CYBER WEEKEND 2016

Cyber weekend is here! And it is time to offer you all some sweet deals. We've placed the entire shop 20% off. Woot! Prices are already marked so no need for any discount codes.

AND every order over $25 will receive a free gift. An extra something to keep for yourself or to aid your gifting endeavors this holiday season.

For every order over $25, we will throw in one of our 2016 Macramé Ornaments. I love these festive beauties.

For every order over $100, you will receive a free No.1 Medium Plant Hanger. This one is a personal favorite to gift because it's such a versatile size.

Making Spirits Bright - Holiday 2016 Wall Hanging Collection

These are the best prices we've offered since opening, but the quantities are extremely limited due to the time each piece takes to make. Our family is in the middle of a local move and although it won't effect any orders placed by you lovely customers, it has cut down the amount or orders we can accept. There's only so much knotting I can justify when boxes are waiting to be unpacked! Don't delay on picking up your favorites early on in the weekend.

And, as always, a portion of every Rope & Root purchase is donated to Shine School Partnership, supporting families, children, and teachers in Albuquerque Public Schools.

We are so grateful for each of you and the support you show our business. Thank you for choosing to shop small this year and for choosing Rope & Root. We are humbled and honored.

xoxo, Annalea and co.

Green Thumb Learned - Light

Today we are still working through the very basics of houseplant care. If you have a handle on these, the job of keeping a plant alive will not seem so daunting. Last week I covered watering and listed overwatering as the number one cause of houseplant death. Today we will talk about light - the most important factor in healthy, strong plants.

You can break light needs into high, medium, and low. This is pretty much self-explanatory and there are beautiful varieties for each category of light. South facing windows will be your brightest. East and west facing will be about half the amount of sun, while north facing windows provide the lowest amounts of lights. But you also need to take into consideration the landscaping outside each window, roof overhangs, and how often do you keep window coverings closed.

You may also see terms like direct light (within 2 feet of a window) and indirect/filtered light (bright conditions within 4-5 feet). My citrus trees need to kiss the windows. My Ming Fern, which likes bright conditions, will wither and burn in full high desert sun. In fact, most houseplants will not tolerate direct sun. By changing the proximity to a window, you can create appropriate indirect light conditions.If you need to experiment with placement, do so gradually as to not shock your plants.

Remember that as seasons change, so will the light in your house. I made the mistake of not accounting for a backyard tree filling out one summer. The seasonal leaves obliterated the sun in the corner my Fiddle Leaf Fig had quite nicely lived over the winter months. Oh the sadness! It barely survived my lack of attention to the change in "bright filtered light". Thankfully it bounced back and I learned an important lesson.

You won't be able to have just any plant wherever you think it will look nice. Yes, I want succulents in my dining room. But they would be bummed in all that dim shade. But there are shade tolerant plants that work. We currently keep a couple fun philodendron babes in there. 

Know the needs of your green friends and they will thrive. Is the plant doing what is intended? Flowering? Setting out fruit and/or new leaves? You'll be able to tell the difference between a growing, content plant and a miserable one.

Signs of too much light: brown or burnt patches on leaves, wilting leaving, faded leaves, curling leaves or dried up and falling off leaves

Signs of too little light: spindly growth or angling towards windows, no or slow growth, lack of flowers or fruit, new leaves smaller than old growth, bottom leaves yellowing and falling off, variegated leaves losing their variegation

The above information is a brief introduction to houseplant light needs. We will dive into more specific details for individual plant families and plants in future posts. Happy growing!

Green Thumb Learned -Watering

Plants make me happy. I half-jokingly refer to them as my love language. My introduction to macramé came about as a need to bring green goodness to areas without shelf space. (Well that and fond childhood memories of groovy plant hangers.) But seriously, I love plants.

However I wasn't always so great at keeping plants alive. They came to our first apartment to brown and yellow and wilt and wither away. Plant care seemed like a foreign language and I didn't have a 101 class in which to enroll. I was overwhelmed.

Thankfully I remembered something key. Something that can change they way you approach any new hobby-skill-subject. You can learn anything if you start with the basics. So I did just that. One plant. Lots of research. And slowly but surely, I began a journey to crazy plant lady status.

For the start of our Green Thumb Learned series, we are going to cover the basics. Let's talk about watering this week. The number one cause of death for those lovely houseplants is.... OVERWATERING! Don't drown them! Plants with wet feet will be unhappy and unhealthy.

Let your soil dry out between waterings. I poke my finger a knuckle or so deep to check. For larger pots, I also use a bamboo skewer. If it comes out of the soil after a few minutes with any moisture (or even feeling cold), I wait a day or two before checking again.

It's usually a case of killing them with a sip of kindness, when all they really want is a nice long drink. When watering, give enough so you can see the water drain out the bottom of the pot and don't let it sit in that water too long. Make sure to water earlier in the day to prevent disease. Use room temperature water to prevent shock.

