I really haven’t made or done anything new since I completed my broken shovel waterfall. I have a couple projects I’m working on right now, but they’re both multi-step projects and I’ve spent a lot of time waiting for stuff to either dry or cure. Unfortunately I have a busy week coming up so they probably won’t be finished or on the blog this week. There’s always next week though!
One of my projects involved first carving SM Blue foam. What a mess that makes! It’s pretty easy to shape, I mostly sanded it to the shape I wanted, but there was foam and dust everywhere.
Once I had my shapes, I needed to make molds of them. I used a tip seen on Made by Barb to mix silicon and corn starch. Honestly, when she says it smells strongly of vinegar, she’s not exaggerating. We’re talking about a vinegar smell that slaps you right in the face! She makes some really cool stuff though so go check her out.
Learn something new…
Okay this may not be new to you, but it was very new to me. My ex-husband is a plumber and whenever he did any caulking, he always spit on his finger and then used it to smooth the caulking.
I have never in my life had enough saliva in my mouth to even spit much less smooth caulking with it. So there are tools you can buy that will smooth it for you but sometimes the tools won’t fit where the caulking needs to be smoothed. I’ve tried using just water, but water is not saliva and on it’s own doesn’t work. But then I saw this recipe for making silicone molds that uses dish soap and the light bulb went on.
If you add some dish soap – any dish soap people, there’s nothing magical about blue dawn – it adds enough slip that you can dip your fingers in the soap water and smooth the caulking without the silicone sticking to your fingers.
Failure is still an option…
One of the things I most dislike about multi-step projects is that completing any of the steps successfully doesn’t guarantee the final project will work. So I carved my shapes and they came out beautifully, just like I wanted. I’ve made my molds, and they worked in spite of some kinks and the frustration of trying to work on something fiddly with flies biting and neighborhood dogs barking. What I wouldn’t give for a garage!
Biting Flies
On the topic of flies biting – they are horrible this year. We’ve never had them so bad. But I found these disposable fly traps at TSC Stores and they work. They stink – like rancid grease – but they work. The included bait even draws in those gnats that are always hanging out around the dogs butts so I call that a win. It seems to be helping, I have two in my yard. They’re supposed to be good for 30 days so we’ll see how it goes.
Have a happy Sunday and hopefully in another week I’ll have a successful project to share.
Hosta ‘Cadet Blue’ is still putting on a show. It’s a spreader, so anyone starting with one of them will eventually have many of them. It flowers as prolifically as it spreads with pretty lavender flowers.
New to me, Lobelia Cardinalis is flowering as well. A native plant that likes a damp location, I planted it for the hummingbirds.
I haven’t seen them feeding from the lobelia yet but I have seen them visiting the Salvia before heading to the feeders.
While weeding one of my gardens, I found these little seedlings. If they make it through until next spring it will be interesting to see what they wind up as. They don’t look like they’ll be anything special at the moment, but they could end up blue like the Blue Cadet. Time will tell.
All that is left for the siding is the front of the house and deck. Then it’s bye-bye swag of yuck. Fish flies seem to be done in my area, even if they’re still going strong elsewhere – like this ball game that had to be called because of fish flies – 
I like the flowers on all hosta, so I was shocked to find out a couple of years ago some people cut the scapes off before they can bloom! Above is a close up of the bloom on Blue Mouse Ears.
The fourth plague has arrived, my windows are covered in may flies, or fish flies or whatever you call them where you’re at. You can see one of them hanging out on this Lily. I’m fortunate to not live near any street lights which usually have piles of them underneath. Storefronts and gas stations, any place that has to have overnight lighting will all reek of them for the next couple of weeks.
For me, it means I will get to wash my siding in a week or two. Blech!
The lilies are flowering. They really don’t suit this spot all tall and gangly, but the flowers are pretty and there’s nowhere better to move them to so they get to stay.
This penstemon made it through the winter and flowered. Another plant that really doesn’t fit it’s spot. I’m almost afraid to move it – when you’re skating on the edge of a plant’s requirements already moving it is risky. The hosta in front is ‘Grand Slam’. It’s the latest blooming hosta I own and a favorite. Plain Jane green leaves with a ruffled edge, but it has a really tidy habit and the leaves are thick.
The back garden is coming along nicely. I added a Day Lily – White Temptation. It’s a re-bloomer so we’ll see what the flowers look like. I moved some Heuchera into this bed, the Japanese maple was burying them where they were. I’ve also planted a flat of white begonia throughout. Once it establishes I’ll post an update.
