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The Good Hearted Woman

Home Cooking & Cozy Living

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Celebrate Your Own Birthday! (+ Coffee Mug Planter DIY)

February 18 By Renée 13 Comments

Make your own happiness! Celebrate your own birthday (or any special day) with this easy Spring Coffee Mug Planter DIY, and deliver some sunshine to the people who mean the most to you!

This post may contain affiliate links, but don’t worry – they won’t bite.

It is our habit – mine and Mr. B’s – to watch an episode of “I Love Lucy” in the early morning before we set off to work. One of my favorite episodes is “Lucy’s Last Birthday,” in which Lucy gets depressed when she thinks everyone has forgotten her birthday.

Lucy got me thinking.

In years past, when my children were young and I had a bevy of young friends paddling the mommy-boat with me, we would always celebrate birthdays together with a lunch, or sometimes even an evening family barbecue. (Occasionally, we still do.) However, now that our children are mostly grown and the majority of us work during the day, time is more precious, and birthday celebrations are less frequent.

Things change and that’s OK. But Lucy wasn’t wrong about one thing: celebrating your birthday alone can be feel lonely and isolating.

One year for my birthday, there was no girlfriends’ lunch out planned, no party on the horizon, and Mr. B a couple hundred miles away working on the road. It would have been pretty easy for me to pull a Lucy and sit around all day feeling sorry for myself.

That isn’t really in my nature, though. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me until I watched that episode of Lucy once again. 

That year, I decided to do something I had never done before – I celebrated my birthday alone. (Well, sort of.) I took the day off of work and spent it making and delivering “birthday gifts.” I suppose that, in contemporary vernacular, you could call it my personal self-care birthday celebration. 

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Celebrating My Birthday Alone (Sort of)

First, I made a list of ten people who I care very much about (and who lived within easy driving distance).

Most of those on my list were close friends, but not all: there were a few who have simply made such a profound impression on my life that I felt compelled to take this opportunity to tell them what they mean to me.

For each person on my list, I purchased a Dollar Tree mug. I potted some simple spring annuals in each mug, and topped off each planted mug with a special message for each recipient. 

Making a Coffee Mug Planter is about as easy as it gets. 

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How to Make a Coffee Mug Planter

For each Coffee Mug Planter, you will need:

  • Ceramic mug
  • Assorted spring annual
  • Potting Soil

For Optional Drainage Hole:

  • Electric Drill
  • Ceramics Drill Bit 
  • Spray bottle with water
  • Safety Goggles

A – Drill Drainage Hole [Optional]

If you want the mugs to be used as planters long-term, you will need to drill a drainage hole in the bottom of the mug. (This is not necessary if you are planting succulents.)

  1. Safety first: put on your safety goggles.
  2. Set the mug upside down on a towel.
  3. Use the spray bottle to thoroughly wet the bottom of the mug.
  4. Using a glass or diamond tip bit, start at an angle and make a little notch in the center of the bottom of the mug.
  5. Keeping the area thoroughly wetted at all times, continue drilling until the hole drills all the way through.

B – Plant your Coffee Mug Planter

  1. Fill the mug halfway with potting soil.
  2. Carefully remove the plant from its container.
  3. Set the plant inside the mug on top of the potting soil and fill the mug with more soil until all the roots are covered. Gently tamp down soil so that the plant is firmly anchored in the mug.
  4. Carefully water until soil is moist. (For succulents, simply spray the plant and surround soil with the spray bottle.

C – Optional Message

If you would like, you can top off each planted mug with a special message for each recipient.

(Being a complete Portland nerd, I did, in fact, Put a Bird on It.)

Celebrate Your Own Birthday | Coffee Mug Planter DIY

NOTES:

  • Succulents also work well for this project. 
  • Be sure to purchase a potting soil that is appropriate for the type of plants you are using.
  • Additional Coffee Mug Planter Inspiration:
    • Cute Teacup Gardens
    • Mini Indoor Gardens
    • Tea Cup Fairy Gardens 

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My Personal Birthday Celebration! 

After I had all my coffee mug planters prepared, I spent the rest of the day delivering them to the people on my list.

The first was given at hastily arranged lunch out, and this one really was a Birthday Present. My dear friend Vickie and I share a birthday.

Celebrate Your Own Birthday | Coffee Mug Planter DIY

Most everyone was home when I delivered my presents; I only had one miss, so I left it on Cheryl’s front porch so it would be there to welcome her when she got home. (I found out later that while I was delivering this one, my sweet friend Cheryl was at my house dropping off a gift for me!)

