Upcycled Hummus Container Planter DIY

This super easy and quick upcycle is a great way to combine my loves of apartment gardening and not wasting stuff. It makes a cute, customizable, and lightweight planter that comes with its own drip tray - perfect for hanging or sitting on a windowsill!

Materials needed:
- Hummus container with lid (family/chef size work really well for this)
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brush or sponge
- Drill, or hammer and nail, or X-acto knife (or something else to punch holes in the bottom of the container)

Steps:
1. Eat hummus (duh)

2. Wash and dry hummus container and lid. You can peel off the label (recommended to make the paint job smoother), or leave it on and just cover with extra layers of paint.

3. Paint the outside of the container (and outside of lid, optional) with acrylic. You can do solid coats, stripes, marbling, colors, whatever you want. For the pictures here, I used a wide sponge brush to make a fast base coat in white, let dry for 2 hours, did a second base coat the same way, let dry overnight, then painted over the base with colors.

(In case you're not familiar with acrylic - make sure to wash out your brush/sponge when you're done using it. If the paint dries in there, then your brush/sponge is done for.)

4. Let the finished paint job dry overnight.

5. Use your drill (or hammer and nail, or whatever) to punch holes in the bottom of the container for drainage. Do NOT punch holes in your lid - this will be the drip tray that goes under the planter to catch drained water.

6. Plant something in your beautiful new planter and enjoy!

Crossed Double Crochet Sun Hats - Pattern Modification

Now that the sun is starting to be up longer and hotter every day, I wanted to make some a brimmed hat to keep my eyes shaded. I found this free pattern on The Lavender Chair (or check it out here on Ravelry), a wonderful site with tons of free crochet patterns for kids and adults. The hat is so cute! BUT the adult sized pattern is a bit too big for me so it blows off in the wind. And the child sized pattern is way too small for me.

Here are my pattern notes to size down the adult pattern. You'll still need to visit The Lavender Chair for the actual pattern though!

Fit: head circumference 21" with 1" negative ease so it holds onto your head

Abbreviations:
- st/sts = stitch/stitches
- hdc = half double crochet

Pattern Modifications:

Round 1: Hdc 9 in magic ring

Rounds 2-6 follow pattern instructions (round 6 ends with 54 sts)

Adjust round 7 to end up with 64 sts:
2x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 5 sts)
3x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 4 sts)
2x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 5 sts)
3x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 4 sts)

Follow pattern instructions for the rest of the hat. Here's another pic of the finished product (made in Bernat Handicrafter 100% Cotton).

Tutorial: Chainmaille Jewelry Made From Paper Clips

I love the look of chainmaille jewelry but wasn't sure if I was patient enough to make it -- especially because I didn't want to buy jump rings so I'd be cutting thousands of pieces myself. At the same time, I had LOTS of paper clips in cute colors, and I don't have that much paper to clip together. Well.... paper clips are made of wire.... and so are jump rings.... so I thought I would try out paper clip chainmaille.

I really love how my paper clip chain necklace turned out! I love it so much, I want to share how I made it so you can make your own :)
Difficulty level: 2/5
Time commitment: 3/5
Happiness with result: 5/5

On to the detailed instructions!
Step 1: Gather your materials. You will need lots of paper clips (my 30" necklace was made of jump rings sized such that I got 3 rings per paper clip, and I used ___ paper clips from a 1000-pack from Staples), good wire cutters, and a mandrel (I used a cheap bic ballpoint pen). This size of paper clip and mandrel gave a good jump ring size and inner/outer diameter pairing for the chain I made (full persian, keep reading for more details).

Step 2: Flatten each paper clip into a long, straight wire, then coil it around the non-writing end of your mandrel (pen). Try to get as many full circles around the mandrel as you can with each clip.

Step 3: Using your wire cutters, snip between the loops of the coil to create full circles (i.e. jump rings). I was able to get 3 jump rings per paper clip, with only a little bit of waste wire on both ends. Steps 2 and 3 take the majority of the time in this project.

Step 4: Weave your beautiful, colorful jump rings into something that makes you happy. I'm not an expert on this part, but I used a full persian chain tutorial from The Bead Man, which I found to be very clear and easy to follow. After adding a few rings, you get the pattern pretty quickly and the chain comes together pretty fast. Note: most chainmaillers will advise that you use flat pliers to open and close your jump rings. I used my fingers -- not the best strategy, but when I tried pliers they tore the rubber coating that gives the paper clips their color. Also I found that paper clips are soft enough to coil into rings and open/close by hand, but hard enough to hold their shape while being worn -- perfect!

