June garden Vlog 2018

I haven't written on this vlog for so long I thought I would jump on here and update you on the progress of my garden this year.

The garden is growing really nicely and we just harvested a nice bunch of garlic and a tiny harvest of green peas. I also have chickens in the garden once again and today they gave me the first little egg which was so exciting.

We have so many beautiful flowers blooming right now as well. here are some pictures from the garden.

I am growing tomatillos for the first time this year and they are definitely a fun plant to watch grow, I will be so excited to harvest some of those.  For a full update of my garden you can see my Garden Vlog video for June on YouTube.

I have also been active on Instagram sharing pictures of what I'm up to. You can follow me on Instagram here- https://www.instagram.com/aprilshomemaking/

I am hoping to start updating more here on Blogger later on in the year, thank you for stopping by! :)

My Fairy Garden 2017

This year I am excited to be making a new fairy garden, last year I didn't have as much time in the garden, and as a result didn't make a fairy garden. Fairy Gardens are one of my favorite things to do in the garden. This year I am using one of my raised beds that currently has some of my succulents growing in it, and I have also planted some annuals. This is how my fairy garden has turned out so far.

I made paths throughout the garden with pea gravel, and used tiny round wood slices as path stones.

My green toadstool gnome house is the main house in the garden. I have set around a bunch of tiny figures I found at the Dollar Tree though out the garden, little animals, fairies and gnomes.

Here is the start of my water feature, I need to add more blue glass stones to finish this little fairy pond.

Here is a little gazebo building.

Here is a mini bird feeder I found, I will be filling this with bird seed to see if my birds can spot it.

Here is a cute little fairy swing I found at the craft store.

I love how the stone paths look through the garden.

Here is a little gnome by a faux moss stone.

I was so happy to find this little outhouse for the garden!

Here is a little fairy house that I found at the Dollar Tree.

Here is another fairy house.

I love tucking little critters throughout the garden.

I had so much fun with this project and I hope to continue adding to it throughout the summer.

If you are interested in seeing more of this fairy garden you can check out my YouTube Garden Vlog Week-3 Where I put together my fairy garden.

Hope you enjoyed checking out what I have been up to in the garden, for weekly updates you can follow me on YouTube at April's Home , I will also post updates though out the summer here on my blog. 

Thanks for stopping by! :) 

Starting My Garden 2017

I was so happy to get back out into the garden last week. Oregon has had a record year for rain fall, and as a result my garden has become very overgrown with weeds. However, last week the sun came out for three beautiful days, so I spent as much time as possible clearing my garden beds, and prepping them for planting. I also started clearing out some of my flower beds, and made room for a new fairy garden.

My dog Zoey enjoyed being out in the garden with me the whole time, she is so funny and loves to sniff every flower. It is nice having her out with me in the garden, and she is enjoying the sunny weather as well.

I posted a Week 1 Garden Vlog on my YouTube Channel. I did a little before tour, so you could see where I started, as well as what I accomplished last week. Here it is if you'd like to check it out.

This week has been very rainy once again. On Mother's Day the kids weeded and edged my entire front yard, which was such an awesome gift. I will include that in my upcoming weekly garden vlog. This week I hope to get some more weeding done, as well as planting the rest of my veggies and flowers.

So that is the beginning of my Spring/Summer 2017 gardening season, I look forward to a nice gardening season. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

April's Homemaking Update

Just checking in-

I have been busy with my YouTube channel and haven't updated the blog in quite some time. I really love the YouTube format and have fun creating content for my channel. If you want to see what I've been up to definitely head over and check out my channel- April's Home

I have also been struggling with not being very tech savvy, so I have been struggling with some technical issues with this channel that have made it a bit of a headache. I am hoping to struggle through some of those issues and try to get this blog up and running again. I love sharing recipes here, as well as having a platform for where writing a thought might be a better method for a various project or idea. Ultimately I would love to have both April's Home and April's Homemaking be in tune with each other.

My experiment with starting a YouTube channel has been very fun. However I fell into a pattern of doing a lot of product reviews, which although fun, doesn't represent everything I want to share. So over the next couple of months I hope to solve some of the technical issues that have gotten in my way. If I am able to resolve some of those issues I would love to get back to blogging more often.

I am also planning on starting a second YouTube channel so that my content won't be so varied. So that is also something I am currently planning. Again, while I am working all of this out, if you want to see what I've been up to check out my YouTube channel, here is a recent video I shared of our Easter this year.

I hope everyone is having a nice Spring!

Thanks for stopping by!

