The Homestead Archives | Page 2 of 30 |

Sewing Easy Pillow Shams – Tutorial

November 8, 2017 By Laura 4 Comments

“Someday, I’m going to learn how to do that.”
I’ve got a list of things I’ve said that about. Doesn’t everybody? Do you? As for me, some of those things I’m actually working on now and then, and some are still sitting on the mental ‘someday list’, completely untouched. But learning how to sew, and run a sewing machine, is something I’ve actually gotten to! Oh, there is always more to learn, and I will. But my main motivation was simple: Pillow shams.

This girl loves throw pillows, as part of our home decor accents, as well as comfort. That include seasonal and holiday throw pillows. But seriously, I’m sure you could agree that there is only so much storage room available, for gads of interchangeable throw pillows. And the perfect solution to that, as far as I could figure, is pillow shams. I could just change up the shams on the pillows with the seasons and holidays! They would take up virtually no space at all, just folded nicely in a pile somewhere.

But first, of course, I needed to learn how to sew.

And I really wanted to learn how, using my mother’s Singer Fashion Mate (Model 237). It’s old, it’s ugly, and I’m pretty sure [Read more…]

Fall Garden and Home Outdoor Decor

October 15, 2017 By Laura 2 Comments

Fall is here, and while nature readies itself to bless us with the year’s annual grand finale display of beauty in New England, our gardens had found it time to wither and fade, with an early prep for a long winter rest. Especially since we opted to not plant anything new for a fall harvest this first season in our new garden area. We still have lots of carrots in the ground, and we’re still picking peppers of all kinds. But everything else was pretty much done. So with a good wait in front of us before a pure blanket of white snow covers all that is post-life and ugly, we wanted to keep the beauty going a little longer, with some festive Fall garden and home outdoor decor. We thought you might enjoy seeing the photos of our efforts.

We worked with an abundance of the typical Fall elements: Glorious mums in a variety of shades, pumpkins of various kinds, straw bales, cornstalks, and gourds. But we also planted our first big arrangement in a huge whiskey barrel, and we’re excited to show you that!

We had started getting everything ready to go, but then Storm Jose’ was heading our way. So we put many plants out behind our house in a more sheltered area to wait. Besides, we were also still having some days that felt a whole lot like summer. The heat is no good for many of these cool-loving plants, so keeping them in the shade until things cooled down a bit, was the right thing to do, also. (Even though I was so excited to get working on making everything FALL TIME, like the calendar said!)
The days came where I couldn’t wait any longer. So we got to work over a weekend, and banged it all out.
Then we smiled.
–

Here’s an overvew of the fenced garden. We’ll give you a closer look around in a minute. But let’s talk about the fresh layer of straw over all of the beds first. We use it all gardening season long around the plants in the beds as a mulch, to protect the soil from the sun. It does a great job of keeping the beds moist, and not drying out to a dush in the heat. It’s important to be sure you are using straw in gardening though, as opposed to hay, because hay has seeds, and unless you are going for wheat fields, you really don’t want all these seeds falling on your garden soil.

The straw is not only a beautiful golden color for a Fall look, but throughout the bitter winter here in New England it helps protect any perrenial plants buried in the garden beds, holding in some heat from the earth. Come spring thaw, what is broken down can just be turned into the soil with other more enriching compost.

Ok, less talk, more photos, now.

Our garden-entry gates.
Come on in.
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A Privacy Fence with an Eclectic Decorative Flair

July 5, 2017 By Laura 1 Comment

A privacy fence certainly serve it’s purpose well. But it can also appear really unfriendly, sterile and boring. And everyone knows we especially don’t like boring.
So having had the plan to put up a 6 foot privacy fence around our new front yard garden sanctuary, we started brainstorming on how we could give our own new privacy fence a creative and unique, eclectic decorative flair.

Because especially right on the street like this, and partially blocking the view of the house from the front angle, we knew it was going to just look a little . . . . well, as we said, a little unfriendly, sterile and boring. And not necessarily nice looking in any way. And we wanted it to look nice! Our goal was to customize the fence, and alter the whole feel if it in some way, while still allowing the fence to serve it’s purpose of privacy.

