Comic book inspired sun and rainbow printable box

It's free comic book day today which inspired this messy looking halftoned sun and rainbow box. It's a 3x3x1 inch box. For printing tips, click the printing tips tab under the banner on top of the page.

Click the image for a larger version, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, glue!

I won a pair of Basix circs in a nice big size (17) for quick afghans and openwork lacy shawls. I'm pretty excited about that!!

In other news, a friend of mine asked me to please post a link to her Etsy shop. Hearthside Handmade makes wood carvings, copper jewelry and stone pendants. Check it out!

Really intricate flower mandala to color

This is a wee bit on the intricate side, and it's actually been simplified some from the original. I do plan to draw a much simpler mandala using many of the same elements. I hope you like this flower mandala for the first day of May!!
Click on the versions below for larger versions to print and color.

Small JPG version:

Large PNG version:

This month is my birthday! May 16th. I have no idea what to do for it yet. Any suggestions?

Herbal Tea Cup Garden with Miracle-Gro

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Miracle-Gro for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

The snow is almost completely gone, and it's starting to look like spring. Which actually means that all sorts of dead grass is showing and it's sunny enough that I'm craving green in my garden. 

A large tea cup gardening container is just perfect for an herbal tea inspired mini-garden. If you can't find one of those, you could also use a terracotta pot painted with the words "Tea Garden" or even painted to look like something out of Wonderland.

You will need:

• Large container- I found the tea cup planter at a local store and just loved it
• plants or seeds that can be made into herbal teas
• Moisture Control Potting Mix - it's a great container mix that helps prevent over or underwatering
• water

Suggested plants or seeds for herbal teas:

• chamomile- this is easy to grow and makes nice daisy like flowers
• peppermint (my choice!) is a classic favorite
• strawberries- strawberry leaves can be steeped for tea either when very fresh (just picked) or absolutely dry. Do NOT steep partly dry. Plus strawberries are just good.
• lavender is delicately floral, and can also be used for sachets or to flavor sugar
• lemon verbena is bright, lemony and easy to grow

Direct seeding (sowing seeds directly into the soil) will work for lemon verbena, peppermint and lavendar. For strawberries and chamomile, I've had more luck with plants. If this is your very first garden, go ahead and start with plants. 

For direct seeding-

Fill your container to 1/2 inch to 1 inch below the top with Moisture Control Potting Mix, use your finger to make the holes to plant the seeds.  Read the seed packet for spacing instructions, but instead of thinking in rows, think of something like a star shape, with 1 seed in the center and then rays from that for the other seeds. Cover the seeds and water lightly. Give them sun, love, and water with LiquaFeed All Purpose Plant Food Advance Starter Kit. Make sure if you plant any kind of mint it's alone in it's container. Mint is very aggressive.

For plants-

Fill your container partway, leaving room for the plant. Take the plant carefully out of it's temporary container. Keep the temporary container, they work well for cuttings and sharing your plants with friends! To remove the plant, don't grab the plant itself and tug. Really, you don't want someone to lift you by the head right? Instead, tip it with one hand cupping around the plant and the other on the bottom of the container and gently shake it out of the container. Open up the roots a bit gently with your hands if necessary. Put the plant into the container and surround with soil going about a half inch over the soil line of the transplant. Water, feed, keep watered and in the sun. 

When the plants are established, you can pinch off leaves and flowers to make your summer teas. Peppermint is my favorite. You can pinch leaves off of it regularly and it grows really well. If you decide to transplant some in your yard, make sure you pick a place it can grow by itself and it will come back year after year with very little care.

All of these are also lovely iced, and can be used as ingredients in summer recipes.

Miracle-Gro has all sorts of resources for new gardeners and projects that are easy and fun.

There are a bunch of fun garden projects on Miracle Gro's Pinterest Page, I'm following it!  One of my favorites as a paper crafter is the Origami container project. You'll find tips, ideas, and great inspiration there. 

Miracle Gro's The Gro Project is letting people know that gardening doesn't have to be hard, that you can do some wonderful things with simple, uncomplicated ideas and plans. I know a few people who say they have a "black thumb" , I was one of those people for years. It's not really true. I've found simple projects with perennials that are hardy in Alaska was a good start, then started planning more annuals after getting more comfortable. Miracle Gro has a great librarey with tips for beginners and more advanced gardeners to help everyone's spring/summer get off to a green start. 

Book Review-Simply Precious Pop-Ups

I really love Japanese crafts and paper crafts a favorite of mine as well. Simply Precious Pop-Ups- Easy to make and Beautiful 3D Greeting Cards by Kiyoshi Kikuchi is a perfect fit.

This is an English translation of a book by Kiyoshi Kikuchi. He's written several books of kirigami projects that are only available in Japanese. Kirigami is cut paper art, it can be sculptural or flat. These cards are right in between. They are dimensional, but not quite sculpture. They are very clean looking and easy enough that if you couldn't do it in 5 minutes, you could certainly do it in 15 and have just the right card for any occasion.

The cards all follow the same basic steps. You fold the paper, cut out the lines to create a mirror symmetrical shape that is mountain folded in contrast to the valley fold that makes the cards. When the recipient opens the card, the mountain folded parts pop out.

The first few pages show the cards in color, with white paper for the pop up and the colored background for the outside of the card. Then you get into the patterns.

The patterns cover a wide range of interest, holidays and special occasions. Baby showers, weddings, new job, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas and some cards that are just general occasion cards. Some are very Japanese in style such as the Emperor or the rice cake card.

After the photos are instructions for making the cards. Starting with a copy of the pattern from the book, it explains step by step with meticulous precision how to trim, fold and cut the designs. While the trimming is done with a craft knife, the designs are cut with scissors. Lots of photos show how to cut each card neatly. Then it explains how to glue it to the contrast paper.

Then the projects themselves all have their own pattern and folding instructions. All the folds are simple folds, but some of them are very tight, such as in the guitar design. However, most of them are easily done. At the very end are more patterns to cut out of a contrast paper to personalize your card a little more, those are shapes that look much like silhouettes.

I really like this book, it doesn't have sliders, spinners and other fancy effects like some pop-up books. Just very clean designs that are easily accomplished. You may need to practice a bit before trying some of the more intricate designs, but none of them are too intricate. They can be done with your children too as long your children are mature enough to use sharp scissors.

Published by Vertical Inc
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I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.