A fall Update

It has been more than three months since I have last written on my blog here. We had a very busy summer and I am very glad things are winding down and am looking forward to the fall season. Fall is my favorite time of year. We have already begun enjoying fall with our outing to Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel, Oregon.

We enjoyed lots of good food like we do every year. Delicious locally made bratwurst, fresh corn on the cob, onion blossoms, cabbage rolls, and all sorts of good food.

We enjoyed many different dances, including one of our favorites the May Pole Dance.

The weather was beautiful, and we had such a nice time. You can see more of our Oktoberfest outing on my YouTube video linked below.

I have been spending a lot of time building my YouTube channel this year, and have really been enjoying it. I am hoping this fall I can balance both my YouTube channel and my blog here. I love the video medium for sharing, but I love being able to write as well, and I really want to share more of my recipes and Bible crafts. So I am hoping to have more of that content soon.

I hope everyone is having a nice start to the fall season, I am currently getting the house decorated for Halloween, another of my favorite yearly traditions.

Thanks for stopping by! ~April

Linking to:
Feathered Nest Friday
Home Sweet Home
Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop

June Update and Two Week Menu Plan

So I thought I would pop on over to my blog and do a quick update. My garden has been on hold for about a week and a half now, due to really rainy weather. The weather is supposed to be nice next week, and I am eager to get out to my garden and get some weeding and gardening done.

This week I've been working on some indoor organization projects. My craft and hobby closet needed updating, so I've been working on that. I thought I would share some of my recent YouTube videos here today. I've really been enjoying the YouTube platform, as well as the community of people there I am getting to know.

I am getting to know a wonderful young women, through her vlog, who has a channel called TimeWithBekka. Her family recently went on a wonderful trip to Japan. Bekka has been sharing about her trip through her vlog, with wonderful video from her time in Japan. My niece is in Japan as well currently, I would love to visit one day. Bekka was so kind and sent me a package with some souvenirs from her trip, in the video below I share what she sent me from Japan.

Getting this package was such a special treat! :)

I also thought I would share with you some of the things I recently purchased at the Target Dollar Spot. I love checking the dollar department at Target, they have such a wonderful and well priced selection of stationary. This month they also had a nice selection of classroom items. I will be moving to another Sunday School room this weekend, so I picked up a few supplies to use in my classroom.

Lastly I thought I would share my most recent Costco grocery purchases. I needed to stock up the pantry for the summer months, so in addition to purchasing the groceries I need for the next two weeks, I also stocked up on items for my pantry. At the end of this video I also share my two week menu plan. My menu has switched from meals that require a lot of oven cooking or long cooking times to easier to prepare foods for the hot weather, as well as more BBQs.

So those are some of the things I have been doing. I am also having fun reviewing toys on my YouTube channel. I have been a toy collector for nearly twenty years, and it is so nice to connect with the toy collecting community. I also really enjoy checking out what new toys are out there, recently there have been a lot of new toy items, and there are a lot of toys that really remind me of toys from the 80's which is the era of toys I really connect with. So if you stop by my YouTube channel, you will see that I enjoy sharing about different toy collections. My channel, April's Home, is sort of a whimsical mix of homemaking and toys, and other fun family events, which is really what it is like around my house. I like to keep things fun, whimsical, and a little quirky! :)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

You can also find me on YouTube at April's Home.

Spring Garden Update

It has been quite some time since I have updated this blog, I hope to do so a little more regularly. I have been very busy with my YouTube channel, and am having a lot of fun making and editing videos. I do a lot of product reviews, mostly toys, as a fun way to connect with the toy collecting community. This year I also started to incorporate more homemaking type videos on my channel, that I hope to continue developing as well. In the past I have blogged my garden's progress every summer here on this blog, I may still do a bit of that this summer, but to change things up a bit I also decided to do a video garden vlog. I just posted my first garden update, with pictures from my garden throughout this past spring, as well as the plants I purchased, the seeds I will be planting, and my new garden journal. So I thought I would share that with you here as well.

I found this inexpensive planner at the Target Dollar Spot, and decided that it would be perfect to use as a garden journal, I thought that the floral pattern would be pretty for a garden journal. In the video below you can see how I've set up this journal, as well as check out the plants and seeds I'll be planting this spring and summer, as well as clips of my garden this past spring.

I do hope to get out to the garden when our sunshine returns to take more pictures, which I will share here in future garden updates. I hope everyone is enjoying a nice spring, and having fun out in the garden! :)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Linking to:
Wake Up Wednesday 
Wow Us Wednesday
Be Inspired
Tuesdays with a Twist