Organize Your Life // Spring Cleaning Labels

Remember the list of home-made cleaners we made, and the weekly cleaning schedule we shared with you all? Well, we're here today with another free printable- some Cleaning Labels! If you're like me, you went out and bought all the ingredients for the cleaners, played mad scientist for a week, then never labeled your spray bottles so you could possibly be cleaning your toilets with oven cleaner {and vice versa}. Not good. Let's rectify that, shall we?

Here are some handy dandy labels to stick on your spray bottles to avoid any cleaning confusion. Download the printables here!

The Watson Abode // Spring Garden Plan

I have been working diligently on my mother's garden since the new year began, and we have a great plan developed.

She had 6 beds that were falling apart, but were pretty easily repaired. We've been amending the dirt that has sit in the beds for over a decade with A & P Nursery's Harvest Supreme compost and Singh Farm's compost {which is rumored to be the elixir of fertility}. You can go down to the Farm on Saturdays and purchase the compost by the bag full which are HUGE and only $12, or by the truckbed load, which is $60. We've only done bags so far, but are planning to go with a truck load in a few weeks when we break ground on our corn patch and extra long bed.

We've done both the strawberry & tomato bed and the salsa bed so far; and the watermelon bed, cantelope bed, pumpkin bed, and cucumber bed are in the works. We've been following the urban farm planting calendar and trying to resist buying things that may not be ready to plant yet.

I'll be sure to share the progress once things start growing, but for now, I am so proud of what we've done, and so excited to see what it will all become!

Kitchen Revival // Sweetheart Breakfast

Valentine's Day. One of my favorite holidays and one of the only mornings I wake up early. A Sweetheart Breakfast is how we celebrate Valentine's Day at our house. I set the table with my festive dishes with their little valentine gift placed on the table (yes, we give them something small. Just another reason to spoil the children).

My kids are a little young for the making of Valentine cards, but next year I plan on making some valentine mail boxes similar to the ones below where we can slip in love notes to each other through out the beginning of the month. But the rule is you can't read them until our Valentines Breakfast! I can't wait. Obviously the cute mailboxes would be a part of the table-scape too.

via the anderson crew

Last year I made Caramel French Toast from Framed. 

It really was amazing. So amazing that we make it all the time. So I need a new amazing recipe to make this breakfast more special. Here are a few that caught my eye.

double chocolate waffles with berry sauce via our best bites

mini puffed oven pancakes with berry sauce via our best bites

cream cheese stuffed lemon french toast with strawberries via our best bites

red velvet crepes via duhlicious

lace crepes via duhlicious

Are you drooling yet? I am. I hope you find the time to make tomorrow a real celebration of love with your family!

Garden Seeds// Native Seeds/SEARCH

This past Friday evening, I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture by Bill McDorman, the Executive Director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson, AZ.   Native Seeds/SEARCH is a non-profit conservation company that is a leader in seed conservation.  They maintain a regional seed bank and are experts in the heirloom seed movement.

His lecture focused on the need to save seeds.  This is an easy practice you can adopt in your garden.  Here are some simple tips:

• Let seeds mature before harvesting.  For most crops, that means to allow the plant to go to seed after it has finished producing.  The plant will blossom and then grow seed pods.  Let these pods dry out on the stem before picking.
• Remove all plant material, stems and flesh of seeds and allow them to dry thoroughly.
• If seed is wet when harvested (squash, melons, tomatoes), spread the seeds on a clearn dish towel and allow them to dry.  Do not use paper towels as the seeds may stick.
• Store seed below 80 degrees in an airtight container.  Choose a container that will not retain moisture (i.e. glass jar, paper envelopes).
• Replant the following year and share with friends!

Native Seeds specializes in seeds from Native Americans living in the Southwest region.  Their new seed catalog contains a beautiful collection of Native American seeds you may want to include in your warm season garden.   They even sell a Southwest Warm Season Garden collection that includes 16 seed packets for desert gardens maturing in the warm season.

Check out their beautiful new seed catalog:

For more information on this wonderful company and to order their seed catalog, visit their website at www.nativeseeds.org/.

Handmade Brilliance { local } // Victorian Swag

It's an honor to introduce you to Melissa from Chandler, AZ who is witty, artistic and approaches her jewelry making with whimsy.

