I mean, maybe if we rearrange some things…and it’s ONLY $150…No! I can’t! Somebody please go buy it!

This Frigidaire Flair stove is pretty awesome, too:

Super space-saving! Look how the burners slide out and the over doors slide up! It’s like a crazy sportcar!

It’s really big and really heavy and unfortunately, unmarked. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, though it’s pretty clear it came out of an old refrigerator. I am having absolutely no luck at all trying to track down a year or a manufacturer – for neither the dish nor the fridge it must belong to.

It has a pebbly bottom that reminds me of some other Glasbake pieces that I have. But I don’t know how telling that is.

The sides are ribbed at the top. I have a similarly ribbed Pyrex bowl that went with a Hamilton Beach mixer, but it’s not exactly the same.

I have googled and ebayed and etsy-ed and ruby laned this thing and can’t find one word about it. I’ve only found two other “cold storage trays” – smaller, clear dishes that still look a bit newer than this one. Right now I’m waiting to hear back from some vintage appliance restorers, maybe they’ll have some information on it. In the meantime, check out the galleries of their work – there are some BEAUTIFUL refrigerators to be had!

Antique Vintage Appliances

Antique Appliances

Just a few more weeks until our local zoo debuts the new penguin exhibit! I can’t wait!

I did two Valentine’s projects with something I really luuurve, the ol’ Cricut.

These were mailed out to very special Surface To Air Media fan club members in perfect little blue envelopes. (I adore  the red-pink-blue combo for Valentine’s!)

Inspired by papercutting artists such as Julene Harrison – but lacking the amazing talent – I cheated with the machine. (It’s hard to tell in the picture but the letters are negative space.) My original design said “Happy Valentine’s Day” but that was a bit too detailed for the Cricut to do in a 3.5″ x 5″ space. Laid out in photoshop using the fonts Campanile and Hearts for 3D, then imported into Sure Cuts a Lot.

The second project was for work. I knew I wanted to hand out cinnamon hearts somehow…but I couldn’t find them  ANYWHERE. I ended up using Hot Tamales which are quite tasty, too. (Good thing I bought extra!)

I started on these late so I had to find containers locally, not online. The plastic hearts are actually from the wedding area of Dollar Tree, not the seasonal section. The flame motif came to me after I bought the containers but worked really well with the hot cinnamon candy.

I modified characters from the pyrobats font because if I drew my own flames I would have spent the entire time tweaking them instead of actually cutting them. Of course, cutting these only took about 5 minutes total with the machine (amazing!) so I was free to spend my time gluing them and popping Hot Tamales.

Bonus: because they were el cheapos the heart pieces fit together a little too loosely, but closing the paper tab  inside the lids made for a perfectly tight seal. I’m pleased with how they turned out!

anemones | Snippet and Ink

Minton Hill House | The Sunday Times Market

German Television Tower Models | The Invisible Agent

Beach House Bridgehampton | houzz

Remember this video? I hadn’t seen it in ages. I used to love it as a kid, though I remember being disappointed every time the sixties orange and yellow kitchen came up…I just loved those other pastels.

Now when I watch I’m mentally inventorying the dishes, the cabinets, the light fixtures – and figuring out what they’d be selling for on eBay. And I don’t even mind the orange kitchen anymore (though the 70’s one is still a bit of a downer.)

Plus it’s *educational*!

They’re from the Garden Treasures Retro set, and while I wouldn’t call them 100% authentic they certainly do get the look across. They’re also significantly more affordable than the other brands in the Apartment Therapy motel-style  roundup that Pam cited.

They even have kiddie-sized chairs for the mini-mid century enthusiast. I love the colors but i can’t believe there’s no classic cherry red!

I have said that i’d never buy a used sofa – I have in the past, but have heard too many horror stories to push my luck again. This gorgeous set makes me want to roll the dice, baby.

And then there’s this bar set. How did we go from nothing cool to all this amazing stuff?

If the first bar set is a little too much for you, perhaps something a little more subtle. Look at the art on the wall, too – I wanna party with these folks.

I planted four Endless Summers last January and they bloomed beautifully, perfect blues developing into purples, which I loved. But they didn’t stop at purple – the late season blooms were full-on pink!

This couldn’t be right. I had spoken to a very authoritative-sounding older southern woman at a well-regarded nursery who said if I planted hydrangeas near a pine tree they would be blue. Pine trees == acidic soil == blue hydrangeas, end of story. The Endless Summers start about 12 feet away- not exactly under the pine, but certainly close enough, right? They were well within the pine needle drop zone.

