Farm Fare #9: Hothouse Goodies

The hothouse in winter

About 4 years ago, my husband was lucky enough to acquire this hothouse via Trade Me by a clever guy who made it himself.  It is about 5m long and 2m wide.  After having it in another place for a couple of years, it was moved to accommodate the hayshed.  This gave Vaughan a chance to build a concrete plinth for the base to be bolted too and last year Vaughans dad used excess concrete from another project to give us this awesome path.

In Spring and Summer the hothouse is mostly restricted to tomatoes, basil, beans, the 2 grapevines, and very few other crops.  

In Autumn and Winter we are now using the hothouse to keep us going with broccoli, beetroot, lettuce, celery, parsley and silver beet (chard).

We are also testing out what Summer veges we can either grow or get a good start on like zucchini and beans.

So far all seeds have taken and growing!! YAY!  But of course this is just the beginning and we will just have to wait and see if they bear fruit (fingers crossed).  I have also noticed other seedlings (alongside the weedlings) of tomatoes and basil coming through too.

Crafty Crease #18: The Red Tag Challenge

A few months back, my BFF Steph and I decided to set ourselves the challenge if learning some more techniques that we could then share with each other.

We both started with the same basic Red, Black & White kit which consisted of:

• Tim Holtz Tag die
• Tim Holtz birdcage die
• Sizzix "dream" word die
• Die-namics Dog Tag die

We basically cut out 4-6 dies of each color and split them as evenly as possible between us.  In the end I think we had about 6 weeks to think about how we were going to complete them.

Unfortunately, I don't have photos of Stephs tags.  She introduced me to using metal jewellery pieces which I have gone on to use on my cherish journals.

In the following tags I used these ideas to complete them:

• Fabric and button flowers
• Tissue & button flowers
• Diamante brads
• Feathers & Ribbon
• Fabric (applied with iron on interfacing!)
• Ramble scribbles (which I will have a tutorial on later!)

       

Farm Fare #8: The Winter Vege Patch

Most people are amazed at the size of our vege garden, especially when its only for 2 people.  It is about 10 metres wide and 20 metres long.  This is made up of 6 long beds (I couldn't get them all in the photo) for larger crops and 6 small beds, including the asparagus bed, for smaller crops.  However, not all the beds are used at the same time.  This gives us time to:

• Weed
• Fallow
• or Fertilise

Some years are more productive than others, depending on how much time and energy there is left over by other demands like animals.

The beds are made from a pile of scaffolding boards that we bought off 'Trade Me' a few years ago.  Unfortunately, it is untreated and 2-3 of the larger beds are rotting away.  I guess this gives us the opportunity to re think and redesign the garden a bit so to accommodate new ventures (like turning the old chicken pen area into the new berry cage which is right next to the vege garden).

We worked out a long time ago that raised beds just over a metre wide was the way to go.  It just makes  managing produce and weeding just that much easier.

However, we discovered last year that preparation of the Spring vege garden is benefitted by composting and then covering the beds with weed mat for 2-3 months.  Our only problem is that weed mat comes at around 900mm wide!!  Last year we just covered what we could and it certainly helped.  This year we plan to build new beds to accommodate!!

So our Winter vege patch is undergoing a step process:

1. At the end of Autumn, get rid of any left over produce and give the beds a proper weeding over, digging down to catch any errant roots. (We fed our weeds to the pigs who loved it1!)
2. Let the ground lie for a month to give any other weeds a chance to pop up and be taken out.  The chickens are allowed to forage through the vege garden at this stage and they have a tendency to gobble up the emerging young roots.
3. Compost.  Here is a variety that we have tried and are still testing:

• Chicken manure
• Pig manure
• comfrey tea
• mustard

     4.  Cover until Spring.

Our garden is at Stage 3.  We have yet to finish composting and then cover.  Of course lots of people use their vege garden in Winter too.  However we tend to use our hothouse for that so the only crop we put in at this time is the garlic bed.

Crafty Crease #17: Make a star with just one cut

Easy peasy paper star, and only one cut to make.  I used tissue because that was what I had to hand, but the technique could be easily modified for any material that can be folded.

All you need is the material you want to use and a pair of scissors.  The starting size of the rectangle / square with dictate what the end size will be.  In this case I have used a 15 x 20cm piece of tissue.

The first part of the instructions are copied from the tissue flower tutorial...clever me!

Step 5: Take the right side folded edge and place on top of the left side folded edge.

Step 6: Repeat again. Take the right side folded edge and place on top of the left side folded edge.

