Summer Days

Welcome long summer days, short warmer nights, the sound of birds and flutter of butterflies. Welcome farm fresh produce, enjoying meals outdoors, concerts in the park, days by the pool or beach and all that summer means to you.

Welcome Summer!

Enjoy your weekend!

Crafting Inspiration from the Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

My prickly pear cactus is blooming in the garden, which got me thinking that I haven't made any of my plush cactus soft sculptures for a while. So I dug out some green felted sweater wool and set to work. I need to hunt for a few more small pots for my soft, wooly cactus garden and then I hope to have some of them listed in the shop by the first of next week. I'll let you know!

 

Happy Father's Day!

 

Wishing all the Dads a Great Day!

Pond Progress - Quick Weekend Update

My husband has been working on the new filter system for our smaller koi pond, and it's now up and running. We're very pleased with the results as this is a smaller version of the filter system he'll be building for the new koi pond.

He cut down a 55 gallon plastic storage drum, fitted it with pipes to go to and from the pond and filled the drum about 2/3 full of lava rock. The lava rock will be the filter medium.

 

He set the pump in a plastic bucket and weighted it with rocks so that it would stay in place on the bottom of the pond. Then he attached the fitting he created to the pipe that takes the water from the pond into the filter.

 

He added some basic furnace filters on top of the lava rocks for additional filtration and plugged in the pump. Water started flowing right away.

 

The filtered water then flows back into the pond.

This is what the water looked like when the filter system was first started. As you can see, it's a little green with algae and kind of murky.

 

But in just a little more than 24 hours, the water is clear and we can see the koi much more clearly.  We're thrilled with the filtering results and are anxious to get starting on the filter system for the new, big pond.

 

 

Click here to see a short video of the koi.

 

 

Groovy Tie Dye Tank Tops

I've just added some new groovy, fun, tie dye tank tops to our Galactic Avatar Etsy shop!

 

 

There are traditional spiral designs

 

 

 

contrasting, colorful tiger stripes

 

 

 

and a rainbow of color in various sizes.

 

These are all soft and stretchy, ribbed ladies tank tops, in 100 percent cotton. Great for summer layering with other tanks and tees, ready to wear with your favorite shorts and jeans! 

 

Pond Progress - Finally We Have a Pond!

We made great progress this weekend on our new backyard koi pond project. 

 

The ground has dried out from last week's rain and we were able to finish the side walls. 

 

Next we unfolded and fit the protective underlament for the pond liner.

 Then it was time for the big moment, actually laying in the pond liner.

It is very heavy, I believe the shipping box said 70 lbs. My husband and I were able to lay the folded liner into the pond and then he climbed in to unfold it. It's a thick, rubber-like material and since it's black, it got hot to the touch very quickly.

 

 The next big thing was to get one of the lotus plants out of our smaller koi pond and move it to the new pond.

So our first water plant is in place and we've added enough water to cover the lotus plant.

 

Still quite a bit to do:

build the filter system

run an electrical line from the house out to the pond to power the filter system

collect rocks to finish the edge of the pond

collect some native water lilies to go in the pond

Then, of course, move the fish from the smaller pond to their new home. . . I think they'll love it!

Shop Update - Denim and Wool Collection

I have a new collection of purses and accessories in my Etsy shop featuring a combination of wool and denim. The wool is one of my favorite materials. . . felted, or fulled, upcycled wool sweaters and denim from upcycled jeans.

 

 

I love the combination of textures of the soft, thick wool and the woven denim. And denim comes in so many color choices besides the traditional blue.

 

Here's just a sampling of items now available in my shop.

 

These are all great casual summertime accessories.

Pond Progress

Here's a quick progress update on our new backyard koi pond:

 

Due to some heavy rain over the past few days, work has come to a halt until everything outside dries out a little more.  

In these photos you can see the basic shape (14 feet by 14 feet) and depth (about 30 inches). The sides still need some work to level the soil around the rim and then we'll be ready to place in the pond lining.