And I think we came up with a pretty great idea! We really love where it’s going, anyway.
It’s going to look even nice, when we have plantings all along the front of the fence as well as along the side.
Probably Hostas, but maybe some ornamental grasses, too. We just haven’t gotten that far yet.
It was recently lined with spring tulips, but they are died out now.

NOTE also . . . .
. . . . that like the gardens area, the fence decor itself is not done yet, either. We will be adding to it in time, as well, without going overboard. But we feel like it’s an appealing improvement!

Take a look at what we did. . . .
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Front Yard to Garden Sanctuary Transformation| Big Progressions and Little Confessions

July 4, 2017 By Laura 2 Comments

We have our great big garden-sanctuary-accomplishment to share with you today. Big progressions, and also some little confessions! But in order to appreciate it in all of it’s glory, you have to learn a bit about what we started from. If you’ve been following us for years, this post will refresh your memory. And if you are new here, you’ll be able to appreciate it just as much.
We all love a good ‘Before and After’, don’t we?
So we encourage you to read along!

A Look Back at a Bunch of Nothin’.

For as many years as we have been blogging, we have talked about this project. Plans to transform our hideous (oh, we have proof!) front yard of simple garden beds, into a beautiful garden sanctuary. And in these conversations with you and talking about our little garden dreams over the years, these changes were always imminent! Definitely about to happen.
Except that it really never did get very far.

First, we confess, that although every time we were all hyped up and ready to get going, every time too, for one reason or another, our grand plans always got sidelined. The seasons to get it done would end before we really accomplished much, and so we never really made any progress! Whether it was lack of time, lack of money, or how things are just easier done in your head than in reality – well, most times it was probably all of those things! Weekends are short, and our family is busy. All of that. Every time, we only got as far as maybe building some garden beds, which we have just done for the 3rd time at this point, since we originally told you of any real front yard transformation gardening dreams. And some planting for the season.

But the aesthetics and bigger vision for our garden area, in our front yard mind you, never really came in to play, as we just kept talking about it. It was pathetic.

You can see where we generally started with our little blah-lot in here in 2009, and how we expanded what little space we had, by sacrificing some driveway.
And how we were still just getting another garden bed up or whatever here in 2010.

And since then, there has only been many seasons, where we have just shared lots of photos with you, of all of the beautiful and bountiful vegetables and flowers that we have grown in what garden beds we had. You can find countless blog posts on them in the garden archives here at the blog.

But the little garden sanctuary dreams just weren’t coming together. The space as a whole, where these garden beds resided, has been just so UGH.

ANOTHER CONFESSION. . . .

Yes, I have enjoyed working in these garden beds over the years, anyway. But I have loathed feeling like I am doing so, in such an on-display manner, in our front yard! I often wonder if I might be mistaken for one of those yard ornaments, of the bent-over woman’s bum, weeding her garden. You know the one? Ugh. Granted, we live on a short dead-end road, so the traffic is next to none. But there are also neighbors frequently walking by on their way to the beach and such, and to be honest….when I am out working in my gardens, I just want the peace and solitude to do my thing! By myself. Alone. (Or with my family) I don’t want to say hello to people, and make small talk as they walk by. Call me a witch. Of course I do say hello and chat anyway, if it so happens, because it’s only polite. But I don’t want to, in the least bit. Especially when I am hot and sweaty, with dirt sticking to me . . . . just . . . . no. Please, leave me be while I play in the dirt. Thanks.

During this season in the photo above (circa 2010?), though it is hard to see here, we actually had 4 garden beds at that point, and then the ground-level pumpkin patch which is closest to you in the photo.
In the gardening seasons 2013-2015, the kids kept a super cute square garden as well.

It was during that period we tore down the wooden beds and put up cinder blocks gardens, which I came to be a big non-fan of.
I was almost immediately like . . . . disassemble and build wooden beds again, please. (That didn’t get undone for 2 years I think. My knees and shins hated it, and I also especially hated the concrete jungle in our already-ugly front yard.)
–

– BEFORE –
Proof of Hideous . . . . .

