Oh, She Crafty Huh?! DIY Terrariums

I am trying to be creative and crafty and make things in my spare time and not just buy things for double the price of what I could make them for. I feel like I waste so much money buying crap that I could easily make if I choose not to be lazy and just DO IT! So, project #1 of I AM NOT LAZY is...

DIY Moss and Fern Terrariums

I LOVE terrariums and the look of them and decorating with plants in the home. I am still in the process of making our house a "home", (does the process ever end?) and I decided to make my own terrariums. My dad, my stepmother Debbie, and I went to Crabtree Falls hiking on Sunday. Crabtree Falls is about an hour from Lynchburg and we wanted to go enjoy the last of the Fall colors and weather before it gets too cold to do so. Debbie and I were talking about our terrariums, (hers very much alive and mine very much dead) and she needed some moss. Well, I decided to give it another go and redo my terrariums. We collected a bag of moss and other small little fern looking plants from our hike.

On our way down the mountain to have our picnic of shrimp, cheeses, pickles, and crackers, here walks my brother Tucker the hill to meet us! He drove from JMU to surprise us and nobody had cell service so we had no idea that he was there.

Tucker stayed and had a picnic with us. It was so good to see him since he NEVER comes home, which I totally understand because JMU is the most wonderful place! He is studying psychology and is a Supervisor at UREC, the campus recreation center.

Anyway, back to the terrariums before I start rambling about how I wish I was still at JMU and how proud I am of my baby brother... I went to Michael's and bought three different glass containers (all under $15) and two small bags of pebbles yesterday. I already had a bag of soil and some charcoal so I just laid everything out of the table on pieces of paper to start putting them together.

I tried to get Ryan to help but he was preoccupied with Redneck dog dilemmas on the phone. Seriously?! It is always some dog discussion going on with him.

First you want to line the bottom of the glass containers with the pebbles to act as a drainage system so the plants don't drown. I bought one bag of black pebbles and one bag of mixed beige colored rocks.

The next layer is the charcoal which should be in fine pieces. This
only needs to be a very fine layer and this will prevent any mold from forming from the moisture.


Soil is the next layer and I used a fertilized soil that feeds for up to 6 months. It has wood pieces and other nutrients in the soil. Add half the soil then place your moss and plants where you want them in the container and add the rest of the soil around the roots and lightly pack it down to hold the plants in place. Add a little water and there you have it, you made a terrarium!

YOU ARE NOT LAZY! See... you can make these in about five minutes if you just do it! The most time consuming part is finding some the specimens to plant. Go find a creek or go hiking on a mountain, they are great places to look. Here are some photos from our hike!

 
 
    Left: Photo of the falls halfway up the trail.
    Above: A Walking Stick Insect on the milepost sign.
    Below: Debbie, Dad, and I taking a break for a pic.

Feeding the Soul

Well it has been a week since my last blog post so this is not starting out very consistently. Here I am so it's back on the horse we go. The past two days have been all about cooking... I'd like to think feeding the soul rather than stuffing my face. As the Summer ends and Fall rolls in, the days of gardening and picking row after row of string beans is coming to an end...such a bitter sweet thing. Unless you planted a Fall garden, then you are "shit outta' luck", my friend!

With that being said, I am thankful for the Summer gardening to be over, but I will miss fresh produce growing right outside my door. I had a refrigerator full of vegetables that needed to be eaten, so what screams veggies more than a hearty bowl of Vegetable soup. I thawed out a whole chicken while I cleaned up the catastrophe that was my house.

Did I mention that I had 8 people plus Ryan and myself staying at our house Saturday night! My friend Megan got married Saturday and after the ceremony was over, naturally the after-party continued at our place.



So after cleaning up, I started on the vegetable soup. I boiled the chicken in some water and lots of seasoning. After it was done I took the chicken out of the broth and picked all of the meat off. I then added all the vegetables to the chicken broth. The veggies I used were fresh string beans, corn, peas, onion, some canned tomatoes, and sweet potatoes (cubed). I added lots of Italian Seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic powder, bay leaves, seasoning salt, and curry powder. After the vegetables had cooked down some I added all of the chicken back and added some water to create more broth. It was so delicious!!! My side kick - Bamboo, definitely enjoyed sampling some of the chicken!

Monday (today), was another day of cooking... Ryan went dove hunting last week and got quite a few to bring home... CHOOT 'EM LIZABETH, is what I think of when I imagine the guys out hunting! HA

I love to eat dove, especially wrapped in bacon and grilled. So when I got home from work, I started sautéing some string beans in olive oil, garlic, and a few bacon pieces and added walnuts towards the end. I cubed the rest of the sweet potato I had left over from the soup and roasted those in olive oil, brown sugar, sea salt, and cayenne pepper. Ryan grilled the dove on the charcoal grill when he got home and WALLAH, dinner was served.

