Tomato Tomato Tomato

HB has a green thumb.

Actually he doesn't just have a green thumbs, more like green forearms. He's like my jolly green giant--although "jolly" wouldn't be the usual term I would use to describe him. But he LOVES his plants. He comes from a family line of farmers, so it is not a stretch that he enjoys gardening. He started these from little seeds...none of that buying the plant half grown nonsense. That's cheating. And boy have they grown...

There are 16 tomato plants in all I think along with some flowers (in the little pots) and several basil plants which you can't see.

 

Hey little tomato...I'm going to eat you.

It all started with this Topsy Turvy (which I guess makes it 17 tomato plants) which HB got me for Valentine's Day. Sweet, huh? Actually I love this gift. Chocolates make you fat (not saying I hate chocolate). Flowers die (I do LOVE flowers. So don't get the wrong idea here either). I'm all about gifts that create an experience, which this certainly will. Read on.

So, now here we are with 17 tomato plants. And according to my incredibly accurate calculations that means we are going to have like 7 thousand tomatoes from these plants. There is no way we are going to be able to eat them all, even if we do give away some. The thought of letting any of them go to waste makes me shiver a little.

Alas, there is a solution. Canning. I mean it's not the most ingenious idea, but it's definitely an adventurous one. I've been wanting to learn about this for a while since coming up with my million-dollar jams and jellies business idea (more on that to come). So this will be a good excuse to get on it. And thanks to the city of Jacksonville--we've got some good help on our side.

There just so happens to be a Canning Center that is run by the city in partnership with the USDA and University of Florida (Food and Agricultural Sciences). Whhhaaaaa??!? Who knew.

Yeah totally, check out their website. Apparently the center was started back in the '30s to help feed the inmate population of our city, but after WWII, it became a community center to teach about food preservation. Awesome. I'm still surprised that this is a city-funded facility, considering how hard it seems to be these days to get any financial help from the city (I work in a historical city-owned building that the city doesn't pay to upkeep. We do. And we're non-profit. Huh?) Anywho, I've got a couple pretty stoked people wanting to go can some stuffs. Now that I know about this, I am that much closer to becoming that person who grows all their food and scoffs at those who don't. "Well this bruschetta was made from everything in my garden. BAHAHAHAHAHA!" sigh. dreams.

Search for the Great Laptop

It has literally been almost three years since my trusty desktop completely crapped out. It got me through college and about twelve different moves. The moment the computer stopped working I think I went into an instant depression seeing as how my growing music collection (at that point, about 12 gigs), all my writing and college papers and irreplaceable pictures were stored on it. It was like four years of my life were just erased.

But alas! Thanks to the nerds at Best Buy, they pulled all that good stuff off the hard drive. They did so while also taking lots of my money, which would have normally bothered me but at that point was happy to give them just to have my stuff back.

Not that I want to buy a computer from Best Buy, I did want to go there to look at and feel the different laptops that I could one day call my own. I liked the look and feel of the Dells, but they had a pretty weak battery life and the power/memory could have been better. Then there was the ASUS, which made up for the brains of the Dell, but it was pretty heavy. The Macs definitely have a special, alluring glow about them sitting all by themselves over in the corner. I have no problem with them. I am sure they are great computers and would gladly become a self-proclaimed trendy hipster...if only I could actually afford one. So top three laptop requirements: price, power, weight.

Needless to say, I did not get a computer. BUT HB sure did find one that suited him well.

And the results...

This is what is ended up looking like on the big day...

The table view...pretty windows...

The food view...

Close up of the tablescape...

Done and done. Happy Katie :)

Baby Shower for Sister, Continued...

Ok, there is more to this birdie baby shower than those cute invitations. I was determined to make as much of the decorations as possible, so I scribbled some things on a sheet of paper that vaguely resembled the masterpieces I had in my mind and quickly got to work. 274 trips to Walmart, Michaels and JoAnn Fabric later, I had everything I needed. Fabric, thread, ribbon, wooden dowels, cardstock, more fabric, iron-on adhesive sheets, hot glue, little white beans and some other random stuff I had in my house. From that craftful cornucopia, I made these:

Tissue paper poms poms that ended up looking more like Martha's than I was expecting. Success!

These turned out too cute. Paper trees incorporating the green pattern and brown polka dot fabric from the invitations. These were going to go around the centerpieces, which weeeeeere.....

Awesome branches that I fought through storms of mosquitoes and horse flies to gather out in the woods on the land HB's family owns. It was kind of hard to get a good picture of them without a solid background.

Then there were the sand-filled flower pots in which I stuck hand-swirled, thick gauged wire pokies (technical term) that held a beautiful assortment of my sister's family pictures and some moving quotes.

Up close look at the wire pokies. They were great.

And then my favorite creation of all. Mr. Squirrel. Mr. Squirrel was handmade and took forever, so in the effort to save time (since I was running out of it), I made his brother on the sewing machine. Um...didn't turn out so good. The birds I did on the machine were fine, but he...well...let's just say had strange proportions.

Needless to say my dining room/work room looks like a war zone...well of some sort. It doesn't seem like much but mixed with yummy catering and the perfect room, slap some white linens in there and it was good to go.

Baby Shower for Sister

My sister is about to have baby #2. Another boy who will for sure be as adorable and well-behaved as the first. When she had her first son, I was in my second to final semester of college as a freshly turned 21-year-old (I was a bit determined to get out) and was not in the most settled year of my life to plan a baby shower. Good thing the job wasn't mine then because I don't think I would have done a good job. But another good thing is that this second baby is coming four years after and I was not going to drop the ball on this one.

I have recently reconnected with all the greater things in life...a.k.a my sewing machine, hot glue, an excellent pair of scissors and hordes of beautiful fabric. I wanted to make this baby shower as homemade as possible, because what could be better.

In my research of all things baby shower, I came across the bird/nest theme. I love the birds but I'm not big on super "baby" baby showers. I don't want toy cribs all over the place or baby blue confetti baby faces all over the tables. Yuck. So I wanted to take "baby" and make it beautiful. Like my sister. Like my new nephew will certainly be when he makes his first appearance in a few weeks.

So, obviously, I started with the invitations...

I bought four different lovely fabrics that were blue, green and brown in nature but were not of infant pattern, per se. Really the only fabric that could be construed as baby-esque would be the yellow/cream one that does actually have a pattern made up of baby animals. But cool baby animals. Not lame ones. So I cut out a bunch of bird shapes with wings of an alternate fabric...

Affixed said birdies to lovely sage green note cards that I picked up from Swoozies, which happens to be going out of business :( so I got them on sale. I found some fun free fonts online and printed the actual invitations myself which saved me some cash monies and turned out just as great had I done them professionally.


In the end, there were six different invitations, so there was a fun variety. And if you can't see, it says "Hatching soon...Baby Becker." I was in love with these invitations...still am, basically. From what I heard, they were well received. I was definitely inspired and off to a good start. And yes, there is more to come on this one...

Hellooo

I really got into reading other people's blogs about craftiness and handiness and cleverness and things of the sort. It dawned on me that I consider myself one of those crafty, handy, clever people too. So why not put it on the internet! Woo! Jump on that bandwagon.

So I did.

I'm starting the katieberry blog to share all the things that I've been doing lately. I am lucky enough to live in an apartment that gives the space to have many projects. I have been busy doing several different things lately and am excited to backtrack a little and get them up here. I don't know how interesting it will be to anyone else, but maybe it's just a way for me to catalog my latest adventures in creativity and to put down some pieces of writing that always needed a good home.

I will start by saying welcome...if there is anyone really out there reading this :)