Sugar in my peanut butter? Artificial flavors in my salad dressing? Red #5 in my barbecue sauce? BPA in the linings of canned food? No thanks!

It’s better for the environment, my family’s health and my wallet to make from scratch some of the common items found in pantries across America.

Click over to the EcoEtsy blog to see my post on how to turn your pantry from one filled with boxes and cans to one that looks more like the photo above. I’ve also included a recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese so you can ditch the box. It’s just as quick to make it yourself, I promise!

Is there a common prepackaged item that you regularly make from scratch? Do you have any recommendations for someone who’s interested in reducing the amount of processed food they buy?

(pantry photo by Flickr user brandyjp. Peanut butter label photo by Flickr user Ecstatic Mark.)

I started by cutting out flowers from the carton’s egg cups. I thought Sairshe could help cut them apart but she promptly poked her finger with the scissors and requested that I do the rest of the cutting. I used sturdy kitchen shears since the egg cartons are kind of tough. I also cut some leaves out of the lid.

In a stroke of genius, I used this heart-shaped ice cube tray as a paint palette since it had already been relegated to craft use only.

Sairshe was a fan of painting the flowers greeen.

Carys Áine was heavy handed with the paint so we spent much of our time trying to distract her away from the paint.

To string them into a garland I used a sharp tapestry needle and some fingering weight yarn. I threaded the yarn through a “corner”of each flower.

There is a small bit of yarn on the inside of the flowers but it’s not very noticeable when it’s hung up.

This project used two egg cartons, so we had 24 flowers, and the garland turned out to be about 6 feet long. It could easily be longer if you space the flowers out more.

By the time I got to work, the forest was full of melting snow dripping from the tree canopy and the newly blossomed trilliums were heavy with moisture.

 But then things turned around and we took advantage of the weekend’s nice weather and embarked on another front yard project.

We made some raised beds and the kids, still in their pajamas, were quick to get into the middle of the action.

Sairshe is the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Dirt Mountain.” Mike is getting tired of shoveling dirt.

We transplanted our blueberries that used to grow in the backyard.

The best part? We actually made money on this project. Here’s how it broke down:

Lumber was  $60 – $50 gift card = $10 cost. That’s pretty good but it gets better. Nice people 7 blocks away just happened to be giving away a pile of fill dirt from their garden that was just the amount we needed. Convenient, right? They were so happy someone took their pile o’ dirt that they paid Mike $20, giving us a $10 profit. If only all home improvement projects could turn out like that.

From afar our berries look like bare sticks but up close they are showing signs of spring.

I also cleaned up our strawberry patch and found this one eager blossom. Maybe we’ll have early berries this year?

After all that work we had plenty of time to lounge on the couch. For the record, I didn’t edit the baby’s eye color at all. Really.

Our chickens are all laying regularly again after their winter hiatus, a real sign that the days are getting longer. I love that their eggs are all different colors.

I’m enjoying the sun but not holding my breath that it’ll stick around quite yet. Who knows. Maybe it’ll snow again this week.

How’s your spring shaping up?

You can find my writing today at the EcoEtsy blog where I have a post up all about clover and eco-friendly lawn care. Fitting for St. Patty’s Day, don’t ya think?

In real life I’m hanging out with my 2 little Irish lasses, at least one of whom is sporting a new shamrock hair clip. I may be doing a little Irish jig in my living room and will certainly be wishing my grandma were still around to cook me a dinner of leg of lamb with mint sauce. I’ll likely drink a little Irish whiskey in honor of my grandpa.

Sláinte!

Here’s a little felt shamrock tutorial for you. It’s a super quick project that there’s still time to make, even though St. Patrick’s day is only a couple days away. I used a felted wool sweater as my material because I have an abundant supply but any felt will work. You can sew or glue it to a pin or hair clip and you won’t be without your bit o’ green on the big day.

Here’s a template for you. My shamrock measured just about 1 5/8 inches wide.

Start by cutting out a shamrock and three hearts from 2 colors of felt.

Place a heart shape on one of the leaves and stitch it down.

Sew remaining hearts on.

Using embroidery thread, embroider a few french knots in the center, if you’d like. I used gold because what St. Patty’s Day is complete without a few gold coins sized for a tiny leprechaun?

I cut out a second shamrock and sewed the 2 together. This gave my shamrock a little more stability, especially that skinny little stem, and hid the knots from my stitching on the top.

I used hot glue to attach it to an alligator clip that I’d partially covered with grosgrain ribbon.

It’s perfect for my little leprechaun!

It’s a cute and super quick project. You could even whip up a hair clip or two on Saturday morning while the rest of your family is just waking up, as I did with my heart clips on Valentine’s Day. There’s no excuse not to have something green!

]]> http://sesameseeddesigns.com/blog/2012/03/saint-patricks-day-shamrock-hair-clip-a-tutorial/feed/ 2 http://sesameseeddesigns.com/blog/2012/03/goodbye-lawn-hello-path/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=goodbye-lawn-hello-path http://sesameseeddesigns.com/blog/2012/03/goodbye-lawn-hello-path/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:33:43 +0000 Casey http://sesameseeddesigns.com/?p=1396 A few weeks ago, Sairshe and I dug up some old plants and prepared a little patch of dirt in front of our house to plant some peas. Somehow that little project turned into a much bigger one. Funny how those things happen. We’ve been wanting to reduce the amount of grass that we have [...]]]>

A few weeks ago, Sairshe and I dug up some old plants and prepared a little patch of dirt in front of our house to plant some peas. Somehow that little project turned into a much bigger one. Funny how those things happen.

