March 20, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: Feature This

First day of spring in the garden (photos at dusk)

It’s late in the day on the first day of spring, but I’m determined to finish out week three of Blogging 101. Day fifteen’s assignment: Create a New Posting Feature.

Why do this? The idea is:

to inspire loyalty is to publish regularly. And the best ways to make sure you publish regularly is with a recurring feature — it’s like making a pact with yourself and your audience.
Creating a regular feature means your readers have something specific to wait for at regular intervals — it gives your blog a hook.

We’re all creatures of habit, bloggers and readers. Adding a recurring feature — or simply planning posts at regular intervals — helps your writing stay sustainable. Even a purely personal blog of random musings benefits from a hint of structure.

I read the assignment last night and thought about it throughout the day. In my early blogging days I ran a feature called Blooming Thursday. It did give me some focus for one day of the week, but I don’t think it captured the minds and hearts of…anyone.

I dug a little deeper if you’ll pardon the pun. I thought about the things that I know and love and eventually settled on organizing. Organizing people, places and things has been a passion my whole life. My mom said she found me in her room organizing a sock drawer at the age of two. I’m sure there’s been some embellishing to that story over the years, but it illustrates my interest from an early age.

I’m casting about for a proper name and this is where you come in. Will you please vote for one of these options, or simply let me know what you think in the comments below?

For those of you living in the northern hemisphere, happy vernal equinox. To my friends in the south, I’m sure you’re welcoming the approach of cooler weather. I love the turn of a season and all the promise it brings. How about you?

March 19, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: Branding Your Image?

Today’s blogging 101 task asks us to extend our brand with one of the following: a custom Blavatar, a custom image widget, or a fan page.

Since I already have a Gravatar and lacked the energy to create another Facebook page, I opted for the image widget.

It was fun playing round with my photo using a (mostly) free app called PicMonkey, but the idea of creating a brand is a bit lost on me.

You can see the image widget on the right side of my blog. Of all the lessons over the past few weeks, this was the most challenging, mostly because I just couldn’t see the point.

Have you used the image widget on your blog? How about PicMonkey?

March 18, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: Weird Image Wednesday

Today’s Blogging 101 task is to pick a blogging community event and take part.

I couldn’t help myself.

I chose Weird Image Wednesday hosted by Karl Thibodeaux.

baby spiders on fern 4-18-2013 12-47-012

Hatching baby spiders

I blogged and shared this photo two years ago, but thought it was worth sharing again.

While cleaning debris under the orange tree I discovered recently hatched spiders leaving home. Within two days they were gone without a trace, so I’m glad I took this photo when I did.

You can read about my discovery at Itsy Bitsy Spider

Karl has several beautiful photographs on his site at Weird Image Wednesday. I think the frozen thorns are my current favorite. You might want to check it out.

If you want to join in the fun on future Wednesdays, be sure to include the tag in your post.

March 17, 2015 by Born To Organize

And In This Corner, A Garden Sampler

According to Aristotle, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This small corner of my garden agrees.

There are all sorts of gardening rules to insure your success:

Do not over plant or crowd your seedlings
Make sure your plant gets the proper amount of sunlight
Water appropriately to support healthy roots
and so on.

Then the usual suspects blow into town and make a mockery of it all. With some assist from the wind, a few birds and other garden foragers, this perfect little gem of a corner came together without any help from the gardener (that’s me).

None of these plants are garden strangers. They enjoyed their stay last season and decided to make a come back. Below my window, and along the patio’s edge, a sampler garden is born.

Garden Sampler

Four o’clock Mirabilis jalapa

This prolific annual grows quickly with a low, sprawling habit. The original plant grew at the front of the house in the Children’s Garden, producing lovely yellow blooms around four o’clock each day, hence the name. I saved lots of seeds, but honestly, I needn’t have bothered. Two months ago, several seedlings started to grow.

Cyclamen

Cyclamen grow from tubers. They die back each year, returning in the winter and early spring, preferring cooler temps. This lovely pink variety is flowering like mirrored twins.

