A tale of two rabbits!

Mommy and Daddy Rabbit...trying out a new home.

Well, last week I shared with you the story of a cute rabbit that we spotted in and around our backyard. If you missed it, you can read about it here. And then on Sunday, I added a PS to that day's post as follows:

PS - The rabbit is back! He might actually be a she. And he - or she - built a cute little nest in one of our front garden beds, hidden by some marigolds and our mugo pine shrub. I think I'm happy about this. I think my husband is not. To be continued . . .

Well, little did I know the story would get even cuter, at least for me!

Monday morning, as I was on the phone and walking around the house while talking, I wandered into the dining room to see if I could see the rabbit. Well, much to my surprise - and delight - there were two rabbits! My guess - and imagination - is that after the daddy rabbit felt like he found a suitable home, he then went and brought "the Mrs." over to move in so they could have their babies. I was so excited! I was only able to snap these pictures - pardon the window screens blocking a clear view - as I didn't want to disturb them.

I tried to zoom in on them. Think of this shot like one of those grainy celebrity paparazzi shots!

My husband came downstairs, and of course when I showed him the rabbits, he wasn't pleased. I suggested they made our front garden bed look even prettier, almost like having live garden statues hopping around the pretty flowers. No luck. My husband was adamant that the rabbits must go. 

Another paparazzi shot! They saw me, and the rabbit on the right hopped into their hole.

How protective this guy was of his lady friend!

Like I said last week, the little girl in me wanted to let them stay there. The adult in me knew they needed to find another home. The little girl in me wanted to just sit there and watch them for hours. The adult in me knew my husband wanted them gone. So after some child-like pleading on my part, which did absolutely nothing at all to help the rabbits keep their home, I agreed to investigate the hole. I took two very long plant stakes, and in a super-slow and gentle manner, slowly parted the marigolds and the mugo pine branches. I saw a well-built nest of grass clippings done as a nice roof, and the hole was very deep. But there were no babies in there yet. So we covered up the hole, and I stayed around to watch if they came back at all. (No doubt they were probably back at their salad bar our vegetable garden having breakfast during this time.)

Super impressed with how neat and tidy their home was. I think they would have been excellent tenants!

During the very short time I watched them through the dining room window, I adored how one would hop in and out of the hole, while the other was standing guard. Then they both hopped among the marigolds a bit:  honestly the cuteness factor was Off. The. Charts.

Oh - and my husband assures me that if we had a huge property, he wouldn't have any problem with the rabbits. And I understand. Our development has quite a few rabbits, not surprising as we have wooded areas around us. But what is surprising is that these little guys (and gals) don't seem to be afraid of us humans. Of course, that just endears them to me all the more. (Which isn't a good thing, if your husband is not a fan of the rabbits.)

I'm secretly looking forward to seeing some baby rabbits hopping around soon!

~Laura

My office is messy and so is my mind...

mini pallet art project, beginning stage of painting . . .

Ever get a zillion - or even just a million - ideas bouncing around in your head so fast that you're honestly unsure if you can capture them all, yet you want to make a sincere attempt to try? That's where I am right now.

The end of July is steaming (pun intended) ahead, and there's so much I need to get done.

On the fun end of things, I'm working on some craft projects such as a fun mini pallet art project that was inspired by this tutorial from Kari at UCreate.

On the business end (pun intended?) of things, I'm working on ideas for Halloween through Christmas and beyond, while simultaneously beginning to take a serious look at this blog now that it is 6 months old. Of course when I walk into my office these days, I can't help but notice that the floor space is beginning to disappear yet again which means two things...

1. I'm getting messy and a bit scattered, and need to get myself organized.

2. I've become the little kid who doesn't put away her toys properly after playing.

Although messy is my word of the year for 2012, this - and by this I mean this (with a giant sweep of my arm around my office) is not what I meant.

So this week is going to start off with me putting my toys away first.

Then I'm going to tackle my blog. So if you stop by during the week and get an error message - I'm planning ahead here on just how tech savvy I'll be at this - I apologize in advance. 

I plan on widening the blog, adding in some extra space for larger pictures within my posts as well as more sidebar room. And I know me way to well: once I start tweaking something, I can't easily stop. I might start out tweaking the size of a sidebar, but next thing you know I'm changing what color the links should be. Somehow you understand, right?

