Little Miss Fancy P(l)ants

As I'm waiting for our blog adventure into Craftyland to gear up, I've been spending some time perusing magazines for inspiration and stumbled upon Real Simple's New Uses for Old Things.  While not exactly along the lines of our task here at Long Distance Design, it could prove a handy site for sparking imagination.  And it led me to another Real Simple idea...a terrarium!  I was super excited about making this because 1) My new apartment is in desperate need of some plant life and 2) This old Arthur Court glass dragonfly bowl is in desperate need of a purpose besides collecting dust.

Speaking of dust, I've always been kinda weirded out by terrariums.  In general, they just seem dusty and musty to me.  I think of sweaty plants inside of sweaty jars.  Yuck.  But, I dunno, something about this open air terrarium is charming, and maybe they're growing on me.  Who knows.  But the bottom line is that I tried it, and I'm very pleased with my little cacti and succulent garden so far.  Of course I'm just hours into this relationship, but I'm feeling a definite connection.

I do recommend that you watch the video (it's linked above).  I didn't and I still made the terrarium just fine, but the video would have helped me along a bit.  Also, if you can't find a soil mix for cacti, you can just mix your normal potting soil with some sand.  And here are my results!

Yes, that is a wrinkly white sheet in the background.  Hey, I'm new at this.  Could be worse.

And now time for some fun with the macro setting on my camera...

Then I spied these beauties that have been sitting around my house for about a year (they even made the cut and traveled 900 miles for the move!).

I'm seeing some cool tendrilly (a word?) ferns or teensy weensy little flowering sprigs of some kind.  Any ideas?  Please share!  Hopefully whatever I choose won't become musty dusty or sweaty--I'll keep you posted. 

IN with the old!

So...the task of writing the inaugural post for a new blog...such pressure.  It's like I wish I could pretend you've been reading this for months now and we could just pick up where the last post left off...but alas, we have to begin somewhere.  How about I introduce myself?  Okay.  I can do that!  How about we play two truths and a lie???

1-I just moved to a new city.
2-I am crafty.
3-I love tacos.

Now which one is the lie?

Okay, I admit it!  I am NOT crafty.  I mean, I love the IDEA of being crafty.  I adore Martha Stewart, have subscribed to her magazine for years (I even read an issue while on my flight to Las Vegas for my bachelorette party--how hard-core crafty is that?!), track her movement on Instagram, and sometimes think to myself: "WWMD?"  I can crochet, kinda.  I can make jewelry, sorta.  But when it comes right down to it, being crafty is more of a challenge than an inclination.  That's a big part of why I'm doing this blog.  I mean, who doesn't love a challenge?  Right???

As for the truths, 7 months ago my husband, our Corgi, and I moved a little over 1,000 miles away from our HOME.  We moved to a charming town that grants us access to tacos 24-7 so my #3 above is satisfied.  I guess that'll take care of the intro for now. 

There are two other divas that you will meet later.  Two of my best gal pals who have agreed to this blog experiment, and they just happen to live back HOME.  Ah-ha!  Are you starting to catch on to the whole "long distance design" thing?  Well, if not, here's a brief overview:

1-Each friend sends a mystery item to one other friend at the beginning of the month.
2-The recipient of the mystery item has the month to re-purpose, re-imagine, re-style it and post the process/results here on the blog.
3-Wash, rinse, repeat for the next month.

And that's about it!  Maybe we'll inspire some folks.  Maybe we'll get a follower or two.  Maybe Martha will stumble across my work, and bestow her blessings upon me.  I dunno.  Stay tuned and find out!