Katiebird's Garden & Wildcraft

I am finally redoing our bedroom.  It is currently the ugly, rental-house beige that was badly applied.  I have decided to use a all-over wall stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils to highlight one wall. This is the one I ordered!   I have decided on the paint colors, a pale fleshy-mauve color and the stencil is a darker mauve color.  There are splotches on every wall.  I'm hoping to buy the gallons in the next week or so. This weekend I am re-painting our dresser (my Grandmother's Minneapolis Lugar Furniture Company , circa early 1900's-though not as fancy as the ones shown on the website) BLACK with worn edges and I'm going to use Briwax to antique it.  I hope to get some vintage hardware too-maybe some crystal knobs to add to it.  I'm not usually one to cover nice wood pieces, as it does have a nice grain, but the top is missing most of the stain due to my sisters and I spilling nail polish remover all over it and coveri...

My momma has a patch of rhubarb that is very ready to use this week.  I actually picked a stalk that had a leaf over 3 feet across!  Who needs an umbrella?  My mom said there's an old picture that shows my aunties wearing jungle outfits made out of rhubarb leaves when they were little!  Super cute. I had been craving a rhubarb dessert ever since she had made one a couple weeks ago and I scarfed down a huge piece of it, chased with a large bolus.  She put almond extract in it...heavenly.  But I wanted cherries too.  So I took the basic recipe and of course I had to change it...  Notice the ever-present glucose tabs to remind me I'm diabetic and shouldn't eat the whole pan at once...  Cherry-Rhubarb Crisp (lower sugar) Filling: 1/3 cup white sugar 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoons cornstarch 1/2 cup cold water 1/2 (21 ounce) can light/sugar free cherry pie filling  (Walmart has a great one w/ only 8 carbs per ...

My little blog that could has hit over a 1000 views today!  Thanks everybody, it makes it so much more fun to know that people are actually looking at it and reading :)  There will be some more exciting things to talk about this summer, here's a short sneak peek list: Bedroom makeover Office makeover Gardens galore The story of a farm stand AND some other exciting things to come in the future :)

I had promised my hubby some baked treats recently and I had a desperate craving for chocolate cake so I had to make some cupcakes.  But not just any cupcakes...Chocolate with a surprise of Cheesecake Filling, topped with Caramelized Walnuts.  How to create these lovelies: Make it easy on yourself and buy a box of chocolate cake mix.  Mix it up.  Cheesecake filling: 1 pkg of light cream cheese 1 egg 1/3 c. sugar 1 tsp. vanilla or almond extract (or both!) Keep cool, so it stays firm.  Fill paper-lined muffin cups 1/2 full with the chocolate cake.  Add 1-2 tsp of the cream cheese mix, or more if you want more.  It cooks up cake-like, so don't worry.  Cover the cream cheese with chocolate cake mix until the cups are 3/4 full.  Bake as directed on the box, mine took around 18 mins I think.  Before, During or After, make the walnuts. Caramelized Walnuts: (I made this up as I went, so just trust your candy thermometer!)...

After all the crazy rain yesterday and all of last night, I walk out this morning on my way to work during a moment of no rain and walk towards the patio garden to see if anything popped up with the warm rain.  Well, what popped out was that little sh*# of a rabbit, whom I call Bun-Bun.  I was hoping the human-scented and noisy cement patio would keep him in the back yard but to no avail.  More ugly fencing to come to the patio now and some blood meal.   Another curious thing, I planted a whole packet of Lima Beans and only one has shown itself after about 3 weeks.  I thought Burpee was better than that.  That's what I'll be re-planting this weekend.  Of course I threw away the receipt.

Yesterday after work (BG was 145 with a little insulin on-board, but nothing to worry about) I sauntered over to Micheal's to grab some foam boards for my pelmet boxes I'm making for the kitchen windows.  What's a pelmet box, you ask?  Check out this tutorial at Little Green Notebook .  Cheap and awesome decoration!   So, after leaving Micheal's, Lowe's is right next door, so I went over there to check on some brackets for hanging said pelmets and after having a helpful worker make a couple suggestions that just weren't working at all in my head, I thanked him and he left on his merry way.  I was still pondering the brackets and noticed it was really hot in there, like they didn't have the AC on all day.  So I'm fanning my face with my papers and I just start sweating all over.  My back was sweating, my face had beads of sweat rolling down.  And only after noticing that noone else was hot or sweating and that I couldn't pay attention to what th...

As promised the other day...I finally have some pictures of my herb spiral and my patio garden.   New Herb Spiral So far I have two basils, rosemary, an interesting fuzzy oregano, cilantro (coriander,) and lemon thyme.  I will be adding a Greek oregano and possibly a nice plain chive to fill the bottom space.  I haven't quite thought of what to fill the surrounding area with yet.  I am leaning towards some bright flowers since there's so much green! Patio Garden  The above is my patio garden, which this year is mostly vegetables.  I will be filling in all the empty space with annual flowers though, as I can't NOT have color!!!  Who loves that ugly fence as much as me?   The far corner is the catnip grove as I call it, it has 6-8 bushes that will grow about 3-4 ft. each.  The stuff is very potent, according to my cat, Stickee.  Our mild winter had a couple little volunteer bushes that grew near the steps and my cat escap...