Muntedkowhai.

I recently won the weekly giveaway from Danni over at Oh, Hello Friend! I received a beautifully crocheted piece by Tiffany of Muntedkowhai (pronounced Munted-ko-fai). So great! I love the contrast of lace and metal in her work. Check out her great shop and her inspiration-full blog! She also has some absolutely gorgeous pieces in her bridal collection. Tiffany is so talented and very sweet!

On another note, I got back from visiting my dad in Arkansas on Sunday. We mostly ate tons of good food and started painting his bathroom and kitchen. The bathroom was lilac, deep purple, and forest green--separately, lovely colours, but together, they were horrible! We chose a Benjamin Moore colour called "apricot ice"--so very nice!--for the walls. We started with a nice bright teal, but ended up unsure about that. I think we will end up with a more teal-gray instead. For the kitchen, we chose a colour called "parchment," and it pretty much lives up to that name. For the trim, I think he is going to choose a nice pale orange. Both rooms get very little light, so we decided to choose the most warm, light colours we could. After I returned, Cody and I went to Comfest and then to his dad's house. We returned on Monday, but I left my suitcase packed because I'm heading to my mom's today to house-sit (and dog- and cat-sit!) while she is on her first trip of retirement, to Italy! I am greatly looking forward to a few weeks of relaxing, eating tons of fresh garden veggies, swimming in the river, and hanging out with my favourite dog, the very sweet Lucky! My mom was worried about who she would get to watch the house, but when she asked me, I just replied, "Are you kidding me? Of course I'll watch the house!" You don't have to ask me twice!

"no place too small to grow a garden."

I love this photograph by Resurrection Fern on Etsy.

By the way, I think I would like to change the URL of my blog to better suit what I'm actually writing about...suggestions would be wonderful!

I love plants!

When I was young, I remember going over to my friend's house. We would wander through the woods to her aunt's house next door. Her aunt was really cool, with a greenhouse built onto her farmhouse and a bamboo forest in her side yard. We would go on chicken egg hunts or turn over the compost pile with hay rakes. We also loved to explore the pine forests around her house, and we frequently found, tucked under and into trees, little pointed 1920's style boots--the kind with the little fringe element over the toe. These were always sprouting succulents, and I think it's such a clever idea. When you live in a relatively humid place like Ohio, you don't have to worry about watering your outdoor plants so much, and you just need to tuck a little soil/sand mix and a few seeds or mini-plants in your shoes to begin.

Another idea that I've just loved has been from a certain Etsy user, Lady Farrah. Moss terrariums are really easy to make--you just need a glass container with a lid, sand, soil, and moss. Place a thin layer of sand in the bottom (to absorb excess moisture), then some soil, then your moss on top (you can salvage moss from most shady, moist places). Moss tends to grow on slanted ground, so you could make your terrarium straight across or angled downward for better drainage. Or, you could make little hills and landscapes like Made by Mavis has. Etsy sellers have gotten really creative, using rocks, branches, and other found objects. You need to be careful with that, though, because you don't want to introduce all sorts of outside creatures into your home. You can "quarantine" rocks, branches, etc. in a sealed container like a plastic bag for a few weeks to observe if anything undesirable happens (such as eggs hatching and whatnot). When you keep your moss in indirect sunlight, it will need minimal watering. I'm really excited to try this for myself.



Lastly, your spent coffee grounds are excellent for raising mushrooms--in particular, oyster mushrooms. I love this idea because it keeps coffee grounds out of landfills (food waste in landfills contributes to methane gas, a greenhouse gas) and puts them to good use. It also allows you to grow food in your home year-round. Some sources suggest that grounds from cafés are more sanitary because they are more thoroughly steamed, but you can use grounds from your home.

You can pick up oyster mushroom seeds from many gardening places, and there are lots of stores online. You can use virtually any container for growing mushrooms, which makes me very happy--from tin cans to several-layered shopping bags (with holes cut in the sides for outward growth). You just need to keep the grounds very moist, and you will likely see growth after a few days.

