The common dust mask has always been my BFF in doing most of these projects (good ventilation and eye protection are also a must depending on what you’re doing), but this year I’ve been doing my research, and instead of spending another $5 on a 3-pack of thin cotton dust masks, I’m going heavy-duty.

Here’s the low-down on why:

The dust masks I’ve always bought and used are good for a myriad of purposes: dusting, sweeping, pollen, the light-duty dust mites. I’m guilty of the “better this than nothing” mentality. What they don’t do, though, is protect my lungs from the more intense projects I find myself undertaking: the insulating, sanding, sawing, staining and spray painting. Never mind that I can get a pack of 50 dust masks for about $12 at any big box store—if they aren’t protecting us from what we need protecting from, it hardly seems worth it.

To improve upon my simple dust mask, I began looking into higher quality respirators. For the kind of common household work and projects that I undertake, here are two that I decided upon. Hopefully knowing more about the differences in respirators will help you too!

A short step up from my simple dust mask is this respiratory shield with an exhalation valve. Similarly made of cotton (read: not washable and needs to be replaced more frequently), this mask is OSHA and NIOSH N95 rated and equipped to better seal around your face while providing an exhalation valve right on the front to help with cooler, easier breathing. I am happy with the fit, but still can’t wear it easily without fogging up my current eye gear. It will help to protect my nose/mouth/lungs while sanding and sawing wood, cutting and sanding drywall, and installing fiberglass insulation. I paid $4 for mine.

I went for one more step up on the lung-health too, also choosing a respirator specially recommended for users of paints and pesticides. Its cartridges and filters cover me when it comes to preventing the inhalation of the spray paint molecules, and would be favorable for use when I’m spraying areas around my house for spring insects or mid-summer surprise beehive attacks. Priced at $30, it’s a longer-term investment that can last for a long time with proper care, since you can swap out the cartridges and filters themselves inexpensively and keep the face frame for years. A few options I found were for sale at our local Home Depot; check out this product and this product if you’d like to compare.

There are other respirators that filter airborne chemicals with even more precision—consider them if you are looking to do home maintenance involving acidic cleaning agents, ammonia, or lead and asbestos, as masks meeting those filtration needs must meet OSHA and NIOSH P100. You can find respirators suiting this bill for not that much more money.  I found a few multipurpose models starting at just $40, with pricing going up as high as $200.

Originally a European wildflower, Shasta daisy is now an American favorite. (Photo courtesy of American Meadows)

While the new release of The Great Gatsby movie has some fans pining for flapper dresses and champagne parties, it’s got me thinking about—what else?—plants.  Yes, plants. In case you hadn’t noticed, the two main female characters in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald are named for plants.

But what’s in a name? I did a little research to find out. First, I dialed up Mike Lizotte, Jr., a managing partner at American Meadows who goes by the title “The Seed Man,” and asked him to tell me about daisies.

The Daisy You Know and Love

“This plant category is very popular,” Mike said, “very, very popular.”

Close your eyes and think of daisies. I bet you see a bright yellow center, crisp white petals, and a tall green stem. I also bet you’re smiling. Daisies just make us happy. My mother’s favorite flower is the daisy. It’s the flower my dad gets her on her birthday, on Mother’s Day and in any event that, for whatever reason, requires an apology or just a pick-me-up.

While some plants that are called daisies are actually chrysanthemums, there’s a set of true daisies that all started from the wild original, called OxEye. OxEye is undoubtedly the vision of daisy in your mind, but did you know that in some states, OxEye is actually illegal to plant?! Yep, the wild daisy is considered a noxious weed in some states.

That’s why many new daisy plants have been hybridized, Mike said, both to create new colors and physical characteristics but also to offer less invasive options. Because everyone wants to plant daisies.

“Whether you’re a gardener or a black thumb, daisies attract people,” Mike said. “They attract attention. People know what it is.”

Why daisies? According to Mike, they’re hardy and dependable and they have a lasting bloom, even in drought. But they also just have an ephemeral quality that draws people in.

So What About Myrtle?

While there are lots of plants called myrtle—Crape myrtle, wax myrtle, sand myrtle—plants in the true Myrtle family are rarely planted by homeowners. Primarily native to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean regions, myrtle is a tough, scrappy shrub that actually played a fascinating role in many ancient mythologies. While it was popular in England in the 16th to 18th centuries, it fell out of favor due to an influx of new, hardier options being introduced from the Americas. (As a Mediterranean native, myrtle didn’t love England’s harsh winters.)

Again, the plants above are not true myrtles, but some of these more commonly used plants named myrtle have similar characteristics to the original. You can find detailed info about many of them, including those most suited to your landscape, using the Plant Finder at HGTVGardens.com.

And The Great Gatsby?

OK, so enough plant-geek speak, how does this relate to The Great Gatsby? I called Dr. Caresse John, an American literature scholar and professor from Belmont University, to find out.

“Daisy is perceived as innocent and feminine,” Caresse said. “She’s beautiful on the surface, but underneath, she has a lot of issues.”

