Morals & Research

Before jumping straight into large projects, it is always a wise idea to research the undertaking at hand. Thank you great spiritual being, aka inventor of Google, for making this a relatively painless task under most circumstances. I am a die hard Googler. If I don't know the answer, Google is where to go to find it, or least give you a big jump start in the right direction. Understanding the importance of research and Googling, I have failed myself somewhat. After extensive research, a la lots of pretty pictures of plants, cottages, stone pathways, urns, & fountains, I dove into my large project called THE FRONT YARD with a big batch of naivete & threw the research out the window. One of the pieces of advice mentioned on several sites, was to plan, plan, plan before doing any work to save money and hard work down the road. Whoa Miss Money! My plan, always a bit sketchy. Even though I never had a sketch & the plan was always centered around what was on sale, cheap, or looked appealing at the moment. it was not the wisest of moves. It has landed me with azealeas that I swore up and down I DID NOT WANT IN MY YARD! *stomps my foot* ....among other gems of random garden center trips that has made a mish mash of a yard. I don't regret this. I put in some good sweat and mosquito bites in for some plants that I really like (some that I didn't) & have thrived, but next year, there will be a plan. It will involve large numbers of a few hardy varieties to make me a happier camper. I have the list almost narrowed down, and if I had stuck to my gut in the first place, I wouldn't have all this other shit that I got myself into. LESSON LEARNED! My excuse is that I am a plantaholic and I think I need mass quanities of little bit of everything. That is my main problem, followed close behind with I really like to wonder around stores and look at different plants and daydream, thus causing a wasteful array of plants that I wish had never happened.

from my apartment garden last year

Other lessons learned from my front yard....
Squash bugs mutilate the zucchini that I wanted very badly.
Ants farm aphids. Where there are over abundance of ants, there will probably be aphids soon enough.
I don't like okra that much, unless my mom makes fried okra, so of course that is the vegetable that's going to be plentiful.
Real life banana peppers taste nothing like what drowning in the that jar I bought at the store and is still not of date (yes, I admit, I am an American!).
One watermelon plant will take over an entire flowerbed & then some. I should have just grown pumpkins like I had dreamed of in the first place because Autumn is creeping closer & I'm sad to say I will probably spend too much money on pumpkins that make me happy, happy, happy! I haven't even seen a baby watermelon. I doubt it was pollinated properly, bu it has helped smoother out the weeds. YAY!

Moral of the story..stick to my gut, follow sound advice, & research, research, research before jumping in. I am marking this growing seasons down as research & I'm writing off the expenditures.

......& YES, I am dreaming of Autumn. Only the best season. Ever!

oakleaf hydrangea at the park

My small list of plants to invest in large quantities
1. Lantana
2. Rosemary
3. Oakleaf Hydrangeas
4. Black-eyed Susans
5. Purple Coneflowers
6. Lemon balm

Annuals that did well this year from seed
1. Sunflowers
2. Moonflowers....(too bad I bought a few seed packets too many before my mother so kindly pointed out I had wild ones growing in several places in the back yard. ooops. They grew well. They smell great. I'm happy with them.)
...Marigolds & zinnias don't quite make the list, but they grew when some things didn't even sprout.

marigolds from my apt. garden

Seeds that didn't do so well
1. Everything else I sprinkled out.

how'd he get in there!?

I ended up with several wild moon flowers & a wild passion flower (& lots of weeds & crabgrass).
The Lantana I bought at a local nursery thrived the best out of all of the plants I purchased this year. This just hammers the nail on the head, buy local.

moon flower from this year

This is the tale of my having a real yard experience thus far. Stay tuned.

Tresure Hunting.

I am in LOVE with this lady! If only I had money to spare & a place to put her!

Hello! Does this not make you want to school!?

Snapped this for inspiration..Love the color combo, hated the stains on the rest of the tablecloth.

Inspiration again. This was the finish on a farm table. I have one to paint & love this look.

Cute vignette. Need I say more?

Cute chairs (from afar)! They were in need of too much TLC. Something had eaten/ripped out the foam in the back of the cushions. Not appetizing!

This quilt was awesome & in great shape. The price tag reflected that.

All items (except for the desk) were found at Angel's Antiques. A great place to stop for a treasure hunt if you ever find yourself in Alabama.

Ahoy Sailor!

HELLO NAVY!

perfection....with that pop of orange & art work! I would LOVE a navy room!

A Big Thanks!

I ♥ Holly's blog, Life In the Fun Lane! Her work, home, & photos are such an inspiration & they really gave me the push to paint some things white...I used to be a paint it black kind of girl. Grey took over my palette, & now Hello White! I will never be daring enough to go all white with my small petting zoo I call a family (it's hard enough to keep the baseboards clean!), but touches of white are quite refreshing and suiting our little home quite nicely. Speaking of my touches of my white & Holly's blog, she was kind enough to show off my projects on Fresh Coat Friday!YAY!