Celebrate Your Own Birthday | Coffee Mug Planter DIY

I don’t have any other pictures of the day, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was doing this just to write a blog post. In fact, until I watched that episode of “I Love Lucy,” I wasn’t sure I would write about it at all. But then I realized how important that day had been to me, and I wanted to share it and maybe inspire someone else to try it.

My personal birthday celebration taught me – once again – that you make your own happiness. I spent the day with people I care about telling them how much they mean to me. Instead of celebrating my birthday alone, my afternoon was filled with people who have made a difference in my life, including one remarkable hour spent talking with a woman who continues to remind me that with an open heart, you inspire, you lift, and you grow – no matter your age or situation.

Mr. B’s plane landed late on the night of my birthday, and I talked his ear off about my day on the drive home from the airport. It was then that it occurred to me just how happy it made me feel to be able to spend that time with so many people who I care about, and in doing so, I had given myself a most wonderful birthday gift.

Celebrate Your Own Birthday | Coffee Mug Planter DIY

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THANK YOU so much for being a faithful reader and supporter
of The Good Hearted Woman. ? Be sure to PIN this post!

blank   Coffe Mug Planter DIY

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. While clicking these links won’t cost you any extra money, they do help keep this site up and running. As always, all opinions and images are my own. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details. Thank you for your support!

Post Updated: February 18, 2020. Originally posted May 22, 2014. 

Filed Under: Arts, Crafts & DIY Tagged With: flowers, gifts, gratitude, Holidays

Camassia Nature Preserve: Wildflowers & Family-friendly Hiking

May 15 By Renée 3 Comments

The Camassia Nature Preserve is a 26-acre natural area known for its beautiful wildflowers, abundant wildlife, and easy, family-friendly trails. [West Linn, Oregon]

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

This post may contain affiliate links, but don’t worry – they won’t bite.

For a few brief weeks every spring, wildflower fields along the Columbia River burst forth in a rhapsody of blue.

It is Camas Season.

Though it closely resembles a lily, the Camas plant (“Camassia quamash”) is actually a member of the asparagus family. It was unknown to science before Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery. The flowers grow in clearings along the Columbia River, and were once so abundant in the Pacific Northwest that that non-indigenous travelers would mistake the blue covered fields for distant lakes.

The quamash is now in blume and from the colour of its bloom at a short distance it resembles lakes of fine clear water, so complete is this deseption that on first sight I could I could have sworn it was water.

~ Meriwether Lewis, Personal Journal, 1806

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

It’s becoming more difficult to find those wide blue meadows in these modern times. Many are secreted away in elusive alpine meadows along the Columbia River Gorge, and you must do the work to find them. (And by work, I mean Hike, with a capital H, as in up-Hill.) 

There is, however, at least one place you can go to easily experience the camas lilies in bloom, along with a host of other wildflowers, native plants, and animals – at the Camassia Nature Preserve in West Linn, Oregon.

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The Camassia Nature Preserve is a 26-acre natural area owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy. The nature area is renown for its beautiful wildflowers, abundant wildlife, and easy, family-friendly trails.

Named for the common blue camas that blanket its meadows each spring, the preserve holds something for visitors to experience year-round.

DID YOU KNOW? Camas was an important food source for the indigenousness peoples of Northwest. Bulbs could be fire-roasted and provided a nutritious, sweet-tasting, high-protein staple.  

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

The rocky plateau upon which the nature area sits was originally formed by ice-age, glacier-fueled floods. It now provides a habitat for more than three-hundred plants, and is home to a myriad of meadow, tree, and pond dwellers as well; including deer, raccoons, skunks, hummingbirds, wood ducks, raptors, newts, osprey, salamanders, and a choir of songbirds.

I managed to get a super-short clip of a little red-headed woodpecker in action. ⬇️ (You’ll see him right under the arrow is when you hit Start.)

https://thegoodheartedwoman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/20190505_130006.mp4

The 1 1/2 mile loop trail is well-maintained and family-friendly. Most of the trail is covered with bark chips, and some potentially muddy stretches are also lined with a composite boardwalk. Hikers are asked to stay on the trails to protect and preserve the wildlife.

If you are planning to hike the park with little ones, be aware that there are a couple of places where you are going to want to be extra vigilant, particularly on the short stretch of the trail that overlooks the river: there is a wide berth between the edge and the trail, but there are no guard rails. Also, while we’re discussing cautions, be sure to watch out for poison oak at the trail edges. We didn’t see any on our visit, but there are warnings about it all over the preserve.

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

When we visited, we saw hikers as young as two and as old as eighty. Despite the warning about the “big hill up ahead!” that we received form one particularly helpful five-year old as we passed her on the trail, there were only a few very slight uphill climbs, but nothing remotely demanding. (Note that while the hike rates an “Easy” in my book, the trail is not wheelchair accessible.)