Myrtle, on the other hand, “is portrayed as hearty, solid.” I described to Caresse what I’d learned about myrtle, the plant. “That’s pretty much Myrtle,” she said.

“Daisy seems fragile, like she needs to be cared for. It’s not actually true, but that is what’s on the surface. Myrtle doesn’t need to be protected. She’s a huge presence, but she’s not beautiful like Daisy. She withstands a lot, both physically and with where she lives. She tries to rise above these harsh conditions.”

And what about the darker side of daisies—the whole potentially noxious weed thing? “Daisy does kind of take over. No one knows it, but she does. She’s so central to all the action in the novel. There is a notion of popularity. Daisy is very popular.”

Now, Let’s Review

Daisies are popular and beautiful but have some darker traits under the surface, like being potentially invasive. They also last. Same with the character Daisy.

Myrtle is tough and scrappy. It survives in harsh native conditions but can struggle in new climates. Same with the character Myrtle, who, in the book, lives in a place called “The Valley of Ashes,” technically a dump (now known as Flushing Meadows), and, after trying to make her way in a different world, (spoiler alert for those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie!) doesn’t make it in the end.

“Ironically, Fitzgerald thought the novel had failed commercially,” Caresse explained, “and he thought part of that was because the book contained no important woman characters.”

We know, now, that this isn’t true at all. Still, Caresse said, “Neither [Daisy or Myrtle] are people we aim to be. We don’t like either of them.”

And Back to Plants

What does all this mean for gardeners? The true myrtle is going to be hard to find, but many options bearing the name are tried-and-true selections for home landscapes. And while I imagine that Myrtle, Gatsby, and nearly every other character in The Great Gatsby might beg to differ, as Mike told me, “You can never fail going with daisy.”

We bought a new pressure washer this season, a 2700 max PSI gas-powered model (an upgrade from the little electric 1200 PSI model that I’ve had and appreciated and actually loved for nearly 5 years). The new washer is one tough cookie and a great addition to our outdoor arsenal. After reading many reviews and actually talking with people who own and appreciate more-powerful pressure washers, I was plenty certain in my decision to buy, and I picked up my own at the store last week for spring cleaning.

A pressure washer is great for cleaning any number of surfaces (even canvas and outdoor furniture cushions, but I started out by cleaning the unpainted back wall of my cement block garage, a surface prone to growing moss and unidentifiable grime.

They were really quite easy to make, with Sculpey clay, a melon baller to help hollow out a clay ball, and a knife to make clean cuts along the outside of the clay. The favors ended up having great impact with our guests, and they continue to bring us merriment as the few we saved for ourselves sit basking in the sunlight on our kitchen windowsill. Check out my full tutorial on how I made them.

Making my own favors wasn’t so much about cost savings (I still spent about $100 in clay and planting materials to make 75 pieces), but was more about making exactly what I envisioned to suit the rest of the wedding, and in the end, the time investment was worth it.

I wouldn’t again suggest anything succulent-related for a wintertime wedding, unless you’re guaranteed a lush selection of plants in stock at your local gardening center. There were plenty in stock in the summer when I decided to use them in our favors, but I was left with a poor selection the week before Christmas up here in New York. If you’re liking them for a spring/summer/fall wedding, don’t think twice—they’ll be perfect. You could learn more about choosing and caring for succulents in this beautiful succulent gallery from our friends at HGTVGardens.

A few other ideas I considered for DIY wedding favors?

Hand painted coffee mugs, cocoa packets and Christmas ornaments (both so seasonally appropriate), and candy packages using my printer and some kraft paper. In this photo gallery from DIYNetwork’s wedding planning section, you can get more ideas about DIY wedding favors!

Feeling inspired? Share more of your favorite ideas with us in the comments!

T-shirts do not look good on me, so I am not a t-shirt-wearing kind of person. I do like the idea of having a memento of an event, though, and especially the t-shirts from my favorite weekend nature camp, Audubon Mountain Workshop. Every May, I get a new t-shirt for being an instructor, and every year I stuff it in a drawer with the others, never to be seen or worn. Until this year, that is.

A friend of mine recently suggested that I make bags out of his old rock concert t-shirts from back in the day, but as I opened an e-mail addressed to camp instructors about what size t-shirt we might want this year, I decided to make bags out of my own stash of camp t-shirts instead. I’ve seen plenty of t-shirt bags before, and you can find a variety of images on the web, but I wanted something a little different. So I embellished them with bright-colored quilting fabrics for pizazz and zigzag stitching for strength. I used the bags to carry my bedding and towels up to camp, and then to bring my dirty laundry back home.

My north-facing front yard garden soaks up about 4 hours of sun in the morning, followed by 9 hours of shade in the afternoon. The backyard’s not much better, fully shaded at least 8 hours of the day. For a girl who wants lush, radiant, sun-loving gardens, I’m living in the wrong spot. In trying to work with this, I’ve been doing some research and learning more about what sun/shade and shading-loving plants I need to embrace to populate our landscape. Because I can only plant so much pachysandra  …

I know, though, that before planting anything, it’s important to have a plan. This photo gallery offers an understanding of the essentials, and there’s a ton more info in the Landscape Design section of DIYNetwork.com, including a handy article on Creating a Shade-Loving Landscape.

