On Instagram in January, Pipandrooneedleworks posted a Needlepoint travel roll that her husband had made for her and I thought “Hey! I want one of those!” …but I can’t stitch leather like that – so I came up with this! If you don’t have a sewing machine I will bet this will still work by just riveting straps onto a thicker piece of leather – as long as it is still pliable enough to roll up!

This is a rather “rough” tutorial – no time for pretty pretty pictures right now – but the technique and information is here…and that’s really all you need. Make sure you read ALL the information!

If you have any questions, just go to my LifeTart Instagram account, scroll down to the July 17th post and message me there as I don’t “do” email.

There you have it! Make sure to read the information pics below!

  
In the past I have taken a shotgun approach to gardening – I would just walk into garden center, pick what I liked, bring it home and plant with abandon with little regard for plant light requirements – not good – it turns out that those little plant tags that tell you about light requirements are really important.  A couple of years ago, after getting REALLY tired of spending money on plants just to kill them later, I came up with this idea. Now I go to the garden center, check my Sun & Shade chart and buy plants that grow in the conditions of my yard….things are much better now… here’s how to make your own chart on your iPhone!
 
  
  
  

  
I’m a big fan of using plastic baskets as car trash cans (try it and you’ll never go back to using a bag!). As I was unloading plants from the back of my car I used the empty trash basket to carry 6 pots of herbs to the patio. Setting them on the table, I noticed that they looked kind of cute in the basket and wondered if I could just use the basket as an herb garden – I figured “it’s plastic – why wouldn’t it work?”. I left the herbs in the basket and put them by my back step and watered them every day. I wondered if they would continue to grow in their little pots… it became evident that they needed to be in more soil than just their little plastic pots… and I was getting really tired of watering them every day! 
I wanted to keep them by the back kitchen steps because it is more convenient than where I usually grow herbs and I had become attached to the whole “basket” idea, so I set about figuring out how to plant them in the basket without dirt leaching out every time I watered them – AND how to avoid the responsibility of needing watering them frequently (I live in New Mexico and our humidity hovers around 10-20% ). I came up with this idea and it has worked beautifully – I much prefer it to my old herb container garden on the drip system! If you try this, just make sure to heavily water the basket once a week – the water crystals/granules need a chance to soak up enough water to see the plants through the next 7 days or so! 

Give this graduation gift a try – Book safes are my favorite thing to give to kids heading off to college – things tend to “disappear” in dorms and it’s good to have a hidden place to store extra cash and credit cards!  This post with video is also on Lifetart Instagram account!