Fall

So, this new sewing hobby of mine is pretty distracting! Here's another shirt for the night. This shirt reminds me of fall. I do have to say that I got this type of tree design from a girl who went to school with me who makes and sells all sorts of shirts for different causes in Africa. I just hope to get enough practice to make some cute kids clothes one day. :)

Hops

This summer, we took Charlie on a hike and discovered he is an amazing jumper! We already thought he might be since he was never in his kennel when we would go let him out at Jon's place, but we hadn't seen him in action. I just came across this video and thought I'd share!

Apron Update

Remember the apron I made for my little cousin? Well here she is! A little big, but it can be adjusted a bit.

Turkey Tees

Life sure has been busy! But I am graduating college in 31 days and hopefully I'll have more time to blog when I am done. :)

This weekend, I went to some thrift stores and bought all sorts of material and crafy items, expecting to have a lonely weekend since I didn't think Jon was coming to visit...but then he completely surprised me when he showed up at my door Friday evening! That sure was a nice surprise. :) Suddenly, I had no time for crafts. Luckily, I finished these two projects on Friday before he arrived.

A turkey for the turkey hunter :)

I revamped a plain white tee for myself!

Happy Birthday, Grammare!

Today is my Grandma Mary's (aka Grammare) birthday! Growing up I spent every other weekend with her. We played barbies, we went shopping, went to the beach, we played store, we went to the park and did our toe nails. As I've gotten older and gone to college it's been hard to see her as much as I used to but I still love and appreciate her and miss having girl talks! :) So I hope she has a very happy birthday!!

Playing with barbies

She once picked me up at my bus stop dressed as the Easter Bunny!

Green Thumb?

So, as I was coming inside the house after going to the garden, I thought to myself, I must either be very lucky that the soil and heat and whatever other factors that are making my plants and veggies grow like crazy... or I just have a green thumb. :)

This is everything I picked today. 4 zucchini, 4 squash, and 7 cucumbers. I left about 6 zucchini and 5 cucumbers and 2 squash to pick Friday before I go home so I can take them to my mom! The gigantic bundles of tomatoes are finally starting to turn red, one is especially more red than the others, and I am wondering what in the world I am going to do with all these tomatoes. I like to cook with tomatoes and put them in things, but I cannot stand raw tomatoes... I am thinking maybe I should do some canning and have like stewed tomatoes for a few months that I can use for cooking? Not sure! The corn looks like it's going to be ready soon; each piece is fairly large . . I am going to have to do some reading on when to pick corn I suppose. My eggplants are getting much bigger which is exciting, except for there are only two of them, and I am guessing that is all I will get all summer. My broccoli is getting much bigger as well, which is exciting! Everything else is still doing what it's supposed to do as well. I just feel like it has already been such a fruitful summer!

I thought I'd share my favorite gardening tools with you. You can always use a pair of gloves (I mostly use them when handling the cucumbers because they are very prickly!), a mini handheld shovel, scissors to chop off the very thick stemmed zuch. and squash, and whatever that thing is on the right... I use that for weeding. :) 

That's all for tonight... I need to do some homework and then figure out where to store all of these veggies! I can't leave any kind of produce sitting out for even a day it seems like before it starts to get moldy since it's so hot here!

yum!

I just have to say, I made some delicious gluten free blueberry crepes this morning. I melted the blueberries down and filled the crepes. They just completely soaked it up. It was just tasty!

Reverse print apron.

I decided to make another apron with the leftover scraps. I switched the prints so that the brown polka dot would be the main print, and the blue the accent print. Not sure what I'm going to do with this one yet . . . I might have to keep it :)

Birthday Apron

My little cousin is turning 7 in August. She loves baking and makes her family call her "Chef Natasha" when she's in the kitchen. I thought it would be fun to make her an apron for her birthday! I'll post pictures next month with her wearing it when I give it to her. :)

Neck strap

Bottom trim

Cute fabric up close

Garden Update number-who-knows-what!

I found a solution to my zucchini/squash problem. . . gave a bunch away at work today! ha.

I am very excited, because the broccoli, eggplant, corn and peppers are finally growing!

The sunflowers are officially taller than me, and stink bugs have effectively taken over my zucchini and squash plants. Giant masses of them. Clumped together. Mating. They are disgusting, and I HATE them, but there is no way to get rid of them since it is a community garden! Ugh. I get so grossed out because I cant reach down to pick a zuch or squash without nasty big black bugs crawling all over everything.

ANYWAY, I went out there this evening after I went to the gym and took some pictures with my phone. Not the best quality, but you'll get an idea!

Just waiting for the millions of tomatoes on each plant to start turning red!

There are 2 pieces of corn growing on this plant!

Proof that the sunflower is at least 6 inches taller than me.

Baby eggplants . . . that sort of look like bats or something creepy.

Just to show how big the corn is getting

Some little peppers!

Bad quality, but that circle is the top of the broccoli head! 

I think I'm turning green, oh yes I think I'm turning green, I really think so!

