Mother's Day Succulent Wreath

So, I am not really bold enough yet to do a tutorial, but I will here document my attempt to re-create this Simple Stunning Living Succulent Wreath that I found a while back on prudent baby.  I thought my mom would really like it and it's a low-maintenance plant so I'm {hopefully} not giving her a job along with a gift.  Jaime's wreath really is stunning-what colors!:


Her tute is really easy to follow but my lack of her supply of succulents was what one thing that made this project difficult.

Here are the succulents I ordered from amazon.  Pretty, but (as I would soon learn) too small.  Once they are rooted in the wreath, they should grow nicely though.

Since it has been pretty warm here, I did this inside...

Sphagnum Moss in the sink to soak up water.

Sphagnum Moss in the cat's water dish...to freak out the cats.

After the moss was wet, I wrapped it around a large (ugh, too large) metal wreath form.  I added raffia because I love it and knew my wreath would already need some filler.

I started adding the succulents...gosh, I'm just feeling so crafty!

This picture/angle is deceiving...

Simple?....NO  Stunning?...NO

 So, back to square 1.  Time to tear apart carefully dismantle the wreath and start afresh.   I ended up cutting a smaller foam wreath form in half as my base and didn't wrap in raffia.  And now, I'm feeling...frustrated.

 I was also sure to use TONS of the fishing line to secure the sphagnum moss and wrap it in closer increments.  If you couldn't see in the picture above where I hung the wreath up on a door, the moss was kind of just falling off.  This is another thing that the root of the succulents will remedy.

I got much farther around (though still not all the way!) with succulents.  If you're wondering, this was started during nap time and finished...sometime after.  This took lots of entertaining and letting the girls make an almost bigger mess than I was currently making.

What a big help!

And now, for the final product...

Ta-da!  Well, maybe just "ta-done!", but that's how it goes with crafting sometimes.  I was really proud of myself for staying the course and actually finishing way before the-night-before Mother's Day.  Hope you like it, Mom...maybe even more now that you see what a labor of love it was???  (You know, just like I was?)

My Little Photographer

Every once in a while Frequently, Kayla takes my camera and takes pictures.  In the past, I'd end up with 30 super close-ups of her smiling face, but recently she has figured out how to {almost} capture other images.  Now, I am using her interest to my advantage and having her take pictures while I feed Sabrina or something.  Here's the most recent result:

"Pumpkin"

????

"The rain outside"

"Noah's house" (our neighbor's little boy)

Ah, she does love clothing....

"Pumpkin" part 2

"Mommy and Sabrina"  I'm smiling, can you tell?

Toy Story Weekend - The Main Event!

Has anyone figured out the Moby wrap is my BFF?  Not only did Sabrina sleep, she kept me warm in the cold ice rink.  Kayla was super excited, but wasn't sure what to expect.  Once everything started she was glued!

The army men act was pretty cool, although they had pretty strange masks on...a little creepy.

We all had a great time, especially Kayla whose Daddy indulged her in a blue sno-cone, to which she was also glued.

These were two of my favorite acts.  The aliens glowed in the dark!  The Barbie dolls' hair and outfits were really cool.

Jeremy booked early, so we had great seats, right on the ice.  It was fun to interact with the characters and be so close to the action!

Toy Story Weekend - Swimming and Zoo

Jeremy's number one priority in picking a hotel for the weekend was whether or not it had a pool...the La Quinta had an indoor, heated pool.  Score!  This was Kayla's first time to swim this season and Sabrina's first time ever.  They both love the water!

It took some convincing on our part, but Kayla got bold enough to start jumping in (as long as we were holding on to her).

Sabrina was in constant motion in the water...hands splashing and feet kicking.  What a little fishy!

At the Austin Zoo & Animal Sanctuary, watching a beautiful peacock with his feathers out.  (Isn't that a cute sundress?  Grandma brought it back from Hawaii.)  This is a really neat zoo, with a more rural feel than the San Antonio Zoo.  There were lots of peacocks and chickens roaming around freely.  Some let us get pretty close!

 

We were less than 10 feet away from this massive cat...awesome!  Unlike in our zoo, this guy was moving around a bunch. 

This girl has no fear!  I love it!  Kayla had a gooey, slobbery blast feeding the goats at the petting zoo.  The animals were friendly and loved to eat, so they were a great team!

Train ride!  My little Beena is such a happy girl.  Once again, she hung out and slept in the wrap as we walked around the animals.  The train ride was a great time for her to be loose and charm everyone around us.

 Time to clean up and get ready for Toy Story....

Toy Story Weekend - Austin Children's Museum

Jeremy was at work one day a few months ago and heard about Toy Story 3 on ice coming to Cedar Park (north of Austin), so he got the tickets and we decided to make a weekend out of it.  This was the first time we had traveled with the girls and stayed in a hotel with them (we hadn't even done this with Kayla!).  To my surprise, we had a wonderful weekend and nothing worse than I expected happened with sleeping arrangements (which was our main concern).

We started off at the Austin Children's Museum, which is incredible!  There is an entire room of exhibits that uses golf balls to show force, ramps, speed, angles, and tons of other cool concepts.  This was one of Kayla's favorite parts and it kept us so busy, I have no pictures of it.

Such a big girl to be sitting up!  She still needs support because she'll topple over easily, though!

This is the tiny tot spot where Sabrina and I played for quite a while (she's holding a golf ball).

We watched this go over and over!  Sabrina's head went side to side like she was watching a tennis match!

The piggy parachute drop held Kayla's attention for quite a while.  The parachute is attached to a clip and you operate the pulley to bring the clip to the top where it opens in a funnel to send the piggy sailing down!

I love these art pieces that were mounted on plexi-glass over the windows.  If you look closely you can tell that all the objects are bottle caps from soda, detergent, and other recycled lids. 

We made a rolling vehicle and tested it on this ramp.

"Will you make me a taco?"

This volume station was surprisingly interesting to her...it was toward the end of our trip and we were waiting for her to get bored but she was enthralled for at least 30 minutes.  Good thing Sabrina was snoozing in the wrap!

This will be a fun place to visit again as the girls grow up because there were tons of exhibits and many were for older kids. 

Driving to the hotel, hand still reaching for a goldfish!