We’ve been wanting to reduce the amount of grass that we have around our house. Did you know that watering a lawn can double your household water usage? It also takes a lot of time and energy to mow it. Some of our lawn has to go.

We also walk across our front lawn every day going from the house to the car since the walk around the car to the sidewalk is just too much sometimes. We’re a shortcut-loving family, what can I say? The little patch of dirt I exposed turned into a much larger one- a path across the front of our house. Here’s what things looked like before. The pretty flowers we planted last month notwithstanding, things are a little overgrown and messy. The mailbox is hard to get to and in the summer our water spigot is always buried under overgrown grass since we can’t mow right around it.

Mike spent an afternoon removing the grass and removing a couple inches of dirt. It was a lot of work! The Dig beer was an appropriate finish to that afternoon.

Then we laid weedcloth along the path since we don’t want grass and weeds popping up where they don’t belong. We anchored the weedcloth and defined the edges with some plastic landscape edging.

Carys Áine was the first to test out the new path. I think she approves!

Then came the heavy lifting, or shoveling. All four of us helped fill in the path with gravel.

Now when I get out of the car I have this pretty walkway to use to get to the house.

My favorite thing, though, is the area in the first photo. We extended the gravel to go around our mailbox and water spigot. No more overgrown corner of the yard. Our flower pots look pretty and I think our mailman appreciates it too.

We have enough gravel left over to put around our garden in the backyard and we plan on taking up some of the grass back there too. Since we put in the path, we’ve had nothing but rain so we still have to cut the excess weedcloth from around our path and we plan on putting some plants in between the path and the house. We also hope to further reduce our lawn by replacing some it with this eco-friendly alternative. Oh, and plant those peas that we set out to plant when all this started.

Do you have any yard projects in the works? Do you share my dream of a yard with more native plants and less lawn?

3/14/12 Update: You can sew these too! Pattern can be found here.

Meet Hungry Bunny, Pretty Bunny, Woodland Bunny and Love Bunny! These cute little egg-shaped bunnies are my latest creations. They’ve arrived just in time for Easter and these four are already available in my shop. I’m imagining them decorating springtime tables, getting nestled into lucky kids’ Easter baskets or even being hidden alongside real eggs in an Easter Egg hunt. How fun would it be to find one of these snugly friends in the grass?

I’m working on putting together the pattern for them so that you crafty people can make your own. It’ll be available in my shop very soon so you’ll have plenty of time to make some for Easter. I’d love some feedback, though, since I haven’t put a pattern together in a long time. Are you interested in looking over my pattern for clarity and making  your own bunny? Leave me a comment by Sunday at noon Pacific Time and I’ll choose 3 people to send my pattern to free of charge. The pattern is now available and can be found in my shop.

I used this simple free pattern here. It’s just 2 triangles and it came together really quickly, even with a 4 year old helping to cut the pattern pieces. The neat thing is that the bird is almost perfectly round so we’ve been having fun playing “throw and catch,” as Sairshe calls it. It’s pretty nice to catch a soft, squishy ball of cashmere in your hand!

Then we moved on to a bigger friend. A bright pink bunny who’s just a little early for Easter.

Sairshe sewed about half the bunny’s body herself and I’m so impressed! Her stitches are remarkably even and there are only a few places I had to go back and reinforce. Even though she sewed it herself she’s been great at sharing it with her sister, at least until we make a second one.

Here they’re eagerly awaiting pancakes.

I’ve also been making a ton of springy wool and cashmere flower clips that will show up in my shop soon.

Sairshe was excited to use her new gardening gloves and Carys Áine was even got in on the action. It was so cute to see them working together.

Sairshe took her planting job very seriously. There was only one brief moment of yelling at her sister for crushing flowers in her little baby fist, though she didn’t mind when Carys Áine tried on her precious gloves.

But the biggest source of fun was the dirt pile Sairshe made in the middle of our lawn when I wasn’t looking.

The front of our house looks a million times prettier. Grandma Diane is visiting and helped pretty things up too.

When Mike came home, he pretended to not recognize our house and drove past twice while Sairshe watched out the window, laughing hysterically at how she had “tricked Daddy.”

Success.

We started by wrapping our rocks in a couple layers of wool roving. I just happened to have these Easter-y colors sitting around. (The roving is from a drop-spindle class I took forever ago!) I needle felted the ends a little so the roving would stay in place during the felting process.

Sairshe is patiently waiting to felt her purple rock.

We swished and squeezed the rocks in warm, soapy water. This was Sairshe’s favorite part but it wasn’t without a small mishap.

There’s bound to be spilling when a bowl of water and a 4 1/2 year old get together, though I’m not sure how the nutcracker got there.

When the wool seemed firm and dense we rubbed them with a plastic bag to smooth them off, thanks to the great tip in the tutorial. I needle felted an S onto Sairshe’s rock (you can see it in the 1st photo) and left the rest plain. I love how they turned out. Sairshe is pretty proud too.  I thought she might get frustrated with this project but she was totally into it and did a great job with her rock! She even made a second one- the pink and green one in the picture at the top of the post.