1. Tell us your story.What brought you to now?

Well it’s certainly been a journey with ups and definitely a lot of downs!  I began in college studying Biology which I loved but realized rather quickly that I didn’t have the dedication required to spend my nights with my nose in a book rather than going out dancing with my friends, then I switched to Business and Culinary Arts which I also loved but after spending one day in the back of Olive Garden with a whole bunch of latinos cursing and yelling in Spanish I quickly came to the conclusion that restaurants were also not the place for me. Soon I met my husband, got pregnant with my daughter, puked my guts out for eight months straight before giving up on college for the time being. A year later I decided to return to college fully intending on graduating with a Bachelors in Illustration. Two weeks after classes began I found out I was pregnant for the second time and the worship of the porcelain god (the toilet)….continued…BUT I didn’t give up on school! I LOVED my art classes. It wasn’t until my husband graduated and was offered a job in AZ, which we couldn’t refuse that I decided to put school aside for the time being. A few months before leaving  a new neighbor moved in and we quickly became friends. She showed me her vast collection of beads and the things that she was working on. Within a month I realized that jewelry making was my new found passion. I saw a lot of what I had learned in design classes I could easily apply to the jewelry I was making and I fell in love with the idea that my work was being seen on people everyday whereas a painting or even an illustration would more than likely end up hanging in someone’s house for only a handful of people to see regularly or buried on a shelf in book. The love of storytelling I realized I had in my Illustration classes I found that I could relay in a lot of my designs and a lot of the pieces I have designed, I have created with characters from literature or out of my head, in mind.

2. Outside of creating, what do you do?

Well I have two small children under the age of four so my average day is usually spent running to play dates, filling sippy cups, changing dirty diapers, reading stories and tripping ov-  I mean picking up toys all with the theme song of Dora the Explorer playing  in the background. Other than that I still love to paint even though I don’t really have the free time for it anymore. I have an unspeakable urge to learn urban gardening and to have a vermicompost (sp?) hidden under my sink which my husband whole heartedly opposes with the words “unsanitary” and  “completely unnatural” in his argument . I love interior design and probably would have spent a few semesters trying that had I had more time to bungle. I love the outdoors (minus peeing in the woods and large angry bears that would eat me), love writing and have a deep love of bluegrass though my attempts at learning any musical instrument have been comical at best.

3.What does handmade mean to you?

Well I think there’s a difference between the words handmade and homemade, sometimes the simple difference in quality and the ability to produce quality goods over and over again,  Now that’s certainly not to knock Grandma’s apple pie recipe or  Great Aunt Marge’s afghan that is lovingly draped over your sofa. Quite the contrary I think that Handmade is simply an evolution of Homemade. Where 50 years ago quilts, cross stitches and the like were simply things that were made to enhance the home and were usually kept within the family now in the past decade or so serve as the inspiration behind handmade items that are being produced with the same love and attention to detail but are being sold to others and shipped to places the maker may only dream of visiting.  It’s really a beautiful process and when you hold a handmade item in your hands, like a rare antique, you can’t help but wonder about its maker and its journey to creation. I think in the corporate world we live in today there is a great yearning for this sense of connection to others, the belief that values of honesty, hard work, love, true beauty and craftsmanship still exist within the general population.

4. What handmade item that you own means the most to you? 

Well I would definitely say one of the handmade bears that my grandmother, who is sadly now blind, made for me when I was a child. A few of them have her initials hand stitched into their backsides which makes me giggle now when I think about it too hard but will make them that much more sentimental later on.  I have passed many of them down to my two young children, which serves as a testament to their great craftsmanship and durability having survived my childhood and now holding up very well under the abuse of two more.

5. What’s my secret in life? Any words to live by?

I remember as a child when I wasn’t happy about something my mother would always say to me “It could be worse” and my response would always be “Well it could be a crap lot better too!”. Now that probably sounds very cynical and very ungracious but I certainly never meant it that way. What I always meant but couldn’t sufficiently articulate at 13 was “there’s a way that this could be better just allow me to throw a counterproductive and emotional  fit until I can figure it out" . Let me explain a little more. I heard someone say once “don’t waste your time beating a dead horse”,  meaning don’t give up, but if the method isn’t working don’t keep doing the same stupid thing over and over again praying that it will work this billionth time.  We’re all intelligent human beings and what makes us different from every other creature on earth is our ability to reason and to problem solve. Don’t ever be complacent. If you’re unhappy with the direction your life is taking muster up the courage to change it. There’s always a solution to our problems if we’ll just stop what we’re doing long enough to: 1. Clear our heads long enough to identify what the real problem is and 2. Face that problem head on and figure out a realistic solution. We only have a slated amount of time on this planet we might as well be happy right?