Healthy Avocado Smoothie

My sister introduced me to Asian avocado smoothies at a bubble tea place and I love them! Unfortunately, the bubble tea version is made with condensed milk and other unhealthy sugars, so I experimented a bit to create a modified, healthier version to make at home. I'm really happy with the result, and (bonus) they're super easy to make, too!

Just 3 ingredients:

- 1 whole banana

- 1 avocado

- 1-2 cups unsweetened coconut milk

Instructions:

Peel and chop 1 banana into 1" chunks and freeze overnight in ziploc bag. The next day, blend with 1 avocado and unsweetened coconut milk (8-16 oz depending on how thick you want and on the brand of coconut milk -- I try putting in less, then adding liquid as needed). Enjoy!

The banana gives just a hint of sweetness. Having it frozen adds creaminess and a bit or crunch/chill without having to add ice, so no worry about drinking it fast so it doesn't melt and dilute the drink. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

Weekly IRL Missions and Free Sidebar Printables!

As a follow up to my post last weekend about daily IRL (in real life) missions and how I am tracking them in my planner, I also created some weekly sidebar stickers for my Big Happy Planner for habits that I want to build daily. I have created a points system for each item I check off, and these points/money will get added to the earnings from my daily IRL missions each week and put into my fun money -- my fun(d).

Here is a preview of the what the sidebars look like (4 per page) -- scroll down to the bottom of this post for the download link!

The printables in this post were created using backgrounds/art from freepik. Specifically, the filenames in my google drive download link have the names of the backgrounds/art used and correspond to the list below:

• "Modern abstract background" designed by Kjpargeter / Freepik (pictured above). Used in full as a background
• "Ornamental elements collection" designed by Alvaro_Cabrera / Freepik. Parts used as ornaments for borders
• "Pastel color artistic watercolor background" designed by aviyabc / Freepik. Part used as a background
• "Soft blueabstract background" (sic) designed by balasoiu / Freepik. Part used as a background

I have included downloads for 4 different pretty versions with backgrounds or ornaments (ready to use) in .PDF format. I also included an undecorated version in .PNG format (with a transparent background) in case anyone wants to customize the missions for their own personal use. If you have suggestions for missions, let me know in the comments!

Download my weekly IRL mission free printable sidebar stickers here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K62sdG_vAGiyp5O9xcTWlBFcH2hJH2Tk?usp=sharing

TERMS OF USE:

You are free to download for your PERSONAL USE ONLY. You may not resell, repackage, redistribute, or in anyway present any of my creations as your own. Please feel free to share these files by linking to this post directly. You may not make them available for download from another site, social platform or other media. If you use these in your planner, please link back to this post to give me credit for my work! I have tried to give credit where it is due in my printables -- if you think anything here belongs to you or was improperly attributed, please let me know.

Daily IRL Missions

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!! For the new year, I wanted to start rewarding myself for building little daily habits that are good for my physical or mental health. Lots of games that I play (or have played in the past) have daily missions that give little rewards that really incentivize working on things daily, so I thought I'd borrow that idea and create daily in-real-life (IRL) missions! For this first month, I just wrote out a list of things that I wanted to do and randomized the order, then wrote them into the January monthly spread on my Mini Happy Planner. Here's what it looks like:

I will check off daily missions as I complete them. At the end of the month, each completed daily mission is worth 50 cents toward my fun spending money (for planner stickers, washi, or gaming money). This way, I can try to keep my discretionary spending under control too!

Here are some examples of my daily missions:

• Walk 12k steps
• Read a book for 15 minutes
• Listen to music
• Read 1 academic paper (related to my work)
• Publish a blog post
• Throw away or donate 1 item
• Text an old friend to stay in touch
• Plan a happy surprise/caring thing for my husband

If this month goes well, I will make some printables for next month to make it look cuter! I could also move these into my Big Happy Planner, since my to-do list has moved out so I have the space... we will see how it works!

January Monthly and Weekly Layouts - Big Happy Planner

As promised, here is my January monthly page decorated with washi tape at Michaels Planner Bar event.

And here are my weekly layouts for the month, using mostly washi and my water and mood trackers. I might add some functional stickers to these as I go, but haven't put anything yet.

I am soooo excited to get started for the month! I have one more thing left to do... my monthly page in my Mini HP. I have an idea for that but am still finalizing details. More on that by the end of the year!