Rosevine Cottage Girls: May 2018

Pretty in Pink Peony Sundress

Don't miss our "Pretty in Pink Peony" sundress now in our shop!

Get ready to celebrate the warm weather with our gorgeous original Rosevine Cottage Girls art.
This sundress is perfect for brunch with your friend, a lunch with your love, a coverup for the beach, a summer party, you name it. Match it with shorts and some leggings and you are ready to go!

Pretty cool greens and gorgeous pinks make this dress perfect to wear to a party, out to lunch or to the beach.

Loose swing shape for an easy, flowy fit
Print covers entire front and back panel with your chosen design, by an independent artist
97% Polyester / 3% Elastane woven dress fabric with a silky feel
Note that due to the production process, the placement of the print may vary slightly from the preview
A-Line dresses are made in the U.S.A.

Sizes XS to XXL

How To Make Your Own Seed Tape

The gardens are growing so quickly, our first batch of lettuce is already ready to harvest! So we've been working on getting our second batch in the ground. Lettus can be a bit of pain to get growing properly so we decided to make seed tapes. This method is great for veggies that need to be thinned like carrots and onions or flowers and super easy to make.

#Seeds #Garden #DIY #SeedTape #Gardener #Veggies #Flowers

What you will need:

Toilet paper
Flour
Scissors
Small Bowl
Small paint brush
Water
Seeds
Tape Measure

Related Article: Our Raised Bed Garden

Make a paste out of flour and water, you want it to be thick but still workable. Cut toilet paper the length of the place you wish to plant your seeds splint the paper in half. Look at the back of your seed packet or look them up online to see how far apart they should be planted. Measure the distance with the tape measure and brush paste on to the paper. Place the seed into the paste and fold the paper over. Allow to dry. Depending on how many tapes you are making you may what to write on them so you know what they are. When planting simply cover the tape with dirt and keep moist.

Labels: Farm, Gardening

How To Make Healthy Marshmallows

We've been wanting to make these for years but didn't get around to it until just recently. We were expecting it to be pretty hard but turns our marshmallows are REALLY easy to make and they taste AMAZING! They don't burn like store bought marshmallows do, so if you like your marshmallows nice and chared I'm sorry but they are still really good! We made these when we were processing maple sap into syrup (you can read about the whole process HERE) over a fire (perfect time to make s'mores right?), it was such a fun night to sit around the fire roasting marshmallows and laughing.

#Marshmallows #HomemadeMarshmallows #MakeItYourself #Homemade

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoon pasture-raised gelatin powder
1 cup of water (divided)
1 cup of honey (we used raw)
2 tsp vanilla (try our recipe)

Directions:

Pour 1/2 cup warm water into a mixing bowl you can use with an electric mixing bowl. Add gelatin and whisk slightly then let it sit. It's going to harden so don't freak out.

Related Article: How To Make Marshmallow Fluff

Pour the other 1/2 cup of water into a small saucepan with 1 cup of honey and whisk to combine. Slowly bring water and honey mixture to a boil stirring continuously. You want the mixture to reach 240 degrees.

Related Article: S'more Mocha Frap

Turn mixer on medium speed and slowly pour the honey and water into the bowl of gelatin mix. Once added turn mixer to high and blend for 10-15 minutes or until it is the consistency of marshmallow fluff. Add vanilla in the last 2 minutes of mixing.

Grease 1 9x13 inch baking dish with coconut oil. Our marshmallow into a pan and smooth evenly. Let sit for 4 hours to overnight. Remove from pan and cut with an oil a pizza cutter or knife. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the edges. Store in an airtight container.

Labels: Food, Recipes

Our Raised Bed Garden

Gardening is a huge part of our lives in the spring and summer months, we are almost always out in the yard working in flower beds or raised beds. Watering in the early morning with the sun just beginning to poke above the hill in the pasture behind the yard, fertilizing, pulling weeds, training little plants to climb arbors or attaching them to trellises. It's hard work but it's rewarding.

#RaisedBed #RaisedBedGarden #Garden #Gardening #HobbyFarm #Farm #DreamGarden #CattlePanels

We started using raised beds for the last 6+ years (dang, has it been that long?) with cattle panel arbors. We decided to try it after we saw our dear friend Jacque over at Deep Roots At Home beautiful garden. Did you catch our original post on building raised beds and making your own garden soil? If not find it HERE. These boxes have held up so well! This was the first year we had to replace any of them, but we had to move them anyway so it all worked out. Where we had them before just got too shady so we decided to build the new ones at the bottom of the backyard where our original garden was. Curious what the yard looked like when we first moved here? Check it out HERE.

We actually added a few more beds to our line up this year (technically it wasn't on purpose, but hey it worked out fine). Mr. Cottage decided to leave one side of the raised open aka without an arbor so it would be a little easier to access plants. I love how they kind of look like the cover to wagons.

