DIY Photo Framing on a Wooden "Canvas"

I know, it's been ages, and I do have lots of stories to tell you, but first a how to!

I've been doing yet more painting around the house and as I stare at my newly painted walls, their sad lack of artwork has been getting to me. I've been trying to figure out how to get something cool on the walls without breaking the bank when Pinterest came to my aid.

I found a little instruction on different kinds of mounting techniques and things related to engineering prints, but they don't seem to be as inexpensive where I live as the original posters have noted. Instead, whilst staring at a skinny blank section of wall, it struck me that there was a picture I wanted to put there and that the best way it would fit would be on a piece of scrap wood that was languishing in the garage.

I pulled out the 9" x 24" piece of plywood, eyed the spot and the idea all came together. For you, my step by step plan, with photos.

You will need:

• scrap wood
• ModPodge or other glue for decoupage
• paint
• paint or foam brushes
• scissors
• photo
• measuring tape
• sanding block
• rags
• pencil
• picture hangar and a nail
• level
• needle-nose pliers
• hammer

The piece of plywood I chose wasn't quite true on one side, so I had Eric give it a tiny trim.

After that, I sanded it down on the edges and the front side where I would be gluing the photograph. It doesn't have to be perfection, but splinter free is nice. You don't want anything poking you as you're smoothing your image down.

I wiped down the board with a clean rag and painted the edges. You could paint the entire board, but since the photo is going to cover the entire front side and the back will never be visible once it's hung, that seemed like a waste of time and paint.

After the paint was dry, I unrolled my photo to check out how much trimming it would require. I had it printed as a 20" x 30" poster (a standard size available at Costco) and then cut it down to 9" x 24" (a decidedly non-standard size). I trimmed it on my cutting mat with a rotary cutter and then switched to scissors as I got closer to the image.

Once almost all of the white space was cut away, I pulled out the ModPodge and slapped a coat onto the plywood face that I had sanded down and a coat onto the back of the photograph. I carefully laid the photo down onto the wood and smoothed it out carefully, to ensure there were no bubbles under the photo.

After I let that dry for about an hour, I used more ModPodge to coat the front of the photograph. I used all vertical strokes for the first layer. After that dried, a couple hours later I added a second layer of glue perpendicular to the first layer. The glue dries clear and forms a protective layer over your photo and will give it a matte look.

The next day, I picked up a self leveling hangar and hammered it down. You may need a pair of needle-nose pliers to hold the tiny nail in place, unless you have skinny, tiny fingers. You can use any hanging device you'd like, but my board weighed just under 3lbs and since I didn't want it to slide off the wall, I went with a heavy duty hangar.

Be sure to place something cushion-like under the photo when you go to hammer the hangar into place or you may nick your image. I grabbed Emma's blanket since it was begging to help.

Then it was time to pound a nail into the wall and hang that bad boy up.

I made sure to sign the back and wrote down that this image was of Igor Mitoraj’s “Tyndareus Cracked” from the Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy, when Eric and I went for our 10th anniversary trip in May of 2006. It only took me six years to finally print it.

Since that turned out so well, I know what I'll be doing with the big blank wall when you walk in the front door. I see a series of large black and white photos hanging there. Maybe six? I might even use the thinner 1/4" plywood so it will be even lighter and easier to hang.

Total out of pocket cost? $11. The print was $9 (plus tax) and the hangar was a dollar and change. Everything else I already had on hand. I also learned that if you want to make your own ModPodge, all you need is equal parts Elmer's glue and water, shaken together in a jar. Clearly I'm going to need a lot once I start gearing up for 20" x 30" images!

Now to find some more pictures to print!

Caitlin's Room Remodel

What does the Hatchet do when she can't garden and doesn't really want to bake bread?

Well, she finds something else to obsess over. Like organizing the house starting with the bedroom of her eldest child; there has never been a room in more desperate need of a good cleaning and makeover as hers.