& gosh....this is my most favorite project of hers

Treasure

How much does this make you want to have a little school girl to sit & draw puppies & rainbows?

Remember?

This is a sneak peak of my current project. Her ETA keeps getting pushed farther & farther away between rain & my "real' job. She'll be beautiful when she's done, but she is definitely making me practice patience.

Remember at the bottom of this post, I told you make note of my ceiling color.....***wink wink nudge nudge***

Have a great HUMP day!

dreamy.

From Style-Files.
That wall is dreamy.
I would love it my living room.

Name My First Child Arabis

HELLO BEAUTIFUL.Most treasures from Anthro are beautiful, but I think I'm in LOVE.

Propagation of the Starbucks Variety

When we moved into our house, I had this vision of making a beautiful lush yard, front & back, in one spring/summer season. Ha. Take a minute to laugh at my naivete. Moving on.

I quickly realized it would take a lot of blood, sweat, tears & some more sweat in this Alabama heat/humidity. Also,it would take more than a few months, tears, & dollars to make the yard of my dreams happen. When you're short on funds & you have to chose between an indulgence & more plants, I make a way to have both.


This is how a quick visit to the Starbucks & some window shopping at the local strip mall turned into plant propagation 101.....


I simply indulged in a Starbucks drink, Venti Sweeten Iced Black Tea, to be exact. Then pinched a sprig of lantana that was growing in large planters in the local strip mall & stuck it in the water from the ice melting in my car.

I shopped while my cutting was safe inside my leftover Starbucks cup. When I got home I dumped out the melted ice, put a little potting soil the cup, made a fresh cut on the stem, pinched away a few leaves, and stuck my cutting in the soil. I dampened the soil (you don't want to drench the soil) and replaced the lid, straw and all. Miniature greenhouse a la Starbucks complete. Now, a few weeks later & a few more cups & cuttings, I am posting about it. I had to make sure my ingenious idea was a winner. In a few more weeks, I'll have several new little plants & sweet memories of Starbucks.

I want to point out that I pinched a few of these cutting from the local strip mall planters. I won't call it stealing. I'll call it making do.

Please make note: Starbucks cups have other great uses once you've finished your iced beverage. They make great mini greenhouses, perfectly adequate for starting seeds, or as a terrarium for a small plant or mushroom. As well, we have one as a dog food scoop. I've used this same cup for almost a year. It's rather sturdy. That is one less year that that particular cup will sit in a landfill.

Hope you enjoyed!

The State of Things

Blogging=more fun than cleaning up.
We'll call this "my attempt at photo journalism"
aka procrastination.

&....

& when...

Have a great weekend!

little by little...

working on the B-log. Tinkering with some things to try to make it pretty.

This little guy is my place holder.......

This is Abner. He showed up in our neighborhood about a month ago. I tried for hours one night trying to catch this stray little kitty. The next day I came home from work & it was about to storm. I lured him into my den with a little leftover chicken. Now he's the baby of the bunch.

The After!

As you could see from the before shots....both items were already great candidates for fixtures upon my walls. They were actually very pretty together in their original states. Sadly, their colors clashed with the country blue walls I'm rocking. (I'm not sold on them. The color is called "Sterling Silver," & I was hoping for a more silvery grey with a tint of blue) Some flat white paint unified the pieces, added to the "country" & matched what I already had going on in the LR.

On the candelabra I used one of those paint samples at Home Depot (the brand was Behr) in a flat white. On the frame I used white & black spray paints. I tested out the chalk and it worked. NO need to buy special paint when it won't be a high traffic chalk board, but more of an art piece. I already need to redraw the flower, as you can see & then put this guy in his permanent home. I have a black metal fleur de lis hook that I will hang straight on the wall to hang the ribbon from (leftovers from an xmas project).

candelabra

chalk art.

ignore the blurry & note the grey of my ceiling ♥ I'm using that color on my next project
So there you are. Two DIYs down. Hundreds to go. Enjoy!

hip hip hooray

Crossing my fingers that the boy's computer is fixed for good! If not, I'm taking this opportunity to show you a few before shots on a two piece project.

before

before

before
wip

I plan on posting the After tomorrow! Stay tuned.

Messages from the universe

My computer is broken. The boy's computer has virus. I had just cleared the pics off my camera onto his pc to upload to flickr & set up some blogs. I have one before pic that made it to flickr. One pic out of 252. Stinks! Big time! I believe it's a message from the universe to get some other things done.
Like learning how to posts photos from my phone.
Like make a quilt.
Save money.
Have the yard sale I've been thinking about for months.
Play with my doggies more.
Start working out.
Living life.
Making more bread.
Cleaning out my house.
Make the furniture I dream of...
Learn to use power tools first.
Working in the yard.
Making more homemade lemonade in mason jars.
Making my house the pseudo farmhouse I'd love it to be.
Documenting life. Taking photos.
Build a side business.
And more.
And then save up for a Mac