Polka dot plant Hypoestes phyllostachya

This spotted pink darling self-seeded from a pot nearby. Late in the summer, tiny purple flowers appeared. It’s nice to have that splash of pink joining the others.

New Zealand Hair Sedge

Every garden needs some breezy grasses, right? It’s the perfect backdrop for the pinks in the foreground.

Tomato Plant nightshade Solanum lycopersicum

Rounding out this densely populated corner is a tomato plant. Just like last year, tomatoes are popping up all over the garden. The plant is doing fine now, but once the Acer fills out for the summer, the tomato won’t receive much light. I don’t have the heart to try to move it so it stays. There are no rules that say tomatoes have to bear fruit. It can enjoy the quiet solitude of the corner and do whatever it wants.

Blogging 100: Day Twelve

Our Blogging University assignment for today is to “Increase Your Commenting Confidence.” I’m pretty chatty around here. I drop comments all over the blogosphere and receive thoughtful and thought-provoking comments on my blog in turn. I followed the instructions, though to

“read six posts written in response to the same prompt, and leave comments on at least two of them.”

Fun!

Save

March 13, 2015 by Born To Organize

Garden Curiosities

My garden is full of curiosities. Come have a look.

This is the only snapdragon to survive the winter. I don’t know why this survived, but it sure is pretty.

Overwintered snapdragon

If you take a closer look though, the plant below the flowers looks terrible. Dots of black, sooty material coat the leaves, an as-yet to be determined garden pest. Curious.

Snapdragon infestation

Our aging orange tree produces an impressive amount of fruit, but they’re not very sweet. The rats, however love them and lay waste to a half a dozen oranges a day. Somehow they overlooked the larger orange. It grew like the heart of the Grinch on Christmas day.

The orange that ate New York

Since we live in California, we keep an up to date earthquake emergency kit, stored under my potting bench in the backyard. The lower bin holds water, blankets and a first aid kit, and the top bin stores canned goods and assorted items. The bins remain disguised but at the ready if we ever need them.

I use the top of the potting bench to stage some of my photos and in the summer it doubles as a buffet for outdoor meals.

Well.

Apparently some unknown critter had the same idea. Just under the top of the bench I found a mass of hollow snail shells. Do you think the snails hide there by day, providing a tasty buffet for a night dweller, or do you think the night dweller brings them there for his meal?

Potting bench, earthquake storage and a place where snails go to die

Outdoor earthquake kit

Snail evisceration

I was home alone one morning this week when I heard scratching on the living room window. Yikes. I screwed up the courage to investigate and saw a goldfinch repeatedly fluttering into the window. This went on for most of the afternoon and on into the second day.

We have ultraviolet decals on the windows to discourage flying accidents. Some birds will fly straight into the window thinking the reflection is more blue sky. The decal alerts the bird and prevents injury. But this was different. Over and over again, he would fly up to the window from his resting branch, and without injuring himself, flutter his wings on the glass.

I did a bit of reading and learned that the birds small brain thinks the reflection is a competitor. This exhausted little bird has been defending his territory for two days…against himself. I taped a large piece of red plastic to the glass and it broke the spell. Curious indeed.

Ultraviolet window decal, barely visible from indoors but highly visible to the birds

Here’s the view from the tree.

Goldfinch nemesis: His own reflection

While cleaning up oranges from under the tree, I made the mistake of drawing back the branches of a fern. I wonder who’s living in that hole? I released the branches of the fern and backed away. I’m curious but, not that curious.

Anybody home?

Finally, what’s more curious than a cat named Mouse licking dew drops from the edge of a daffodil while a little snail travels down the center of the bloom?

Mouse sips water from the flower, snail inside

Mouse, always curious

Blogging 101, Day Ten: Build and display your blog roll.

Please have a look at my sidebar and see if you find something of interest. Then click away. If you’ve been blogging for a while you know that comments and blogrolls are the spice of the blogging community. Belly up to the table and enjoy.

