One
My amazing mom and dad came over this morning to help me install a humongous mailbox and post. I don’t know what I’d do without them! Visit my dad’s blog right here for the mailbox installation tutorial and photos of the process (and of me clumsily trying to use a post hole digger). Now I can ship out incoming Father’s Day card orders without driving to the Post Office quite so often! I’m going to paint the post to match our house and get some cute numbers for the side of it. Mabel was kind enough to try it out for me. That’s her “this is the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had” face. You’d never know it though, since all her faces look pretty much the same.

Two
Daniel has been asking me to dye my hair red ever since I dyed my tips pink. Finally after almost 2 years of telling him no, I summoned all my courage and did it (all my courage was only enough for semi-permanent dye). Then, I showed up at Daniel’s work to surprise him. He had no idea I decided to go red, and his reaction was totally worth all the towels I’ve been ruining every time I wash my hair. Luckily I like the red too!

Three
My St John’s Wort plant is completely covered in buds. It’s just about to explode into a tangle of sunny yellow blooms. I’ve had it for 2 or 3 years, and it has only ever produced a few flowers. Early this spring I gave it some fish fertilizer. That stuff smells awful, but I’ll learn to love the stench if it makes this big of a difference in my garden!

I have a weird fixation with pets. I love animals, and it has always been my fantasy to have a menagerie of critters that follow me around and love me. I was probably indoctrinated with this idea by watching Cinderella one too many times as a child. Growing up I had (not all at the same time) fish, hermit crabs, a turtle, crawfish, a salamander, tadpoles, rabbits, chinchillas, hamsters and various sick wild animals that I tried to nurse back to health. For example, I put Neosporin and a band-aid on a frog’s hurt foot, mashed up worms to feed a baby bird that fell from its nest, comforted a road-killed wild rabbit as it breathed its last, and made a bed of cut flowers for a sick butterfly to lay on. Of course I was hoping that once they were well they’d love me and sew beautiful ball gowns for me. No wait, that was Cinderella.

Now, in spite of having the best possible pets (my two dogs who love me immensely and would do anything for me including sew me a beautiful ball gown if they could just figure out how to thread a needle), I constantly go through phases when I think it would be a great idea to get another pet. A few years ago we came this close to getting a corn snake, I wanted an aquarium for a while, and just last week there was a two day stretch where I thought it would be awesome to have a canary. These new pet cravings usually pass quickly, and if not I have Daniel to rein me in and make sure we don’t end up on a TV show about animal hoarding. However, I’ve been toying with the idea of keeping chickens for a few years now, and that’s much longer than my usual pet cravings last.

About this time last year Daniel said, “If you still want chickens in one year, we’ll talk about it.” It has been a year, and we did more than talk about it. We went on the Tour D’Coop over the weekend, which is a tour of backyard chicken coops around Raleigh, NC. Visiting a few coops in person made me want my own even more, especially since some of them were surrounded by the most beautiful gardens (probably thanks to the nutrient-rich chicken poo). I think Daniel is even starting to come around on the idea. If we decide to build a coop it won’t be until next spring, but in the mean time I’m going to attend a chicken keeping class to make sure I know what I’m getting myself into.

Do you keep chickens?

One backyard we visited also had honey bees! Add them to my list of pet cravings. How cool would it be to harvest your own honey?

Buzz buzz, aren’t they cute?

Fun Fact: My “Hive” illustration was actually inspired by chicken wire, but I figured “Chicken Wire” wasn’t a very catchy title.

I usually have no idea what I’m going to paint when I pull out my brushes, so I’ve given myself an assignment—to paint portraits of my houseplants. Thankfully my plants are very patient and will sit there and pose as long as I need them to.

I’m going to list the original paintings for sale in my Etsy shop as I complete them. I think a houseplant portrait would be a great way to add some greenery to your home if you’ve got a black thumb! First up is one of my favorites, my Chinese Money Plant (Pilea peperomioides).

The original painting is available for purchase right here.

Last weekend I measured and mapped our front yard. It took forever, but I really needed to do it. My planting up to this point has been almost completely random, so my gardens are chaotic eclectic. I want to do some rearranging. First, I stood outside and tried to plan all the changes in my head. I stared and stared at the yard, but the longer I stared the more confused I felt. I needed a map to work with.

So, I measured and sketched everything out to scale, right down to the last tree.

Then I drew it all out in Illustrator. Now I can scoot plants around and figure out the placement before digging a bunch of holes in the wrong places.

(Click the map to zoom in.)

Have you done this before? Did it help? Do you have any garden planning tips to share? I get so overwhelmed trying to consider all the factors I need to take into account—when a plant will bloom, whether or not it is evergreen, size of the plant when it reaches maturity, light requirements, etc…

I’ve been wanting to play with concrete, and I thought a two-tone concrete letter would look awesome sitting on my shelf. My concrete letter didn’t turn out quite right, because I was impatient. I picked up the mold before the allotted drying time was up, because I wanted to see if the concrete was still wet. It was, and it cracked into 3 pieces. Oops. The good news is that I just need to get some landscape block adhesive to glue the pieces together, and no one will ever know (well, except you guys).

