Yay for front page!

Well, that lovely treasury that monkeysalwayslook put me in (I'll call her the evil wench, since she objected to the 'nice people' label) made it to the front page!

Yay!

It had my fly bags in it, and I think my little fluffnfixings shop got more views today than it normally gets in a month!

Yay for pretty treasuries!

Thank you monkeysalwayslook for including my ginkgo seeds and fly bags in your treasury. You're the bestest!

Achievements and goals.

I've finished my year end taxes, and I'm rather proud of how fluffnflowers has done. This year proves to be even better.

The acre piece of property that is owned by my guy's family is going to be demoed shortly. I hope to have it cleared and ready for planting this spring. I know that it'll take years to recondition the property into a fertile, perfect plot, but I think we'll be able to grow this year with minimal cultivation. I'm excited and can't wait to expand my tomato varieties and start growing larger quantities of some of my favorite heirloom 'other veggies'.

Sales have been extremely good this month, and I'm also excited for the rest of the year. As a go-get-'em-girl gift to myself, I bought a lovely sealer and hope to increased the value of the ecofriendly, recycled mailers in my fluffnfixings shop.

Not only that, but my friend monkeysalwayslook and I plan on opening up another endeavor that will be entertaining for us, if not profitable. Check out her shop, while you're at it. She's got the cutest little succulents in interesting containers. They're perfect if you're not up for an interesting plant that doesn't require the maintenance involved in outdoor gardening. She also has some pretty sexy vintage finds.

Here's to a new year!

TheSpottedBox

A few months ago, I decided to join up with the Spotted Box. I liked the eco-friendly, family-oriented focus and LOVE the great communication and involvement of the community. I just got my 'free' box yesterday, and I'm even more in love! Not only did everyone send in some fabulous promos, but I learned a TON about what good packaging is. I got a few ideas to give my promos a bit of mmph next month, too.

Here are some pictures from my Spotted Box experience. I've put text saying what and where things are from that aren't immediately obvious on some of the pictures. You should be able to click them and get better detail, if you'd like. I apologize for funky formatting ahead of time. :)

I can't wait to start trying things out!

Not much excitement.

It's officially winter and garden activities have been reduced to clean up and planning for the spring. My biggest project has been moving a massive forsythia that the former owners poorly planted and cleaning out the English ivy that the neighbors have let run rampant.

Here's the forsythia before I cleaned out the ivy around it:


And here it is after I cleaned it out:



After cleaning out all of the ivy, I found that the ivy had caused the forsythia to airlayer itself. This has given me a bazillion forsythia babies, all over 2' tall. I plan on listing those in my etsy shop, at some point.

The plant itself divided into two giant chunks that I have already planted where they will get much more light and, hopefully, bloom more frequently.

I did learn one thing from this entire escapade that I am allergic to English ivy. I will wear gloves the next time I fiddle around with it.

Sign of spring!

I've been out in the garden a lot over the past few days, moving things around, cleaning up, and I've been noticing some signs of spring.

Here are some fresh shoots from one of my clumps of lilies:


I sold my first order of moss mousse yesterday, and I took a picture of what goes in the envelope before I packed it all. As you can see, there's the sealed packet of moss mousse, a business card, a thank you note, and a page of instructions on how to use the mix.

Busy busy!

Despite the cooler weather and the rain we've been getting, I've managed to be pretty productive.

Yesterday and today I dug up a couple of plants and have evicted them from my gardens. Hurrah! I still have a bush I need to move, but it's not getting a one-way ticket out of here -- just a relocation.

The newest thing is that I've added a new product to my shop! It's called Moss Mousse Mix and it's something I've been using for a long time. I whipped up a batch and packaged it last night specifically for my shop, and I'm excited to have it available. It's ugly, but the results are great.

This is a just-add-water mix, which allows you to mix it as thin or as thick as you want. You can add extra water to dip baskets or rocks in, or you can mix it thick to slather on an upright surface.

And this is what you'll get:

I love moss!

Pinch Gardens

I started listing pinch gardens in my shop a few months ago and realized that I've never shown any of mine. During my last illness, a handful of established ones wasted away, but I've started over and now have a small collection growing at the windowsill in front of my crafting table.

These three are salvages. I was cleaning off my plant table outside and found a handful of dessicated bulbs. Three of them having started showing signs of life, and I'm still waiting on the other two.

As you can see, two of these are simple, amber bottles. In fact, I appear to have completely neglected to take the label off of one! The taller one is a wine bottle that I cut off and etched in an uneven, cloudy pattern.

See more of my pinch gardens and pinch garden collections here.