Butterfly Sightings July 2015

While I was working in my yard today, I had the pleasure of seeing a variety of butterflies flitting through, sipping from my flowers or just hanging out. Many of the pictures in the following collage were taken today. Those that were taken previously are of the same species of butterfly spotted earlier. Noticeably absent (since I know what I saw this morning) is a tiger swallowtail. The ones I see anymore are always in a hurry and I don't think I have a digital photo of one. I know I have some tiger swallowtail pictures taken with my film SLR (remember those?) and I took a picture of a similar butterfly, a giant swallowtail, last week in Abilene. However I don't have a tiger swallowtail image easily available to add to the collage so you will just have to use your imagination or check out these images online. There is at least one other butterfly that I saw today that is not in the collage and plenty more that live in the area but that I just didn't see today.

Even though it has gotten hot and dry and there is not as much color in my garden as earlier this year, these lovely butterflies add interest and color as they go about their business. The two largest butterflies in the collage are a spicebush swallowtail and a queen butterfly. Click the image to enlarge it.

Identify These Leaves of Three

"Leaves of three, let it be." I'm sure you have heard that saying and it will help keep you out of trouble, but not all leaves of three will set you to up with an itching rash. Poison ivy and poison oak will so those leaves of three need to be left alone. Can you tell which leaves of three in the included photos should be avoided so that the urushiol in all parts of the plant won't set off your body's immune system reaction to it that causes the rash? (Click on the images to enlarge them.)

And the answer is, unless you are part of the approximately 15% of the population that is not allergic to the urushiol in these plants, numbers 1 and 3 are poison ivy. Poison ivy grows as both a vine and a shrub. Number 2 is ivy treebine. While it releases an unpleasant smell when it is handled, it will not trigger a rash.

Design This – Flying Pig Pins for Weddings

Most of the time I am not told what a purchase will be used for and that is fine. However sometimes some of my customers who order ready to ship items from my shop will let me know and often my custom order customers will tell me. It warms my heart when I find out that my items will be part of someone's special day such as their wedding. Last summer and this summer I have received inquiries based on the same flying pig pin listing in my EclecticSkeptic shop that turned into custom orders destined to be part of weddings.

Last year my customer asked what I might be able to do to incorporate a heart and the color green into my flying pig shell pin listing. After a few conversations back and forth, I came up with a few choices as a starting place. The white shell with the light green heart was her favorite so I made a mockup of that option to make sure that was going to be what she wanted before proceeding with the custom order.

My first inquiry from this year's customer was just to see if I could make more of the blue shell pins than I had listed as available. After I replied, she also thought of checking to see if I could produce similar pins in black and purple. I didn't have any plain black shell beads but I did have one light purple and three dark purple tagua nut beads in stock. (Tagua nuts are referred to as vegetable ivory. They are a green alternative to ivory that can be carved and dyed a variety of colors.) It turns out that the color combination I had on hand along with the flying pig theme was perfect for what this customer wanted to be able to include in her wedding.

Photos of the completed orders can be seen below.

The customization for custom orders I have done is sometimes simple and sometimes quite involved. Either way, if I have the materials and can tweak a ready to ship item to meet your needs or start from scratch from your request, I'd love to help you. My contact info is under my custom order tab above.

Thanks for the Treasuries - June 2015

Seven Etsy shop owners and one Etsy team let me know they had featured one or more of my items in treasuries during June. Ten June Etsy treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my creations. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic that were featured during June. (Click on the collage to see a larger view.)

I really appreciate being featured by the treasury makers. To thank them, I have listed below a link to the Etsy sellers that let me know they had featured one or more of my items, as well as an item from their shop that I like. In addition you will see information about the TexasFriendsTeam that also featured an item of mine.

Enjoy window shopping and please click on the links of anything that catches your eye.

Boxox
Cottage chic romantic gifts and greeting cards can be found in this shop.


CorkyCrafts
If you know a wine connoisseur who happens to appreciate hand made items look no further than this shop.

GlassImageryWStyle
This artisan produces a lovely array of stained glass, mosaics and watercolor.

HotdogCrafts
This shop owner turns graphics into button dangle earrings, hair clips, keychains and more.

Marina826
This artist creates original illustrations and paintings using a variety of media.

ThePhotoImpression
Fabulous travel/nature photos and photographic art printed on a variety of substrates fill this shop.

TheYellowRoses
In this shop you will find rag dolls, stuffed animals, small quilts, mosaics, and coasters.

