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Plan-Free: My Mellow-Yellow Weekend

We had a mellow-yellow, no plans weekend. I loved it. That’s not to say I didn’t do anything, but that I enjoyed doing ‘whatever.’

First up, crafting a wreath:

wreath detailI’ve had an idea bouncing around in my head for a while and wanted to give it a try. I’ve been drying a few hydrangea blooms, now faded to a soft purple-gray. The sage is winding down the season, but still has plenty of purple plumage to spare. The thought was to wrap strands of the soft sage along the edges of the wreath, punctuated with three hydrangeas and a bit of ribbon. The colors are lovely, but the implementation is all wrong. Further, the more I worked with the hydrangea, the more I damaged the brittle blooms. Stay tuned for my sad little tale later this week.

Next up, seed organizing:

Oh, how I love organizing. And seeds. And my computer.

I gave my Seed Keeper an end-of-season clean out. It’s a great place to collect and store the seeds, but after a busy spring, I’d neglected the contents. When I had finished planting, I tossed empty seed packets into the box, thinking I would later use them for record-keeping.

Seed Keeper Deluxe

Seed Keeper Deluxe

Head slap: I keep a blog. So, remembering the log part of blogging, I tossed the torn packets into the recycle bin. (At one point I thought I would save them to make cards, but muddied finger prints and torn edges helped me realize the error of my ways.)

The clean out left plenty of room for this season’s seed collection, my most methodical and organized to date.

Matching garden photos with the seeds I plan to store, I created a photo collage.  I sized the collage to fit a sheet of name badge labels, passed it through the printer and voila, an easy way to make seed packets. Using glassine envelopes on hand from last year, I included the name and the year, added the label and seeds, and filed them in my nifty Seed Keeper.

flower seed packets

Flowering annual seed packets ready to fill

flower seed labels

Photo collage for identifying seeds

squirrel on the fence

Looking for directions (sorry buddy, these seeds aren’t for you).  The peanuts are one house over.

End of the weekend, project:

I connected with Emma at Greenhouse Starter over the weekend and made plans to ship her Craft it Forward treasure.  I stayed up making a card to go with it, the perfect end to my mellow-yellow, no plans weekend.

Are you making your way through Monday or still hanging on to the weekend?

24 thoughts on “Plan-Free: My Mellow-Yellow Weekend”

  1. You are an inspiration with your super clean and organised seed box. I know what you mean about keeping old seed packets intending to use them but the grubbiness takes over! I will be clearing and cleaning the greenhouse very soon ready for more action! I am excited to receive your parcel so will post my Craft it Forward offer very soon. Have a good week !

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    • I’m so glad you can relate! Those packets always feel like small pieces of art, and the contents such hope. I do refer to the planting instructions, too, but honestly in this day of Google, I can get advice from five million sites in 4 seconds! LOL.

      Can’t wait to see your list.

      Thanks, Emma.

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  2. I’m halfway through Tuesday already Alys – seems like the week is half over!
    The wreath sounds beautiful – the photo looks beautiful – fabulous colours …. what could possibly go wrong 🙂

    I love your idea of using the used seed packets to make cards – you know, torn edges and finger marks just add to the vintage look of things…. I spend hours dirtying up and wrinking pristine bits of card and paper …….it’s an odd life 🙂

    I’m about to post a pic of my spring garden and there you are seed gathering and storing …… love those packets you made too! You were impressively industrious in your no-plans weekend.

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    • I don’t know why I can’t keep the time straight. Is our time different 23 hours? I’ll go look it up.

      One of these days I’m going to list the blogs I follow, then the time zone so I can keep it all straight. Hee!

      The wreath sounds lovely…but isn’t. Corners are lovely, but I have big gaps of metal showing through, and the natural shrinkage that comes about, means I’ve not used nearly enough flowers. You’ll see. But thanks for being supportive.

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  3. I was thinking the same thing, ContentedCrafter! —-those grubby fingerprints, torn edges, and maybe a leftover seed or two just add to the charm of a card.

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  5. Oooops, I entirely missed Monday, LOL I feel like I skipped a day. Thanks for the cheery garden post, I really needed that. Very clever to make your own envelopes and how cute are your labels too. I loved seeing your little squirrel too, that put a big smile on my face. They are probably getting ready for winter now. Suggesting he skip off to the neighbours will do no good, they are on to you my dear 😀 I imagine them saying, “Hey, here comes the red head with the camera, look cute”.

    It’s been snowing none stop since Friday night and even though we anticipate it every year, the first week is misery. After a hectic few days of parties and company, I did the catch up thing yesterday and then I opened the mail to find a speeding ticket ! It was a 1pm photo radar of 65 km in a 50 km….ugg…it’s a 4 lane major thoroughfare that I wrongly assumed was a 60 km which most major routes are here. I’m sure that is not a good enough excuse to get out of it 😦 On top of that, last week (don’t read this Sharon) I pulled into a busy mall that I never go to and swung backwards into a parking spot only to come out and find a ticket….yep it was handicap…OMgosh, I never looked behind me after I parked. The girl was still there writing me up and I apologized profusely to which she shrugged and empathetically said, “I’m sorry”. I am banning myself from the car this week as it’s gotten way to expensive. Oh whoa is me..LOL.

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    • Wow, what a week behind the wheel of your car. I’m glad nothing bad came of either ticket (no accident or injury I mean). Yikes. I can’t imagine driving in the snow, either. We have accidents all over the place as soon as we get our first rain. They warn people to slow down but to no avail. I dread the few times I need to drive in the dark and the rain. It’s the worst. I white knuckle it till I get home.

      I was rear-ending one block from home when I was 21 by a guy speeding in the rain. I’ve had chronic neck problems as a result of that accident for over 30 years. At 30 I was rear-ended again, and at 31, also a driver going too fast in the rain. I often joke that I would be better off driving a tank.

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      • I like the idea of a tank. That would be awesome. It’d have to be solar powered though 😀 There is plenty of road misery when it snows. Usually a good idea to stay off the roads if you can. You’ve really had a bad time of it with people crashing into you 😦 We’ve been very very lucky. The kind of mileage we have under our belt from living out of town, it’s pretty amazing (knock wood). I dread driving on a rainy night too. I thought it’d be better in the city, but not by much. I’m totally blind out there.

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  6. Please don’t feel that you have to answer this, but I just had to tell you that my friend Debbie and I call these weekends “bonding with the house”. Time at home; time to do projects; time for a walk; and (for us at least) time for a drink and some yummy food!
    For a no plans weekend, you got alot done!!

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