So I went a little crazy and collected all the broken crayon’s from my son’s school for recycling.  It went a little nuts.  The project took over my kitchen table for WEEKS.  All the crayons needed to be sorted by wrapper-less ones and to remove all the RoseArt crayons (which do not melt).  Then I had to soak them in water over night to loosen the wrappers. Then I had to remove the wrappers.  And then I had to dry them, because they were wet.

Next the real work, sorting all the crayons by color and then cutting them up into little pieces.

Finally, I had to put them in silicon molds and melt them in the oven.  But in the end we got a nice product.

Piles of Crayons

Finished People

I have opened an etsy shop to sell my felted sewing patterns.  ThoraBeyDesigns can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ThoraBeyDesigns?ref=search_shop_redirect .

Four patterns and counting:

Double Pointed Needle Case

Knitting Essentials Case

Devise Sleeve

Heart Projects

We have a dog run on the side of the building, and it is nice to have someplace to sit while out there with your dog.  But a bench costs about $100- and we are talking about something that might get chewed on – or worse.  So I had no intention of spending a lot of money.  I found these two chairs at a “demolition sale” for $5.00 each.  My husband had the wood already as a alley find, and he had the screws.

Start with two chairs

Layout two boards

Clamp and screw down

Finished!

It is comfortable and cheap!  And just right for a dog area.  If this was a nicer garden I might have painted them.

Compared to last month,  the garden is filling in nicely.

Front Garden 1

Front Garden 2

Front Garden 3

The Spinach in the two liter bottle wall failed miserably.  But the rest is filling in.

two liter bottle wall

Look how lush my Herb garden looks!

Herb Garden

West Side of parking lot

Long View of west side of parking lot

This garden is totally from scratch this year- but look how beautiful everything is!

The Formal Garden:

Formal Garden

Rose bush before pruning

Rose

I will have a page dedicated to mint reviews.  It is a comprehensive list of the most common (and specialty) mints available in the US with ratings based on taste, growth and assertiveness.

I have 25 Mints and Balms (Lemon Balm, Lime Balm, Bee Balm and Catnip).

Check back tomorrow for the new page.

Here is what the front garden beds looked like at the end of may.

East side of the building

First

Second

Third

Fourth

West side

My mom sent me the blue container on the right.  It is a hanging flower pot, so I put it on the fence with some creeping jenny and yellow flowers to compliment the blue.  It looked odd alone- groups of three are more attractive than singles or pairs (unless it is flanking something).  I found these two buckets at the thrift store.  The one in the middle has the same feel as the blue one, an over all similar shape, filigree that is similar to the blue paint.  The last bucket was brown.  I didn’t like that so I gave it a couple of coats of white spray paint.  I punched holes in the bottom of both.

I added white petunias in the middle bucket because I wanted to keep the blue hanging pot as the focus.

Containers on a fence