Here are the Before pictures. However, "before" doesn't mention the 4-6 hours worth of cleaning that it took to get her room into this shape. Three bags of trash. Two bags of recycling. Sweeping and sweeping and vacuuming and sweeping and a great number of unanswerable questions like "Why is there a half eaten quesadilla under her dresser?" and "What's with the billions of tiny pieces of paper?" and "Oh my gawd! Look at her closet! WTH?!".

That last was me since I spent the majority of the time pulling the huge piles of crap out of her closet.

Then we moved all of her stuff into our bedroom, leaving her with a clean/empty room and us with a wrecked/stuffed room.

Anyway, on with the show!

Caitlin with the hippo our friend Steve painted for her right before she was born. It's been almost 10 years; time for a makeover!

The ceiling that I painted with oddly shaped clouds. It's a dog! It's a pig!

This is Caitlin's closet after we had spent hours and hours cleaning her room out. Three bags of trash and two of recycling later, it looked like this. Then we had to COMPLETELY empty it for painting. Her dresser was just pushed in there for a size check.

The wall her dresser used to be on. Note the multiple color paints. This required the use of tinted primer to cover up. Yup. I did that to myself. Oh and there USED to be a wallpaper border, but Caitlin peeled it off when she was 3. After that, I swore I'd never use wallpaper again.

The window wall, left side.

Window wall, right side.

It's been almost 10 years since I last touched that room with a paint brush. At the time, it was a lovely room. It was a nursery, with bright colors and very suitable for an infant. Now...well, she's about to enter double digits, so it seemed like a good idea to take time to remodel her room now rather than wait until the summer when it will be murderously hot and my garden sings its siren song.

Just to put this all into perspective, Caitlin's room is 10' x 10' with 8' ceilings. It took me 10 days to go from the nursery pictures. to this:

AFTER! Woohoo! 

These are display shelves that Eric built and I primed and painted, and the VERY purple walls. Each display shelf is 4' long and built with 1 1x2, and 2 1x6s. Pretty cool and seriously easy. The plans are at ana-white.com.

Thanks to my sister Cindy for turning me on to Ana White's DIY site! Next up: a giant shelving/desk system on the opposite wall! Eric is going to be spending a LOT of time building stuff for me this year!

If you don't like lilac/lavender, you won't like this room.

Note that Caitlin also got a new comforter set to complete the makeover. While we were shopping she informed me that she doesn't like pink. I was stunned, I tell you, stunned! So much for my idea for pink accents! That's OK though, I like the bright green and aqua blue.

The room is actually 2 colors: the walls of the main room are a dark lavender (Mystic Purple) and the ceiling and closet interior are a lighter lilac (Purple Dragon). Today I finished painting all of the wood trim bright white, like that shelf in the closet.

We took the sliding doors off her closet with plans to turn them into doors that open outwards and possibly have a shelving unit built in like this, but I'm not sure we have the room.

Nothin's says lovin' like sanding, priming and painting wood trim. I blame Cindy. She convinced me that I should update the trim in my house to white. I bought into the idea and now I will have to go room by room on my hands and knees and change it. Eventually. Maybe in the fall. Spring is coming, after all!

The finished wall where some day there will be a cool desk and a set of cubby shelves like this. Minus all of the pink, of course.

Now all I have left to do is sand, prime and double coat her door and it can go back on its hinges. Then I'll bug Eric to work on the desk and cubby system, which I'll then be required to paint. By the time we're done, there should be no excuses for stuff left on the floor or shoved into the bottom of the closet. Actually, I'm moving her dresser in there, so I'm hoping she won't be able to stuff anything in it!

Later I'll build her an end table and a shelf/cubby for the gerbils to live on where she can store their stuff. Storage! It's all about storage!*

Like I said, I am suddenly obsessed with home organizing and learning how to do some woodworking that will allow us to fit our stuff in our home more comfortably will be awesome!