But aside from the garden beds we built, growing beautiful, delicious and healthy produce and blooms over these many gardening years, the space itself has remained fairly ugly!!
Without the garden beds in season, it’s been actually hard to look at.
For me, anyway. In part probably, because all I see is the garden dreams in my head, missing. And a whole palette of blah-colors, that blend together like yuck. I felt bad for the neighbors passing by daily. Whether I’m out there bending over, or not.
–

(It’s coming, hold on . . . .)

Then last year, we took our first gardening season completely off, to, you know, really get something accomplished in our ultimate goals for the front yard. Or that was the plan, anyway. :/ I was SO MISERABLE, not having my gardens to work in, Y’all. It was rough.
But again, even still, we didn’t get much done, again! We did take down all of the cinder block gardens, and got building new beds. But we only got 4/8 done that we wanted, not to mention all else we were definitely going to get done. (Yeah, right.)

Busy family, flying time, the whole 9 yards . . . .

BUT THIS YEAR . . . .

. . . . come the first sign of spring, we hit it hard! Time was not going to get away again. Really, really, really.
We would make time, we had the money, and after some good collaborating brain storming, as usual, Michael had some loose garden-layout plans down on paper.

We have finally….really….seriously…..put a BIG dent, in the transformation of our front yard, into more of the garden sanctuary we have been envisioning for all of these years.

And we’re so excited to show you today!

*Just know first though….

>>>>> That it’s all not done yet! Consider this Phase 1! We’re just excited to show you what we’ve done already.
It’ll continue to be a work in progress, and grow in beauty, as there are still many exciting plans still left undone.

>>>>>> What is planted in the garden at the time of these photos, were still little seedlings, and the rest hadn’t been planted yet! So while it’s not the lush beautiful full gardens they will be this early in the season, it’s the structure and set-up of the new garden space layout we really want you to show you all at this point.

That said, we think it definitely qualifies as a transformation at this point. It looks completely different now.

Will you agree? We are about to see!!

Take a look for yourself!
– AFTER –

.
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Meet Our 5 Sweet New Baby Chicks, Quick!

June 2, 2017 By Laura Leave a Comment

We announced awhile back that we decided to add to our chicken flock, but there was a little wait.
Well, our day-old sweet new baby chicks just arrived!
There are few things sweeter than opening a box of brand new baby chicks! If you opened the box with us via video on our Facebook Page, (<– watch here), you know just what we mean! We’ve been so excited to get them, and we’re loving having them here.
Most of them still have their little egg-tooth too, and well, we’re all smitten with every one of them, already.

So today we are going to just briefly share with you their photos, names, breeds, and egg colors!
And also, what they will look like, for the most part, when they are all-grown-up!

A Word on Naming Them

You may know that for our first-chicks-ever (one-day-old chicks we received just like this, in 2014), the name-theme we were running with was towns we had personal ties to. When we allowed those chickens to have offspring with our rooster the following spring, we went with names of personally-relevant streets in those towns. (From the coinciding towns, of course.)

This time, with this order of sweet chicks, we have no consistent theme for names! So, don’t expect that. We’ve got a couple of spices, a couple of shrub/trees, and one more street! We roll unpredictably like that.

And God-willing there will be NO boys/roosters! We did order to have them vent-sexed, to be sure (ha haha!) we get females again. But ummm, well, last time (our first order), there were 2 out of 8 mis-sexed chicks. (We kept 1, even though we never intended to have a rooster. We did love our time with Weymouth.) And then when their offspring were born, 5 hatched, and 3 were boys/roosters! We kid you freakin’-not. So, we’ve had our share of finding homes for roosters.
We are counting on having ALL GIRLS with these chicks! Please, Lord.

. . . . . .

Alright, are you ready to meet the new chicks, one by one?

“Juniper”
Juniper is a Blue Easter Egger. Isn’t she just a doll?! She is expected to lay blue or green eggs. We can’t wait to see her eggs! Because whatever color the first egg is, is what that Easter Egger will always lay. I’m sure we’ll show the first egg on our Facebook Page and or our InstaGram. So yeah, follow us theres. (Typo on purpose.)
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