One more thought I live by. Again I don’t know the name of the genius who said it but “Be yourself because everyone else is taken”. That one’s pretty self-explanatory. Don’t waste your time trying to be someone or something else. We all have so many varied God given talents and quirks. Find out who you are and never stop being you no matter what.

6. Where do you draw Inspiration? 

I am always inspired by my children, mainly from the books and the characters in them. One of my newer designs was actually inspired by a combination of the books Olivia and Charlotte’s Web and my grandmothers small farm in upstate NY. Since I studied Illustration in college I can just never get away from the idea of telling a story in my designs even if that story isn’t discernible in the finished piece.  I am continually inspired by the memories I have growing up in New England. Maybe I’m just getting older and my memory is prematurely slipping but I can’t help but think I had a pretty great childhood, nestled in a truly beautiful nook of the country and these memories often serve to help me create the country, shabby chic, backdrop that a lot of my designs and my etsy shop boast.

7. Share your top 5 favorite web sites:

(Don’t go to them now finish reading my incredibly intriguing and brilliant feature first)

1.       Pinterest

2.       Facebook (who doesn’t waste too much time on there right?)

3.       Etsy (Where my shop and so many other brilliant artisans sell their wares)

4.       Junk Market Style This is an awesome sort of blog where you and others post what you do with random crap you find to make superiorly awesome usable and decorative goods. There are also a series of books written by the authors of this blog that are absolutely great.

5.       Apparently I DON’T spend enough time on the internet because I can only come up with four at this time.

8. Where did creating start for you? 

A few years ago after I got married my mom sent this huge file of all the crap she had collected over the years as I was growing up. Complete with everything from the predictable stick figure drawings of the family with the house in the background and the sun in the top right corner to my dental records from when I was nine and had to have 13 cavities filled (Yes I liked candy but wasn’t a fan of toothpaste), there was also included all of my report cards from grade school. As I perused them and reminisced about how bad a student I was even at such a young age, I realized a recurring theme in the remarks of all my teachers. “Missy doodles too much.”, “Missy needs to put away the crayons and pay attention to me.”, “Missy shows a lot of talent in art but needs to learn to read or she will be useless to society”. Okay that last one maybe I embellished a little but you get the general gist of the attitude of my elementary teachers. So obviously I think I was more creative than anything else from an early age. I just can’t remember not being creative.

9. Where do you sell your items?

My fabulous etsy shop is located here:  Victorian Swag

And I am also a featured handmade artist at the Velvet Boutique in Chandler AZ and will be seeking out other local boutiques in the coming months.

10. Give a shout-out to a fellow handmade artist like yourself!

Well I have not met her or talked to her yet but I am a huge cyber fan of Emily Winfield Martin. So here I am shouting to her “EMILY I LOVE YOUR WORK! YOUR ILLUSTRATIONS ARE CRAZY BRILLIANT!!

Organize Your Life // The Daily Grind

This year I am really trying to implement balance into my life. As a self-employed mother I can tell you it's not easy. I have used several different styles of documents to help me plan out my days, which were good and worked for a while, but I am needing something new.

Everyone is different, but I tend to find more success in my day when it's planned. If it's not planned then I tend to get my priorities wrong (you know, I end up checking my emails...and facebook...instead of doing the dishes) which leads to a day often times ending in stress and disappointment. Not good. So I have created a daily schedule for myself where I literally have a task every hour to do. They are small and easily done in an hour. And the added bonus is I am not overwhelming myself with all the things I have to get done in one day. I am taking it an hour at a time with simple tasks which I predetermined the night before. And guess what?! My priorities are straight! Which means my days are ending with pride, joy and spare time. Thank you very much!

I made it simple so when you look at it you see cleanliness which helps you get straight to the task at hand. Each schedule takes up a quarter of a standard US size paper which means they are small enough to stick in your back pocket. You can download the file here.

Kitchen Revival // Weekly Menus & Grocery Lists Free Printable

What better way to get your Kitchen in gear, than to start organizing your shopping & meal planning? We've got you covered, friend with our new printable lists! Plan out your whole week and cut your grocery shopping time down by separating your items into any groupings you may need! 

The PDF Printable file is here, be sure to share with all your friends who may need a little pick-me-up this week!