Organizing Jewelry

Looking for a cheap but visually-appealing way to organize your jewelry? Years ago I discovered that a simple mug rack:

could be easily transformed into this:

with just a few nails or tacks in the wall.

I love it!

Little Project: Umbrella Stand

So what do you do when you need access to shade for garden work during the middle of the day? And you just happen to have a couple of PVC pipe pieces leftover from a previous project? And you have extra containers, and plenty of rocks?

It' not a pretty sight, but then again, neither is the rest of the yard. This will be great for shade while working in the garden!

Ta da!

Here's the finished product. I found some chains with s-hooks meant for hanging plants or something, but they worked beautifully for hanging my lights. They are totally adjustable and everything! So adding those chains on to the cost, the project cost about $35 total. I'm happy! We'll see how it works with growing the seeds.

Speaking of growing seeds, whenever someone finds out what I'm doing I tend to get similar reactions.

Walmart Checker, being overly nosy in my opinion: "So what are you doing with all this stuff?"
Me: "Growing seeds indoors."
Walmart Checker: "Oh yeah? What kind of seeds?"
Me: "Garden seeds..."
Guy behind me in line: "Yeah GARDEN seeds. More like pot!"
Walmart Checker: "Haha! Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking!"
Me: "Haha....yeah, I've never heard THAT before."

It does get a little old.

Light Stand for Seed Starting

Thanks to this site, I found a cheap and easy way to build a light stand for my seed starts. It took less than ten minutes to finish (except for the fact that one of the elbows I grabbed was the wrong angle and I had to exchange it at Lowe's...d'oh!) and costs about $7 (assuming you have access to a PVC pipe cutter or a saw already).

I began by gathering the materials:

• 10 feet (1” internal diameter, ID) PVC pipe (I only needed to use 8 feet of the pipe)
• 2 L-shaped PVC connectors (1” ID)
• 2 T-shaped PVC connectors (1” ID)
• 4 PVC endcaps (1” ID)

• hacksaw (or pvc pipe cutter)
• tape measure
• marker

I used 2 5' pipes for this job (so they would fit in my car), and ended the project with an extra 2' of pipe (since I chose to make the 24" version instead of the 48" one). I was able to borrow a pvc pipe cutter from a relative, so that reduced the cost and made the project go faster.

I went ahead and marked the pipe into sections that I would be cutting, like so...

...and used the pvc pipe cutter to cut the sections out into separate pieces.

Now, the fun part: connect all the parts! And just like that, in a matter of minutes and with a little pocket change, I had a truly lovely little light stand for my soon-to-be seed starts!

A stand similar to this with a light fixture tends to cost $50 or more (usually not including a bulb for the light fixture). I plan to use one or two clamp lights (~$14 for both) with fluorescent bulbs ($7 for 2), bringing my project cost close to $30. Not bad! Now I just need to figure out a creative way to raise and lower the clamp lights on the frame. Shouldn't be too difficult to make it work.

Am I really ready for THIS?

Good question.

But you know, sometimes it's true that thinking too much about something before you do it is a bad idea. This might be one of those times. If I really considered what I'm getting myself into, I might turn back this very second.

Here are the seeds I have and am planning to plant/grow/kill/whatever very soon:

• Dark Seeded Perfection Peas
• Purple Plum Radish
• Delicata Squash
• Orange Smoothie Pumpkin
• Salad Bowl Red Lettuce
• Danvers Half-Long Carrot
• Black Beauty Eggplant
• Sweet Golden Cal Wonder Pepper
• Casaba Golden Beauty Melon

March 19th is the earliest date in my region to start seeds indoors, and I'm preparing myself to do just that. Most of the seeds I have will need to be planted straight in the ground later on, but a few I can get going inside the house. Here's the thing, though--I really don't know what I'm doing. Sure, I've been reading, but I've never actually done real gardening before on this scale.

Here's the area I'll be working with.

Thanks for helping, Bailey.

See that dirt that's all raked and pretty-like? That's where the raised bed is going to go. Let me assure you that although it might not look like it from the photo, I want to re-emphasize the fact that the ground is PURE FREAKING ROCK and really quite impossible to grow anything in unless it's a certain type of weed, sage brush, or wild flowers. I don't think the "soil" is capable of sustaining much more than that. So we'll be bringing soil in instead.

See those black planter things? They're left over from when we planted trees last year, and I'm thinking of utilizing them as part of the garden. They're big enough to each fit a pepper, tomato, or other kind of plant. That way, we wouldn't need to make more than one raised bed.

Now excuse me while I figure out how many plants I can actually fit in the space I'm planning for the garden.