{update: not suitable for dogs}

We won't know what's what in our herb garden anymore. But not to worry, it won't matter, really, because Bella will probably eat all the plants tomorrow. 

{diy: cross-stitched garden markers}

Thanks to the lovely weather, we got planting last weekend, and have set ourselves up for a rather tasty year with some favourite herbs. (That's hhhhh-erbs, just to be clear.) To be sure we remember who is who, and don't end up eating our flowers, I made each plant a little marker out of clay.

All you need is a packet of modeling clay (I used Sculptey), some alphabet stamps, and a needle and thread. A 2oz packet of clay (which costs 30 - 50 cents) makes 4 garden markers.

The trick to adding the cross-stitch is to sew through the clay just as soon as it's cool enough to handle (about two minutes after it came out of the oven). Be careful, it's rather hot at first! If you wait more than ten minutes, though, the clay might be too hard already. My advice -- bake them in batches of three or four, to allow yourself enough time to sew them all before they harden.

I'd love to know what you've been planting this year, and am eager for any tips about what grows well in Texas!

{pinterest challenge: little houses}

The Pinterest Challenge is back! The idea: to take an idea you've pinned, and make it a reality. Last time, a blurry shot from a room set became a giant canvas. This time, I'm working on a smaller scale...

Inspired by all the miniature clay houses on my Little Houses board, I picked up a few packs of Sculptey on sale, and a jar of enamel paint. How hard can it be to make a pointy square?

Turns out, not hard at all, with the help of a steak knife and a rolling pin. The difficult thing was preventing crumbling. As you can see, lots of my houses have that chalky rubble-sort-of-look of a thousand-year-old Danish church.

Spread out across a map, it was just like looking across the fields in Jutland as we drove across Denmark this summer, seeing spire after spire poking out of the trees. (Just pretend it's not a map of Japan, where, I'm sure, mini skyscrapers would be much more appropriate)

A bit of stamping...

...and we're red-dy to write our own little house messages. I'm playing with the idea of an advent town -- twenty-four houses, stamped with the numbers 1 through to 24, one of which will appear each evening as Christmas grows near.

P.S. Bonus Pinterest Challenge also completed: to use a map, somehow, anyhow. Since Sophie kindly sent in the antique French map, I've bought a hand-drawn map of Bungay in Suffolk, been given the Japanese map above by my Dad, and a map of Bahrain by Justin. Now, to put them to use!