Pyrex Fairy Garden

Disclaimer: no vintage Pyrex was harmed in the making of this garden :)

My daughter Hannah is very much in to fairy gardens. Last year she made her own garden using some some of her own toys and doll furniture. Nightly she would check the garden in hopes that the fairies would come. Eventually the fairies did find her garden and they stayed around all summer - periodically leaving notes and treats for her. She was delighted with it all.

This season she is still interested in making a welcoming home for any fairies who may be traveling by. Luck would have it that I found out about a wonderful fairy garden making class at a local nursery and I signed Hannah up. At the class she had a great time creating a container fairy garden. After watching the professionals at the garden center show how to make a fairy garden, I took their ideas and decided to make my own version - but in a Pyrex bowl. I have a few extra yellow 404 bowls hanging around not being used and figured one of those bowls would be a great container for my new little garden.

Here are the supplies that you will need if you want to make one yourself. You could use a regular flowerpot or any other container that you have around.

1. Potting Soil

2. Plants. The folks at the nursery recommended having one small tree, a ground cover plant and a succulent. I chose Rosemary for my tree - which will grow larger and resemble a tree, Hens & Chicks for my succulent and a small-leaf ground covering called Baby's Tears/Golden Coins. At the garden center they had a whole assortment of plants sized just for fairy gardening. You can see the plant tag below shows a fairy on it. Choosing your plants needn't be complicated - just choose small-sized plants that won't grow very large.

3. Accessories to decorate your garden with.
Here is the fun part! Since fairy gardening is popular now most garden centers and large craft stores sell miniature items marketed for fairy gardening. Caution - most of the accessories are pricey and before you know it you have a small fortune spent in cute things for your garden. Be creative - I'm sure you can find many great things out in nature or in your home if you look around}

For our garden we used small pebbles (think fish tank), small pieces of wood to represent a walking path, a fairy statue & a ceramic toad stool. Other things you could use are sand, small glass pebbles found at the dollar store, miniature furniture, twigs, sea shells, sea glass, pebbles, small pieces of rock.

Here is how we made our garden.
1. I put some stones in the bottom of my bowl for water drainage since I didn't want to drill a hole in the bottom of my bowl. If you are using a standard flower pot with a hole in the bottom you can skip this step.

2. Next fill your pot with soil up to the rim. Pack it down.

3. Once the soil was in we laid out how we wanted the garden to look. Hannah made a pebble pathway through the center of the bowl. You could use stones, sand or small wood pieces here also.

4. Now add your plants. At the garden center they showed us how to cut the plants in half using scissors. I cut this one in half so that I could put it in two different spots.

 

 

 

5. Next add your fun accessories. The possibilities here are endless. There are so many things you could come up with for your garden.

Here are some pictures from our fun day at the nursery. The nursery we went to is Michael Bros. Nursery. If you are in the Pittsburgh area I highly recommend a trip. It is a beautiful family-owned nursery with a large selection of plants, green houses and a great shop. Website found HERE.

Hannah's garden has a lot of cute accessories. She has a little bridge, a mini bird bath and a mini gazing ball. She kept adding stuff that you can't even see the soil anymore! {pictures below}

 

 These are some gardens that were on display at the nursery to give you an idea of what you can do. Each includes the small-sized plants and accessories. They are so cute.

 

I think this one is my favorite with the stone patio.

To achieve this just break apart a larger stone using a hammer.

 

Beach scene fairy garden. Love it!!! Glass pebbles from Dollar Tree.

 

We will keep you posted if any fairies come to stay at our garden!

KayteeJane

13

I want to take this time to share a milestone in my family's life - my daughter Gabriella turned 13!

Here are some pictures of this momentous day.

She is in love with pink & zebra right now so that is how I decided to decorate her cake.

 I tried to make the inside look like zebra too. I found this idea on Pinterest - of course!

Lunch at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate.

Happy Birthday my darling Gaby! I love you so!
KayteeJane

Polka Dot Pumpkin

This weekend our family carved pumpkins. Because "Sandy" is headed into Pennsylvania tonight we decided it would be best if we did our pumpkins a few days early. Trick or Treat has already been postponed from Wednesday to Saturday in our town as everyone anticipates the worst.

