succulents, the gift that keeps on giving

At my old lab I used to work at, we had a bunch of plants and vegetables we grew outside and tended to as a distraction or to fill in gaps while waiting for our experiments, and this was where I was introduced to succulents. I had heard of them before but I had never seen how hearty these little guys are. One of my coworkers brought in a little cutting off of one of his plants and after almost no time at all, the entire wine barrel was 1 huge plant, it practically took over! So I broke off a couple of pieces and took them home, liking the idea that I could stick it in the dirt, hardly water it at all, and it would grow.

It was starting to get a little shabby looking, and I've been seeing some very beautiful displays and great ideas on how to use succulents as arrangements instead of spending money on flowers every week. I love having flowers in the house, but this is a nice way to add some greenery and you don't have to keep going back for more.

I came upon this cute website for a place in Oakland called fernseed, and they have a bunch of different succulent arrangements:


Aren't these cute? Individual succulent "blooms" locally grown in Oakland, $12 each


Of course I have to love the arrangements in the Erlenmeyer flask.


I liked the idea of this arrangement a lot, and I had a bowl that looked just like this I got at Ikea for $12, so I wanted to do my own. I went to Home Depot and bought a couple of little succulents and this is what I came up with:




Isn't it cute?! I love the little button looking one, and the glassy looking green one in the last photo. Each cost about $1.50. And for $20 I have an arrangement that will last, saves money and is less wasteful!

It also makes a great gift for someone who isn't so green thumb inclined, which frankly is me.

She wore a Rasberry Beret

I learned to knit when I first started college, and liked that I could turn my mind off from all the stresses of school and work but still be productive. Of course, once school really set in, the demands of being a science major took precedence and knitting was shipped off and shoved under my bed.

But I recently started again. I wanted to start knitting for charity, to knit for cancer patients who need to keep warm, but I could only make scarves and what they really need is hats. So I've taught myself how to make a hat (thanks Youtube) and have slowly begun to make my way through knitting one. None of my hats so far have been much of an accomplishment at this point and I look at them more as practice; I'm not giving someone who's battling cancer a shoddy hat. So I have started to make scarves again for now; to teach myself different knitting patterns and then back to hats I will go.

When I was in San Luis Obispo the other weekend I went to this really cute store that had a bunch of awesome scarves but they were kind of expensive for something that looked like I could make it. So off to the closest knitting store I went, which just so happened to be around the corner and bought a bunch of beautiful locally hand dyed yarn. I've had a lot of fun going on websites and finding patterns or watching videos on how to knit certain stitches. And I made a pretty scarf with the green yarn I found there, which I love.


I'm thinking after I finish the scarf I'm making now, I'm going to try to make a hat, with some yellow yarn I got, not just any hat but a beret, meaning I'm going to have to add extra stitches as I go out, I think? It looks hard, but I figured if I could knit that, I could knit a hundred hats for charity (though lets not get ahead of ourselves).


I really want to do this, I always feel like I have really good intentions with projects like this but then life gets in the way and I have a bunch of half assed, half finished things lying around reminding me that I failed them.

Anyone have any suggestions or pattern ideas for a beret?

Here's hoping I keep up with this project, and here's to the yellow beret, though if Prince would have it, it would be Rasberry colored...good song.