Do you tend to kill plants? Try your hand at succulents, and check out some of these interesting ways to show them off.

Succulents are super hip right now, but their trendiness isn't what I love about them. I am sort of a plant-killer, which makes succulents the perfect plants for me.

Most succulents thrive on neglect, and I am a pro at neglecting plants! In fact, one of my girlfriends is an amazing gardener but can't keep her succulents alive. After we talked about it for a bit, we realized it's that she is too nurturing. The techniques that make her backyard garden enviable - especially a frequent watering schedule - spell doom for a succulent.

Meanwhile the one that I forgot about on a windowsill for three weeks is thriving. The point is: if you're bad at gardening you should definitely give succulents a try!

You know that we love succulents around here, and we also love adding a touch of green wherever we can. The list below has some awesome ways to use succulents in surprising ways. Some of these ideas are teeny tiny and others are dramatic. But you won't find pots and planters here. Check out some of these interesting ways to display your succulents!

5 Offbeat Ways to Show Off Your Succulents

1. Terrarium Necklace - Wear clippings from your favorite succulents around your neck with this living terrarium necklace that you can make yourself.

2. Inside a Table - This outdoor dining table has a built in succulent planter.

3. Planted in a Wine Cork - You can turn these micro-planters into jewelry or use them to add little touches of green to your home decor.

4. In a Pallet Planter - Go vertical! Turn an old wood pallet into a leaning planter for your garden

5. In a Tiny Necklace Planter - This is another succulent jewelry idea. Atlanta crafter Made by Colleen creates tiny wearable planters to show off your succulent clippings.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is a serious threat to our food future. Bees pollinate around 1/3 of the food that we see on store shelves. If we are going to continue to feed ourselves, we need to protect bees and other pollinators. This bee habitat is a great way for you to help native bees in your area!

There are a lot of factors that contribute to CCD. Habitat loss is one of them. The more land we develop, the fewer places bees have to build their homes. This bee habitat, which I first posted over at Crafting a Green World, is one way that you can make your garden a friendly place for pollinators.

Make Your Garden a Home for Pollinators

You only need a few simple supplies to make your own bee habitat:

• scrap wood
• a drill
• drill bits ranging from 3/32" to 3/8"

That's really it! How you drill your holes depends on the size of your wood. My piece was long and skinny, so I went with a 3/16" bit and tried to space my 3-4" deep holes about 1" apart. Check out this document from the Xerces Society (pdf) for how to decide how deep your holes need to be and how far apart you should space them.

Want more ideas for creating a bee-friendly garden? I've got some tips over at Crafting a Green World!

This is just one way to invite pollinators into your garden, of course! So spill it, gardenistas! How are you making your garden bee-friendly this spring?

You know that I love a good wine-related craft, and these upcycled bottle candles from Rewined are rocking my socks!

The candles are molded inside of reclaimed wine bottles that the Rewined team collects. They clean, cut, and cure the bottles before filling them with scented soy wax candles. Check out this video about their process:

They make each candle by hand, and the artist signs it! I love that they've found a way to scale up without losing the craftsmanship and love that comes with a handmade item.

My only hesitation with these candles is that they use "fragrance" to scent them. Fragrance isn't necessarily bad, but just like in beauty products, it casts a wide net. The fragrance could be a blend of totally safe essential oils or a mix of harmful chemicals. There's just no way to know, and whether you're concerned about fragrance is really a personal call.

You can find Rewined candles on Amazon.

I spotted this awesome bottlecap fish at Sweet Melissa's, a breakfast place in downtown Decatur, GA. Isn't it awesome?

Atlanta artist Leigh Kirkland made this bottlecap fish, and it looks like just one of many in her collection. She works in a variety of media, from watercolors to mixed media art featuring found objects. Her found object assemblages are by far my favorite pieces though.

There's a great bottlecap flounder on her website that uses old hinges as the fins. I just love how she uses what she has to create sweet art pieces that clearly have a sense of humor.