I follow a loose watering schedule around my casita, paired with regular checking. It has become part of my daily routine to keep an eye on the health of my plants. I find it very soothing! My schedule takes into consideration plant type and size and type of pot. I streamline that by only using unglazed clay pots. One less factor to consider helps. Plus I like the way they look grouped together. And because some of you will want numbers, I water my succulents/cacti 1/week and my other houseplants/trees about 2/week. I live in the southwest high desert (low humidity and lots of sun). You will likely need to adjust your schedule with the seasons.

Yes, you can turn a black thumb green. It just requires some knowledge. Do your own research. Know your plants' watering needs. And then practice some trial and error to figure out what works. Happy Growing!

First Ever Workshop AND New Product Release!

Say what?!? Not only are we hosting our first ever workshop next week - come learn how to make your own Macramé Plant Hanger - but we are also releasing a NEW product to celebrate.

Introducing The No.3 Plant Hanger. This gal has more intricate details - spiral knots and square knots and a long layered fringe - and gives off just enough boho 70s inspired vibe. We're pretty smitten with her. Paired with the simpler No.1, you get a neat varied display to your hanging garden.

We'll be listing The No.3 next Monday morning so keep your eyes peeled.

The No.3 is the project I will be teaching at the workshop on Friday 9/30 at GraceLaced Studio. We are including both pots and plants with the registration fee! It's basically an amazing deal. Go ahead and register today!

xo, Annalea

Shine School Partnership

We are excited to announce that a portion of every ROPE & ROOT purchase will be donated to Shine School Partnership. Shine School Partnership is a Non-Profit in Albuquerque, NM, which seeks to enrich the success of schools and students by providing teacher support, family development and student enrichment.

A Shine School Partnership is a long-term committed relationship between a church and a school with the goal of meeting the needs of students, families, and teachers.  Our long-range vision is to see that every APS Title 1 School in an ongoing, meaningful relationship with one or more of the churches in their community. The ongoing relationships between the pastors, staff and volunteers of the local church with the administrators, teachers, and families of a local school can create a healthy synergy that will truly benefit both the church and the school. Schools will have a ready resource to contact to meet specific needs, and churches will have a built-in opportunity to show love to their community.

We believe in radical generosity. We recognize that we have been given so much more than we deserve and our giving aims to be a reflection of that. It was important for us to choose a cause that met the needs of our community. A cause that helped us love our neighbor in abundance.

Shine Partnerships work with the school to identify the needs of the students, families and teachers that are obstacles to the school’s success. Shine Partnerships go in asking the school what they need and then tailor strategies to meet those needs, realizing that the needs of each school will be different. Shine builds genuine relationships with the key players at the school and assists them in working together as a team for maximized success. Once the needs have been identified Shine focuses on meeting needs in these three areas: development for families, enrichment for students, and support for teachers and staff.

When you add beauty to your space with a ROPE & ROOT piece, you are also adding beauty to something much much greater. Thank you!

XO, Annalea

Fall 2016 Macrame Wall Hangings

It's time to give our Fall 2016 Macramé Wall Hanging Collection a proper introduction.

All of these pieces are made with 100% natural cotton rope. Seven hang from wood branches sourced from the arroyos of the Sandia Mountain Foothills in New Mexico. Two of them hang from metal hoops, available both in gold and silver finishes.

The inspiration for these nine pieces came from the book of Isaiah chapter 35. After living our entire lives in the nearly-everything-is-easy-to-grow lush Midwest, our family was unexpectedly uprooted in 2012 and transplanted to the Southwest. We were now desert dwellers! Rocky ground, scorching sun, and little rainfall gave us new appreciation for what we previously took for granted. An opening flower bud. Grass. Any kind of water found outdoors.

In our new home, this passage of the Bible held fresh understanding. But it also played out that parts of our life that had dried and hardened and were without growth began to see a change. A softening and green bits of life. We had been moved to the desert to see our spiritual desert. We were moved from the abundant land to see the Lord's abundance more clearly.

ROPE & ROOT is one result. So it just made sense that this be the focus of our first collection.

GLAD DESERT MACRAME WALL HANGING

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
    the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

BURST INTO BLOSSOM MACRAME WALL HANGING

it shall blossom abundantly
    and rejoice with joy and singing.

STRENGTHEN THE FEEBLE MACRAME WALL HANGING

Strengthen the weak hands,
    and make firm the feeble knees.

TAKE HEART MACRAME WALL HANGING

Say to those who have an anxious heart,
    “Be strong; fear not!

OPENED AND UNSTOPPED MACRAME WALL HANGING DUO

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

WILD STREAMS MACRAME WALL HANGING

For waters break forth in the wilderness,
    and streams in the desert;

THIRSTY GROUND MACRAME WALL HANGING

the burning sand shall become a pool,
    and the thirsty ground springs of water;

REEDS AND RUSHES MACRAME WALL HANGING

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
    the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Thank you for listening to a bit of our heart behind the work. We look forward for what is to come!

XO, Annalea

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

And so it begins...

After years of living in the waiting spaces of dreams deferred, today opens to a new chapter. We welcome you to ROPE & ROOT, our tiny corner of the creative marketplace. An online store plus a local family business. A place to create, grow, inspire and teach. Thank you for joining us.