where does the time go?

an etsy listing! yay!

what's that steve miller song say? time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'...into the fuuuuutuuuuure!!!

it's totally true.

as summer fades into fall, and the plants outside succumb to my lazy watering scheme (read:when it rains, you get watered) i find myself wishing that time would slow down so i could do things..like...list more stuff for sale! or clean! or do dishes! or blog!

one thing i WON'T neglect is this awesome online drawing course i'm taking with tascha. i have loved her work since i found her a year ago, buying three of her holiday ornaments last winter. her style is so adorbs...and i had thought of commissioning her to do a painting of kirk, spock and i but instead i decided to take her class so i can free my inner frida kahlo and make one of us in tascha's style. i missed her online class the first time around and was determined not to miss it again. yay!


speaking of the divine miss K...here are some shots of the scarekahlo my mom and i made for her veggie garden this year. her body is an old tomato cage, her head is a milk jug (which i've stopped drinking but that's another story) with her eyebrows sharpied on..her hair is an old black sweater that just would NOT felt, her beaded flowers came from my stash of random stuff...her clothes were from my goodwill pile. the jewelry was from my sister-in-law and it's just too big for me (read, my bosoms are too big for IT) and the palette and brushes came from my mom's art supplies.

after reading 'the lacuna' as well as 'frida kahlo: song of herself' i guess it's not surprising that for me, this is the summer of frida. i am thinking of letting my eyebrow go for halloween and dressing up as her this year....instead of a monkey i'll have two very unruly kittens as my sidekicks.

have a seat.....

my boss and awesome friend Sarah gave me a rocking chair that she had found many years ago, intending to fix the broken spindle in the back.  she never did. during a recent cleaning bout, she texted me asking if i'd like the chair! sure! i said,  why not! i'll think of SOME way to use it....then i saw a pic in a magazine of people planting containers and setting them in old chairs. but why use a container when you can just suspend it in the air?

so last weekend, my parents and my friend jyk came down to attack my yard. when they left, i was exhausted, but i still wanted to plant my chair!

and this is what i did.

1. remove the seat pad and upholstery, and any loose nails or staples. my chair had some pressboard and some plywood on the bottom. i removed the pressboard, but left the plywood because i was lazy.

2. staple fabric on the bottom of the chair using a hand stapler. if you don't have one of these, you can hammer 1/4" tacks every few inches as well. just make sure the cloth is pretty tight to the bottom of the chair and there aren't big gaps between your staples. i used weed blocking cloth, which lets water escape but keeps the dirt 'in'. you could probably also use something like denim or two layers of cotton fabric.

3. flip the chair back over, and check to make sure there aren't big gaps by pressing gently with your hands around the perimeter of the seat. I discovered a few spots that needed more staples. the weight of wet soil and plants will add up quick-do this step to make sure you've attached the cloth well. You can see the pressboard over the plywood that i didn't remove. i just stapled to the plywood on the back.


4.OVER fill the seat with succulent mix soil, or whatever you have layin' around that drains well. get it wet and make sure only dirty water comes through, NOT mud.  succulents don't like to sit in water-so make sure you have good drainage on this soil! let it drain so that you don't see standing water in the soil, and then plant your succulents! i used hen-n-chicks and two different kind of stonecrops, and added some creeping thyme which will have gorgeous little purple flowers in a bit. use your hands to pull back the soil and plant the roots of the plants horizontal rather than vertical. these guys have shallow roots anyway so you aren't hurting them by doing this. remember that plants look great in odd numbered groupings.

5. set your succulent chair in a sunny spot and admire the view! make sure no one tries to sit on it (ugh!) and remove leaves or berries from the neighbor's trees that happen to drift in. give it a water about twice a week or so (unless it's been raining a lot) and re-bury any roots or stems that work their way up until they've had a chance to root. i'm going to bring this into the garage for the winter so it doesn't freeze....and hopefully next summer it'll look even better!


like i said, this idea's been around for a while, i can't take 100% of the credit, but i would love to see what other people do with this idea! if you plant in a strange (or interesting) container, post a link!

recurring dream

i have a recurring dream that i've had about twice a month since i bought the house in october.

i discover a hidden wing of the house with a HUGE bedroom, GIANT bathroom, and a lovely, well organized closet with clothes i never remembered having before.

i think this blog has become that hidden room. well, most blogs in general! in my limited break time at work, i'm pinning, looking at facebook, or IM'ing with friends, not using the internet the way i used to use it. since i don't have unfettered access to it at home anymore (since i'm too cheap to shell out for cable and internet) i spend my evenings reading, sewing, doing housework, or pretending to do those things while i sit and snuggle the kitters.

my suspicion is that about 90% of the people who read my blog are friends of mine on FB or pinterest and you already get all the becca-jo news you could ever want from those two sources. but for the rest of you, and the world at large, i'm going to try to rediscover this hidden room and get better about posting new stuff here.

thanks for still being there, internet. i swear, i still love you <3

keeping warm.....

i've been swamped at work and still don't have internet at home. winter has finally come to MN and so the boys and i are cocooning while i work on spring duckies, FINALLY start work on my book proposal, and do little projects around the house. this is what happens when i try to lay down on the couch to read.


if you don't have luxurious fur coats, layers are the key. i have begun to collect a wade range of blankets and throws which i constantly use throughout the house. since the kitters' favorite game is to duck under the covers and explore the fabulous land under them, this pleases them no end.
here they are mid-bed making in the morning. this is also how they usually sleep, one at my feet and one by my side.