garden!

We figured it was finally time, we're growing two kids we could probably handle a few vegetables. Last year we figured out our best spot and left it bare so it was ready to go this Spring. Tim did all his research and then built us this beautiful 8' x 4' cedar box. We love it so. It was so satisfying just to have a big tidy box of new dirt, that we sat and pondered it for a while. Yesterday we went ahead and took the plunge and bought our seeds and plants.

We've got tomatoes (celebrity and roma), peppers (hot and bell), lettuce (red leaf and romaine), arugula, swiss chard, zucchini, basil, cilantro, chives radishes, green beans and a melon. We've got the box and a patch going on the ground too. We're all so excited. Oscar's super into it, especially planting from seeds. Phoebe's thrilled that we're outside working on projects. Tim is pleased at our first baby step off the grid. And me, I just keep thinking about salsa. By the time this garden is ready to harvest I'll be mostly, if not all the way done with the book. I have big plans to fritter away my days, margarita in hand, making salsa from my garden.

cheers

cheers, originally uploaded by Hillary Lang.

happy mothers day everyone :)

angelina

Thanks for all the plant name info yesterday! How do you know all that stuff? I can't even id what's in my own garden. So, ok, I've realized two things... one, that container is all Spring and won't last throughout the Summer and two, containers are way too hard for beginner me. I realized that when I went off all optimistic with my plant name list in hand and came up empty handed and confused. The way I approach gardening reminds me of how I first approached knitting. I tried to learn how to knit for about 10 years before I finally figured it out. I kept signing up for classes and picking first projects that were completely over my head, like sweaters. Then I'd get discouraged and give up. That's totally what I'm doing here too but I'm not going to give up. I'm just going to stick to scarf gardening for a while.

So now I'm focusing on one flower containers and on groundcovers. Those, plus our "big project" and I think that'll do us for Spring planting.

I saw this while out the other day and I just love it! The dark purple and bright gold are so pretty. 

With Melissa's help I figured out it's a sedum, and I think it's this one, Sedum Angelina. I really hope it's not impossible to find because I'm seriously crushing on it.

pic from better homes and garden