* Even later still I'll build some toy boxes, maybe more shelves for the twins room and a bench and hook system for the front entryway. I'm sick of shoes all over. I blame Cindy for all of the woodworking ideas!

Pricking Out, Potting Up

So you want to know how to grow on your seedlings, you say? Or you planted them a bit too early for your last frost date and they're too big for their original pots?

I can help.

There are a few key pieces of equipment that will help you produce strong seedlings.

Pots
You can use almost anything as a pot: yogurt containers, soda bottles, egg cartons, those plastic bubbles that Costco sells apples in, or actual pots. Feel free to experiment. You can get a bunch of used pots for free from gardening centers if you ask, or bug your green fingered friends (or the friends with black thumbs - they'll probably have plenty of empty pots). They probably have piles of them sitting around. Just clean them out with a 10% peroxide solution (or bleach, but peroxide is nicer to the environment and your lungs) to kill anything left over from the previous plants and soil that were in there.

Labels
You'll thank yourself later for printing up labels now. Trust me.

Potting Soil
Moistened potting soil. Not too wet, mind you, just a little damp so it will take up water easily when you're watering instead of repelling it as dry peat moss normally does. And no, dirt from your backyard isn't a good idea for your tender seedlings. You need soil that is going to both retain water and drain well, providing a good temporary home for your plants. They'll go into the backyard soil just as soon as you've hardened them off.

Lights
I use 4' long shop lights with both warm and cool fluorescent bulbs in them. The mix of lightbulbs gives a good approximation of full spectrum light, like sunlight. It's also a whole lot cheaper than growlight bulbs. I have them plugged into a power strip which is plugged into an automatic timer that keeps the lights running for 16 hours per day.

Oscillating fan

The fan, you see, is key to avoiding spindly plants. Otherwise they end up looking like this:
Not so pretty, eh?

The fan, you see, is the secret. Out in nature, plants are constantly blown about by the wind which keeps them shorter and stockier than you can grow them indoors under lights. The fan imitates the wind and keeps all of your plants happier.

That broccoli above? Not so happy. It sprang up faster than all the rest of the plants in that tray, so it didn't get exposed to the fan soon enough. This is also why you should plant seeds that like the same growing conditions and spring up at the same time. Do I ever remember to do this myself?

Well...sometimes.

Say you're like me and you have started more plants than you have sense and you mixed them together in the same container.

Tomatoes, zinnias, dichondra and hummingbird sage.

Well, after they've sprung up and put on their first set of true leaves, you'll need to pot them up and let them grow on. Unless you're like me, of course, and you get so busy that by the time you turn around again, they've got 2 or 3 sets of true leaves.

1. Fill your pot halfway with moistened potting soil.

2. Using a dibbler, pencil, fork, spoon or letter opener (my personal favorite), pry your tiny seedling out of the soil and untangle its roots from those of the plants around it.

Be gentle. This part is tricky and since I can't photograph myself doing something that takes two hands, you'll just have to imagine it.

3. Holding your plant by a leaf, not the stem, lower it into the pot and hold it at the level you want to fill soil around.
Since this is a tomato and they grow roots all along their stems, I like to put them in as deeply as I can. This also deals with any spindly stems I might have and will give me a stronger plant in the long run. More roots = stronger plant. Other plants should be planted at the same depth they were growing at originally.

4. Fill the soil around your plant and tap it sharply on the work surface to settle the soil, then fill in with a little more soil. When you're done, press down the soil to firm the plant in.

5. Now that your plant is potted up, be sure to label it before you move on to the next one. Trust me, you'll forget in an instant which variety you were last working on and then you'll be bummed to have a pile of mystery tomatoes sitting around.
Ask me how I know.

Siiiigh.

6. Finally, after all that your seedling has been through, it needs a nice drink. Now is a good time to feed a diluted liquid fertilizer to your seedlings. Water from below so that you don't wash it out of its new home. Your plant will thank you.
7. Set the new tray of plants together under lights and make sure your fan is on and directly blowing across your plants. I like to plug my fan into the same timer the plants are on, although you could leave it running 24 hours a day. I find that dries my plants out a little too quickly, though.