Have you spotted any cool, upcycled art lately? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Finally there is a film that covers our sugar-laden lifestyles. Fed Up, set to release in theaters May 9 2014, is a documentary that focuses on how sugar has become an ingredient of obsession and even addiction. The film, by Laurie David, the producer of Al Gore's famous documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, looks at the scientific and medical evidence that shows why and how sugar has become a problem of epidemic proportions.

No doubt this is shocking news to some. As a chef and educator, I find that sugar is one of the foods to hardest to talk about. Most people know it's not good for you to sugar to their coffee or eat too many sweets, but what many people don't realize is that sugar is in EVERYTHING, and we're eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. This over-sweetening of our food system has drastic consequences. Just for starters, excessive sugar consumption is related to:

• Elevated blood sugar levels, which can lead to diabetes
• Weight gain (hidden calories in non-nutritive foods and drinks)
• Metabolic syndrome (linked to the most common lifestyle diseases)
• Moods (sugar leaves you high and low all day long)

Here are some ways to avoid excess sugar in your diet:

• Learn to like some bitter: learn to take your coffee, tea and other drinks without added sweetener.
• Buy everything unsweetened: plant-based milks, sauces, dressings, beverages, yogurt and more.
• Skip common breakfast foods like cereals, granola bars, and granola: these are all delicious, but all loaded with sugar, even those found in health food stores. Make your own granola with little sugar and make your own energy bars with healthy fruits, nuts and seeds.
• Read the labels on everything: sugar is almost always in bread, crackers, sauces like Veganaise, pasta sauce, dressings and more.
• Eat sweet foods in moderation, and when you do choose to enjoy them, make sure you have some fats and protein to help slow the absorption into your blood stream, keeping your insulin levels steady.

Here's the trailer for Fed Up: I hope it inspires you to look at sugar in a new way, and allows you to make some healthy switches in your diet.

Need to spruce up your walls a bit? Try a few of these sweet upcycled art ideas!

Let's get real, y'all: art is expensive. Big pieces of wall art in particular can really get pricey. Making your own upcycled art can save some cash without sacrificing style! Check out some of these ideas to add a little upcycled decor to your home:

1. Moss Typography Art - Typography art is on-trend, and it's so simple to make your own! Just cut your letter of choice from reclaimed cardboard and decorate away. I love the earthy look that the moss gives this piece of upcycled art.

2. Junk Mail Art - Think of this striking junk mail collage as a jumping-off point. You may not be able to create this piece at home, but I love the way that this upcycle art piece makes you look at junk mail in a new way.

3. Rubbish Rainbows - Take a cue from this craftivism project and colorize your trash to make beautiful art. I think this technique would work well mounted in a shadowbox on the wall, don't you?

4. More Junk Mail Goodness - This is a simpler take on the junk mail wall art idea, and it includes step-by-step instructions on how to use common craft supplies to elevate junk mail to upcycled art.

5. Recycled Wood Fox Art - You can really use any stencil you like to customize this project for your own decor. I love the rustic look of the recycled wood paired with the modern fox cameo!

Artist Ali Golzad created the awesome dog portrait pictured above out of reclaimed corrugated cardboard, but his depth as an artist goes much deeper.

I didn't understand folks who had portraits done of their dogs until my husband and I adopted our sweet rescue a few years ago. Now I could totally see myself wanting a piece of wall art featuring our sweet girl Jenna. The cut up pieces of cardboard give the piece a beautiful texture, don't they? You almost want to reach out and pet this sweet pup! The dog is named Lucy, and Golzad created the portrait for her owners.

Golzad is an avid craftivist, and his body of work extends far beyond dog portraits. His series Invisible People - also made using reclaimed cardboard - is meant to raise awareness about human trafficking. This excerpt from his artist's statement about the series is so powerful:

I have a strong affinity for these traumatized and abused children because when I was ten years old, I was forced to flee my native Iran due to revolution there and live as an orphan in Sweden until I was reunited with my parents three years later. To me the plight of child soldiers and children abused as sex slaves escapes notice in the civilized word which causes me to question how civilized we really are. To me, these are invisible people.