Kubbs for Monica

Yesterday was a lot of fun.  After officially becoming a dance mom, I took my daughter out to Mama's Coffee House to celebrate her performance.  We met up with the other dancers and their moms.

This gave me a chance to finally give my friend Monica her birthday present.

Even thought it was hard to come up with a theme for this kubb set it is definitely my favorite one so far and was tons of fun to paint.

What I value most about Monica is she cannot be summed up by a favorite team, color or animal.  There is just too much going on in her mind.  But she does love color, so that's where I started.

I chose ten fun recycled/rescued paints from the shelves for the base colors and only let them repeat four times throughout the set in the decorations.

This gift is green. Everything but the glue is recycled or rescued.

Paint and Valspar varnish from the paint shed at the recycling center.

Scraps of dowels and a slice of bamboo for stamping the circles.

Wood from the cull bin at Home Depot, a construction dumpster or two and the scraps bin from Black Hawk Hardware in Charlotte.

If you are interested in Kubb, here is a quick easy to follow video explanation of the rules:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgei5ImLXKo

Seed Starting

Starting seeds inside isn't really that hard.  Or so they say.  But I have yet to get it right.

Granted, there are external factors involved.  The first year I tried, there was a very helpful three year old picking the "flowers" to show mommy.  The next year I placed the pots in a higher more out of the way place then promptly forgot about them.  My third attempt moved away from prefab peat pots using home made recycled newspaper pots on old cookie sheets.  Unfortunately this was the year we got two kittens.  Most of this attempt ended up in the vacuum cleaner.

Last year I saved the giant sized costco salad boxes.  Placed upside down on a coffee table, each box held eight newspaper pots and served as a tiny little green house.  Even though a few seedlings survived and made it to the garden I still consider the effort a big old fail.

The table the boxes were on took up a lot of space in the living room.  The boxes them selves were too light and awkward.  Cats, happy doggy tails, clumsy grownups and vacuum cleaners knocked half the garden to the floor.  Then there were the mushrooms.  I forgot to poke some holes in the tops of the salad boxes.  They retained too much moisture.

At the risk of jinxing myself, I think I finally have it right this year.  This year's set up is less invasive than the others.  I clamped a 10" wide strip of ply wood to the window sill to make a base sturdy enough to with stand  a six kid playdate on a rainy day.

Two 10 gallon aquariums hold the pots.  The glass sides let the kids "see" without touching and are high enough to keep the cats out.

So far I am using recycled coffee cups from Mama's because they are abundant.  I will make some paper pots out of rough drafts when I run out (if I run out) of coffee cups.

The first round of tomato seeds are popping up.  Very exciting.  Hopefully this set up lets me get one step closer to my goal of a year round harvest.