A Garden of Imagination: Taking a Tour of the Creative March Garden

Check out my latest gardening video, I am excited to take you on a tour of the garden. Here are some highlights:

I currently have growing five papayas trees, one male and four female, but I am having some issues with slugs, snails, and even a monkey is taking bites out of the fruit  The male Papaya has a beautiful scent, and yellow flowers.

You will get to see some other plants in the garden, including, guinep, cassava, and five-fingered fruit. I am doing my best to keep them all healthy despite the challenges of the drier season and pests.  

The Suriname Cherry is in full bloom and looks gorgeous - I expect to see some fruit either later during the year or next year, and the mango tree has been flowering - so we should see some fruit in September, 

Despite the challenges and being on a budget there are so many lovely areas of the garden that helps you appreciate the work you put in.  

Join me in the video and stroll with me around the garden.

Crocheting Real Leaves for Eco-Friendly Crafts - Material Mondays

Come and join me in Material Mondays. Working with different materials can be a great way to experiment and try new skills. I never would have thought of combining the following elements - dried leaves and crochet. 

I worked on a couple of leaves to create different designs, I think one of my favorite one was the leaf with the center piece cut out.  It was the most tricky one to work on because of the size, but with perseverance and handling it really delicately I was able to do it.

I share with you in this video how you can add crochet to your dried leaves that you may have in your craft supplies. They look really pretty and along with slow stitching is a therapeutic activity that brings about calmness. Once complete I will be placing them in a frame to help preserve them.  I hope you enjoy, check out the previous Material Mondays video where I show you how I slow stitch on the leaves.

Let me know if it is something that you try, I would love to see what you do.

Leaf Art and Slow Stitching - Material Mondays

Welcome to Material Mondays, I recently tried my hand at embroidery on leaves and it turned out to be quite an addictive activity. 

I saw an artist - Susanna Bauer and her work - which is amazing, and thought I'd give it a go. 

The leaf I used for this particular project is from a sea grape plant. The plant is normally found by the sea and has edible grapes. The plant acts as a good windbreak and when it dries out, it feels quite sturdy and turns a beautiful reddish color. If you would like to know more about sea grapes you can check out my Gardening Channel HERE.

I also experimented with another leaf from a trumpet tree, which has pretty trumpet-like flowers. 

To begin, I harvested the leaves from trees that had been trimmed or had fallen naturally. It's important to handle the leaves delicately as they are quite fragile. After picking them up, I soaked them in some olive oil - You can use whatever oil you have to hand to give them a nice sheen.  While the leaf will eventually degrade over time, you can preserve it by varnishing or using a gel mat or gloss medium.

For the actual stitching, I used embroidery thread and doubled up two strands and then created a spiral effect on the leaf. I'm still experimenting with different designs, but I'd love to try some crochet designs on leaves as well - check back next week on Material Mondays to see the results. 

The finished product can be framed or used as an outdoor hanging mobile. Overall, this has been a fun and creative way to use leaves from my surroundings. I'm excited to keep experimenting and sharing my projects.  Check out the video to see the process, and also the supplies below.

Supplies:

You can collect dried leaves from your garden or park, or you can purchase dried leaves below:

Dried Leaves varied-

Dried Eucalyptus Leaves 

Embroidery Thread - Arteza 

Awl

Needles

Self-healing mat

I hope you get to try them yourself and look forward to seeing what you come up with.