Oh, and did I mention that I'm now questioning my entire branding? And cringing that I'm using a word (branding) I thought was happily left back in my past life of working 9-to-five-whenever? Uh-huh. But I have no choice because once something starts seeping into my head, it spawns all kinds of off-shoots of sub-thoughts. 

And this is how I arrived at feeling like a zillion ideas are going in my head right now.

~Laura

PS - The rabbit is back! He might actually be a she. And he - or she - built a cute little nest in one of our front garden beds, hidden by some marigolds and our mugo pine shrub. I think I'm happy about this. I think my husband is not. To be continued . . .

Strawflowers: Long-blooming drought-tolerant flower!

Some women get all grabby and hot-and-bothered over a fashion sample sale, or a shoe sale. Me? I get grabby over plants. Just ask my husband. It has gotten to the point where the usual conversation, once my hands are gripping a potted plant and my eyes are looking a bit wild, goes like this:

Me:  "Ooooohh!!! I can't believe I found [insert name of flower or plant which will mean absolutely nothing to my husband] and it's in white! Soooooo beautifiul! I read about these flowers, and they can grow up to six feet tall!" 

Husband:  "Where is it going?"

Me:  "What?" [trying to stall for time as I hold the plant up for him to see and to hopefully realize that yes, we DO need this plant]

Husband:  "Where is it going? Backyard? Front? Where?" 

Me:  "Um... I don't know. I'll find a home for it somewhere." [as my grip tightens on the potted plant]

Honestly, you would think I was trying to bring home another abandoned shelter kitty rather than a potted plant.

After my husband acquiesed one too many times, and after I brought home plants one too many times that I honestly had no room for, I agreed that I would try very hard to abstain from buying plants unless I knew in advance where I was going to plant them, at least in a general area if not a specific spot. 

In previous years, I admired Strawflowers at the garden centers each Spring, but the colors always seemed too Autumn-like for my Spring-Summer gardening tastes. Strawflowers come in shades of yellow, orange, rust, crimson, and pink. Yes, pink. And that is the shade I found this year! 

So when I showed the flowers to my husband, I was über-excited to answer the "Where is it going?" question with, "In our small faux-stone containers on the steps leading up to the front door! It will be perfect!" And it was. And is. 

We live in southern New Jersey, and our Summer weather is hot and humid, with extra heat and humidity thrown in for good measure. Our front entrance gets lots of sun, and our various containers can dry out fairly quickly in such heat. In previous years, I had tried different combinations of Summer flowers which would always look great until I waited one day too long to water, and then the plants never quite recovered.

This year, I planted non-flowering plants in our big front urns, deciding it would be much easier to maintain. There's red fountain grass with some vinca vines. The fountain grass is a nice reddish-pink color, keeps its color all summer, grows seed pod "flowers" into the Fall, and stays gorgeous into November. The only negative is that it's not a perennial for us, as it needs a mild Winter season to survive. The vinca vine is just for some added interest.

The Strawflowers - which I purchased not only in pink but also in a burnt orange color - provide the little pops of color needed, and match with the flower colors in the front garden beds on each side of the entrance. 

Strawflower Details:

• Bloom from Summer to frost
• Full sun
• Drought-tolerant
• No special care needed
• Flowers feel like paper or straw
• Each flower head lasts two to three weeks
• Excellent as a dried flower - keeps its color
• Variety of colors and sizes

Watering:

Once the plants are planted - whether in containers or in the ground - water regularly until they are established, i.e. maybe the first 3 weeks or so. Strawflowers are drought-tolerant meaning once established, your watering chores are kept to a minimum. I water mine once per week, sometimes twice during days of 95-degree-plus temperatures. Water deeply each time. (For tips on watering your containers, click here.)

Strawflowers will actually close up when it rains or when the plants get watered.

I have the small (dwarf) size of Strawflowers, but I would love to find taller versions to plant as well.

This is my first year planting Strawflowers, and I'm so enamoured with them that I'll be planting this annual flower annually (pun intended) from now on. I just need to make sure I've got an answer ready for "Where is it going?" Hah!

~Laura

PS - I get grabby and hot-and-bothered over craft supplies too, but that's a different story for a different day!

Watership Down in our backyard!

Spotted THIS guy when I enlarged a garden pic I was editing!

Yep - that's a rabbit. In our fenced-in backyard. He's an expert hole-digger, pretty fast runner. The little girl inside my head thinks he's cute. The adult inside my head is not happy he's enjoying our salad bar vegetable garden.  

Our vegetable garden, aka the rabbit's former home!