March 11, 2015 by Born To Organize

Postage Stamp Table Top and Day 8 of Blogging 101

Once I got past my fear of messing things up, making this postage stamp table top was great fun. Here’s how I did it:

I started with a pre-made plywood circle. While I like the idea of using power tools, I find them intimidating. When I took scenery design as one of my required theater courses, the horror stories of lost digits and visits to the ER put me off of them for good. I have ten perfectly good fingers and plan to keep it that way. I headed to our local Home Depot instead and bought a round plywood table top for about $20. I wanted a round surface to suggest stamps from around the world.

I sanded the edges to smooth out the roughness, then added a coat of paint. Taking a page from Keeping Up with Mrs. Smith, I used left over touch up paint from our living room walls. It’s great using what you have on hand, and since the finished table goes in that room, it will coordinate beautifully.

Plywood table top with a coat of green paint

The following day I sanded the painted surface a second time, then froze with indecision for another few weeks. Once I started applying my dad’s postage stamps with Mod Podge® there would be no turning back. Originally I planned to use sections of the pages, but I didn’t like how it looked.

My dad’s postage album

When I realized the album had four triangular-shaped stamps I knew I had a plan. It was December by now, so I put the unique stamps in a small wax envelope for safe keeping. The stamps ‘disappeared’ and I was sure I had inadvertently sent them off in the mail. It took a thorough tidying up of my crafting boxes to locate them once again.

postage stamp table top with triangle center

I had exactly four triangle stamps for the center.

Then one Saturday afternoon I just went for it. Using the surface of the kitchen counter, the only working space high enough to accommodate my Amazonian height, I got to work sorting Dad’s stamps. Page by page and stamp by stamp, I removed the postage, sorting them in piles by color.

Now I was in the zone. My back was aching from standing so long, but I didn’t want to stop.

I placed a pencil dot in the center of the circle, brushed on a layer of Mod Podge, and placed the first four stamps. From there I moved out in rainbow order.

Stamps from around the world

Once I reached the outer edges, I changed the stamp’s orientation. Brown, black and multicolored stamps circle the border, completing the table top surface.

I saved the multicolored stamps for the table border

With the drama of the table top finally behind me, I went in search of a base. I really like the way it looks on the little outdoor table we have, so searched high and low for something similar. Several visits to vintage and thrift stores turned up nothing. Then I learned that I could order the same table through Pier One Imports. It should arrive this week.

Plywood table top

Day Eight: Be a Good Neighbor via Blogging 101

Today’s assignment: leave comments on at least four blogs that you’ve never commented on before. It’s all about engagement. So once I press the publish key, I’m off in search of a few (more) good blogs. Should be fun.

In the meantime, check out these DIY blogs. They make it look easy and fun. And guess what? None of these women are afraid of power tools.

March 10, 2015 by Born To Organize

Re-framing: Thoughts and Pictures

You can re-frame your thoughts and you can re-frame a picture. I’ve done a little of both.

Thoughts, Re-Framed

Last August, on the anniversary of my father’s death, I was finally able to re-frame my feelings about his stamp collection. I once viewed his stamp albums as a life interrupted. They reminded me of my loss instead of the joyful hours he spent pursuing this hobby. The stamp albums sat in a cupboard, revered. Now I see them as a gift to be shared, and as a way to celebrate my father’s kind and curious nature. I hosted a blog giveaway, and sent many of Dad’s stamps to friends and acquaintances around the world. It was an extraordinary exercise in letting go. If you would like to read the post in its entirety, you’ll find it here: Vintage Postage: A Daughter’s Love Letter and a Blogging Giveaway.

You’ll never guess what happened next? A handful of those stamps flew all the way back from New Zealand, but not for insufficient postage. This time they we’re intricately woven into a multi-layered, lovingly detailed mixed-media original by Pauline King. She named it The Wonderland of Alys. I wish you could see it in person.