Among my favorite shade or sun/shade plants are the Lenten rose, nasturtiums (which I have grown in the past very successfully), lungwort, begonia, woodruff, and the trusty hosta. Of course there are many other options out there that will work with a varying level of sunshine and your landscape needs. I always liked moss planted between bricks and stones, and ferns are both easy to transplant and maintain in shadier scenarios. And if you find yourself really stuck, head for some larger plants, like rhododendrons, holly, boxwood, and mountain laurel.

You can find details about all these plants in the Plant Finder at HGTVGardens.com. And if you have other trusty go-to plants for a shady yard, share them with me here in the comments!

A common trait among all of the Made + Remade bloggers is a love for good, old-fashioned show and tell. That’s why Michele and I are so stoked to be heading to the Bay Area this weekend for Maker Faire! “Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new,” Maker Faire brings together people of all ages, from totally different backgrounds, to show off what they’ve made and what they’ve learned along the way.

In the words of Tiffany, one of our own Maker Faire pros, “It’s basically a big festival that will blow your crafty mind. Motorized cupcakes cross in front of you, geysers of Coke and Mentos spew 30 feet in the air, you can get your hair cut by a robot … It’s like crafty and clever took some steroids.” Just check out this lineup.

Heading to Maker Faire for the first time? Here are a few tips:

1) Nick recommends going in with a game plan. There is a lot to see and some of it is only happening during certain times. So check out a schedule to make sure you catch what you came for.

2) Collect business cards. You’ll meet lots of people with unique ideas that you may want to follow online. But the odds are you won’t remember all of them by the time you get home. That’s when you pull out your business cards and update that blog roll!

3) Apparently the traffic can get a little out of hand. Follow @FaireTraffic for the latest.

4) My mama taught me that my shoes will always set the tone for my day. When it comes to Maker Faire, be sure to put on some comfy kicks!

Can’t make it to the Bay Area this weekend? Find a Faire near you. In the meantime, keep up with our weekend adventures online …

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We’ll see you at the Faire!

Not into sewing yet? Please consider trying. Even if you’re not planning on making your own clothes anytime soon, I highly recommend having a sewing machine just for little home and decorating fixes like this. For me at least (read: impatient person), using a sewing machine is so much easier than trying to mend by hand, and so much more satisfying than tossing or passing over something awesome just because it’s a little rough around the edges.

I love the earthy colors and graphic motifs of traditional kilim rugs. Made since ancient times in Greece, Turkey and Eastern Europe, kilim weavers use a tapestry technique, which is characterized in part by a lack of pile (the tufts or loops that make some carpets soft and plush).

While I don’t yet have an antique kilim rug of my own (they can demand a pretty penny), I did pick up several kilim pillow covers at Tsitalia, a fantastic Greek and Turkish import shop in Birmingham, Alabama. I’m not sure whether the pillow covers were made from pieces of antique rugs or woven new, but they’ve given my living room that cool, vintage, global kilim look for a few years now. I’ve seen similar pillow covers at Pottery Barn and also am currently lusting after a few kilim pillows and rugs at One Kings Lane. There are also tons of enviable kilim finds on Etsy.

Recently, though, I started noticing that my pillow covers were fraying at the edges where the front (made of kilim) and the back (cotton canvas) come together. At a few seams, the large threads of the tapestry weave have simply worn and broken apart.

Rather than live with the ever-expanding holes, I fixed them with some super-simple sewing. See how I fixed these pillow covers in my post “How to Fix a Pillow Cover That’s Coming Apart at the Seams.”

Pillow covers really are an easy sewing project that can be personalized a million ways. I dug up this clever how-to project from our video archives. Check it out—you could totally make these pillow covers in under an hour.

We also have a couple great pillow personalization projects (say that three times fast!) on DIYNetwork.com. If you’re not into making your own, you can remake store-bought ones with these great ideas:

• Monogram Pillows With Buttons
• Add Cut Fabric Circles for Fun Style

Watercolor gift tags. How cute! But how easy are they to make? So easy. On a scale of one to five, one being totally doable and five being not-so-much, I give this project a one—as long as you have patience. This is not a 30-minute craft.

Watercolors taught me how to go with the flow. As a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, I’ve had my share of watercolor projects. It’s a tough media to control. They dry in the same way Polaroids develop—not exactly how you thought it was going to turn out. You can dab a mistake with paper towels and soak up most of the damage. You can even apply more water and try to lift the residue. But once watercolors touch paper, you can’t completely erase the stains. You’ll always have a faint ombre scar.

So you have to work with what you have by layering. Compromise and improvise. I’m totally a type A person but in a strange way, I find watercolors calming. Unless you’re Andrew Wyeth, you should accept that it won’t look perfect—especially for the splashy tie dye look in these.

I love pairing these tags with brown paper packaging for a boho chic look. You could also use them throughout a luncheon as beverage markers, placeholders or menu labels. Or how fun would these be as sales tags for a boutique or flea market booth?

Got a Pinterest idea you want me to test? Comment below with a link or tweet me @DeanneRevel.