Blooming With Ideas

One of the first places I visited in Washington DC was the Botanic Garden, one of the oldest botanic gardens in North America.

I love to garden so I found it to be incredibly inspiring. The different gardens were absolutely stunning! I started snapping photos of ideas I wanted to incorporate in my own gardens as well as ideas that I could only dream of having. Sixty plus photos later I found myself not only feeling serene from strolling through garden after garden, but also excited to be able to share a bit of the experience and ideas with you.
This summer we built our own garden obelisks so you can imagine my thrill to see obelisks displayed in bright colors tucked among the beautiful flower beds.

There were beautiful structures that made me want to take up the art of welding just so I could have "dead" metal trees in my yard.


The ponds and other water features were so calming.



I don't think my hubby would be too thrilled if I handed him a shovel and announced that we were going to dig a big pond.

But maybe a dry creek bed with a bridge might be doable.

I'm wondering where we could build an arch for climbing vines?

I love the look of rocks in a garden!


Stepping stone and gravel paths overflowing with flowers and plants make me more giddy than a case full of diamonds and gem stones.

Do you think hubby would mind picking me up some huge rocks while I'm away so that I could incorporate them into my flower beds (hint hint ;~) I've actually asked him to do this---maybe if he reads my blog he'll remember).
Aren't these garden benches wonderful?

I sat on a few benches in the Botanic Gardens just trying to process all of the incredible ideas I found there. I've got even more to share with you tomorrow.

I Have Not Vacated The Premises

I was thrilled to be asked to do a guest host at Southern Hospitality.  Welcome to all of Rhoda's friends who are visiting me for the first time! 

I'm away from home, but I still have things to share----I just need to become familiar with my daughter's computer. I'll have some beautiful photos posted before this day is done so bear with me. I promise that it will be worth the wait!

Dinner Is Sacked

I've left the men in my house so that I can spend some quality time with my daughter. I'm so excited to have some girl time! But I do fear that the boys at home will eat nothing but sandwiches and ramen noodles while I'm away. So I prepared a basket of sack dinners. 

Each sack contains a few basic items and I've written directions on the front.

 The meals are far from gourmet, more like a step above camp-out food. But I thought that if the decision of what to have for dinner was already made it would make dinner time a little easier. 

Now hopefully three of the four males will actually follow the directions and prepare a few dinners while I'm a,way. 

I Love DT

Aahhh! It's the day after hosting the ladies evening out for our church. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. They all went home with favor boxes from the dollar store containing mints and snickers with a note inside that said, life is "mint" to be happy. And a quote that said (among other things), "How we see life's glass---half-full or half-empty---is primarily a choice." The evening was full of food, friends and fun!While I was at the dollar store buying favor boxes and mints (that just happened to color coordinate with the huge flowers), I took some photos with my phone of some fun items. I resisted the holiday decorations but still found plenty of great items for a dollar.
The toy isle had these oversized plastic combs and scissors. Can't you just envision them with a coat of metallic spray paint? The comb would be great in a bathroom and the scissors would look darling hanging on the wall of a laundry or sewing room.
How cute are these wall decals?!? What a great way to decorate a room without making a commitment of time or money. And when you get tired of them they come off without damaging the wall. Those frames in the middle would be great in a school locker or on the fridge.
These butterfly shapes are actually chalkboards! What little girl wouldn't love those? And now you can even buy fancy outlet and switch covers.
Do you need wall art? How about a pretty poster?These metal farm animal plaques look vintage. How cute would they be in a country kitchen or in a little boy's farm themed room.
Oh, and how I love white plates! These have a beautiful hobnail type border. Add a goblet (we use these at our house every day for supper), a placemat, and a dish towel as an oversized napkin and you have a beautiful place setting!
I managed to bring home a lovely sunflower poster. Won't it be pretty leaning against the wall surrounded by fall leaves and pumpkins? And I purchased some of those chalkboard decals. I placed them in my bathroom. They're great for writing a little reminder.
What a great way to spend a dollar!

Flower Power

Did you expect to see a fully finished bathroom project? Yeah, so did I. Isn't it funny how life can get in the way of your plans? Well, one day I hope to finish the downstairs bathroom. I know it won't happen for a while. But that's okay. In the meantime, I still have things to share.
This week I'm in charge of a pot luck salad and dessert supper for the women of my church. I want the evening to be lighthearted and fun. With that goal in mind, I chose to make colorful, over-sized, whimsical centerpieces.
It seems that tissue paper flowers are all the rage now so I used that idea as my inspiration.
First I folded kraft paper and rounded the ends to make a flower template.Then I folded the tissue paper the same way, in half, then in half, then edge to edge. I placed my template on top and cut out several layers of tissue.Dowels were glued into simple wood bases and both were painted bright green.I cut leaf shapes out of the tissue paper and applied them with hot glue.Then I stacked several layers of tissue flowers, cut a hole in the center, threaded them onto the dowel and hot glued them into place. I added a wooden circle covered with tissue paper as the center of the flower. I crunched up the tissue a bit to "poof" up the flower and give it dimension. One down, nine more to finish!

Burlap My Window

With this bamboo blind as my inspiration, I decided to Burlap My Window.

First, I cut a strip of MDF and a length of PVC to fit perfectly inside the width of the window.I measured around the PVC pipe and added an extra inch or two. Then I measured the height of the inside of the window, added the two measurements together to get the overall length I needed to cut the burlap.
For the width, I chose to keep the original width of the burlap and just make extra large hems on each side---partly because I wanted the extra weight, partly because I wanted to keep the finished edges in tack, and partly because I'm not much of a seamstress.Instead of using my sewing machine, I chose to make the hems using strips of iron-on fusible webbing.Then, I hot glued one end of the burlap to the MDF strip. Stapling would have worked too, but I already had my glue gun ready for the next step.I measured and pinned black webbing in place, covering the hem edges. Ribbon could be used instead of webbing. I just had a bunch of webbing on hand and liked it's more masculine look. Once the webbing was pinned, I ran a strip of tape along side as my guide for gluing. I took out the pins and glued down the webbing, working from the center to each edge.Next, I sprayed a little adhesive on the PVC pipe and rolled it onto the burlap end opposite of the MDF until it was to the length needed to fit inside the window. I hot glued it in place and then added two small lengths of webbing round the roll to match the existing webbing.Now all that was left was to adhere the MDF strip to the header inside the window. (Actually it hasn't been nailed in place yet because I still need to paint the window sill---which is why it doesn't look quite as tailored as it should). And that's how I burlapped my window!

Linked to Kimba's DIY day.