Macrame hanging planters

After a few long months studying, then a couple more painting the house of a friend, I'm finally free for a while. Yesterday was my first day off and today I was ready to get a project done.

I had bought these tea light candle holders a few years ago thinking I would do something to them to make them more interesting. But I looked at them today and started thinking how cute they would look with succulents in them and how I had seen stacked macrame pot holders on Pinterest a while back. I couldn't find the pin I remembered but found some simple tutorials and came up with a design I thought would look good with such small containers.

     

So, here's what I did. The string was just something I had picked up cheap and was sitting on my craft table. I think there's nothing more satisfying than working with what you've got; taking what may seem to be totally unconnected, unspectacular resources, and making something worthwhile out of them. This project took me around 3 hours.

Now of course you can put anything you want in your containers - paper, plastic, or real flowers; plants; even pens/knick-knacks.

But I wanted to put succulents in. They are so easy to grow from cuttings, simply break off a piece from an already growing plant, chuck it in some soil, and water it little and not too often. This also means they are low maintenance, which is good for someone like me who tends to kill plants.

I can't wait until my cute succulents are more established! 

Happy crafting :) 

Inspiration from my garden

The weather is paying attention to the seasons and today is a beautiful sunny and crisp spring day. I haven't been in the garden most of the winter (except for some half-hearted hoeing) so today I got stuck in. It's the first time I've had a garden of my own and it's great to see some of the fruits of my labour come into play. Not to mention, Mother Nature has been out there doing some work of her own. Anyway, here's some inspirational (I think) pictures. I'd be doing some watercolours from such inspiration if I didn't have stupid university work to do :(

Our cherry tree is blossoming!

We have a beautiful bushy lemon tree with loads of tiny wee lemons on it. They're good to look at and dynamite in my cooking.

This the new sprouting of my pumpkin seed, that I got from a pumpkin I used for soup and dried out. I had almost given up on it sprouting, then one day I looked and there she was. Seeing a new plant sprout is as wonderful today as it was when we grew beans in primary school.

My cabbages are growing like crazy. Can't wait to eat them.

I bought a whole bunch of snow peas and only one has survived. But that one is rather lovely.

And finally some other general greeny goodness.