Supplies:

• 1 Straw Wreath Form (If you’re not familiar you can pick them up at Hobby Lobby or Micheal’s (bring a coupon!) for a couple dollars)
• Natural Colored Burlap
• Red and Blue Cotton (the thicker the better)
• White Burlap
• Fusible Web
• Buttons
• Bakers Twine
• Square Ruler/Ruler
• Scissors
• Iron
• Glue Gun
• Needle and Thread

**Safety Warning!!**

Burlap and hot glue are a dangerous combo, be very careful! I recommend the “scissor slap”. Use the blades of your scissors (closed) to push the two layers together, the hot glue probably won’t stick to the metal and if it does it peels right off. 

Instructions:

As pretty as it is, you want to start by covering with everyone’s favorite plastic wrapped straw wreath form with pretty fringe-y burlap. Leave the plastic on! Cut your natural burlap into 3 inch wide strips, carefully shred about 1/2 an inch on ONE side. Secure the strip to the wreath and carefully wrap around the wreath form so the frayed side overlaps the row above.

I used 7 strips, it will look nicest is you add the new strips on the back. When you’re all done set the wreath aside and get ready for the fun part.

Square measurements:  (1) 7 inch – Blue, (1)  5 inch – Red, (1)  3 inch – Red

Trace your squares on the paper side of the fusible interfacing. Roughly cut them out, leave at least a 1/4 inch around the outsides. If it’s creased or wrinkly iron the white burlap and colored cotton, you want it smooth. Place the cotton, wrong side up on your ironing board. Following the fusible directions apply it to your cotton fabric. Cut out the squares following the lines you made on the paper.

Now you can peel of the paper and  get ready for the burlap. Lay your fabric squares on the burlap, carefully fuse them together. Do this over some junk fabric, the burlap should be thick enough that you don’t get any oozing from the fusible but you never know.  Carefully cut the burlap following the outline of the cotton square.

Now get your ruler back out, lightly draw an X on the cotton side of each square. Leaving 1 inch in the center intact cut along the lines.

Fold every other point in, making your pinwheels. I use the burlap as the ‘back’  and the red and blue as the ‘front’. Do a few quick stitches to hold the centers together, you could use hot glue but it’s messy and more floppy. Tie a piece of twine through the button holes and glue it to the center of your pinwheel.

Figure out your placements, glue on your pinwheels, add and hang ‘er up!

If you’re looking for some more patriotic flair check out my Firecracker Centerpiece, the Americows and 15 Minute Patriotic Embroidery.

That’s right! We are expecting our first baby this November. I’m finally into the second trimester and at 15.5 weeks I’ve stopped sleeping 15 hours a day. We’re working hard to stuff done around the house and on the farm.

I’m slowly getting back into my crafting but mostly just getting my house put back together after almost 3 months of nonstop sleep and nausea. I’ve got some guest posts lined up and I’ll have a few sponsored posts that I committed to a while back but hopefully it’ll all be back to normal for a while.

I tied a bandanna over my nose and mouth started rubbing it down with some rags. And rubbing. And rubbing.  Finally I pulled out a junky brush and dusted out the pretty carvings and scraped off the yellow stuff. Then I forgot it on the lawn and it got rained on. Just in case you aren’t clear on how filthy it was:

I let it dry in the garage for a few days and then pulled it out for a paint job. I used Behr Empire Porcelain mixed with some Plaster of Paris.* Let’s just say I did a downright sloppy paint job. The final resting place for this chair is in the garden where it will get rained on, snowed on and most likely pooped on (by chickens, ducks or songbirds) so I didn’t want it to look too perfect. I also wanted to show off the carving on the backrest and the fancy spindles. I’m not sealing it and I’m not 100% sure the paint job will make it though the first spring shower but it will be semi-protected under the barn eaves (it’s new home will be next to the barn quilt in a soon-to-be perennial bed) so fingers crossed every one!

There was an odd canned area in the center that was falling apart and I kinda ripped it out. The spot will be the perfect home for a flower pot filled with my beloved Gerber daisies and some bright green sweet potato vines. This pot is a bit higher than I wanted but it’s the only one I had on hand, hopefully when the potato vine fills in it won’t bother me so much.

*I get a lot of questions about my chalk paint method, the truth is the fist time I used what I had (PoP and paint) and liked the results so I stuck with it. I don’t have money for the ‘good stuff’ and to be honest most of the stuff I’m painting costs less than the tiny jars of paint. I’ve seen all sorts of recipes but why fix what isn’t broke right? I’ve used DIY chalk paint for first bookcase makeover and the second DIY chalk paint cover up, when I decided the first paint job blended into the walls too much.