Related Article: Companion Planting Part 1

We decided to try something new with our tomato plants, the cages we normally use always end up being too small and falling over (even when we stake them up). So this year we cut 2x4s and attached them to both ends of our raised beds with screws, then wrapped galvanized steel fence wire (17 gauge) around them in several places. We'll be using velcro garden ties to attach/support it against the wire.

Related Article: Raised Beds

Funny story when we were looking for a wire to wrap around the poles we stopped by Tractor Supply. Mr. Cottage couldn't find what he was looking for so he decided to ask the young man that was unfortunate enough to be the closest to our mayhem while I quietly finished my cookie dough blizzard. "What?" was the guy's startled response. "Bailing wire," Mr. Cottage repeated patiently, "OHHHH! I thought you said bathing wire!"

We'll end up adding another row of wire lower to the ground to keep them supported and growing upright. We also removed the lower limbs on the tomatoes to help prevent the plant getting diseased when water splashes up on their leaves.

When we were laying out our garden we decided we wanted the aisles wide enough to get a mower through, we usually push mow through it to prevent the spread of weed seeds into the raised beds but it's nice to be able to get wide things like the mower & trailer through.

We planted a row of tomatoes down the center of each box, marigolds on the outside, beans on the inside by the arbor, and rows of seed tape between that will hopefully begin putting in an appearance soon (tutorial coming soon).

Each bed holds two 16 foot cattle panels, we bent them between two raised beds and stapled them to the sides to help hold them in place during storms.

These arbors work perfectly for green beans, cucumbers, and gourds. This year we have nest egg gourds and Roma beans growing on them, we'll add luffa gourds soon.

On the other end of the garden, we moved our plastic raised beds that Grandma Cottage bought.

Down here we have squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, and herbs. We sprinkled marigolds throughout to help repel bugs like Grandma Cottage use to do.

Related Article: Insect Repelling Herbs To Plant In Your Garden

Our first batch of lettuce is ready to cut! I love the way it looks. We planted the kind of close so together to get that solid row look.

Labels: Farm, Gardening

Coney Sauce

We made this sauce a few days ago and it's been a huge hit here at the Cottage, and at Mr. Cottage's work. His co-workers begged us to send a batch with Mr. Cottage for their BBQ Monday. We did, and let's just say there were no leftovers. This recipe is super easy and fun to add variety to your hot dogs!

1-1/4 # grass fed ground beef drained
1 organic onion
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup chili powder
1/2 catchup
1 1/2 cups water

Simmer for an hour and serve.

Related Article: Pearl Harbor Burger Recipe

Labels: Food, Recipes

Plant Your Flag

It's been a good day, you got so much done, your to-do list has little checks or scribbled through marking the finish of each task. The kids survived another day, maybe there are a few dishes in the sink or laundry waiting to be put away but you did well today. Maybe you feel tall enough to touch the stars, you met that goal, took the next terrifying step toward your dream- and then the devil comes to whisper defeat to your heart.

Suddenly a few dishes, some folded laundry waiting to be put away mock you, you failed. You didn't do enough, you weren't good enough, you're a failure. A harsh word from a friend crushes you and you find yourself retreating from the hill you worked so hard to claim today. The flag you'd planted just a bit ago in victory retreats battered and torn.

How quickly the devil's lies steal our victory, like a recording every lie you've ever believed about yourself, every cold, harsh and cutting word that has ever been spoken to you play over and over in your head. Words like "Failure", and "Not Good Enough" dancing over your mind.

Related Article: Don't Stop Building - Working Through Criticism

Don't let satan steal your victory, don't let him take what you've fought so hard for. Plant your flag over the ground you won today, and refuse to be shaken. Don't listen to the lies, he whispers defeat in your ears but the devil is a liar. Your victory is already promised, unchangeable because the end of the story is already written.

Don't let satan steal your victory, don't let him take what you've fought so hard for. Plant your flag over the ground you won today, and refuse to be shaken. Don't listen to the lies, he whispers defeat in your ears but the devil is a liar. Your victory is already promised, unchangeable because the end of the story is already written.

For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” Deuteronomy 20:4 NIV

Look back and see the ground you've already taken, all of the hills you already climbed. This is your hill, your ground. It's already been given to you, and it can't be taken from you unless you give it. So be still and let your God fight for you. Find His fingerprints in your day, every time the devil starts to whisper lies find your God's fingerprints.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Labels: Devotional

The Best Patriotic Farmhouse Decor!

I love the challenge of decorating for Independence Day and Memorial Day, the colors the spirit and the story you can add to the decor. Around this time we shift some of our old pictures into the living room, like the WW1 & WW2 troop photos, and other pictures of the military men in our family. We'll have the whole tour in a couple weeks but in the meantime, we thought we would share some of our favorite patriotic finds on Amazon.