Okay – so check THIS out. I’m cruising through Borders minding my own business when I happen to pause at the garden section (most of you will actually read “garden” as “porn” – you know who you are). I’m telling myself that I absolutely will not purchase one more gardening book. Yes, the promise is made while my fingers are crossed behind my back, just in case.
Then I see it. It’s not a book, but a box and it’s sitting at an angle which could only be described as coy, wearing a come hither look. If there’s one thing I can’t resist (aside from books and mochas) it’s boxes. And this one’s a beauty.
She’s wearing an antique gray-green as a base and adorned with Victorian lettering and pictures of vegetables from yester-year. In old fashioned strokes, “Kitchen Garden Box” is printed across the top, with “Save and Sow Seeds” right smack in the middle. Be still my heart. The seeds from my garden deserve to be saved and displayed in something this lovely.
On the back of the box there’s some adorable advertising describing you what you can expect to find inside. I claimed that box so fast (after all there was only one) that I nearly forgot to get a mocha. Of course, I didn’t actually forget to get the mocha. I’m a box freak but not completely insane.
Inside are all these wonderful cards each written in a quaint scrawl. There are cards on seeds saving, growing seeds, recipes, tips…oh, God knows what else. When I came across the fantabulously decorated seed envelopes I damn-near swooned.
Who in world could have created such a magnificent box to sit on my own bookshelf? I see Mike McGrath’s name near the bottom of the seed treasure box and it all makes sense. No wonder the creator knew what I wanted – this is no gardener-come-lately. He’s one of the originals. Remember Mike from Organic Gardening Magazine some years back? By “some years”, I mean like 12. I think his last year there was 1997.
Hey, Mike…dude, you out-did yourself this time. I mean, you had me at the empty box.
*No one sent me this box or any money in exchange for a review. Yes, I seriously bought it myself. Yes, I seriously almost died over it.
I just wanted to tell you… I love this box! I wish I had one for my poor deprived seed envelopes. All they get is an empty baby wipes container!
Kendra – it’s soooo yummy in real life! I think it was $20 total. But, you should be congratulated on your recycling skills with the baby wipe container!
My seeds needed a home this year, so I went to the $ store and bought a memory box for $2.00. I divided it in half and made cards like file folders and put the date starting Mar 1 on top, for once a week. I then filed my seed packs behind each week, that I was going to sow them. I wrote on the cards if I was sowing indoors or direct. When I was finished with that week it went to the back of the row and if the next week I was sowing some of the same seed, the packet went behind that date. I then down loaded some vintage catalogue pics from the Smithsonian web site printed them out and decoupage them on the outside of the box. It was a lot of fun and now I am totally organized (yeah, right). Love your box too.
Debbie ~ Most excellent! I love the way you did your box and especially like the decoupauge idea with the vintage pics! I’ll bet yours is darling.
Oh my goodness. I LOVE that box. I need that box….
Hmmm… I wonder if I could cut up Fedco catalogs and decoupage them to something I have already to make something similar. Wheels are turning…
No, I just want that box. I’m not crafty enough to copy it myself.