Countdown to Spring: More Great (and Thrifty!) Ideas

I love Spring for lots of reasons. I get to start my garden after a long cold winter, I get to swap out the red winter decor for some great green stuff, and Easter, the high Christian holiday.  I found one great craft from each of these categories that I'm totally loving and thought I'd share for my fellow spring lovers.

For the Garden: Plantable Seedling Pots

While I love the idea of plantable seedling pots, I feel like they frequently don't work out because the bottoms  usually decompose slower than the roots grow to the bottom of the pot and need more space.  That's why I love these. You put paper towel tube pieces in a water proof tray and fill with dirt.  There is no bottom so when it's time to plant you don't have to worry about cutting out the bottom or dealing with plants that don't have enough root space. While the twine is pragmatic (keeps the tube from unrolling when it's wet) it makes it look super cute. I found these over at Homework: Today's Assignment, Be Inspired.

For the Green: Split Pea Centerpiece

I love staggered height candle holders. These are easy to make, super cheap (way better than the $10+ for each piece you'd pay even at IKEA prices) and GREEN. Check out the tutorial over at Two Twenty One.

For Easter: Treasure Rocks

Cindy actually made these to be treasure "blarney stones" for St. Patrick's day. Which is cool if you celebrate St. Patty's (we're actually not big St. Patty's day people). Why I think these are AWESOME though, is because you could make them egg shaped and do these for Easter. If someone can't find an egg, you don't need to worry about it starting to smell or attracting animals. They are made with non toxic ingredients (can't say that about plastic eggs). AND smashing your eggs open with a hammer is a ba-zillion times cooler than opening plastic eggs (especially when you have a family full of little boys like we do).  Check out Cindy's brilliant idea and tutorial over at Skip to My Lou. 

Countdown to Spring: Front Door Decor

Only 16 more days until the first day of spring!  I'm so excited to bust out some awesome spring green decor to cheer up my home.  I've been seeing some fab wreaths around the blogosphere lately and wanted to highlight a few of my faves. Each of the wreaths I found come with tutorials, so read the rest to grab the links and whip up some fabulous front door decor yourself!

Loving It: March Desktop Backgrounds

Every month, Lee-Lou blogs makes and shares a free (and super awesome!) desktop background. She usually does two versions : a generic one and a personalizable one.

A review of: How Should a Christian Live (devotional and journal) by Brenda Noel

Being a former youth pastor and youth ministry assistant, I got a copy of How Should a Christian Live? devotional and journal to check out and comment on. I realize youth ministry resources are not standard fare over here, so if it's not your thing just keep knitting because I'll have a new blog post up soon.  Those who are interested, though, can read the rest below:

A tale of two loaves

I've been on a cinnamon bread kick lately. I've been working with this super amazingly tasty recipe from Money Saving Mom.

I've got this idea in my head that I want to make a super awesome cinnamon swirl bread that I can use to make french toast with.

So far, while I have made some serioiusly tasty bread, I haven't quite gotten to french toast bread yet.

Stuff I'm Loving this Week

This Genius DIY zebra rug from Vintage Revivals

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I want to make a table runner in the same style as this pebble mat from After I Finish This Row

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The idea behind these DIY floor candle sticks is genius (and a huge money saver) from Impatiently Praying for Patience

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This awesome springy wreath from Never Boring

Recipe Review: Mango Sticky Rice

A few weeks ago, a crafter I follow on twitter, Reese Dixon (whose name is actually Tresa), tweeted about this Mango Sticky Rice recipe that she absolutely adores.  Normally I am not a coconut mango sticky rice kind of gal (for starters, I'm not a huge coconut fan) but I had a thai food night coming up with hubster so decided to try it.  At the very least, I know that hubster likes coconut.

It was A. Mazing.

I didn't make the sauce to pour on top because I felt the rice was already a bit on the saucy side after pouring the coconut milk mixture over the top.

This rice, though, is the stuff. The recipe is super easy to make and it can kind of do it its thing in the background while you work on the rest of dinner.

Check out the recipe on the Reese Dixon blog  here.

Pardon my Dust

I'm undergoing a bit of a renovation over here. I'm trying to tidy up and make my blog a more user friendly resource.

People who are not new to my blog will notice I have a new template now. I also have some tabbed pages up at the top that are new...About me, my Knitting Patterns and my Recipes.  These are still a smidge clunky. For now you can see all my knitting patterns on Ravelry (the page linked to above is also a work in progress).  I need to figure out a useful way to categorize my recipes, too.  For now the link will go to my Bake Space recipes page. You might also notice shiny new features like a search box, RSS feed link and Twitter link.

V-Day Cards

I am so not a Valentine's Day card person. I see all these advertisements for personalized valentines cards online and I yawn and think judgmental thoughts about commercialism and how companies just try to suck you in and steal your money.

Until I saw this blog post, which featured this family's V-day cards (which I thought were the most clever, adorable idea ever) and I knew I needed to make some with our kiddo wearing a fake mustachio (it also doesn't hurt that Shutterfly sent out an e-mail special today for 50 free prints if you just pay shipping...plus you get cashback if you head there via ebates).

So I cut out a mustache from some scrap fabric and headed outside with my muchkie. I'm pretty amused by some of these pictures: