10 Tips for Getting Organized for Spring Gardening

Spring is in bloom and with all this extra time at home, now is the perfect time to get organized and get your yard and garden ready for outdoor fun. In addition to starting your yard work, I have a few other ideas to prepare your lawn and garden for Spring and Summer.

1. Get Organized:  The Deflecto Stackable Caddy is a great resource to organize all your small gardening essentials like gloves, hand shovels, twine, scissors, clippers, seeds, and more.  It is lightweight so you can move it around the yard with you.  With the clear storage containers, there's no more digging through boxes and drawers to find those essential tools.
 
2. Survey Your Yard & Make a List:  Take a walk around your yard, porch, and outdoor spaces to see what survived the winter and what needs a little help.  As you walk around create a list of areas you need to work on or things you want to change.
 
3. Do your Research:  As you survey your yard note, which areas have direct sunlight, partial sunlight, and shade.  Spend time researching which plants and flowers will thrive in those environments.
 
4. Create an Inspiration Board:  Cut pictures from magazines, save images from Pinterest or take photos of friends and neighbors lawn and garden designs that you love.  By pulling together all of your favorite images, it is easy to pull together a common theme and create a design plan.
 
5. Start with Containers:  Container gardening is an approachable way to kick off your spring planting.  Reuse planters from last year by giving them a makeover with a little paint.
 
6. Set Your Priorities:  We can't do everything at once.  Once you create a list of everything that needs to be done and things you want to change make a priority list.  Split that list into NEEDS and WANTS.  This will make it more obtainable and less intimidating.
 
7. Be Prepared:  Spring weather can be a little crazy.  One day is hot and the next night temperatures are freezing.  Be prepared with materials to help protect your new plants from freezing temperatures.  Have a pile of old towels and sheets that you can use to quickly cover plants and flowers when temperatures dip.  Do not use plastic tarps.  Plastic can increase the cold and damage the plant buds it touches.
 
8. Do the Prep Work:  Make sure your garden beds are ready for you to work.  Start by removing old leaves, weeds, and clearing the areas around perennials.
 
9. Time to Trim:  Spring is the time to trim and prune back any summer-blooming trees or bushes.  It is best to prune before any buds breakthrough.
 
10. Start your Vegetable Garden:  If you have been thinking about starting a vegetable garden, now is the time.  Cool-season vegetables like potatoes, lettuce, carrots, and other leafy greens are best to get in the ground while the soil is still cool.  Composting at home is also a great way to nourish your veggies. 

We hope you are enjoying your time at home and we are excited to see your garden grow! Share your home gardening and organization projects with using #DeflectoAtHome

Eggstra Special Shaker Tag

Shaker Tag Designed by Sue Eldred

How to make a Egg-stra Special Shaker Tag

Supplies Used:

• Stamps and Dies (from the Maker's Movement)
• Die Cut Machine
• Clear Acetate Sheets
• Double Sided Craft Foam
• Black Ink
• Art Markers
• Deflecto Expandable Marker Accordion
• Heavyweight Watercolor Paper
• Decorative Scrapbook Paper
• Tape Runner
• Ribbon, Twine, Button

• Stamp the chick image with black ink onto white cardstock.
• Stamping on non-porous white card-stock helps the markers blend easier.

• Color in the edge of the chick with the light ochre marker.  Use the pale yellow marker to blend and fill in the rest of the chick.

• Line up chick die with the stamped image.  (cutting side down)  I use a piece of removable tape on my die to hold it in place as I run in through the die cut machine. 

• Using a nesting tag dies, center and tape the two dies together to create a tag frame.

Shaker Tag pieces:

• Cut a large tag from the largest nested tag die.
• Cut a large green dot tag.  Cut a wavy line die on the bottom of the tag. 
• Adhere bottom of the wavy cut tag onto the blue skies tag.
• Cut a acetate tag from the next largest nesting tag die.
• Cut a large purple gingham egg, a floral cracked egg and several small eggs from coordinating scrapbook paper.

• On the back of the tag frame, add a thin line of adhesive around the inside opening of the tag.
• Remove the protective coating from both sides of the acetate and place it on top of the adhesive.
• Cut thin strips from the double-sided foam sheets.  Remove one side of the protective layer from the foam strips and place around the inside edges of the tag.
• Add shaker bits inside tag.
• Remove the second side of the protective layer from the foam strips and adhere to the blue skies layer on the inside of the tag.

• Glue the small floral cracked half egg onto purple gingham egg.
• Add foam to the back of chick and egg and add to front of the card.
• Punch a hole on the top of the tag using the crop-a-dile, add purple and white twine.
• Adhere ribbon bow to top of the tag.

For more details on Sue's project you can read the full post here.

Create Store, Create More or #Cr8StoreCr8More for storage

Ribbon Flower Wreath

Learn how to create ribbon flowers to embellish a small 6″ grapevine wreath.  

A great little Spring decoration, Ribbon Flowers look great on bags, gifts, wedding decorations, hair accessories and is really simple to make.

To make the Ribbon Flower Wreath you'll need:

• 5/8″ and 7/8″ Ribbon
• 6″6″ Grapevine Wreath
• StazOn Gothic Purple Inkpad
• Ink Blending Tool
• Craft Glue
• Small Buttons
• Needle and thread
• Deflecto Ribbon Dispenser

Directions:

• Cut a 6″ piece of ribbon.
• Use the ink applicator to apply purple ink to one edge of the ribbon.

• Create a running stitch down one side of the ribbon.

• Gather the ribbon and tie thread ends in a knot.
• Place raw ends of the ribbon underneath the flower.

• Glue a small vintage button to the center of the flower.
• To create leaves, fold a small strip of green ribbon and glue to the back of the flower.

• Glue flowers onto a small grapevine wreath.
• Optional: Glue small sprigs of flowers on each end of the ribbon flowers.

The Deflecto Ribbon Dispenser is great way to store and access ribbon.  It fits securely into the Deflecto Stackable Caddy Organizer.

The Ribbon Flower Wreath was designed by Design Team member Sue Eldred.

Create Store, Create More or #Cr8StoreCr8More for storage