a peek inside the fishbowl

It had been raining steadily all day, and I took advantage of a break in the bad weather to take a little walk around our garden. It was looking especially neglected. Plants were becoming leggy and overgrown and the weeds were taking over. I could see how much work I had ahead of me. It was wild, but part of me secretly liked it this way.

I paused to admire a corner of the garden that doesn’t seem to attract many weeds and is home to two large hostas. They were just about to flower, and the leaves – so beautiful they look almost sculptural – had collected their own small puddles of water. These leaves always remind me of awnings; so thick and heavy I was sure they’d offer any small creature shelter in the pouring rain.

This was my view as I was standing in front of the hostas:

A little bit of red under the one hosta caught my eye and so I moved the wet leaves aside with my hand and leaned in for a closer look. This is what I saw:

What a surprise! There was a tiny row of toadstools and a very very tiny spade beside them. A snail was sniffing (do snails even sniff?) and eyeballing the hostas with its pointy eyes. (I googled this afterwards and learned they’re actually called tentacles.) He (or she?) seemed very determined – or afraid –  and he ran right over them, leaving a slimy snail trail. (And by RUNNING, I mean, of course, that he or she moved VERY VERY SLOWLY.)

I had no idea something this dramatic was happening right underneath our hostas! What had I interrupted? And what was the snail doing there? Is he friend, or foe? Is he a he or a she? And whose tiny garden spade was that?

That wasn’t the only thing I have spotted in the garden recently. You won’t believe what else I found, once I started to spend a bit more time looking.

The Great Bikini Debate: Differing opinions on the two-piece: http://t.co/8LoF26ojoE @PuzzlingPostDad @missfish pic.twitter.com/5yb1Uhccx7

— Ottawa Magazine (@ottawamag) June 25, 2015

• How Canada is perceived around the world, cbc.ca
• Call of the wild: The struggle to connect new Canadians to parks and nature, ottawacitizen.com
• Cirque du Soleil: What keeps a trapeze artist grounded? Rocks. Lots of rocks., ottawacitizen.com
• Privilege makes them do it — what a study of Internet trolls reveals, latimes.com
• It’s a wrap: the working lunch – plus recipes from Britain’s favourite quick lunch chains, theguardian.com

I am taking a closer look at some of the ideas I’ve bookmarked via Pinterest and actually DO something with them instead of just admiring them. This is the third in the series so far. You can read the others right here.

This was a little project I pinned awhile back. Mostly because (a) even though there are times when there’s a regular tsunami of reusable bags lying around the house, I can never actually find one when I need one and (b) it seemed to be a pretty cool summer project that actually has A Useful Purpose and (c) it’s all about no-sew craftiness, which I totally dig because I can’t sew.

I had a lucky day at Value Village, and among the many things I found was four or five men’s t-shirts for this project. They were only a couple bucks each. Note that there are only two pictured below! Certain individuals and the t-shirts were deemed too good to cut up and had to be worn. That’s fine by me.

Here’s what we started with:

Here we are cutting the fringe after we turned the t-shirts inside out. The fringes are tied together to create the bottom of the bag. (This is the no-sew part.) I struggled a bit with this, but luckily my eldest came to the rescue and figured out how to tie them so there aren’t any holes in the bottom of the bag.

This is what the bottom of the bag looks like when all the fringes are tied together:

And here’s the finished project!

Read the post by the original author for the full tutorial.

Not bad! And it really only took about 10 minutes.

These would make a great beach or swim/gym bag. I have yet to wash them, but you can probably throw them in the laundry with the towels afterwards. They are quite roomy and the handles are easy on the hands, which, strangely enough, is a common issue for me as I don’t like rough and picky straps.

My tips to you:

• Don’t use t-shirts that are too big, otherwise your bag ends up too big.
• Cut the fringe at the bottom long enough so it’s easy to tie together. I think you need about 4″.
• I would only pack light groceries in these bags if/when I use them for grocery shopping. That being said, I think they’d totally work for the farmer’s market!
• Next time I would let my teens choose their own t-shirts for this project. It’s a nice way for them to express their own DIY style!

So is this project pinworthy? I say yes!

Follow me on Pinterest right here, for many other “pinworthy” ideas I haven’t done anything with yet. Sigh.