Gardening | Plum Adorable

DIY Bird feeders

The kids had so much fun making these cute DIY bird feeders.

I had pinned this idea from Mom Endeavors awhile back. I LOVED her idea and thought they turned out so cute. But, instead of using paint cans like she did, we used tin cans I had saved from soup, canned fruit etc.
We used both small and large cans.

We spray painted three of the cans.

And used acrylic paint with a paint brush on one of them.

Once they dried we wanted to add some more color to them. Turns out we were having fun with polka dots and ended up putting them on all four cans!

We bought one long skinny dowel and cut it in smaller pieces. Then we attached it with hot glue for the birds to sit on. We attached some ribbon and added some birdseed to the can. Now we are waiting for our little birds to come. My four year old kept going out and checking to see if they had eaten the seed yet!

My ten year old made this one all by herself. Isn’t it cute?

My grandparents are in an assisted living home and they have birds right outside of their window. So, we made one of these feeders to give to them. I think they will love it!

In the meantime, we will be looking for birds to come to our feeder. Once they do I will make sure to take some pictures and add them to this post!

~Jenny

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Filed Under: Crafts, Gardening, Gift Ideas, Gifts, Kids, Kids, paint, Spring, Summer, Teachers

Flower Pot Card Holder

14 Jun posted by Plum Adorable

A good friend of mine had surgery last week. She loves flowers, so I bought her a flower pot. I planned to drop it off on her porch, but I wanted to add a card and was hoping it could be ‘attached’ somehow.

I decided to use one of the printables that I created here. I tried to think of what could hold my card. I walked into my craft room (or as my husband would say-‘his office’…mmmhhhmmm…) and the clothespins were just calling my name.

You could just use a clothespin to attach a card, but because I can’t leave ‘well enough’ alone, I decided to spruce it up a bit. If you have everything on hand, it really only take about two minutes. I painted one swipe of paint on the clothespin and while still wet added some glitter and let dry!

Isn’t it cute and simple? These would make great gifts for teacher’s too!

I love it!

~Jenny

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Filed Under: Crafts, Everyday, Free Printables, Gardening, Gift Ideas, Gifts, paint, Teachers

More Pallet Sign ideas

24 May posted by Plum Adorable

I wanted to share a couple more pallet signs I’ve created.

Click here to see how easy it is to make these cute signs.

I created these first two for Mother’s Day.

I made the sign below for my daughter’s school. This year their librarian started a garden that will help provide fresh food for those in need. The whole school will eventually be a part of taking care of this garden.

I think it turned out cute! It’s a bit bigger than the signs I’ve made in the past (24×18 inches) but I really like it with the points on it to give it a ‘fence’ look. This would be simple to make following these same instructions, just don’t cut off the tips!

Jess and I have been busy this month!

But, as always we have lots of things to share, so stayed tuned!

~Jenny

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Filed Under: Crafts, Gardening, Gift Ideas, Gifts, paint

Wine Box Gardening

26 Apr posted by Plum Adorable

I thought about giving up on my garden this year. We started our first one three years ago and my husband and I thought we were master gardeners our very first year. We thought we knew what we were doing when we didn’t even know what we were doing!

And then the following two years were a bust. I know all of you gardeners are going to tell me, ‘Oh, but the past two years in the Northwest have been horrible for every gardener.’ Yes, I’ve heard that, I was still just ready to make it into a sport court and call it good. Not that we could afford that, but still. Sounded good.

Well, I’m happy to say that we are going to try one more year to see if we can get our green thumb‘s’ back. But, before I decided to plant in our ‘big’ garden, I had already planned and in the process of planting these wine boxes.

I figured that I could at least grow some things in a box right? Plus, I wouldn’t have to deal with the bunnies and deer coming all the way up to my deck to eat my veggies. Hopefully.

Lucky for me, my little sister recently started working for a wine distributing company. On her very first day of work I asked her to see if she could get me some boxes. Being the nice sister that she is she scored and got me four boxes! I’ve heard that some wine shops will give boxes to you if you ask them. Wouldn’t hurt to try.

I read somewhere that it is very important to stain your boxes first so that they don’t start rotting through the wood. I used two coats of a natural danish oil on my boxes.

Aren’t they pretty?

Once they are dry (or you could do this ahead of time) drill enough holes in the bottom of the boxes so that the water can drain.

I have to admit that I had fun drilling the holes. It’s amazing how much I am starting to love tools. The saw my husband got me for Christmas has been used multiple times and I now have other tools on my wish list.

Once you are done staining and drilling, then you can start adding your soil and plants. Since we have decided to do our ‘big’ garden again I plan to mostly put lettuce in my boxes so that I can keep them somewhat in the shade. They don’t like too much sun. I am also going to put strawberries in one box to see how well they do.

If you don’t have a lot of land to start a garden, then planting in wine boxes is a great way to grow your own veggies.

I also plan to try this watering globe method in my boxes found here at Rad Megan. How cool is that? And it’s free!

At some point I will show you what we are doing with this puppy below. It’s one of the reasons I am excited to be doing my garden again this year. It’s so great to have such good friends and neighbors!