A week later, they'll probably look something like this.


8. Grow them on until you've reached the proper planting out date for your area. Hot season plants usually like to go outside either right after the last frost date (Here in Colorado, that's supposed to be May 15th, but I usually wait until the weather forecast shows nighttime temperatures staying above 50 degrees at night.) or two weeks later. You don't want all of your hard work to be killed by a sudden cold front, do you?

I didn't think so!

9. Don't forget to harden off your plants before just leaving them outside for the rest of the season. Otherwise, you'll crisp them and then you'll be sad. As will your plants.

It really is that simple (it's not difficult, it's time consuming) to start your own plants from seed and then to prick them out and pot them up. It's a lot cheaper than buying plants from the store* and you get to choose all of the different varieties instead of having to accept whatever is currently being sold.

This way, however, lies the siren song of tomatoes and once you start growing your own plants successfully, you may discover that you have a hard time walking away from the seed racks in spring. Soon you'll discover yourself wanting to try just one more tomato variety and you'll start looking forward to those sexy, sexy seed catalogs that arrive in February.

You're welcome.

Ready? Go for it! You know you wanna!



* Well...eventually it will be, if you bought all of the different gear I suggested. If you did it all on the cheap, or had a lot of this stuff laying around and you're really into gardening, it totally pays to raise your own plants. Otherwise, think of it as doing your part to save the Earth on your little patch of land. Life is better with more plants in it.

How to Start Plants from Seed

You've been tightening your belt recently and you've been thinking about ways to save money and so you thought you'd plant a vegetable garden this year along with all of those other folks.

You could always toss some seeds on the ground and see what happens or you could start them indoors. In a protected environment. Away from all of those birds and squirrels.

Yes, I know it's kind of late to write this entry, but I was working on planting my own seeds earlier when I should have written it. So just think of this as being really early for next season or something you can use for the fall planting season.

Yes, fall planting season. Well talk about that later.

I've been planting both flowers and vegetables from seed for years and years now and the thrill never wears off. I've started stuff too early and I've started stuff pretty late. No matter what, it's always worth it for the experience alone, much less the actual food and flowers you get out of it.

The most useful pieces of equipment for starting seeds are:

Pots or flats
Humidity domes

Seed starting mix

Lights

Oscillating fan

Shelving unit

Now, you don't need all of the things I have listed to get started. I sure didn't have them when I started out. However, as you go along, you may get tired of spindly seedlings that fall over and look sad and kind of yellow. Here's what I've found out through my reading and my own experimenting.

• Seedlings demand bright, direct light and wind. These two things will keep your plants from getting spindly. Starting seedlings in a windowsill seems like a good idea, except that the light isn't bright enough or lasts long enough during the time of year when you're starting seeds.
• If it's terrifically cold outside that window, your seeds might be too cold to germinate on the windowsill or the fluctuating temperatures might be killing off your seedlings. This is where a shelving unit with shop lights comes in.
• Diluted fertilizer will keep your seedlings from getting yellow.
• Seeds like high humidity to germinate and often they like heat, too. (BTW, some types of seeds don't need light to germinate like pansies and violas. You'll need to cover those until they germinate.) Here is where the humidity dome comes in handy. The shop lights, in addition to providing light, will also provide just enough heat to start your seeds, but not enough to cook your seedlings.
• Provide light for 16 hours a day to get your seedlings up and growing fast. Use the kind of electronic timer you plug your lights into to convince burglars that you're home when you're not. (Hey look! Another use for that sucker!)
  

Armed with all of this information, knowledge of your last frost date (From which date you will count backwards the number of weeks your seed packet recommends you start your plants indoors. That, my friends, is when you should be starting your seeds. Don't do what I did this year.) and a little bit of gear, let's get started.

