Who needs pots or store bought vanilla!?!

In my ongoing quest to become a DIY homegrowing Diva, I decided to start my own seedlings this year.  My problem was I don't have a lot of money to invest in items to grow said seedlings.  I needed pots to start my seedlings. 

Or so I thought!

Hello my best friend or my arch nemesis (this is yet to be decided), Pinterest!

Here's what I found.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/18/ad/b7/18adb7540fd998c5e5f9177f575350b2.jpg

Newspaper!!  I have lots of newspaper!!!  I get three each week!

I rolled my paper around some glass jars I had.  I won't lie.  It's rather tedious.  I got a little more careless with each one I rolled.  I don't look forward to rolling more as I have lots more plants to start, but I LOVE the price.

Here's what mine look like now, about a week after I planted them.

 I've got lots of baby plants!  Using paper pots hasn't appeared to have impaired my growth at all.  I don't know how they kept their pots so round in the original photo. 

You can also see a slight oranging around the edges of the newspaper on the originals.  Mine have more orange around the edges.  I used an orange sharpie to label the paper pots.  However, none of my writing has run and it's below the spots where the paper is turning orange so I think the two are unrelated. 

More updates to come on newspaper pots. 


My other project...vanilla!

DIY Natural is another site I frequent.  I get their update emails.  Last winter I got a post about making your own vanilla.  I thought this would have been a great Christmas gift, but I didn't get it in time.  You see, it takes a couple months to, I don't know the right word, ferment (maybe that's the right word.)

My vanilla was started on 2/20.  I had the beans and my neighbor had the vodka.  Which is a great

way to reduce costs when you're overhauling yourself into a DIY Homegrowing Diva, find a partner in crime!  Sure I won't get all the vanilla, but what if it turned out to be nasty!  Not that I think it will, because here we are less than a month later.

I sliced the length of the beans.  That took some care and my fingers smelled like vanilla for a day or two after.  Not a bad scent to carry around!  When I initially put the beans into the bottle and smelled the concoction I would say that it was 98% vodka and 2% vanilla.  I just took a sniff after taking the picture today and I would change those numbers to  roughly 40% vodka and 60% vanilla. 

I really don't think this is going to turn out badly!  It's so hard to wait!  Every time I shake the bottle I want to make something with a delicious vanilla flavor!

DIY Natural broke down the cost of making your own vanilla.  It's insanely cheaper and not very difficult to make your own.  I doubt I'll ever be buying vanilla again.