DIY - Raised Garden Bed

Ahhh,...a hope of summer have made it to the Midwest. I have been itching to start a garden for quite some time now. Finally, the Mr. agreed but with one stipulation, It.had.to.be.a.raised.garden. He's not too fond of digging up the backyard for my project since I've never gardened before. I wouldn't either, who knows how long my garden enthusiasm will last! After some initial research, the Mr. realized that non-treated wood would be too costly to build a raised bed. We were out shopping one day and saw a starter kit at Menards while walking through their lawn section and it was reasonable priced for under $40 so we snatched it up and started on this project as soon as we got home.

Garden Kit from Menards

The perk to using this is that you can easily buy another kit and add on to your current garden. For a household the size of mine, I don't expect that I will need to grow that many vegetables. Opening this kit I realized the frame is made of plastic. Boo! I preferred for it to be wood but oh well. Moving on. To prep the garden bed, we had to turn over the grass. Mr. thought he was free from digging but he was so wrong!

Measure the perimeter and start digging away!

 

Turn the grass over and level out the bed and frame.

We purchased about 6 bags of soil. It was recommended 7 cubic feet for this bed but once we started filling, we realized we only needed 4 bags.

Fill up the bed and level out the soil

The last step is to plant your seeds!  I tried to pick vegetables that would be eaten in my household and the quickest to grow. Did you know it takes 90 days before some vegetables can be harvest?!? I wanted to grow those miniature watermelon but the Mr. vetoed that idea. He said they take up too much space. Oh well, I'll make due with what I can for my first garden. 

Top Left to Right: Cilantro, Baby Spinach, Radish

Bottom: Mixed Lettuce Bunch

It's been a little over 10 days since I started this project and I can see the vegetables growing. Follow along and see how my first garden turn out. I know I have a lot of projects going on at once but I promise to have updates soon.

On another note, I have booked my vacations for the month of May. I will be visiting Hawaii, California, and Florida all in one Itinerary. I will update my blog with my experiences once I get back!

DIY - The Convertible Infinity Dress

I haven't sewn for awhile and was having the itchy fingers to start making something. Some of the blogs I frequent were discussing this infinity dress that can be worn a million different ways (Over exaggerating again). I was curious so I started following some of the links which have me ending up on the original blogger and tutorial of this dress: http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/infinity-dress.html.  Her instructions are pretty easy and her mocks up seems reasonable to follow. Besides, it is made of knit jersey and claims to take only 1-2 hours. I can do that. Yes. I can.

Source

Before I set out to tackle this dress, I googled the web to see if others have attempted this dress. Behold, the 139 pages forum dated back to 2006: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=104089.0.  After skimming through the first 40 pages or so, I set out to make this dress.

First stop was Joann's fabric. I found myself a knit jersey fabric in dark blue. I considered using a black knit since black is so forgiving on everyone but I quickly change my mind since I already own a lot of black dresses.  At $3.99 a yard, a little over 3 yards (took the remaining of the bolt), and a 40% coupon found in their ads available at the front entrance, I paid about $6.50 for this project. Sounds like a steal for a quick project I would say!

Following the instructions in the original tutorial, I cut out the circle skirt that measured about 22 in. long, waist band about 4 in. wide and 30 in. long, and the straps which was 8.5 in. wide and 70 in. long. I didn't think I would need straps longer than that since I was afraid all that extra fabric would make the dress look bulky. I've encountered some issues during the process of this project and are sharing it with you all in case you want to try making this dress.

Lessons learned:

• Consider the stretch of the fabric - I cut the circle skirt based on the measurement of my waist / divide by 3.14 / and divide that by 2 but the knit fabric end up stretching and making the circle to big.  I recommend cutting a smaller circle and see if it would fit over your wasit. If it doesn't, you can slowly cut and make a bigger circle.

•  Actual Fullness of the skirt - After trying on the dress, I felt the fullness of the circle skirt made me look bigger and or how the man of the house said it,  I look pregnant. If I decide to make another dress like this, I would consider using a half circle skirt or an a-line skirt to slim down the volume of the dress. 

Saving the best for last, pictures of the final product and some of the different styles I thought was wearable for my body type. 

Straps & Knots

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You probably wouldn't believe how much these dresses are running for in retail stores. I provided some links to these retail dresses for your viewing pleasure.

Victoria Secrets: Flirty Convertible Dress
Two Birds Bridesmaid: The Dress