This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of IKEA Canada for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

The post Adding Texture With IKEA’s 2019 Catalogue appeared first on Suburble.

I love the potential that is offered in a pouch of seeds. I always entertain visions of me trudging out (the twenty feet) to the garden and picking deep green zucchinis and bright, happy strawberries. I think this might come from all of the Little House on the Prairie books I read as a kid. I have far too much faith in my own abilities.

Mr. Suburble, on the other hand, is sceptically supportive of my seed addiction. He knows about the dirt that inevitably gets spilled all over the laundry room (where my seedlings will be started). He’s heard me swear at shop lights and defective seeds and scraggly seedlings that don’t really want to live up to their potential. And he’s seen me proudly clutching lettuce – with a few holes in the leaves, nothing serious – as I announce that we’re having lettuce with a side of bugs for dinner.

But seeds…. oh, seeds are just unspoiled babies. They haven’t let anybody down (yet). And he just chuckles as I flip through the pages of the seed catalogues and get lost in my own gardening daydreams. 

I just got my order from West Coast Seeds this week. I’m going to be growing a lot of the old favourites this year: zucchini, beets, cucumbers, peppers, squash, and all sorts of lettuce. My basil grew like stink last year, so I’m going to do it again.

I’m also going to go out on a limb and try this:

A coworker has a husband who grows things for a living, and he had success with watermelons last year in our zone. So I’m going to try it.

I haven’t told Mr Suburble, yet. His saying is, “You’re trying to turn a city lot into a hobby farm.”

Damn straight, I am.

But instead of setting out big rows of potatoes, I’m going to try to grow them in potato bags this year. I figure that these will offer me some saved space in the garden, and when they’re not too laden with dirt, they’ll be sort-of portable.

Yes, they look like pop up garbage cans or laundry bins from IKEA. I thought about “hacking” this from some sort of cheaper bin system, but really, these were pretty cheap. You get three for $20, and they come with reinforced handles and drainage holes.

I did see a pretty skookum set on Amazon, too, which I may buy if I have success this year. This potato bag set has a “harvesting window” on their sides, which is really cool if you want to grab a few potatoes for dinner:

I love how this product picture incorporates books AND gardening. Not a typical combination, but I’d like to know this person!

Finally, my oh-so-professional grow lights are getting ready to start encouraging some seedlings. Despite the fact that this looks completely hacked together – my cunning use of zap straps shows just how sophisticated this system is – this little shelf of shop lights does the job quite nicely! I am going to dig out the timer today and make sure that all of the bulbs are working, and then it’s go time!

Most of my veggies aren’t ready for an early start, but I’m going to start some annuals in order to give them a half decent start. The weather outside is as cold as it’s been all winter, but I can’t let that fool me. I’ll be starting some of my seeds in the next couple of weeks! 

(Curious about frost dates? Read here.)

I’ll keep you posted on the progress of these little seedlings, as well as how successful my shop-light-grow-shelves do. In the meantime, tell me what you’re planting right now! 

 
Some of my favourite garden posts from years prior:

This Year of Gardening: How did we do? 

The Greenhouse Project

Toadstools for the Fairy Garden

The post It’s Grow Time! appeared first on Suburble.

Ever since I realized how easy it is, I’ve become slightly obsessed with applique. I am now hunting all over the house for things to put adorable shapes on. 

When Lila came home from her sewing class proudly clutching a heat bag, I was inspired. Heat bags can be cute! There’s an untapped applique gold mine here!

And as my 8-year-old detailed how she made her rice-filled heat bag, I sifted through my stash of fabrics. I settled on two from my Cotton + Steel fat quarter stash:

I haven’t come across one of their fabrics that I don’t love. (I buy a lot of my fabrics here)

Supplies:
2 fat quarters of coordinating fabric
Scraps of white and blue fabric (for the fox’s eyes, nose and white points)
Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutting machine
Sizzix Fox Bigz Die
HeatBond Lite – approximately 10″x10″ piece
Iron
Rice – I bought the large bag at the grocery store for approximately $9. About 8-10 cups per heat bag.
Sewing machine and thread, etc. 

I cut the birds and fox fabric into a 12″ by 22″ rectangle. This would be the “body” of my rice bag. Before I sewed its sides, I had to applique the fox onto the right side of the fabric.

I used Heat Bond Lite as my iron-on fusible medium. You buy it by the meter at the fabric store, and it’s not so thick that your needle gets gummed up with adhesive.

You start by putting it paper-side up on the wrong side of the fabric. From there, you very quickly pass the iron over the Heat Bond – spending only about 2-3 seconds on each part of it. Then, you very carefully peel back the paper side to reveal the adhesive transferred to the fabric. 

The adhesive will have a slightly milky sheen to it. 