The park os located directly across the Willamette River from downtown Oregon City, behind West Linn High School. The Conservancy partners with high school ecology students, who use the nature area as an outdoor classroom and help keep it litter-free.

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

More family-friendly hikes can be found on our Pacific NW Hikes page. (Always check trail conditions before going out in the PNW. Things change quickly sometimes.)

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

Did you happen to notice the cool lens-ball image at the top of this post? I bought an inexpensive photo-sphere last fall, and since then I’ve been have been having so much fun with it! 

A photo sphere / lens ball is one of the most inexpensive, easy-to-use photo hacks around, and the results are just so cool!

Camassia Nature Preserve

Check out how the photo sphere magnifies and highlights the flowers in the field in this image.

Glass Photo Sphere | Lens Ball Tips

blankWhen you take a picture through a glass sphere (i.e., lens ball), the image will appear inverted, much like the image you see when looking at yourself in a spoon.

Many times, fixing this is as easy as simply rotating the whole image upside-down, as I did in the first image in this post. (You probably didn’t notice it, but all of the background foliage in the title image is upside-down! )

Other images require a bit more finessing. For example, this small image is the original shot for the image above. Note how the ground inside the sphere appears to be at the top of the sphere, which looks weird no matter how you turn it.

To correct this visual dissonance, I cut out the original sphere image using a circle frame, flipped it 180°, and layered it back onto the original image.

The result is a complete image in which everything appears right-side up. This little trick doesn’t require any special skill, knowledge, or expensive software – I skipped Photoshop this time and just flipped it on PicMonkey.  

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman

Camassia Nature Preserve

5000 Walnut Street
West Linn, OR 97068
Map

  • There are several entrances to the nature area. The main trailhead is located in a small neighborhood parking area at the end of Walnut Street. There is also an entrance at West Linn High School, and another entrance in a nearby neighborhood.
  • Parking is limited to a small lot at the trail entrance at the end of Walnut Street. This can be very congested at peak times of the year.
  • During the spring and summer, volunteers lead guided hikes and teach visitors about the ecology of the preserve.
  • Hikers are required to stay on the trails in order to avoid disturbing the wildlife.
  • Dogs, bicycles, horses, camping, hunting, littering, fires, and motorized vehicles are prohibited on the preserve.

Wildflower season: Mid-April through early May.

Additional locations where you may find camas fields seasonally in bloom include: 

  • Round Lake Trail in Lacamas Park, Camas Washington
  • Bush’s Pasture Park, Salem Oregon 

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THANK YOU so much for being a faithful reader and supporter
of The Good Hearted Woman. 🌻 Be sure to PIN this post!

Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted Woman    Short, easy, family-friendly wildflower hike - Camassia Nature Preserve {West Linn, Oregon} | The Good Hearted WomanWavy Line

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. While clicking these links won’t cost you any extra money, they do help keep this site up and running. As always, all opinions and images are my own. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details. Thank you for your support!

Filed Under: Hikes, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Travel Tagged With: family fun, flowers, Oregon, Pacific NW

City of Roses – Portland’s International Rose Test Garden

June 18 By Renée 5 Comments

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted WomanWe took a trip to Portland’s Rose Garden last weekend. As I wandered through the seemly endless rows of roses, I found myself contemplating this quote by Dale Carnegie:

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

While I embrace Mr. Carnegie’s sentiment, I wonder if he might have chosen his words differently had he been a native of the Rose City, for it is certain that we Portlanders have magical garden of our own, blooming right outside our city window.

Tucked between the toney homes of NW Portland and the hills of Washington Park, every spring this century-old garden bursts with velvety, buttery blooms for nearly as far as the eye can see.  It is nothing short of Magnificent.

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted WomanThe oldest public garden of its kind in the United States, Portland’s Rose Garden can trace its beginnings back to 1915, and Jesse A. Currey, rose lover and Sunday editor of the Oregon Journal. Fearing that European hybrid roses would be destroyed in the bombings during World War I, Currey convinced city officials to institute a city rose test garden as a safe haven for unique varieties from across the Atlantic.

Peace Rose

Peace Rose – Photo credit: John Haupt, reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0.
(I didn’t get a good photo of this one.)

Many of the roses in the test garden are named to commemorate people, places and ideals, but my favorite is the Peace Rose. I remember being very young, standing close as my Poppy held a huge bloom full in the palm of his hand, bending it down to me so that I could see its delicate yellow and pink petals come alive in the sunlight.  It was his favorite too.  Legend has it that this aptly-named hybrid tea-rose was on the last plane out of France before Hitler’s occupation.