Can you spot all the stamps? Take a close look. (Copyright Pauline King)

The Wonderland of Alys floats in her frame (Copyright Pauline King)

The Wonderland of Alys (original mixed media) Butterfly Sprite (art print) (Copyright Pauline King)

The Long View: Both pieces hang together in the dining area. (Copyright Pauline King)

Re-Framing Art

Early last year Pauline hosted her own giveaway and guess who won? Can you believe my luck? I chose this beautiful art print of the Butterfly Sprite. I headed straight to the framers, picked out a standard frame and ordered custom mats to go with it. I loved looking at her smiling from the wall, but the white frame was never quite right. Once I had the second piece framed I knew what I had to do. Both pieces are now framed on a silk background with a dark frame. The Wonderland piece ‘floats’ on a piece of whisper-thin acrylic so that you can see right up to the edges.

Table Top Mosaic

Can you guess what I did with the rest of the stamps? Please pop on over tomorrow for the ‘reveal’. Here’s a little teaser until then:

Blogging 101: Colors and Headers

Today’s Blogging 101 assignment has us exploring new headers, backgrounds and colors. I’m pleased with my current choices, so plan to keep the current greenery in place.

March 9, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: All About Alys and Some Bunting for Fran

There’s a first time for everything, right? I’ve never included my name in the title before, and frankly it’s a bit weird. Since one of the goals of Blogging 101 is to stretch yourself, I’m doing just that. So, there it is Alys, front and center.

We’re tackling our About Page today. We start by jotting down a few ideas along with descriptors of who we are and what we’re about. With scribbled notes and ideas in hand, we’re to write enticing prose that will attract readers far and wide. Not just any old reader, but the reader who waits breathlessly for your next post.

Or something like that.

In other words, if you write a decent about page, you’ll attract ‘your people.’

Last week Pauline suggested I take an excerpt from one of my posts and include it on my about page. Then up popped this assignment. Life is grand when the dots connect.

Bunting for Fran

Speaking of Pauline, she proposed a Random Act of Kindness on her blog in November, then collaborated with The Snail of Happiness. You can read more about this charming act of giving here and here. Together they decided that Fran’s garden needed bunting. For those of us joining in, the only parameters were to include a margin a the top of the bunting for threading and since it would hang in her garden sanctuary, could it please be weatherproofed. I hemmed and hawed over this one, a bit stumped for suitable outdoor material. Eventually I settled on burlap. Not only is it natural and rugged, but it reminds me of the material enclosing Sanctuary on all sides. Fran and Steve garden in Tasmania, Australia, home to a LOT of voracious creatures. Without its enclosure, the garden becomes a free for all.

Something Old, Something New

Here’s what I did. I bought a roll of narrow burlap, then divided it into seven sections. After creating a notched template out of a piece of cardboard, I cut and hemmed each section at the top. All the other edges are raw. With my sewing machine, I zig-zag stitched all the remaining edges to discourage unraveling.

The new part for me was printing on sheets of fabric. That was so cool! The sheets, manufactured by The Electric Quilt Company, feed through your printer. There are only six sheets to a package so I crossed my fingers and toes and hoped the printer was in a good mood that day.

I downloaded seven photos from Fran’s blog, then printed them as 4 x 6 images on to the cotton satin fabric sheets. It worked!

After peeling the backing, I ironed the cloth, then cut all four edges with my scalloped paper-cutter, again holding my breath. I practiced on a few scraps, then I went for it.

Bunting Assembly: Garden photos copyrighted The Road to Serendipity

Finally, I attached the photos at the corners with a bit of thread and some crystal beads to catch the light. The panels thread through a strand of parachute cord, available at craft stores for about three bucks.

Detail: small crystal beads sewn at each corner

Burlap Bunting Close-up

Burlap Bunting

You can read Fran’s perspective on the burlap bunting at The Road to Serendipity
Take a look at Pauline’s beautiful bunting here.
Marlene at In Search of It All made her colorful bunting from oil cloth. It’s right here.