We've seen him a few times now, and we even had to evict him from his rather posh self-built home hidden inside of our giant vegetable bed. My husband sprayed that stinky animal repellent stuff around, but this rabbit is fearless. Either that or he's got a stuffed up nose and can't smell the scent that is supposed to invoke the fear of God in rabbits.

When I was growing up, I read the novel Watership Down by Richard Adams. I loved that book, and reread it about 6 years ago. That book definitely gets my imagination going on what this rabbit is up to, who he's hanging out with, where the big warren is with the central meeting space in the middle for all the rabbits in the community . . .

~Laura

Altered Moo MiniCards Box

I know I'm not alone when I profess my love for my Moo MiniCards. If you're not familiar with Moo, you need to click here to check them out. They offer various business card sizes, stickers, and other handy printed necessities for your business. This isn't a sponsored post - just me professing my love not only for my cards but also for the über-handy box that houses them.

Just a few of my own Moo MiniCards for Pet Scribbles

Here you can see a few of my business cards. In my latest batch, which is almost gone, I ordered five different designs (as seen in the image above), each with the same business info on the back. Except for the vintage image of the girl with the dog - which I use as my logo - the other designs are sections of my greeting card designs. I send these out with my Etsy orders, in addition to handing them out whenever needed. My customers love them, so each time I need to reorder more MiniCards, I choose different card designs to keep it fresh. (Note to self: make sure I add my blog info to the next order!)

The Moo MiniCards box

I also love the cardboard box, because it can be used for so many things once it's empty of MiniCards. The dimensions of this tiny box, when closed, are approximately 3" length x 2.25" width x 1.5" height. A tiny treasure box! Well, not yet. It is made of a recycled pulp - feels like cardboard - and is white except for the little logo. And the inside is the same fuchsia shade as the Moo logo on the outside. This is a perfect box to repurpose.

So let's do this!

Supplies

I knew I wanted to do something fancy and glittery. (Is that a word?) And I had an interesting color palette in my head too: silver, dark grey, olive, and pink. I admit that it came from the way my supply of Stickles were tucked into their spot on my shelves. Those colors were next to each other and looked pretty cool. So that's as far as I thought through the first part of this project. I'm sure many of you can relate to starting a project before you know what you want the end result to be!

Supplies used:
Acrylic craft paints in Metallic Silver and Black
Stickles glitter glue in Silver and Cotton Candy
Distress Stickles glitter glue in Peeled Paint
Mod Podge for paper (matte)
Mod Podge Sparkle
Craft foam brush
Sea sponge
Peanut butter lid -- see why here
Krylon Clear Finish acrylic sealer (matte)
Vintage floral images (optional)

Step One:  Using a small part of a sea sponge, cover the outside of the box with silver paint. Let dry, and rinse out your sea sponge while you're at it. Once the box is dry, dip the sea sponge into black paint, dab a few times onto scrap paper, and then apply randomly over the silver paint, keeping the silver showing through. (See image below.) Again, let dry and rinse out the sponge.

The box at the conclusion of Step One.

Step Two:  Using the sea sponge again, dip it into the silver paint, dab a few times onto scrap paper, and then apply randomly all over the box. This will "mute" the black color. Let dry and - say it with me - rinse out the sponge. You will begin to see a nice texture building up from the paint being applied in this manner.

Step Three:  Once dry, it is time to play with glitter! I decided to experiment, and used the sea sponge to apply each layer of glitter. I loved how it worked, as it just added more and more texture to the box. 

Squirt some Silver Stickles onto scrap paper . . .

Squirt out your Stickles...

Dab the sea sponge into the glitter glue, and apply in a random fashion all over the box.

Use a sea sponge to apply the Stickles.

Here's the box after the silver glitter was applied and left to dry . . .

with silver glitter...

Here's the box after the pink glitter (Cotton Candy) was applied and left to dry . . .

with pink glitter...

Here's the box with the olive glitter (Distress Stickles Peeled Paint) applied and left to dry . . . 

with olive glitter...

Distress Stickles performs the same way that regular Stickles does. The difference is that the bits of glitter are different sizes, have more of a matte finish, and the colors match the Tim Holtz Distress line of ink pads, crackle paints, stains, etc. While the Distress Stickles gave me even more fabulous texture on this box, my choosing it over regular Stickles was merely because I had it on hand in the shade I wanted. 

Step Four:  Once the final layer of glitter has dried, spray the box with a light coat of the acrylic sealer.

