Starting the Garden

Happy belated Earth day everyone (Aren't I just about a day late for everything lately?). I thought a great thing to talk about this time of year would be starting a garden (and May is National Salad Month in the US, so I'm actually getting a little jump start on something!). I'm not an expert gardener by any means, in fact, I grow my entire garden in containers on my front patio or on my windowsills. As such, I am pretty limited in the scale of my garden, and what things I can successfully grow. No matter how large or small of a space you have, anyone can grow a small garden of their very own!

Above you will see a photo of my radish starts. I'm not huge on radishes, but the husband likes them. They are also a great crop to try if you don't have much gardening experience (or if you don't want to spend lots of long term attention on things). Radishes have a pretty short grow time (about a month) and you will get almost instant gratification because they sprout after only a couple of days. It's a great thing to plant if you have kiddos around because they will get to see something happening very quickly and could measure the progress daily.




I am also being rather brave and trying to grow some watermelons this year. I have one large pot with a vine growing right now and the plant is supposed to have personal sized watermelons, not the big guys. So I am hopeful that despite my small area maybe I will get a watermelon or two this year, and if not it's a nice experiment.

I also have visions of a "someday" garden dancing in my head, as someday the hus and I will have a house and yard. If you'd like to check out some of our ideas and lots of helpful info, you can check out my new Gardening board on Pinterest and follow along!

I also have some herbs, flowers, etc that I'm growing this year. Are any of you extra excited about your garden this year? If you need some cute ideas for labeling your garden try these Dinosaur Garden Markers or Glass Garden Markers.

Shark Week, It's Here!

It is once again Shark Week! In fact, it is the Discovery Channel's 25th Shark Week anniversary this year, so feel free to check out all of their extra Sharky programming this week to get some inspiration! I'll be having some Shark and Under the Sea themed crafts on the page this week, possibly including food crafts! Before I get started on all the new posts, here is a recap of some of my old Shark and underwater crafts to get you started!

Pictured above is my super easy Felt Shark stuffie. For full tutorial go here. Why not go get started on your very own with the basic felt tutorial (multiples can be made in any color for a great mobile!).

Also, in honor of Shark Week, I have started a new Pinterest board featuring great Shark themed foods, crafts, gifts, decor, nail art and much much more. I will be adding many new items to the board every day this week!

Sharks too scary for your little undersea explorers? Give them a fun lunch with Hotdogtopus, the hot dog octopus! There will also be some more fun lunch buddies visiting us this week from the depths, so check back often!

Happy Shark Week!!

Busy Busy Busy

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, I had about the busiest week ever at both of my jobs and it has left pretty much no time for anything but work (not to mention I'm been incredibly stressed out). The above instagram photo is a little peek into an ingredient that has been quite abundant here in the Pacific NW as of late, and I will be sharing a recipe or two this week featuring cherries, this tasty red fruit.

In fact, I have a few recipes almost ready to post, including a tasty Pina Colada popsicle/granita recipe my husband created this past week. Hold onto your Summer food crafting hats!

In the meantime, if you find yourself missing my more frequent posts and ideas, feel free to follow me on Pinterest or Facebook, where even on my busiest days I seem to find time to add a tidbit for you all to enjoy.

Once More, With Feeling

What's this? A new crochet hook and yarn? What ever could have caused this? I know I have blogged before about my complete inability to follow patterns and hence successfully crochet much, but I saw this awesome tutorial from Crocheting the Day Away on Pinterest and I figured since I had never tried Tunisian crochet before I would give it a try. It looks easy enough, and the tutorial is really good with lots of photos (my best friend in crochet world).

Doesn't that stitch look awesome? It's sort of a cross between knitting and crochet, I have never knitted in my life so I'll report back to you on how it goes. I was just too excited to share my project (hopefully a striped scarf) that I had to share so you could all try this out too if you feel the need.

UPDATE: Here is my work in progress!

I have to say, I am quite impressed with myself, just goes to show what an amazingly easy to follow tutorial this is, very well done Mary!!

Once again, Pinterest has proven itself to be a great source of inspiration and great tutorials. It really is an awesome site, and again if you want an invite shoot me an email (craftinomicon@gmail.com)and ask for an invite! :)


For more inspiration don't forget to check out the Happy Haulidays post to see some great books from Chronicle Books and comment for a chance to win!

Humpback Whale Plush

I am completely obsessed with whales lately, all kinds. Luckily, a lot of the design world seems to agree with me lately. I was inspired by a pin on Pinterest to this site to make my own whale plush. By looking at several images online of humpback whales as well as the tips on this site (use Google translate to read the original post, it is written in Finnish).

I'm a little envious of the original, but I plan to tweak my pattern and see if I can't get better proportions in the future. I also have lots of plans to try making other whale crafts soon, including a nice big pillow for my sofa, and maybe I'll design some new fabric on Spoonflower.

What do you think?

Spotted on Pinterest

For those of you whom haven't been following me or the blog for quite some time, you may be unaware of my affinity for Pinterest a site that acts like a virtual pin board where you can collect images of all the things that inspire you online. I like to use it as a means of keeping my bookmark tabs a little less cluttered (as it links back to the original posts). I've seen some great pins from some of my friends lately and I thought I'd share a few with all of you! For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, it's really quite the addiction for me. If any of you would like to start using it, you can check out the Contact tab above and drop me an email, I'd love to invite as many of you as I can. If you already use Pinterest, feel free to follow me or check out my pin boards here.

Anyway, on to the pins! I can't follow crocheting patterns to save my life. I think the whole counting stitches thing is just beyond me. I think it might be some form of crafting ADHD. However, for those of you that CAN follow a pattern for crochet, this tutorial on craftster can show you some super cute Amigurimi of WALL-E and Eve. She even added magnets in their hands so they hold hands without any help! Adorable!

I'm also totally in love with this fox scarf I saw pinned the other day. The pattern is available for sale on etsy. I really wish I had the patience to try some patterns, I'd love to make a couple of these for holiday gifts, but I'm pretty sure I'd mess it up if I tried. Patterns are just not my strong suit with crochet.

I don't just find things on Pinterest I want to make, I also find other great blogs. A few projects someone pinned were super cute, when I went to the page they were pinned from I discovered a really great blog that is now one of my favorites! Design Crush Blog, Aptly named, as I totally have a design crush on their blog.

It's also a treasure trove of recipes. My BFF, Amanda, recently pinned this yummy looking recipe for Shrimp Boil Kebabs.


I'd love to see what inspires all of you :)

New Addiction

I'm not saying you should do this. But you should totally do this! I don't know how many of you out there are aware of Pinterest.com, but it is amazing. Basically, while you are surfing the web, you can "pin" the things you like, find inspiring, etc. and categorize it for others to gawk at. To me, it is kind of a mix between twitter and craftgawker/foodgawker (you can, in fact even tweet your posts from pinterest, etc.).

I just started, but I'm already a total addict. I love how the more things I pin, the prettier my little "pin boards" get. I also love checking out the things that inspire others. The only annoying thing is you have to request an invitation to join, so I had to wait a few days before I got to start using it.

If you have a pinterest account, I would love to see what inspires you! I can be found Here. Please feel free to follow me and see all of the things that I love!