TXFriendsTeam
Past, present and future Texans are welcome and encouraged to join this team. The only real rules of the group are to promote friendly, The TX Way, and be respectful to all who participate.

Water Stress in Plants

Wilting, browning of the tips of leaves, yellowing leaves, these symptoms are all signs of water stress. Water stress comes in two forms which can easily be mistaken for the other, drought and too much water. If you treat for the wrong one, odds are you will finish off your already stressed plant.

The first picture in this post is of a young walnut tree that I have in my backyard. At first glance would you say the browning of the leaf margins and somewhat yellowed leaves are due to drought or over watering? Often times when you notice a plant with water stress symptoms, you need to do some detective work to figure out the answer correctly.

I can tell you that I first noticed the browning tips of this tree towards the end of May, 2015 and that May, 2015 was the wettest year on record in the DFW area. I'll also let you know that while the picture of the mallards was taken in June, my backyard had more standing water in it for much of the latter half of May, including the area just north of and sometimes including where the walnut tree is planted.

By now I'm thinking that you have guessed that the browning on the leaves is due to too much water. The soils became saturated with our record rains for a prolonged period and the roots were not able to breathe properly. Luckily we did have almost two weeks without rain that allowed the soils to drain, allowing the tree to recover. You can see there is new, healthy looking darker green growth above the browned, water stressed leaves.

The moral of this post is to stop and think before your grab the watering can or hose when you see a wilted, yellowed or browning plant. Evaluate what has happened to the plant recently. Check the soil moisture a few inches down (whether in a pot or in the ground). Water if dry, otherwise do what you can to help the soil drain and dry out a bit. Some plants are more tolerant of wet feet than others. I've found live oaks to be very tolerant of standing water for prolonged periods of time, whereas desert willow needs good drainage all the time in order to thrive.

Celebrate Pollinators During Pollinator Week

When I heard that this was National Pollinator Week (June 15-21, 2015) I decided to make a collage from some of my pollinator images to celebrate their beauty and hard work. It quickly became clear that I would have to severely limit what I included in the collage. I have quite a few images of different bees, butterflies and other insects seen busily gathering nectar and thereby pollinating a wide variety of flowers. I decided to limit this collage to a bird and some of the bees.

You can click on the image to see a larger view. I was going to do some research and identify the pollinators that I included in the collage. After finding out that there are 9 different bumblebees in Texas and a couple of insects that mimic them and because I included two pollinators that look to me somewhat like bees but I suppose they could be mimics too, I decided that IDing each one was beyond the scope of this post. I can tell you that the bottom right photo is of a European honey bee pollinating my blackberry flowers and the pollinator above that is a hummingbird. I think the upper left image is of a carpenter bee and the lower left is one of the 9 species of bumblebees that live in TX. If any of you know if that is correct or what those other two pollinators are, please let us know in the comments to this post.

National Pollinator Week was put into place by the U.S. Senate in 2007. They directed the Secretary of Agriculture to designate a week in June of each year as National Pollinator Week. Pollinators are vital to the production of crops and propagation of most plants. It is important that we strive to make a healthy ecosystem to support the pollinators.

If you want to attract pollinators to your yard, their needs are the same as for any other wildlife you want to attract. Provide shelter, water and food sources. To find out more about the specific needs of pollinators and to find out if there are any fun events planned for this week in your area, check out pollinator.org .

Thanks for the Treasuries - May 2015

Three Etsy shop owners and one Etsy team let me know they had featured one or more of my items in treasuries during May. Ten May Etsy treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my creations. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic that were featured during May. (Click on the collage to see a larger view.)

I really appreciate being featured by the treasury makers. To thank them, I have listed below a link to the Etsy sellers that let me know they had featured one or more of my items, as well as an item from their shop that I like. You will also see information about the TexasFriendsTeam that also featured an item of mine.

Enjoy window shopping and please click on the links of anything that catches your eye.

HotdogCrafts
This shop owner turns graphics into button dangle earrings, hair clips, keychains and more.

JackrabbitFlats
This artisan loves using old, weathered items to make new, wonderful art, mostly hearts and crosses.

TheYellowRoses
In this shop you will find rag dolls, stuffed animals, small quilts, mosaics, and coasters.

TXFriendsTeam
Past, present and future Texans are welcome and encouraged to join this team. The only real rules of the group are to promote friendly, The TX Way, and be respectful to all who participate.