Step Five:  Contemplate the box. Stare at the box. Spend lots of time thinking about what to do with the box. How to alter it further... This step could quite possibly have taken the longest out of the entire project. Hah!

Step Six:  I decided the box needed something decoupaged all over it, and chose one of my favorite vintage floral images. I printed it out on 65 lb white paper, sprayed the front and back with acrylic sealer and let it dry. Once dry, I cut out the individual flowers, including some partial flowers to use on the edges of the box. As you can see in the image below, I also began to map out where the flowers would be placed on the box.

Cut out your images to be Mod Podged.

Step Seven:  Mod Podge time! Using the Paper Mod Podge, apply a small amount with your craft foam brush onto the surface where you will place a flower. Also apply Mod Podge to the back of the flower, carefully place onto the box, smoothing out from the middle to the edges as you go. Wipe any bits of glue that seep out of the edges with your finger. Repeat for each flower.

The floral images are ivory, with bits of pink, green and grey.

Step Eight:  Once all flowers are applied, let dry. Once dry, cover the flowers, and then the entire box with a coat of Sparkle Mod Podge. Let dry. Give the entire box a final coat of acrylic sealer.

Voilá! A pretty little treasure box, just waiting for something special to be placed inside!

I love how different the box looks from its original form. And the supplies are all things I used from my own stash, so this special little box didn't cost me a thing to repurpose.

Next time you have some packaging that you're about to toss into the recycle bin, consider repurposing it into something special like this little treasure box!

~Laura

I'm linking up to some great blog parties, 

so click on the buttons below 

to find tons of crafty DIY projects and creative tutorials!

A storm is approaching: Mother Nature's Show

A storm is approaching here on Wednesday early evening . . .

I love storms, all the sound effects and the light shows . . .  I don't like the damage they do, and yes I still get scared at the really loud cracks of thunder and lightning.

But I love the way the sky looks, and how fast the clouds roll by . . .

Let's hope this storm breaks our current heatwave.  We could all use a temperature break!

I'm working on a few blog posts, as well as my Halloween and Christmas designs for my Etsy shop. This week is flying by, but I'll be back here soon with a new gardening post about the flower above in the picture. And I've got a sweet project to share on a simple tiny box makeover into something special.

But now I'm going downstairs to watch the weather . . .  Mother Nature's show!

~Laura

Do You Ear What I Ear? My Etsy Handmade Earrings Addiction: Leather!

Fabric Flutter Hoop Earrings in Blush & Sterling Silver | StudioDevinat

Welcome to my 3rd edition of Do You Ear What I Ear? - where I obsess over share my favorite handmade earrings from the many talented artists on Etsy.

This month's theme?  Leather!

Fantastic Leather Leaf Earrings | tomgirl

I love earrings. Especially handmade earrings. Always have. And leather earrings are no exception!

Multi-color Leather and Silver Earrings | evasugar

Whether the leather is hand-cut, laser-cut, painted or dyed, you can find just about any style and color of leather earrings imaginable on Etsy. 

Abstract Colorblock Handpainted Leather Earrings | NayaJewelry

The leather earrings featured in this post represent just a fraction of the intricate designs available.

Victorian Calligraphy Script Leather Earrings | ChrisOsCreations

Since I can't purchase every single pair that I adore, I am sharing them here with you, dear readers.

Handbound Mini Black Leather Book Earrings w/ Tea-Stained Pages | bibliographica

If you purchase any of these earrings, I will be over the moon for you. 

Gold Metallic Painted Leather "Tenor Pan Slice" Earrings | islandmantra

And a bit jealous too. 

Dangle Leather Earrings with Leaves | julishland

But in a good way!

Turquoise and Silver Leather Floral Earrings | agatechristina

Think of me not as an earrings-addicted girl . . .

Modern Style Leather Earrings in Latte Brown | imali

. . . but rather as your go-to guide for amazing handmade earrings on Etsy.

 Black Lace Laser-Cut Leather & Sterling Silver Earrings | eninaj

And the best part about all of these earrings? They are handmade. Nothing mass-produced here!

Mirror, Leather, Indian Henna Inspired Paisley Earrings | stylehybrid

Want to see more earrings?

Check out the previous editions of Do You Ear What I Ear? 

         Copper earrings (click here) 

         Spring earrings (click here)

Visit and follow my Handmade Earrings on Etsy board on Pinterest (click here).

Enjoy!

~Laura