Erica makes a hanging plant holder.

Happy Monday and ... guess what? I'm finally writing another DIY arts n' crafts blog post!! I haven't written one since last Christmas. 'Bout time, right? LOL This idea comes from a client of mine. She stopped by my Wanderlust show to drop off a shirt that she needed to be sewn into a pillow for a birthday gift. As we were chatting, she asked if I've ever made hanging plant holders. I hadn't so she showed me the quick 30-second Nifty or Buzzfeed (don't remember which one it was so I can't properly cite my source) video from Facebook. These plant hangers are all over Etsy and are super cute for summer home decor. I looked at a few other pictures and told Betsy, "Sure, I can do that!" So here we go... seven simple steps to turn an old t-shirt into a hanging plant holder.

Upcycled T-Shirt Hanging Plant Holder Tutorial-
       Materials needed: gently worn t-shirt (or any other knit or jersey fabric), scissors and sewing machine or needle & thread

1. Cut the t-shirt or fabric into eight 1 -1.5 inch strips.
       *For a plant holder, make sure each strip is at least a yard in length. (It looks like a lot but the strips will shrink as you start tying them into knots.)
       *For a growler bottle holder, strips can be shorter - about 24 inches.
a) If making multicolored plant hanger, cut all the different materials into equal length and sew together for desired total length.
b) If adding separate colored fabric for tassels at the bottom, cut those at 12 inches each.
c) If adding separate colored fabric for braided handle, cut 6 strips at 22 inches each.

2. For tassels ONLY - gather the top of all eight strips of fabric together and place the tassels pieces in between the eight pieces. Sew together by hand (unless your sewing machine is heavy duty and can sew through all of the layers.)

Then tie a single knot at where the strips of fabric and tassels meet. This knot is for decorative purposes only since the pieces are already sewn together. I tied my single knot exactly where my stitching was in order to hide it.

If you are not adding tassels, gather all eight strips of fabric together at one end and tie together in a single knot at the base. Leave a few inches (or any desirable length) hanging loose under the single knot.
This will be the bottom of your plant holder. You'll basically be making the project upside-down.

3. Lay the tied piece of fabric out on a large surface with the knotted end pointing toward the top. Separate the eight pieces into four pairs. Tie each pair into a single knot, i.e, piece A will be tied to piece B, piece C will be tied to piece D and so on and so forth.

4. Separate the middle six pieces into pairs and tie into single knots again, as in step #3.

5. Tie the two remaining outer pieces into a single knot.

Now the project should look like a basketball net without the opening at the bottom. You should be able to fit a round object inside of the project, if not, untie the knots and start over (sometimes the spacing between the knots is too big/small or the pieces got tangled and the knots don't end up in the correct position).

6. Hang the project onto a hook and continue to gather the fabric pieces into pairs and tie the pairs into single knots.

I found it easier to "dress" a household item with the project while tying the knots. This helps with gathering the pairs and tying the single knots equal distance to each other.

7. For braided handles ONLY- tie the handle pieces to the loose ends of the project with a single knot. Then braid the handle pieces and tie together at the top. If you are not wanting to add a braided handle, tie the loose ends together to finish the project.

And there you have it! A fun and trendy project you can make basically for free and in less than an hour. They're great for hanging pots, bottles, planters and bowls of all sizes as the spacing can be adjusted by tying the knots closer together or further apart. If you would rather someone else make a hanging plant holder for you, well, I'm here for ya! I won't be adding these to my craft show project line up but if you want one, please let me know (ragsreborngifts@gmail.com). I can make them as custom orders and I'm only charging $5 each!

Here's the one I made for a client. She's really pleased with it and her plant fits perfectly!

Erica and Wes are growing a garden!

Indie Trunk Show kinda took over my life last month, so I have to apologize for not blogging about this... I GOT MARRIED!!!