I’m almost certain there is one more banner floating around the blogosphere, so if I’ve missed anyone, please share the link and I’ll edit this post accordingly.

Just one more thing before you go: if you have a minute, will you please take a look at my About Page? Constructive criticism welcome. This has been the most difficult assignment to date.

March 6, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: Thematically Speaking

It’s the end of the week here in California. Some of my classmates have already gone to bed, but it’s day five for me as week one of Blogging University draws to a close.

Today’s task: Love Your Theme

I’ve actually played around with themes quite a bit in the past since the visual elements are so appealing. It’s fun and sometimes disorienting looking at your blog arranged differently, as you are seeing it today. We’re encouraged to try the opposite of what we like.

Wu Wei

If you’re reading this blog before Monday, March 9th, then you’re seeing my blog with the Wu Wei theme. Prior to today I was using Misty Lake. I miss it.

I like the clean lines of Wu Wei, but I miss all the other bits of info in the sidebar.

What do you think? Do you like, one, two or three column blogs? Do you miss the additional info on the sidebar? All the info is still there, but it’s now at the bottom.

If you’re a blogger, are you still in love with your own theme? So many questions, I know, but I really value your feedback.

Happy Friday…or Saturday to my Aussie/Kiwi friends.

March 5, 2015 by Born To Organize

Blogging 101: Everything but the Kitchen Sink

It’s day four of Blogging University. Today’s assignment is two-fold. First we’re asked to identify our ideal audience as a way of honing our blogging skills. Second, we’re to include a new-to-you element on our blog.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink?

I like challenging myself, so I’ve learned how to embed photos, YouTube videos, a contact form and a poll. Today I’m embedding a Tweet for the first time.

Come check out my #LittleFreeLibrary or create one of your own. Today is #NationalBookDay pic.twitter.com/r1crWi4cRo

— Alys Milner (@BornToOrganize) March 5, 2015

Nifty, eh?

You can learn how to embed all kinds of things on your blog via WordPress Support. I also love coaching people, so if there is something you are trying to do and can’t quite figure it out, I’m happy to help.

Gardening Nirvana

As spring approaches, nature does most of the heavy lifting. Birds nest, even without my help and perennials come back regardless of my pruning skills. A garden, untended will not necessarily die. Instead the garden crosses the boundaries of the walkways, climbs the fence, winds around a tree and meanders down the block like an untended toddler.

I’m having none of that. Just because Mother Nature is a well-worn cliché, doesn’t mean the parallels aren’t true. As a mom of two boys, I set limits early and often. Within those limits, the boys enjoyed free rein. They could explore the garden, create in their sand box and run through the sprinklers (pre-drought). My youngest son loved climbing the orange tree and played for hours in the dirt. As a toddler, my oldest son licked the shiny bottom of a snail, always exploring and curious. To my chagrin, he continuously snapped green cherry tomatoes from the vine before he understood the difference between red and green. We traveled for a week and when we returned, he was able to see the difference and why they should remain on the vine awhile longer.

Now teenagers, they’ve grown into well-mannered and respectful young men who understand limits but continue to soar.

Those same limits fall to the garden. Well-tended branches make for happier neighbors. Overgrown weeds do not inspire trust. I might fall in love with a beautiful shrub, but if the plant’s DNA will send it skyward, then it stays on the nursery shelf. I’ve stopped planting Stock, not because I don’t like it, but because the snails eat it to the quick. Reluctantly, but with a sure hand, I’m learning to garden like the Californian I’ve become instead of longing for the English-bred garden of my roots. Some days that’s still hard, but I know it’s for the best. There are days I mother my children, days I mother the garden and days I mother myself. All three are a work in progress.

The End?

If you reached the end of this post and find it resonated with you, then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome! If you’re yawning or distracted or perhaps you simply clicked the ‘like’ button in the Reader, I completely understand. It just means this particular blog isn’t for you. When you do find that perfect fit, you’ll know. As my friend Pauline says, “Thanks for coming by today. I love that you did.”