Winter Sowing

I read about winter sowing nearly a year ago and I was hooked. Seriously. Look into it. It will blow your mind.

Not sure where to go? Start here. This is by far the best information I have found to date.

Need a synopsis? Here it goes:

Winter sowing is planting seeds on or after the winter solstice and leaving them outside. They get rained on, snowed on, wind blown and chilled. This is especially beneficial for those plants that require scarification to germinate (think Peas). The end result should be seedlings that are used to temperature changes (no sissy greenhouse plants for us) and a higher success rate of germination and plant survival.

Making a winter sowing seedling container is easy. Take a milk jug or any liquid container, rinse it out and poke holes on the bottom. Cut almost all the way around the container about halfway up and fill with prepared potting soil. Plant your seeds, tape the container shut and label with a Laundry Marking pen. Leave the cap off and put the container outside where it can sit undisturbed and get a reasonable amount of sun.

Here is my "garden" Luckily I have a little balcony off of my craft room.

As you can see the sky is the limit as far as containers go. I do like the milk and beverage bottles the best, but the cookie and cake containers work well also. Just be sure to poke holes in the tops of them.

I am only growing vegetables so I didn't need to plant very early. We are also experiencing a strange warm winter here so I held off until the first weekend of March. Then I planted in a frenzy.

This morning I checked on my containers and I was delighted to find some seedlings making their appearances. Mostly the cold weather crops like lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Still, it gives me great hope to see that this is working!

Here are some pretty purple cauliflower plants:

Actually Purple! How fantastic!

And the broccoli:

Am I weird to think that baby plants are adorable?

Don't forget to check back because I am definitely documenting this entire journey! 

Three Card Night

Well, a while ago I had some fun making cards for my friends. I had a small baby gift that I made to send to my Best Friend's sister, and gifts for my best friend and another friend that I have not seen in a while.

These gifts sat on the kitchen table for quite some time while I tried to find the inspiration that I needed to make cards for them. Finally, I sat down in front of Crikey (yes, my cricut is named "Crikey") and started cutting.

The first Card was for the new mommy to be.  A simple card made from the "Just because cards" Cartridge.

Here is the gift that I sent with it. A luck bear crocheted pillow that I made.

Cute right? I thought so.

Next I made a card for her sister, my best friend. We only get to see each other about once a year. We talk frequently of course and trade hand made cards and gifts. She is the reason I got a Cricut in the first place. She had one, it was awesome, I had to have one too! I also cut the custom envelope and used my Xyron to make an owl sticker out of the envelope cutout because it turned out so cute!

For this card I used the Sentimentals cartridge and some rich purple paper. I also used my ever diminishing scrap of gold vellum paper. Nice touch, no?

And since this was a three card night, I have one more. This one turned out so adorably that I even impressed myself. It was also the first time I got to use my Country Life cricut cartridge.

It is just a one sided card. I flipped it over and wrote on the back. It is so cute though! This friend and I haven't seen each other in quite some time as we live across the country from one another, but I am glad I could make this farm girl card for her so that she knows I think about her and her family a lot.

I love that feeling when you sit in front of your cricut and the ideas just start flowing from you! I feel so productive and I get a lot of joy from making things for those that I love. We may not be close geographically but I really do have the best friends!