So I mulched those suckers with pine needles. Every weekend last fall I raked up two or more wheelbarrow loads of needles and they went directly on the hydrangeas – all the hydrangeas, not just the Endless Summers. I’m talking 6 inches worth of pine needle mulch here. I wasn’t going to have pink blooms if i could help it!

In the spirit of “Doing It Right” (and dealing with its cousin  “What Can I Do While It’s Still Too Cold To Plant Anything?”) I decided to actually test the pH level of the soil in that area. Duh! Then I’d know exactly what I was dealing with and what i needed to do to fix it. I stopped by Lowe’s and was confronted with my first dilemma:

There were two kinds of testers, both by Ferry-Morse: a battery-operated tester for $20 and a chemical kit for $4. I ran through the pros and cons:

Electronic Tester:

• Good for multiple uses
• Gives numerical readings instead of colors

Chemical Kit:

• Lower cost – it’s not like I’m going to start a pH testing business necessitating an electronic tester
• Seperate tests for Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium; the electronic one grouped all these into one Goldilocks reading (too much, too little, just right)
• all the tubes and colors and stuff looked way cooler

In the end I realized I had no idea which method was more reliable, so I decided to approach it like a science project and bought one of each. In the interest of full disclosure, I HATED doing science projects in high school and in fact faked the one I did about parachutes (sorry Mr. Sweetsir.) But I thought this would be fun, mostly because of the aforementioned colored tubes and stuff.

Problem:

My damn hydrangeas are pink!!!

Research:

I can never remember which way the pH scale goes, so I amended the wikimedia chart as it relates to hydrangeas (extra credit!)

Also read that all that pine needle mulch might have been wasted effort – other than being good root protection during freezes and heat waves, and at zero cost – as that pine/acid soil story appears to be a myth. Whoops.

Materials:

Dr. Funkenstein’s lab. The electronic kit requires 2 cups of soil and 2 cups of distilled water. The chemical test requires 5:1 water to soil; I went with a quarter-cup of soil and 1-1/4 cups of water. The bowl worked well for the chemical kit, but you need something tall like a cup for the electronic, as the probes should be completely covered with soil.

Procedure:

1. Read all the directions. That’s good for anything, really. And both sets of directions came with a nice explanation of the pH scale and how it relates to gardening, and what you can do to change the pH of your soil.

2. Collect your soil. You can actually use the probe directly in the ground, but the instructions said that you get more accurate results if you do it lab-style. You’re supposed to bypass the first two inches of soil, dig a hole 5 more inches deep and mix the soil up a bit. Discard rocks, twigs, and other non-dirt items.

3. Electronic tester:

mix two cups of water with two cups of soil, let it settle, then drain off the excess water. It should be good and muddy. Flip the switch to the reading you want to take, insert probe, and let sit for a minute.

4. Chemical kit, pH:

Fill tube with appropriate level of soil, then contents of capsule, then top off with water.Shake and let sit. Pause for a moment and feel like awesome scientist.

5. Chemical kit, fertilizers:

mix up your 5:1 water/soil mix and let settle. Fill tube to marked level with the water only, not the dirt (interesting!) Add capsule contents, shake to mix. I did these one at a time so I wouldn’t the tubes all mixed up. Compare color results with chart.

Data:

Discussion:

I started off using the battery that came with the meter, but since the needle barely moved I decided to try a fresh battery. The second battery produced the same results as the first – I’d call that a 6.8. The fertilizer reading was right in the middle of “Too Little.” Oh dear. Surely this must be wrong – onto the chemical tests!

Nope, that’s a very neutral green in the pH tube. Nitrogen didn’t even turn colors at all, let alone a shade of pink! Phosphorous was similarly missing, and the Potassium was only a slight shade of orange.

Conclusion:

My soil is hosed! The two kinds of pH test kits do produce similar results. My impression is that you’d use the electronic tester for mostly monitoring. If you got a bad reading on that, then you might want to pick up a chemical kit to see exactly where the problems are, so you know what to add to your soil to correct them.

I suppose if i really wanted to get an accurate reading, I could take the soil into the Extension Office and have them to a professional test. But this is good enough for now – I have plenty of other work to do!

Bibliography:

Changing the Color of Hydrangeas, hydrangeashydrangeas.com

French Hydrangea for Gardens in North and Central Florida, UF Extension

Hydrangea Questions and Answers, United States National Arboretum