Good morning lovely lemonheads! I hope you are doing well. Do you have a garden or have you had a garden in the past? If so, you are probably faced with the opportunity I was faced with…What to do with an overabundance of veggies.

credit: Nota on stock.xchng

As a worker in a soup kitchen, I can tell you a great way to give back to your community is to give the extra produce to this organization. My church was blessed with many boxes of corn, watermelons, and other goodies from a local organic farm in my town. Everyone loved these fresh additions to our meals!

Unfortunately, I had more tomatoes than I could eat, but not enough to give to a soup kitchen. So, what’s a girl to do? Make oven dried tomatoes!

Oven Dried Goodness!

What? Basically oven dried tomatoes are like sun dried tomatoes that you make at home. It is so super easy to do. I use cherry tomatoes to do this, but I am sure regular sized tomatoes cut into chunks would work fabulously.

First I cut my tomatoes in half (or chunks) and let them drain on a paper towel for 30 minutes to an hour. This helps wick some of the juice from the tomatoes, so you don’t have to cook them in the oven for so long. Then, I put my tomatoes on a cookie sheet. I make sure they don’t touch, and I put them skin side down, so they don’t stick. Then I put them in an oven on the lowest temperature (mine is 170 degrees F) for 3 – 6 hours. I start with 3 hours and then if they aren’t completely dry, I just leave them in for longer, checking them once an hour. When your tomatoes are completely dry (but not so dry they are disintegrating in your hand), I either freeze them in a plastic freezer bag or I reconstitute them and pack them in oil.

I love to reconstitute some of the tomatoes and then pack them in oil with herbs and garlic. After a few days, this mixture makes a lovely oil to make dressing for salad or to dip bread in…Yummm!

To reconstitute your tomatoes when you are ready to use them, all you have to do is boil a little water, pour it over the tomatoes you want to use, and let it soak for 10 minutes. Then drain the water off the tomatoes and use them in a salad, on a pizza, in pasta, or anything else you might use a tomato for.

Oven dried tomatoes have such a wonderfully dense tomato flavor…They are soo rich and delicious! And they last much longer than a regular tomato left to its own devices.

So, what do you do with your garden leftovers?

Hi all you lovely lemonheads! A couple of months ago, when Purple Lemon Hubby and I moved into our new house, we were blessed/cursed with high ceilings in our living room. High ceilings give a great overall look to a room (in my opinion), but you can be faced with a dilemma as to what to do with those expansive walls that go on forever. Well, I got to thinking that I would do a little DIY project. The wall over our TV is just huge and a very odd shape. A large canvas was just out of my price range, so I decided to use 9 canvases to make my creation.

Don't you just love a blank canvas?

As you can see above, I laid out my canvases in the orientation I wanted. Then I taped them together around the edges with masking tape. This let me sketch out my illustration without losing continuity among the canvases.

My canvases taped, sketched and ready to paint!

So, from here, I painted and painted and painted some more, making sure to paint the edges of my gallery wrapped canvases, so no white canvas was peeking out. So, here it is!

My vision for my project was a little dark; just what I wanted. I have had this idea in my head in my head for a while…I just haven’t had time to execute it.

Anyone can do a project like this…You could create a very abstract graphic grouping just by painting the 3 outside canvases on each side one color and the middle canvases a different color. Work in some fabulous brush strokes and voila! a fabulous piece of art for your home.

So, do you have something like this in your home? If not, are you going to try something? I would love to hear about it!

Hi y’all! I thought I would post a little DIY with some inspiration for using custom stamps to personalize your wedding, party or other special occasion.

First, bags of mints are great favors for all types of special occasions. I love these fun mints in such beautiful colors. I think another fun idea would be to get personalized M&Ms to fill your bags. By the way, I used the supplies shown in the last photo in this post to create all of the embellishments you see in the photos.

Brown bags are so classic…You can dress them up with some fun scrapbook paper in colors to match your special day. Of course, the finishing touch is the stamped monogram created especially for you by Purple Lemon Designs.

Fun ribbon and clear bags make a very pretty favor too.

You can find Chinese food takeout boxes at your local craft store. They can be filled with cookies, a specialty soap, or anything else you can think of to gift your party goers.

I think it would be fun to find lots of teacups and fill them with candies or candles. You can find them for next to nothing at flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores. Just drop them in a poly bag and then dress them up with some scrapbook paper. To make this topper, I folded a piece of brown kraft paper over, snipped the edge with a paper punch, and stapled it over the top of the poly bag. Then, I just glued some ribbon around it and finished it off with a punched and stamped paper circle. Cute and easy!