Supplies:

hollow cardboard letter (available at your local craft store)
box cutter
breathing mask (or something to cover your nose so you don’t breath concrete dust)
disposable gloves
two plastic spoons
two disposable plastic bowls
a disposable cup
concrete mix
cement color
water

Lay the letter face down and cut out the top side to make the mold. (The facedown side of the letter will be the front, so make sure if you’re using an asymmetrical letter that it won’t end up backwards.) Remove the cardboard filler inside, and use a piece to divide the letter mold in half diagonally. The divider should fit snuggly against the edges of the letter.

Next, mix the concrete wearing gloves and a breathing mask (do it outside so you don’t get concrete dust in your home). Mix a bowl of plain concrete and a bowl of colored concrete. For the colored concrete, premix the dye and water in a disposable cup before stirring it into the concrete mix. I didn’t measure anything. I just mixed in enough water to get all the concrete wet and then stirred in a little bit more. It should be thick and not at all runny.

Once the concrete is mixed, work quickly to spoon one of the colors into the mold. Wear gloves and pack the concrete into all the edges and corners with your finger tips. Remove the divider and spoon the second shade of concrete right up against the first. Smoosh them together firmly. Fill in the rest of the letter making sure to push the concrete down into all the crevices.

Now, don’t pull on the cardboard to peek, don’t move it, and don’t even touch it! Let it sit for 24 hours before cutting away the cardboard mold.

I’m always drawn to interiors that feature maps. It’s partly that I love the way maps look and partly that I find traveling to be both incredibly thrilling and terrifying (the good, push-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone kind of terrifying). Seeing a gorgeous room with great map on the wall gives me goose bumps. Did anyone else see Jenny Brandt’s Design*Sponge sneak peek? Her map-walled dining room blew me away. Thankfully she shared her map source, and I knew one would be perfect in our guest room!

Lately all I’ve been doing is working in the garden and shipping Mother’s Day orders. Speaking of which, thank you for the tremendous support! There are going to be lots of happy (or possibly horrified) mothers out there when they receive their Wit & Whistle cards next weekend!

Taking breaks from filling orders to dig in the dirt is keeping me sane. I’ve been working on my shade garden, and I thought I’d share the plants I’ve added (just in case any of you fellow shade dwellers are stumped when it comes to gardening). Now that I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have a full shade yard, it’s really not so bad. There’s actually a nice variety of shade plants available.

I just now realized that Solomon’s Seal probably wasn’t named after Solomon’s pet seal…

This isn’t really garden related, but I have trouble getting grass to grow in our shady yard. Last fall I sprinkled a bag of white clover seed around the yard, and now we have a fluffy carpet of clover leaves coming up! I like the look of the round soft leaves much better than grass.

Back in February West Elm posted an interview with Justina Blakeney. She mentioned that she was obsessed with a book called A House and Garden Book: Decorating with Plants by Marybeth Little Weston from 1978. Naturally I wanted to check it out, since I have a thing for houseplants. It’s no longer in print, but lucky for me I snagged a copy on the book swap site I use, Paperback Swap. (It looks like there are some copies available for sale on this site.)

This book is great! Some of the rooms are very 1978 (yikes), but there are many interiors you’d never suspect weren’t current (minus a funky looking sofa here or there). I thought I was at capacity for houseplants, but now I have plenty of ideas for squeezing more in! Here are some of my favorite spaces from the book.

Decorating with Plants also suggested making jokes with your houseplant placement. For example, put a thyme plant next to your kitchen timer. Hardy har har you’re so funny, 1978.

I recently signed up for The Produce Box, which is a weekly delivery of produce from local farms. I had tried it years ago, but we ended up receiving more produce than the two of us could eat each week. Since then The Produce Box has made some changes, and now we can order a smaller box that’s just right.

This week there were raw peanuts in our box, and the instructions said they shouldn’t be eaten raw. I decided to try boiling them thanks to some suggestions over on instagram. I’d never had boiled peanuts before, but apparently they’re a southern delicacy. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and the peanuts smelled kind of icky while they were boiling. After 2 hours I cracked one open and tried it. I couldn’t decide if I liked it, so I tried a few more. Then I ate a whole bowlful. The verdict is in—yum. The peanuts get soft and chewy and are surrounded by salty peanut juice inside the shell. That description doesn’t sound very appetizing, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

Boiled Peanuts recipe from Simply Recipes

1 pound of raw “green” peanuts (not the color green, but fresh raw peanuts)
1/4 cup kosher salt (or 2 Tbsp table salt)
4 cups water
2 Tbsp Old Bay Seasoning, smoked paprika, shrimp boil mix, or even star anise (optional)

Thoroughly rinse raw unshelled peanuts in water. Put water, salt, seasoning (if desired), peanuts in a large stockpot. Bring to a low boil. Cover and reduce the heat just enough to maintain a low boil. Boil for 2 to 3 hours or longer (some boil their peanuts all day), until peanuts reach desired level of softness. Drain. Eat up within a couple of days. Boiled peanuts don’t save as well as dry.

Well, I guess it’s the time of year when I bombard you with flower photos! Daniel got me flowers over the weekend (aww). They’re so pretty that I couldn’t help but snap some photos, and then I couldn’t help but sketch them.