As you can see in this picture my husband is in on the act too. One of the things that I love about this man is that he is creative and he can build things. So, instead of using a knife or pumpkin carving tools for his pumpkin - he brought out a drill and Sawzall to do the job!

(Meanwhile my oldest daughter decided to wear her Batgirl costume - that she just purchased at Goodwill earlier in the day - to carve pumpkins.) Gotta love my family.

This actually is a much easier way to carve a pumpkin in my opinion. I've always struggled cutting them with a household knife - or with the little saws that come in those pumpkin carving kits.

"Curly" pumpkin guts are made from the drill. These would be cool to use some how. I could see a fake hand coming up from a bowl of these.

A Sawzall was used to cut a hole in the bottom for a candle. This particular pumpkin was so hard that only a power tool would do the job.

Here is the finished result. A Polka Dot Pumpkin! I love it!

Hope your Halloween is a fun one. May you stay safe from Sandy's path.

KayteeJane

Monster High Doll House

My daughter's love playing with Monster High dolls. It is their new favorite toy and has surpassed their love for Barbie and Bratz. Recently my husband found this doll house in the trash. We decided to recycle it and transform it into a Monster High house for the girls to play with.

All it takes is some black spray paint and tape.

Start by taping off parts of the house that you don't want painted black.

After taping, spray with paint.

It doesn't have to be neat or perfect - it is a monster house after all.

After covering with paint, we pulled the tape off and here are the results.
As you can see the tape didn't come off neatly and there is some overspray, which I think adds to the haunted house look.

The inside.

We stopped there but you could go all out with this project by adding other colors in paint from the Monster High palette like neon pink, grey and purple.

KayteeJane

Love Notes

My daughters left me some sweet love notes lately. Both were total surprises.

I found this one yesterday by accident. I wasn't even sure which one of the girls left it for me. It was kept a secret for 5 days.

Leave someone you love a surprise love note and make their day!

KayteeJane

Fun Saturday

Warning, this post is not about junk or collecting. Please indulge me as I share a trip to one of my favorite places on earth, The Strip District in Pittsburgh. Since there haven't been many estate sales or flea markets lately, this is the next best thing on a Saturday morning. 

If you aren't from Pittsburgh, "the Strip" is a historic market place set in downtown Pittsburgh across several city blocks.

Here are some highlights.

A trip to Wholey's Fish Market.

Checking out the lobster tank

the fish market

Waiting in line as our order of fried clams, smelts & shrimp is made (while the kids snack on fresh-baked bread sticks from the bread bakery next door)

The reward!

Digging in!

Check out this array of pastries being sold on the street

A trip to Pennsylvania Macaroni Company to wait in line for cheese. The smell in here transports me back to my Grandmother's kitchen. The best place on earth in my mind.

Self-serve olive oil

Such a fun way to spend a Saturday.

Back to junk & collecting tomorrow!

KayteeJane

The Yellow Playhouse

When I was a little girl I was so envious of another girl who lived on my street. You see, she had a cool little playhouse in her backyard that was painted pink and sported a dutch door. Although I grew up pretty spoiled - we even had a pool - I always longed for a playhouse. What little girl doesn't?

When I became a mom to two little girls of my own, I thought about that playhouse again. My husband promised me that he would build our girls one. It seemed like such a huge undertaking to build one from scratch and years went by and we never seemed to have the money or time to start it. Both girls worked their way through elementary school and still no playhouse. We decided that we had better get that playhouse built or the girls would be too "old" to enjoy it.

Finally last summer the playhouse became a reality.

Take a look from start to finish.


The framework

This is what it looked like with almost everything on the exterior finished and painted. The color is the same yellow as our house.

We gave it the house number 610 1/2 because our real address is 610.

A little porch light. It actually works.

All lit up at night.

Of course the inside is just as cute as the outside. I made sure to fill it with some vintage dishes and decor found at yard sales. What fun! Maybe I'll post some pics some time.

I think once the girls are done using it I may just move in myself.

KayteeJane