ERICA AND WESLEY ARE HUSBAND AND WIFE \(^.^)/ WHOOT WHOOT

I'm going to be in another show in August so I'm pretty sure my life will be taken over by my sewing machine once more pretty soon. (Its a good kind of takeover, though.) I want to do a show each quarter. My spring show was Indie Trunk Show. My summer show will be (appropriately titled) The Summer Show in Yukon. I applied to be in Earlywine YMCA's Arts and Crafts Fair in south OKC for my fall show and The Santa Market in Edmond for my winter show. I also plan to apply for a show at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds (also for fall) but that hasn't happened, yet. I don't even remember what it's called so I can't shamelessly promote. LOL No word on my official acceptance into these shows but I feel pretty good about it. They were all referrals from vendors I met at the Indie Trunk Show who all had good things to say about RagsReborn. They are also smaller shows so they'll be a much better fit for me.

But before craft show insanity sets in, I want to blog about my wonderful domestic life with my husband. <3 I usually don't do mushy barf stuff but I figured I should at least once since I am married now. Wes and I are trying to get a little garden together on our balcony. We have a couple plants from last year and two new crops I started a few months ago. Look, progress!

I took some really awesome pictures in the daytime and got some action shots of Wes pruning the pepper plants but then I accidentally deleted them off my phone. So now we have "oh shit, I deleted the good pictures so here are some make up ones" pictures.

One thing Wes & I always do together is cook and eat our meals.  No matter how busy our individual schedules get, we try our darnedest to have dinner. Over the last year or so, I've gotten into the organic farm to market movement.  Last summer I decided that we should just grow our own herbs and some vegetables. (It's cheaper than shopping at Whole Foods!) We started with some mint sprigs a friend of ours gave us. Then we got some seeds for peppers. This year I got some more seeds and now, we have mint, basil (actually no real basil, yet, they're just tiny little sprouts now), green beans and banana peppers.

The basil has sprouts... even if you can't see them in this picture.

I can't say I'm an expert but there have been lessons learned from our two summers of gardening that I would like to share. This was actually Wes' idea. He goes, "You should blog about our plants since they're doing so well." I guess he wants me to diversify... crafts, recipes, infertility, shows... what don't I do?!?! LOL Anyway, back to this week's topic. Top three tips for home gardening:

1. Don't let the soil stay moist! 

Last year we experienced gnat-mageddon. It was TERRIBLE!  I didn't even water the plants that much. But it was just enough to get a few gnats and then those suckers laid eggs and then we could not get rid of them for months. I think we had gnats from March until November. The apartment supposedly came out and sprayed and we had fly strips all over and around the plants but nothing helped. 

So there we were with our little baby plants and an army of gnats... AND moldy soil. Since we let the soil get too moist, fuzzy patches of mold started showing up. We ended up having to stop watering the plants completely and then we pretty much re-potted the plants with new dry soil. We use a spray bottle for watering now. I spritz the indoor plants about every other day.

2. Take them outside. 

I didn't want to bring the plants out this spring because of all the rain we've been getting. I was afraid that our plants would all just drown. And all the seed packets say to start your plants indoors for x number of weeks. Wes pushed for them being taken outside so I finally gave in. They looked like they weren't going to make it after the first few storms. But then, our mint grew a lot fuller and our banana pepper grew into a really hardy stalk.  We had the spindliest banana pepper plant last summer and it barely had any buds on it. Took it outside for a month and it has improved tenfold. The only thing we still have indoors is our baby basil.

Our luscious mint.

3. Get multiple small pots.

Last year, we got two large pots and I crammed all our seeds into them. I had a packet of basil seeds, a packet of pepper seeds and the sprigs of mint from Kristin. At first they all grew... then they all died. The mint took over everything and the basil never made it.  Our peppers were looking more and more weak. I finally let the mint have their own pot and separated the peppers into two pots with one stalk each. This year, I got four Jiffy Strips. Two for basil and two for green beans. We only put one green bean seed in each and a few basil seeds in each. The beans are sprouting up a storm and the basil is starting to grow, too.

I want to grow other vegetables but I think planting season is over. I think we'll add to our garden each year. Maybe two new crops a year since that's what we've been doing. We are going to have tons of banana peppers this summer. Wes suggested pickling them. I've never pickled anything before and Wes made it sound like a difficult ordeal. Has anyone out there pickled peppers? And can you give us tips?