I'd like the think that this was pretty healthy food so it was more like feeding the soul than stuffing my face, but stuff my face I did! I love cooking comfort food on Sunday. It makes me happy and helps me ease back into the work week. What do you do to feed your soul? Because my remedy is Southern comfort food...

I'm featured on a Blog!

Yesterday was a very exciting day for me! The Nonprofit Marketing Guide hosted my entry on their blog as the first of the series "A Day in the Life of a Nonprofit Communicator"!

Here is a link to it: (Feel free to share it and comment)
A Day in the Life of a Nonprofit Communicator - Autumn Burch

The blog is by Nonprofit Marketing expert Kivi Leroux Miller and this particular series is authored by Kristina Leroux who also works with the company as the Community Engagement Manager.

The blog was also shared on Twitter by others in the Marketing and Nonprofit professions including Guide Star! Pretty neat stuff.

I told my boyfriend that I was going to be featured in it and I even sent him an email with the link... I have yet to be acknowledged by him about it. Men...

Later on that evening, Development Coordinator, Myra Trent and I went to Lynchburg for a meeting. The real treasure about our little venture to the city was the PIZZA we got from Arosto! This is a new place on Wards Rd. that specializes in wood fired pizzas and they are so friggin' delicious! I got the Julianne, which has pesto, basil, feta cheese, tomatoes, mozzarella and chicken. I would have taken a picture but it was so good, I ate it before I thought about that.

All in all, it was a good start to my week.

Don't you love those "Best Day EVER" days

Okay, so I seriously had the BEST day today! So, yesterday evening at work we received the shipment of new books that we had published. I designed the cover for the book that was written by Patrick Henry scholar Mark Couvillon. I was so excited to see the book and they looked fantastic! My FIRST published book design.. EEK!

So, this morning I posted on Red Hill's Facebook page that we had the books and to call and order yours. This businessman from Pennsylvania called because he had seen the post and he told me that the first thing he did in the mornings was check Red Hill's Facebook page! He said he would make the photos I posted his cover photo because they made him happy... What a nice compliment! I was so taken aback that he loved my posts enough to check them daily.

So, to add to my goofy grin I had all morning after that phone call, I got an email that really made my day.

I follow this Nonprofit Marketing blog, www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog and they had advertised that they wanted to do a "Day in the Life of a Nonprofit" feature on the blog. So, I thought it would be neat to just submit what my day was like on Wednesday and just put it out there and maybe they would at least read it, if not mention it. Well, I got an email back from the help desk of the blog that they were going to be featuring MY entry on their blog!

I actually did a dance in my chair! The email said they would let me know what day they were going to feature my blog (don't worry, I will totally post that when they do).

So, that was pretty much the best Thursday ever... I would have gone out and had celebratory drinks but I was feeling pretty lazy so I told my dog all about it instead. She was thoroughly impressed! :)
This is Bamboo, my pug that I am totally obsessed with so prepare to see a lot of her in my blog.

Yes, she does have underwear on, (My Little Pony underwear in fact, courtesy of Walmart). She is in heat, epic fail on my part for not getting her fixed yet.

But cheers to a great Thursday and...

Let's see how tomorrow goes!

First blog post.. here goes nothin'!

Well I have been into blogs lately and it just seemed to make sense that I should create a blog myself. I have no idea what I am doing so don't hold it against me. I am going to write this first post like I am talking to a friend and see how that works...

So, my friend Dagen had an Arbonne party a couple of weeks ago and I had no idea what the hell Arbonne was but told her I would come. Turns out, Arbonne is a company that sells health and beauty products that are made from all natural ingredients. I know you are probably thinking oh my god, not another one of those people who get all hyped up about all natural crap... but seriously, the stuff is great!

I ended up purchasing two products... The Makeup Primer and the Chamomile and Lavender Bath Salts (no I am not smoking them and I will not be cannibalizing anyone).

The Makeup Primer is really nice and smooths onto your skin like silk and you only have to use half of the foundation you used to! SAWEETT!

I tried the bath salts in my bath for the first time tonight and maaaaaan, they are so relaxing! TWO THUMBS UP for this purchase! It comes in a HUGE container too and they smell so good. I can still smell them on my skin two hours later.

They didn't leave a film in the bath tub either, which is nice because I have no desire to clean the bath tub this week.

If you like trying new beauty products definitely check out Arbonne! Best product I have tried recently.