Plants are great for your home because the air inside of your house is actually worse than the air outside. In our haste to seal off our homes in order to use air conditioning and the like, we are really kind of poisoning ourselves. Plants act as filters to keep our air friendly, and are great in bathrooms and other humid rooms because they absorb moisture and thereby deter mold growth. Plants also help to balance out the positive energy (in this case we're not talking about good versus bad energy, but just positive versus negative) that is created by electronics, making for a more relaxing home.

On a completely different note--I have been listening to MGMT a lot lately. I love their album "Oracular Spectacular." My favourite song currently is probably "Kids." I love its message because I'm trying to live a more moderate, happy life, and "Control yourself--take only from you need from it" are lyrics that I find kind of inspiring. You can listen to "Kids" right here. If you love it as much as I do, you should buy MGMT's album!



P.S. It seems as if the Etsy user I mentioned is out of town for the time being. You can browse through other moss terrariums here.

Beginning knitting.

I've decided to perhaps start updating this again. I'm not particularly keeping a journal anywhere else, and my writing is starting to get embarrassingly bad.

Anyway, I've recently been on this Etsy kick. I have been so impressed by the creativity and talent of the artists on that site! It has inspired me to pick up this book, Super Stitches Knitting by Karen Hemingway. I poured over books at Barnes and Noble for about an hour last evening before deciding that this was the one I couldn't live without.

I've taken knitting classes in the past, but unfortunately they never amounted to much. I'm really excited about this book because it has tons and tons of beautiful knitting patterns, but not in the regular style of other knitting books, where you're supposed to make this god-awful sweater...instead, it gives you lots of ideas for personal creativity. I am in love with the beautiful lace patterns! Hopefully this will take my knitting up a notch from the stockinette (which is knit one row, purl the next, cont.) I usually do, haha.

After Barnes and Noble, Cody and I went to Carrabba's (my treat) because it is delicious, mmm. I can't stray from the margherita pizza--it's everything I love in life--bread, tomatoes, really good cheese, and basil, mmm.

Anyway, back to my Etsy obsession. Umm. So, my favourite designers tend to be people who upcycle (i.e. using old materials in new ways, like reusing, but basically improving on the would-be-discarded item) materials, or incorporate really sustainable practices in their stores.

For example, one of my favourite Etsy users has to be Iron&Fire. She uses really old tribal pieces, like from Ethiopia and whatnot, salvaged leather scraps, and feathers that are gathered either while the birds molt or from birds that are hunted by tribes in the rain forest. I think her pieces are just beautiful, and very unique. It's been interesting finding her shop, too, because I've been sketching out similar things for a few months now, and it's cool that someone is already doing what I've been imagining.



Another designer I've been very interested in and inspired by is Joodito. She has made some pretty fantastic scarves from salvaged materials. I don't know, it just feels nice knowing that there's a future for all of those old Brooks and Dunn t-shirts we have floating around mid-Ohio thrift stores (oh please let those never come back in style any more than they already have).



Ever since I finished The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (who also wrote The Secret Life of Bees, which I LOVE), I have dreamt of the ocean and how much I miss it. Even going to Lake Erie as a kid was great. I loved the drift wood and the seagulls and finding little bits of "sea" glass. But mostly the waves.

Anyway, my point is, another designer on Etsy that I adore is West Coat Sea Glass. Fantastic. I love the pairing of sea glass with freshwater pearls (my favourite!) and sometimes leather.



And, the last designer I'm going to rave about from Etsy is Vanity Case. I am in love with her suitcase-turned-vanity-cabinet. Awesome.



Anyway, this week I am finishing up my tests and papers for the end of the quarter, and then I'm heading to Utah to see Matt, Cassie, and Mojo! I'm looking forward to visiting them and finding out if all of this yoga will help with my rock climbing/bouldering at all. And maybe I'll learn how to ski a little. Scary, but exciting.