Surfing Sunday 2.24.13

OK, I didn't pin a lot to the Surfing Sundays board, but I did pin a lot to the Crafty Ideas Outdoors/Living board...

I started out with this cute bird house at greengardenblog.com there are no directions, just the pic, which is ok, I just like looking at it and it looks really simple to recreate with my own personal twists added. Love the "roof" on this :)

Sticking with the bird theme, I fell in love with this simple but cute idea for bird feeders over there at green garden blog as well:

Again, no directions but looks pretty self explanatory :)

I actually loved a lot of the pictures at greengardenblog.com and pinned them as well. I'm just going to post them, the main link for green garden will take you to the these major picture posts. Still got my head in the clouds concerning the outdoors but look how great some of these structures are. Impractical? Oh, more than likely, but...LOVE EM!

This is a "garden nook" made with old doors. Very cute ;)

Of course, I have to show the picture of the "tree house". I'm a nut for tree houses, having owned several myself. Someday soon Bert is going to have one too. I'm picking the spot this Spring.

This shed is made from recycled church windows. I love it! I also wish I could find something like that around here to salvage from but not gonna happen here in the middle of nowhere, lol.

Then, I found this multi-pic-post of miniature gardens and fell in love again. Bert has expressed interest in this so we will be doing this some time soon. Meanwhile, I'm collecting pictures, ideas and notes on the project. This is going to be her summer project for school. She said she's kind of surprised to be looking forward so much to school work but that she doesn't want to wait, she wants to start now---and then she runs outside to look for materials to possibly use.

So there were some very easy and quickly implemented projects I found there as well: 

Great idea!...add inexpensive solar lights to an old chandelier for outdoor lighting. Simple cute easy. Nice.

DYI Hose Guide - copper pipe spins over rebar as hose goes by. Screw a lamp finial into a wine cork and insert into pipe for flair.

Plant tip for more fruit production:

1tsp epsom salt in 4 c warm water....spray on plant and then 10 days later. produces more fruit due to boost of magnesium... especially for tomatoes, peppers and roses. Definitely going to try this season :)

I found a great tutorial at Garden Therapy on how to save heirloom tomato seeds. I didn't realize the seeds had to ferment, which explains why when I just cleaned and dried them they never sprouted. Nice to know that I was doing my best and it wasn't me, it was the seeds. Makes me feel a little better anyway, lol.

And to wrap this up, I found this great article: Fun Classroom Activities and Experiments to Interest Children / Kids in Growing Plants which immediately made me happy as this is a great way to interest my bunch, there are some great ideas here and something is going to appeal to them in these experiments. It's important to get them interested in growing their own food. It's (as melodramatic as is sounds) giving them the tools to be able to build their own sustainable future. 

And on that note, I'm signing off. I have the house to myself today and there are some things I want to do while everyone is gone. Happy surfing to the rest of you though...