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted WomanHonestly, I could go on and on about Portland and roses and all the entwining history.  But I won’t.  Because pictures are worth… well, you know.

Enjoy.

Portland Rose Garden 1

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted Woman

“Lagerfeld Grandflora”

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted Woman“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”
~ Liberty Hyde Bailey

Portland Rose Garden | The Good Hearted Woman

Washington Park International Rose Test Garden

Currently open from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM daily.  Admission is free.
Located in Washington Park in Portland’s West Hills, the garden includes more than 10,000 plantings of over 500 varieties.

[All images are mine unless otherwise noted.]

 

Filed Under: Oregon, Pacific Northwest Tagged With: flowers, gardening, NW Portland, Portland

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

April 12 By Renée 4 Comments

Tulips 8

Image courtesy of Gaelynn M. (My little sister!)

Last Wednesday my sister and I had the rare chance to spend the day together, and her only request was to go “somewhere pretty.” So I took her to one of the prettiest places I know of in the Portland area – the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn. This time of year, the tulip fields are a photographers dream – they are so full of vibrant color that images almost paint themselves into the camera.

Tulip Festival 4.9.1

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Tulip Festival 4.9

Image courtesy of Gaelynn M.

The Tulip Festival, which began in 1985, is a tradition started by Ross and Dorothy Iverson, who raised their children on the 40-some acre family farm, and are passing the tradition onto them and their grandchildren.

The tulip fields are rotated each year with other crops, and this year they are planted a little farther out than recent years. It’s a bit of a walk, but it is definitely worth the effort. You also have the option of riding a shuttle out to the fields, or on a cow train or tulip cart, the latter being one of the numerous children’s attractions at the Festival.

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I love how this filter highlights the contrast in the Leen Van Der Mark tulips so beautifully!

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Does it bother anyone else that this bench is tilted ever so slightly as compared to the horizon?

Tulip stems can be purchased on the spot, or you can order bulbs from their extensive catalog to be shipped just in time for planting season. Mr. B and I did this a couple of years ago, and I remember being so excited when our bulbs arrived in the mail in the fall.

IMG_1840

I fell in love with this tile piece, and I should have bought it, but I didn’t. However, {ahem…May birthday here} you have my permission to nudge Mr. B in this direction. I’m sure they would ship it!

The Tulip Festival has a wonderful gift shop full of all things Dutch and tulipy.   Food and beverages can be purchased on-site at their Tulip Café, including sandwiches, sausages, burgers, fish, and chips, ice cream, elephant ears, kettle corn, espresso, beer and wine.  Nearby in the Crafters marketplace, you can watch a wooden shoe-making demonstration, browse booths for crafts and art, and enjoy local food offerings.

photo 3

The tulip farm’s collection of old farming equipment was pretty cool.

Tulips 15

Image courtesy of Gaelynn M.

Walking through the fields got me to thinking about Hazel, an elderly woman I used to work for many, many years ago.  Hazel and her husband, George ran a craft store – Hazel’s – in the center of town.  Something of a local legend, Hazel was well known for surveying the store from her “perch” above on the mezzanine, from where she would offer her opinion, solicited or not, on just about everything to those below.  I remember one time when she overheard a customer’s concerns that some colors Hazel had suggested for a project might clash.

“I want you to think about every flower you can think of,” Hazel said. “Can you remember ever thinking to yourself, ‘Hey those flowers there clash with those other ones?’” When the little woman shook her head, Hazel went on, “Well, there you go. Flowers never clash with one another. You never see anything in nature clashing.” Then Hazel stalked off shaking her head at the woman. She had no patience for people who would not heed her advice.

I never forgot that exchange, and it has influenced more than my art in the years since. Because Hazel was absolutely right, and here the tulip fields bear it out – bright pinks and deep purples grow right alongside vibrant oranges and sunny yellows, and together they create a captivatingly beautiful color palette.

Funny thing about Hazel: she was as endearing as she was opinionated, and the town is a little less colorful now that she is gone.

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The Tulip Festival has something for everyone with a full calendar of events now through May 4th, and includes everything from photography classes to a chicken BBQ to an Easter Egg Hunt.  If you live in the Portland area, take time to attend – you will come away with some beautiful memories.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

33814 S. Meridian Rd., Woodburn, OR 97071
Festival & Gift Shop Hours: 9am – 6pm daily through May 4th
Admission: $5 bikes & motorcycles, $10 a carload, $20 buses
Season Pass: $40

Disclosure: Nothing to disclose – I paid my admission, walked through the fields, took some pictures and came home to share them with you. I received no compensation of any kind for this post.

 

Filed Under: Oregon, Pacific Northwest Tagged With: festivals, flowers, gardening, spring

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