String balls

Back in October when my wife turned twenty-two her best friend got her hand-died silk thread from Laos.

It was beautiful and soft and (unsurprisingly) silky, but we had no clue as to what to do with it. Especially when if we didn't like what we did with it, getting more supplies would be pretty near impossible. After a couple of weeks, my wife made a decision about what she'd like to make, and it was ... well, the best way I can describe them is string balls. 

We decided that we'd like to make a decorative feature out of them, and place them into a glass vase. We also decided that we didn't want only them in the vase, and so we headed out to Dunelm Mill to pick up some supplies. 

Adding to those some balloons and some PVA glue, we set about making our string balls, pegging them out onto a line when they were done to allow them to dry without sticking to anything.

Upon being dry, we popped the balloons, and delicately extracted the remains, leaving us with some ball-like objects. They required a little reshaping at this point, but thankfully they seemed pretty willing to comply. 

The only step left was to put them in the vase with the other objects and find a place to put them:

Here's the vase in situ; we decided the best place for it was in the bathroom, as the blue ties in best there. So ... whatcha think? We reckon at some point we may make some more with the remaining silk thread, but we don't as yet have anywhere to display them so we'll hold off on that for a while!

Watering the plants

Although we live in a teeny tiny studio apartment, we do have the luxury of having a small balcony. I mean, it is pretty small, only really big enough for a couple of chairs, but we also have a row of window boxes out there. 

Unfortunately (gardening-wise) we moved to France mid-August, which isn't really the best time to be planting. We tried, but unsurprisingly, almost everything died!

Now that spring's popping up, the chives and, surprisingly, the lettuces(!) are starting to revive. The rosemary coped fine, but obviously stopped growing. We've also planted some acorns that we collected in the autumn and stored in the fridge over winter, in the hope that they will grow. 

However, our rosemary plant was getting very dry in it's spot, so we decided to move it to its own box in the hope that having more space would also encourage it to grow. So move it I did. 

The rosemary in its new spot

Our balcony is also south-facing which won't really help with the whole being dry thing. So, while I was on Pinterest this morning up popped a link to a tutorial for keeping your plants watered (find it here). I loved the idea, so wondered if I could do the same for our plants. What with our plant boxes being on the ledge of our balcony I didn't particularly want to use glass bottles (although we have several waiting to be recycled) so decided to make use of our plastic milk bottles.

What a beautiful milk bottle ;)

You can just about see the hole in the lid

I removed the label and cut off the bottom to allow me to be able to fill it while it's in the soil. Then I punched a hole in the lid to make the opening smaller.


With fingers crossed (not literally) I placed my bottle in the soil and filled it up with water. Much of it went straight through the bottle and came out the bottom of the plant box. Not what I wanted to happen. I took the bottle out, looked at the soil and decided I'd try again, maybe the soil was just too dry to start with. In went the bottle for a second time; I repositioned it slightly. This time, the water didn't drain straight through so I've left it out there. Hopefully this'll help the rosemary be happier, and if it works I'll think about putting some more in the other boxes. Watch this space. 

The bottle in situ