Are you going to offer your party goers bottled water? Then why don’t you add your monogram? A little ribbon and paper make it beautiful. Thinking about the little things will make an impression on each and every guest at your party. They will feel appreciated and special.

Just make sure to keep the tags out of the water if you plan to chill your water!

These are the paper punches, ink pads (my favorite kind for paper!), and of course, the stamp I used to customize the pieces in the post.

Have you created a fun item for a party that you would like to share? I would love to share it in an upcoming post!

Do you have questions about using stamps to customize your party? Please ask them in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!

XOXO, Kelly

Hi Lemonheads! I am back and am on my way to a creative renaissance in my life. I wanted to try my hand at painting on canvases, so I picked one up the other day. I wanted to create something to put on my door at home, so I grabbed my acrylic paints and the canvas and this is what I did:

To create this canvas, first I collected my supplies…paints, brushes, a canvas, etc.

I wanted to put a monogram on my canvas (you know how I love a good monogram!), so I found some inspiration for my “R” in my font collections. Then I just free-handed my design in pencil. If you don’t feel comfortable drawing on your canvas, you could blow a letter up on a copier, cut it out and trace it on your canvas.

Next, I mixed water into the color I wanted to use as my background.

Then I started painting. I would paint a coat and then another…

I also wiped the excess off for an irregular finish. I wanted it to vary in color a bit.

After I was happy with the background, I painted the interior of the “R” in a toffee brown.

Next, I outlined the R in a darker brown. An angled brush made this a snap.

Then for the fun stuff…I took the paint bottles and just dribbled the paint around the outline of the letter. If I was going to do this again, I would probably use a bottle with a tiny nozzle that would let me control the flow of paint better. I really liked how it turned out though.

To hang it I used some super cute ribbon I had been holding on to for a few months. I just tacked a long piece to hang it from and then added a fluffy bow.

This was super fun and I would like to do it again…What do you think?

Any ideas on what to paint next?

Do you think you could do this too? I think you could! Give it a try.

Hello and happy Tuesday to you Lemonheads! I hope your week is going well. Today I have a fun little project to help you display your Christmas cards that will be coming in soon. I am actually going to use this set up for some home parties I will be having over the next few weeks. I will work really well in your home too!

First, gather your supplies:

• branches
• silver (or your fav color) spray paint
• Glass pebbles (in a color to compliment your branches)
• a container
• skinny ribbon

Strip any leaves off of your branches.

Next, spray paint your branches and let them dry.

The next steps are really easy…Just fill your container with glass pebbles, and shove your painted branches into the pebbles. Then string your Christmas cards on ribbon by punching a hole in the card and cutting a strip of ribbon to tie in a loop so you can hang it on the tree.

Voila! An easy Christmas card display!

Hope this helps in your holiday decorating, ladies and gents.

Hola lemonheads and happy fall to you! I am ready to celebrate a little bit too…Stay tuned through the whole post for a fun surprise!

I was pulling out some of my fall decorations the other day and I just had to share them again with you…

I put this on my front door.

My Monogrammed Fall Wreath

I plan to put these together again…

I am also thinking I need to try a new project for fall…Any ideas? If you post an idea by Friday, October 23 at midnight CDT, you will be entered to win a set of my pre-packaged note cards. Even better? I will be giving away two sets…Cool right? Just a link to a project your or someone else has shared is all I am asking for. So give me some good ideas for my fall decorating please! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Hola lemonheads! Guess what? Time for a DIY project…Can you believe it? I’m back to DIY-ing it up!

I was looking at my less than beautiful tomato plants the other day and realized they were past their prime. I didn’t want to throw away the tomato cages, but I didn’t really want to store them…So what’s a frugal girl to do?

That is one gross lookin' tomato plant...

I decided to make my tomato cages into topiaries! Cool right? And not to mention green. I am soo environmental.

So first, gather your supplies:

• Old tomato cages
• Pots for the plants (they need to be a decent size since they will be supporting your topiaries)
• Soil
• hacksaw
• Wine cork
• ivy or some other plant that runs

Next, break the root ball of your plant. I used ivy because I had some. Good reason.

Breaking bad...

Then place the plant in a partially filled pot. Then fill around the plant and on top with soil.

Voila!

Now, grab your wine cork and cut it in half.

My tomato cages needed a little adjusting so I hacksawed them. I just cut a section off of the top and made the legs shorter.

You can use a hacksaw too!

Tip on using the hacksaw: Cut about half way through the metal you are trying to cut and then bend it back and forth until it breaks apart.