Who doesn’t love the look of lush, overflowing baskets of flowers hanging on the porch? I spent a few years dutifully filling coir-lined baskets with plants and soil, watering them religiously for a few weeks and then forgetting for a day or so and then everything dies. It doesn’t take very long at all for all the moisture to disappear and the plants get crispy. Turns out there is a trick to using those baskets, a trick no one told me. In an attempt to save some plants I’m passing it on to you today. This tip is brought to you by Chicken Scratch and Miracle-Gro.

You’ll need:

• a coir-lined basket (Lowes has 2-3 styles and all are under $5)
• a sheet of heavy plastic (I used an empty mulch bag)
• Scissors
• Moisture Control Potting Mix
• Plants
• Bucket or empty planter (optional)

Set your planter on top of the bucket to keep it stable, or just prop it up on the table. Line the basket with the plastic, clip a few holes in the bottom to prevent water from pooling or causing a volcano-style run over. Add some potting mix, enough to bring to top of your plants to the top of the basket when you set them in. Clip the plastic back, about an inch or so below the top of the liner, it’s not pretty so you don’t want it to show.

Break up the root balls and place your plants in the basket. Add more soil around them, press down to eliminate air bubbles and keep the plants steady. Give them a healthy watering and hang them up, thanks to the special moisture control potting mix and the plastic liner your plants are ready for the summer heat.

I hope this helps your summer planting projects stay healthy. If you need some more planting inspiration check out Miracle Gro on Pinterest and be sure to follow their boards for fun garden projects for the whole family. If you’re more interested in an interactive community go visit The Gro Project on Faceboook. Now go get dirty!.

I was out doing some yard work and noticed they were coming up, they’ve tripled in size since I added the mulch a few days ago so I’ve got high hopes for lots of flowers. These particular bleeding hearts seem to die off about mid summer so I’ve planted some hosta in the same area to fill in over the summer.

Close up of the largest plant. 

I can’t wait for the tulips to flower, we had a few extra Carnival de Nice  bulbs so they went in the bed on the side of the house (the front is planted with red appledorn tulips and white

To make your own Ladybug vs. Bumble Bee tic-tac-toe game you will need:

• large, rounded river rocks (I found mine at Dollar General)
• Red, Black and Yellow paint
• paint brush
• wood round (or something for your board)

Painting the rocks is super simple but it may take a while if you need lots of coats. I needed about 5 coats for the yellow, 3-4 for the red and 2 for the black. The goal is to make happy little insect-like stones, no need to go crazy here! It’s simple enough that even my mom could do it (she banned pictionary from our home, that’s how much she loves drawing) so I promise that you can!

Decide which end will be the head and leave about 1/4 for the total length unpainted. For the bumble bees start painting yellow stripes across the top and down the sides. The number of striped you need will depend on the side of you rock and the width of your stripes. For the ladybugs paint about 3/4 of the stone red, after many coats add the black dots on top. I like the look of an odd number of spots myself but it’s up to you!

I free-handed the lines on the wooden disk (it’s one that didn’t get burned in the post-wedding bonfire!) in paint but if you were more motivated a wood burned game board would last much longer.

I can’t wait to get to use the game this summer, I love how fast the games go! One thing’s for certain, I’ll always be the ladybug team!

** The painted rocks can obviously be a choking hazard! Please watch young children when allowing them to play with this game

Alpha Flowers, AlphaShapes Flowers*, Floral*, Floralies, Flores

Flower Power, Gayane, Hannah, JI Hidden Vines, Kingthings Annex*

Leafy*, LS Leaves, MTF Base Leafy, MTF Wildflower, Petty

Janda Flower Doodles

* denotes a free commercial font (at the time of publishing, please check if you plan on using them for commercial use!)

Find my other font collections here:

Previous font round ups can be found here:

March – Polkadot Fonts

February – Super Sweet Fonts

January – Swirly Girly Fonts

December - Holiday Fonts

November - Kimberly Geswein Fonts

November – Sewing Fonts

October – Spooky Fonts

September -Favorite Fonts 

Dingbats

Unique Fonts for your Blog or Projects

A trip to Tractor Supply to price check for our big spring project. We’re raising 50 meat birds this year and plan on building 2 cattle panel chicken tractors to raise the birds in the orchard. They will hopefully hold meaties in the spring and fall and be used as breeding pens in the summer so we can hatch out our own light brahmas, red laced blue wyandottes and orpingtons without crossbreeding. They will also provide shelter for the muscovies when they do their thing and provide me with dozens and dozens of ducklings. The other benefit will be not mowing the orchard nearly as often, the birds will keep the grass down, eat bugs and fertilize the soil.