Step 7: Draw an angled line from top right to bottom left and cut.  After the first time, you don't need to draw the line anymore.

Voila!  A perfect star.

Crafty Crease #16: Tissue Pom Poms

I would love to say that this idea was an original of mine, its not.  In fact, I found it while perusing through Martha Stewarts cool craft site - a highly recommend a visit to any crafter who hasn't discovered her yet.

These pompoms look amazing, and although they are pretty straightforward to make, they are incredibly fiddly.  My first two attempts left me frustrated with a pile of ripped tissue paper scattered all around me.  I abandoned the idea for quite some time before I had the courage to try again - this time with success.

I must have forgotten how tricky these buggers can be when I decided to make some as part of the recent decorations me and my BFF Steph were helping with.

It took me another go to remind myself how I did it last time and all the little tricks you need to remember to do it.

However, don't be put off giving it a go.  These pompoms are absolutely fantastic and you will be in awe of yourself when you complete them.

Heres what you need:

• 8-10 sheets of tissue (the bigger the rectangle means a bigger pompom)
• scissors
• wire or stapler
• ribbon, wool, string to hang with
• PATIENCE

Step 1: stack all sheets together and fold up in a concertina method (about 2 cm for each fold)

Step 2: Fold in half to get an indication of where the middle is and secure the folds at the middle with either a staple or wire.  Add a long piece of ribbon or string to the middle.  I didn't do this in this example and it makes it a lot harder to add on later.
Step 3: Cut the ends to make a rounded corner

Step 4: Spread the folds out from the centre on each side.
Step 5: Work one page at a time, first the left then the right.

Step 6: Carefully and gently push and pull each page up

Step 6: With the first page, push and pull up to the centre as much as possible.  However, do not do this for the rest of the pages for this half.   After that, just push and pull until you meet good resistance.  This is crucial for the overall round shape.  If you push pull too much toward the centre for every page you will end up with an oblong shaped ball.

       Step 7: After 5 pages the first side is done.                              Step 8: Flip over and repeat as for first side

Step 9: Fluff and play with the pages until you get the overall effect that you want.  Hang.

Example from the actual party decorating we were recently involved in - there are 6 in all.

Crafty Crease #15: Tissue Flower Trees

Imagine these all around the walls...magnificent!

Steph and I drove around the streets of Auckland desperately trying to find bare branches which I thought to use as a big and bold arrangement with lights and flowers.

However, there were no parks we could easily get to and anything remotely interesting seemed to be in plain sight and we didn't want to look dodgy.

We were almost despaired when I found myself in a narrow street and had to drive to the other end of it to turn around.

Lo and behold, Steph spotted a bank of flaxes and all their dying flower stalks.  She immediately launches up the bank and next thing you know, we had a car full of them.

Flax stalks are incredibly versatile and late Autumn, early winter is the best time to collect them.  When dry, they are incredibly light, cut off easily and are remarkably tall and straight.  When lined up along all the walls with just a bit of blu tac, you can easily create a forest feel.

We added the tissue flowers to aid the colour theme but they are beautiful and striking even without them.

Tissue Flowers

You need a lot of flowers to decorate a wall full of trees.  However, if you cut the several flower bases at a time you will have a pile in no time at all.  I cut about 6-8 layers at a time - anymore and the folding can become an issue.

To balance out the tree more I also had flower 'buds".   The smallest bud is just one flower base gathered up.  The medium size was 2 flower bases (usually two different colors).

To put the flowers on to the trees, Steph liked to squeeze them between the small branches.  I have found paperclips pretty useful too.

Below are a couple of other ways we used this technique:

Crafty Crease #14: Easy Party Decorating

Recently my BFF asked me to help her decorate for her sisters big bash in the big metropolis known as Auckland.

We traipsed up there with nothing but a couple of staple guns and hoped for the best.  Fortunately, both of us are relatively creative (she more than me!) and we knew we could rely upon the genius spread between us to come up with an idea of two.

We arrived to peruse our new creative space and after a few drinks and a good nights sleep, we awoke to find the creative juices bursting forth.

Here were our basic criteria to work with:

• Colour theme (black & red)
• on a budget 
• indoor and outdoor spaces to cover
• no tape or tacks on inside walls (or ceiling)
• use very little of the floor space 

So I thought it was high time I did a bit of sharing.  The next two blog posts will recreate probably the two cheap ideas that made a biggest impact:

Tissue Flower Trees

Tissue Pom Poms