I attached the Heat and Bond to the navy and white pieces of scrap fabrics as well. 

I put the red fabric in a “sandwich” with the Fox Bigz die and two cutting pads. The Sizzix machine cut out the shapes needed to make up the fox’s body. 

The smaller details – such as the eyes and white points – were also cut out using the die. 

Please ignore the yellow paint on my craft table. I know it looks like the fox has peed everywhere. 

I mocked up the fox on the table and then proceeded to iron him down onto the right side of the fabric. I folded the fabric over (hot dog style) so that I could place the fox in a space that would make sense when it was sewed into a heat bag. I started with the red base – passing the iron over him for approximately 10 seconds, and then layered on the details. 

Here he is without any stitching! Already adorable – however, not permanently attached.

I used a blanket stitch on my sewing machine to secure the fox to the fabric. I worked quite slowly around the shape, and whenever I had to turn a corner, I left the needle down in the fabric and pivoted around it. It helped to keep the stitches close to the fabric. 

I used white thread to sew a straight stitch over the white points on the fox’s face. I used a navy blue thread to secure the nose and eyes to the fox. 

After the fox was appliqued, I turned the fabric right side in, and then did a zig-zag stitch around its perimeter, leaving a 3 inch opening at one end. You want to be sure that you use a pretty skookum stitch, as the rice does put a lot of pressure on the seams.

I then turned the bag right side out through the hole and filled the bag 3/4 full with rice. I sewed up the end with a decorative stitch and voila! My rice bag was done!

We’ve all used this bag – whether it’s for a sore neck (Mr. Suburble) or because a warm bed puts you to sleep (the girls) – and it’s become a fixture in our nighttime routines.

For an adult – two minutes in the microwave create a toasty bag. For our girls, we nuke it for about a minute and a half.

This project is a great little gift that kids can help out with – think for mom, dad, grandparents, etc. And with an applique, it’s elevated to a whole new level! 

The post Fox Applique Microwave Heat Bag appeared first on Suburble.

The chunky throw blanket has become a staple in nearly all home decor Instagram accounts. Typically, these blankets have been arm or table knitted – resulting in big thick braids of fabric traveling throughout the blanket.

I, of course, like to do things differently. Instead of trying the arm knitting route, I instead grabbed a giant wooden crochet hook. On the shelf at Michaels, the size 50 hook is about $11. Lucy eyed up the hook suspiciously as we shopped. When we got into the car she asked, “Mom, why did you buy a flute?”

While I was at Michaels, I also grabbed some of these:

The Bernat Blanket Big yarn is 32 yards of soft and fluffy blanket yarn. No, this yarn is not 100% merino wool. It’s 100% something else. But it was on sale for $8 and I needed seven of them, so this was the deal for me.

Merino wool does make a nice blanket, I can’t lie about that, but it will cost you. Etsy will lead the way to a giant ball of the stuff. 

I opted to do a simple rectangular blanket of single crochets. It created a chunky, but not TOO chunky, look. I started with 30 single crochets as my starting off point, and continued for 22 rows. It was approximately 7 skeins of yarn. 

I’ll leave this “How To” video here, as I would be a hilariously bad example of how to single crochet with a giant hook:

The blanket is warm, heavy and doesn’t have big enough holes to get caught up in fingers, toes or jewelry. I still may opt to try the hand knitting in order to get that lovely knitted look – but for me, the single crochet is a look I quite like!

I’m hankering to try this blanket in a light cream colour. I think that the chunky look would be slightly softened, yet it will still be a great, practical blanket to toss across couches and beds. 

What colour would you choose for your blanket?

The post Crocheted Chunky Throw Blanket appeared first on Suburble.

Once upon a time, a queen was paid a visit from her Fairy Godmother, Lowe’s. The Fairy Godmother brought her tin baskets – into which the queen popped her houseplants – and a big black serving bowl.

The queen loved her bowl, and used it to hold a mountain of mandarin oranges, popcorn, and snacks. But when she sat down in front of her anachronistic computer and began to write her blog post, she puzzled, “How can I write a whole post about a bowl?”

She peeled an orange from the bowl and ate, all the while thinking about the large black bowl that sat in front of her. And then she remembered a meal from earlier in the week. “I’ll make Thai Noodle Salad and share the recipe!”

And the bowl, the oranges and the queen heaved a sigh of relief and got to work.

This salad is a keeper. With its tangy, and easy-to-make dressing, I know that this is going to be a year-round salad for our family. It also helps that it’s loaded with vegetables and can be turned into a meal with the addition of chicken, beef, or a shrimp skewer or two. 

I had a version of this salad on a weekend, and by Tuesday, we were eating it for dinner. I’ve made it three times since then, and so now I’m sharing it with you.