Useful Wine Bottles

Ok, so I found a great use for old wine bottles other than vases. Use them to keep your potted plants watered. First thoroughly water the potted plant, then fill up a wine bottle with water and plunge into the soil of the pot. This will help keep the soil moist so that you don't have to water as often. The below pictures show flowers that I did this to last Thursday, and haven't watered them since, even though we had 100+ degree weather for 4 days. Anyway, I hope you can use this helpful tip :)

smb

No Sew Roman Shades

Ok, I did this project as per the directions from the pinterest link. One thing I would recommend is to really measure exactly the dimensions you want to fit into the window. Mine are a little short of the sides. Other than that, it worked great! I also used a fabric bonding glue that was similar to rubber cement, and I would try something else that is easier to spread on the blinds. I just used the tube to spread one thing line on each blind, which actually worked fine, and might have actually been easier than a thinner glue. This also allowed me to hang the blinds almost immediately after I finished them. Feel free to ask any questions about this project. I figured that it cost me about $20 per window, mainly because my fabric was $6 per yard, and I got 4 yards. The heat'n bond tape was $3, and the fabric glue was $3, and the mini blinds were $4.50 each. I also do have leftover fabric (from the width- I couldn't have gotten any less in length), which I plan to make a table runner, and maybe place-matts as well. One thing that was really important in the fabric choice was letting in as much light in as possible, thus the lacy type fabric. I was a little skeptical about the flimsy fabric working, but it ended up working just fine. Also, another tip, is to somehow make things a little square-er. I'm not sure how, but maybe use a large piece of cardboard or something. Anyway, here are two pics of what I ended up with.

Teaching how to create a coil pitcher - excerpt