Bend it back, bend it forth, bend it...

Let me mention this. What has been the top of your cage will now become the bottom and the legs will now become the top. Moving on…

After you get your cages cut, then just bend the legs toward the middle to form the top “steeple shape.” Push the ends into the cork in order to protect others from getting jabbed by a piece of metal. Not cool at all.

You may want to secure them with a little hot glue.

At this point, you can spray paint it or leave it natural. I painted mine so the cork wouldn’t stand out so much.

Cork it!

After the paint drys, just slide the legs of the topiary down the sides of your pot. Your topiary should fit the pot snuggly.

Lastly, twine the vines around the topiary to start growing a lovely garden accent.

Lovely

Your topiary will now fill in by growing like crazy. Soon it will look something like this:

I have had this topiary for years.

So, do you have some spare cages lying around? If so, grab them up and start topiarying!

You may have seen in this post where I talked about how once I grew my herbs in my portable herb garden,  I dry them for the winter. Well I also love to use them in late summer arrangements.

I this post, I want to show you how to arrange your herbs with some flowers that may be growing around your house. I grow lantana, which is a very abundant summer time flower. It thrives in hot weather. I took some cuttings of lantana, some herbs from my herb garden, such as sage, rosemary and mint, and combined them with my summer flowers for a cute arrangement.

Here are a few tips when making any fresh floral arrangement:

Strip the foliage that falls below the waterline for a longer lasting bouquet

Cut the stems right before going into water, at an angle

I put them in a little Mason jar that I had lying around, tied a little ribbon around it and Voila! a cute arrangement to brighten any room in your house. Don’t forget that herbs add such a wonderful aroma to your arrangements too! I am loving the piney scent the rosemary is wafting right under my nose now. I think just an herb bouquet would make a lovely arrangement too.

Now lemonheads…Start clipping those herbs!

I love the citrus!

Hi all you Lemonheads out there! Today I have a fun project. I have always wanted to purchase unfinished wood pieces from Hobby Lobby, but have balked at the idea. The other days I was in there browsing around, and thought, where else in the world am I going to get a shelf for less than 10 bucks? If you catch a sale on unfinished wood and are willing to put in just a a little work, you can have a great little set up in no time.

I started out by purchasing some unfinished wood pieces. I purchased a wooden shadow box thingy and a shelf.

The Shadow Box Thingy

I started out by sanding down the splinters and rough edges. I am sure that you are smarter than me, but I always start sanding my pieces laying directly on the concrete only to later realize I have to put lots more work in to sanding out the dents concrete puts into the bottom side of my wood. I should really remember to put a towel down first.

Sanding after I remember to put down a towel

Next, I painted my pieces off white (2 coats).

Don't forget to protect your work surface!

After the first two coats dry really well, I painted the pieces with two coats of a black satin color.

I always get a nicer finish with a foam brush

After about 48 hours of drying, I sanded some of the black paint off to give the pieces a nice antiqued, shabby chic look.

I use a medium to fine grit paper for sanding off paint.

Doesn't it look nice and aged?

After getting the look I wanted, I hit each piece with a few light coats of a matte clear coat spray.

They make a great place to display some little trinkets…What a fabulous vignette!

I love my little tea cups.

This is a very easy project that anyone can tackle. Do you have any tips for painting the shabby chic way?

Hi all you sweet lemonheads out there. I am going to share a quickie centerpiece/gift idea with you today. It also doesn’t cost too terribly much either.

Whenever I have company over, I usually forget the best part of the meal…the centerpiece! So, I am going to share my quick fix idea with you today…a dish garden. First, make a running trip to your local discount department store (or around your house) and get your supplies:

• a large plastic bowl
• four 4″ plants (tall and small)
• dry floral foam or Styrofoam
• moss
• floral pins
• hammer
• nail

Ok, so first you make some drainage holes in your plastic bowl (very carefully!).

Next (if you need to) make a platform for your plants inside the bowl. The goal is to build the plants up so that they are even with the rim of the bowl.

Next place your little plants in the bowl. Put your taller plants in the back and then the shorter ones in the front. Fill in any holes with foam to make sure the plants don’t jump around. This is a quick arrangement that is really not following the rules I learned in floral design class (so Dr. DelPrince turn away from the computer now!).

Cover your mechanics (ie foam and plant pots) with your moss. My plastic bowl was very slick, so I needed to secure my moss with floral pins.

So now your dish garden is looking good! You can even add in some birdies for a little extra charm. Ta Da! Your centerpiece is done!