I am up to my ears in zucchini. Last week, I made a delicious ratatouille that took about 3 zuch and 2 squash. When I got tired of that, I decided to make a zucchini casserole, thanks to one of my future SIL's for giving me a delicious recipe. Unfortunately that only took about 2 of the zuchs and 1 squash. I still had so many piling up that I decided to make some zucchini bread, which is currently in the oven, but that only took 1 zuch! Next will be fried zucchini one of these nights for dinner. I am now out of ideas! Help! :) I am going to turn green soon!

Garden Update!

So I just went out to water the garden this evening and got so excited because everything is getting so big! The pictures are bad because I just used my phone camera, but I just wanted to give an update on the squash, zucchini, sunflowers, and strawberries!!!!

Mmmm squash!

They were so yummy!

Mmm can't wait to fry up some of this in a few days!!

Don't laugh, this is right after I got back from the gym. But this is how tall the sunflower is! A month ago it was a tiny little plant.

gardening, sewing, and other things.

After I got off work yesterday, I decided to explore a little town nearby for a bit.  Since Jon wasn't able to visit this weekend, I decided I'd go look for some new tennis shoes (cross trainers) and stop at a nursery I'd seen before. It seems like whenever you're not looking, you find something. Whenever you are looking, it is the hardest time finding whatever you're looking for! My shoe hunt yesterday was exhausting. I went to 4 stores before I finally found my shoes at the 5th store. I tried them on and fell in love instantly. My feet were happy. 

I did stop at the nursery, somewhere in between that shoe search as well, and found my new favorite flower! They are called Portulaca, aka Moss Rose. Apparently they spread quite a bit. I would love to have those in my yard someday. I bought some and think they are just the cutest little things I have ever seen!I also bought some yellow marigolds to put in my flower box that hangs off the side of my deck, and another big succulent to add to my deck collection. 

When I got home, I went out to check the garden and found a jungle instead! The sunflowers are almost as tall as I am (Ok I'm not tall or anything, but come on, it's exciting!), we have 13 squash and 6 zucchini growing and about 5 cucumbers, 4 tomatoes, strawberries (that are super yummy), and herbs that were like trees! My cilantro was like a giant bush, so I chopped quite a bit off, along with some rosemary and chives. I used the rosemary and chives in some delicious chicken I made for lunch today, and have yet to use the cilantro, but I'm thinking about making some salsa tomorrow. The cilantro is SO fragrant, I think it's going to be very tasty. 

After I stopped by the farmers market today to help take down my work's booth, I decided I would go play with some puppies or kittens at the humane society since I am missing my Charlie so much. Not one dog was half as cute as him, but I did find this little gem. If I was allowed to have cats at my apartment, I would have taken this two month old baby home today. She was the sweetest. 

As I'd been sitting at home today thinking about what I should do with myself the rest of the day, I thought it would be fun to sew something, but thought I was all out of material. However, I looked in my sewing box and found a random piece of scrap I'd found at a thrift shop, and started researching easy sewing patterns. I found a pattern for a purse (it's really a satchel) and decided to go for it. I thought it would take up at least a few hours, but nope.. I banged that thing out in less than an hour somehow!I've impressed myself each time I start a project with how quickly I finish it!

Cilantro

Chives

Rosemary

Insert left strap into right strap...

Which closes it up!

Marigolds from my deck

Inside the flower box.

Portulaca

Portulaca

Such a delicate little rose!

Newest succulent addition. The picture doesn't do it justice. Such a pretty light lavender color.

Some succulents from my deck that are going crazy and need to be separated and re-potted.

Adorable little offshoots.

It's Wednesday Again...

I have been such a bad blogger. Between a 40hr a week internship, 2 online classes, a garden to water every evening, and exercise classes at the gym after work every day, I have no time!

A usual day in the life of Marissa goes like this-

6:15  - Wake up, Eat Breakfast, Get ready

7:30  - Leave for work

8:00  - Start work

12:30  - Eat lunch

5:00 - Leave work, Go to the gym

5:30  - Attend one of three workout classes, I usually alternate them

6:30  - Go home

6:45 - Water the garden

7:00 - Do some homework (ugh...homework during the summer is the worst!)

9:00 - Make my lunch for the next day

9:30 - Take a shower

10:00 - Get in bed, call Jon

10:30 - Go to sleep!

Then I do it ALL over again! So, as you can see, I should be doing homework right now..... but I am not. 

People ask me how wedding planning is coming along... but there is not a lot you can do when you are 4.5 hours away from home. However, on Sunday when Jon was here, we stopped by a church garage sale that is held every weekend. They normally have great stuff and awesome prices. It just so happened to be my lucky day, because everything was 1/2 off, so I bought a coffee table for our living room AND  typewriter, all for $10. We needed a new coffee table because apparently ours didn't belong to us and the people who owned it wanted it back...and the typewriter...well, I saw this picture below online and thought that was the cutest idea, to have a typewriter at your wedding, not necessarily to replace a guest book, but as a place where people can write a note, or tips on being married, or love quotes, anything they'd like really. So I'd been on the hunt for a typewriter and finally found one. It's completely manual and your fingers definitely get a workout using it!

We received our engagement pictures yesterday, and I am so happy with how they turned out. I wanted to do an old fashioned theme photo shoot, just because I think you can be so creative with it. So here are a few just so you can get an idea.