1. Just barely moisten your seed starting mix. I usually pour it into a big bowl and using warm water and my hands, mix it together like dough. You want it just moist enough that it will take up water when you're done seeding, but not soggy.

Dry as bone on left. Moistened just enough on right.

In case you didn't know, there is an actual difference between seed starting mix and potting soil. Potting soil is a lot chunkier and often has some fertilizer in it. SSM is finely milled and does not have fertilizer in it, generally because your seedlings don't need feeding until they've got true leaves on them and at that point you're either potting them up or moving them outside.

Seed starting mix on left. Potting soil on right.

You can use those take out containers you get from certain stores that have black bottoms and clear plastic tops. Punch a bunch of holes in the bottom to provide drainage. (This is what I started with, years ago. If you check out this picture, you'll note a large range of containers from ice cream pints to peat pellets to takeout containers.) Or, use a 1020 flat with holes nestled into another without holes. Or egg cartons. Whatever floats your boat.

2. Fill your containers with seed mix and tap it sharply on your work surface to settle the mix. Refill and level off the excess soil.

3. Plant your seeds according to the back of the package. A little shallower or a little deeper is not a big deal, but pay attention to seeds that want to be just barely covered or left uncovered. They're usually pretty small, too.

4. After you're done, label everything. This is a key step. Don't forget. I'm telling you - label! All of those seedlings look pretty darned similar when they first come up.

5. Water from below and cover with humidity dome or place in a plastic bag, fill with air and seal off.

6. Place under lights, about 3" away from your light source.

7. Don't water again until the seedling mix looks dry. No, really. Otherwise you'll waterlog those babies and then they'll die. Or else fungus will start growing on top of the soil. The humidity dome or plastic bag will trap all the moisture you need until the seeds sprout.

8. Once your seeds have sprouted, remove the humidity dome (or bag) and turn on your fan. Ensure your fan is actually moving the leaves a little. You don't need hurricane force winds, but if the air around your plants isn't moving at all, the plants won't stay nice and stocky. Also, reducing the humidity levels will help reduce - if not eliminate - water related diseases like molds, fungus and damping off. You can also get the same effect by brushing your hands over the tops of your plants a few times a day every day, but I'm not OCD enough to remember to do that.

9. Grow your seedlings on until they have their first set of true leaves. At this point, if you have a bunch of tiny seedlings all jammed in together you're either going to want to thin them out (Gasp!) or prick them out and pot them up. Personally, I hate tossing out perfectly good plants, so I'm a fan of pricking out and potting up. More on that tomorrow.

10. Congratulations! You now have seedlings! Now it's time to fertilize (once every two weeks) with a dilute solution of a balanced liquid fertilizer. Read the bottle and follow their directions. Write down on your calendar when you're supposed to fertilize your plants again. Trust me.

Now you just have to keep your plants alive until it's time to move them outdoors. Frankly, this is the tricky part.

- - - - -

I was planning on doing sort of a time-lapse photography photo shoot, but time got away from me, as it usually does. Instead, here are a few images to give you an idea of just how fast these babies grow. These are the squash, melons and cucumbers that I decided to start indoors, as a test. Normally all of these seeds want to be started in situ outdoors, but I like to try stuff like this on occasion. Note that the first sprouts appeared on day 3 after planting (Outdoors, it's usually 10 days before they sprout.). These photos start on the 4th day.

Day 4 after planting.

Day 5 after planting.

Day 10 after planting. (I forgot all about photographing them days 6-9. Sorry!)

In case you're wondering what all you're looking at, from left to right:

1. Cucumbers
2. Sugar baby watermelon
3. Charentais melon
4. Pie pumpkin
5. Zucchini
6. Delicata squash
7. Butternut squash
8. Buttercup squash
9. Straightneck yellow squash
10. Honeydew melon

The best part is, if they fail to take once I put them outdoors, I can just direct seed replacements. If they do take, then I've bought myself an extra week on the growing season and I'll probably fiddle with it more next year.