After that super-long explanation… We were in TSC to check out the prices on cattle panels (~$22 by the way) and it happens to be chick days. I was with my husband and I swear! I was NOT going to come home with any little peepers. We’re ordering the meaties from a local feed store ($1.90 each and no shipping!) and I had planned on ordering some more RLB wyandottes and adding two breeds the Buff Orpingtons and some Cukoo Marans to our farm.

They had all the chicks out so we stopped to look, I was surprised because usually they sell out really fast and by the time we get there all the tubs are empty. BUT the tubs were not empty. AND the chicks were all 75 cents off! Still, I was strong. I was going to walk away. But then my lovely husband opened his mouth “Didn’t you want some buff orpingtons?”  ”Uh.. yeah?”

Now, I love my husband but on most days he’s lucky if he can tell a brahma from a silkie. TODAY he decided to learn his chicken breeds? I gave in (there was much arm twisting) and said we could get six. His counter offer was 12, I talked him down to 10. I’m really an innocent bystander, the voice of reason in a chicken procurement scheme.

Luckily we had the tub set up from the duck-in-the-shower incident so it didn’t take much to get ready for them. One had a pasty butt and I had to clean her up but the other 9 had no problems and went right in the tub.

photo credit: Lynn Griffiths via photopin cc

Buff Orpingtons are described by the American Standard of Perfection as a “general purpose fowl for heavy meat production and for eggs” with white skin and brown eggs. Roosters weigh in around 10 lbs and hens around 8. Expected egg production is 200-280 eggs per year. The feathers are a golden buff color. They are have fluffy butts (a must for all my chickens) and no feathers on their feet. As much as I love my brahmas feathered feet are a nightmare in a muddy spring barnyard. They are listed as a recovering heritage breed by the American Livestock Breeds Conservatory.

If you’re looking for some orpies (I just made that up) and can’t find them locally I recommend ordering from Cackle Hatchery. That’s were we bought our original turkeys and we had great service and healthy birds.
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There are 2 types of zippers, ones the separate and ones that don’t. Mine happened to be the closed type so I started off by clipping the zipper right above the bar that holds it together, separate the two pieces, pull off the tap and set it aside for another project another day.

I’m fairly certain you can put this whole thing together with a hot glue gun BUT I cleaned and now I can’t  find mine, so I had to give it a few stitches and added the button to cover it up.

Start with your long piece of zipper, make a loop at the very top and placing the raw edge behind. Glue together if you can find your hot glue gun and just keep holding if you cant. I only used the pin so I could keep my fingers out of the way.

Add another loop, it’s going to look kind of like a backwards ‘B’. Every loop goes on top of the last one. (This is where I confuse you barrel racers out there, the real cloverleaf would be a figure 8 not a B)

Make one last loop, it goes between the other two. The part hanging down becomes the stem. If you’ve been hot gluing as you go you are done, if not get your needle and thread and stitch the whole mess together in the center (all my stitches are hidden by the button).

Glue or sew a pin on the back and stick it to your coat just in time for St. Patrick’s Day! It would also look cute glued to a headband for a little girl or pinned to a little boys vest.

If you get lost remember:

• the zipper is never twisted, the top is the top the whole time
• the plastic zipper part is always on the inside of the loop
• each new loop goes on top

]]> http://chickenscratchny.com/2013/03/3-leaf-clover-zipper-pin.html/feed 4 http://chickenscratchny.com/2013/03/3-leaf-clover-zipper-pin.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/gDNOk/~3/fkbFdUfhV_8/fonts-on-the-first-polka-dot-fonts.html http://chickenscratchny.com/2013/03/fonts-on-the-first-polka-dot-fonts.html#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:27:38 +0000 Alecia http://chickenscratchny.com/?p=1186 [...]]]> Are you ready for your (slight late) monthly dose of font love? I’ve got a great round up for you this time with a whole collection of polka dotty goodness.

101 Star Studded, Dialtone*, Dotness, Janda Polka Dot, K22 Spotty Face

KB Dabble, KB Skittled,  KG ABCs, KG True Colors, Malache Crunch*, Mbats*, Petite Boule*, Sprinkles*

* denotes a free commercial font (at the time of publishing, please check if you plan on using them for commercial use!)

Find my other font collections here:

Previous font round ups can be found here:

February – Super Sweet Fonts

January – Swirly Girly Fonts

December - Holiday Fonts

November - Kimberly Geswein Fonts

November – Sewing Fonts

October – Spooky Fonts

September -Favorite Fonts 

Dingbats

Unique Fonts for your Blog or Projects