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I've been a little MIA lately on my blog. I do have one pleasantry to share and then I'll show a pic of what has been keeping us busy over the last few days.

A few years ago, I acquired a sweet tealight holder.

My mom gave it to me. She had gotten it from her neighbor at her lake cabin, Andy. Andy is a bachelor who lives out at the lake and he had made these tealight holders when we had the huge windstorm in 2008. If you live near me in the Midwest, you'll know what I'm talking about. We missed two days of school (in September) from the power outages and I had friends with no power for 5 days. Well, Andy made these from fallen tree limbs when the power was out....now I'm wondering if he used a hand drill....?

Anyway, I've always loved it and I have had it in my cabinet for a while. I decided to get it out. Not sure why I had left it in there so long! And...since I'm obsessed with cut flowers lately, I took out the tealight holders and was delighted to see that I could fit some votive holders that were a bit taller. They could function as bud vases!

I apologize for the blurry picture. I'm too tired to go and take another one. You'll know why in a moment.

I'm digging the rustic nature and the colors of the wood, plus the pretty blooms. It's looking great as my centerpiece right now! I really want to ask Andy if he would make me a really long one for the ledge in my kitchen.

And now...my preview. We had a delivery on Tuesday.

A special pallet o' fun. That's right, my husband and I are installing three retaining walls in our front garden.

More on that adventure to come, since it's currently underway....; )

DIY Silhouettes

Our living room has been going through a metamorphosis and I'm pleased to have finally completed my latest project. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, so it was definitely on the experimental side of the spectrum.

Here is our living room area before I added them. The walls are a green color that has a tinge of blue to it. We had bought the white couch and I had painted the mirror white. The mirror had been repurposed from our master bedroom and I'm loving how much light it brings into the room. It's on the wall opposite the windows. However, the mirror looked a little sparse in such a big space, so I was trying to think of what to add on the sides of the mirror....need to eliminate all of that negative space.

Sconces? Art?

I came up with the idea of silhouettes of our family. I looked around online and saw some really nice ones--especially on Etsy--but I decided to try my hand on my own.

The result...

I like the way they balance out the mirror and fill in the space.

These were pretty simple to make and I really like the personal touch it adds to the wall--without being too much! I like how the white balances the dark bookshelves to the left and the mantle is opposite the mirror, as well, so now there is a white statement on those opposite walls.

I'll post a tutorial on these later this week. ; )

A botanical side trip

While we were on vacation last week in beautiful North Myrtle Beach, So. Carolina, my husband took us to Brookgreen Gardens as an anniversary present for me. It was so thoughtful of him to think of an outing that that I would enjoy!

This place is huge. We drove down and got our tickets. They have a great native animal zoo, which the kids enjoyed. I thought it was really neat that most of the habitats were natural, as opposed to building a place for them to live, like most zoos do.

After the zoo, we took the tram back to the gardens area. First up, we toured through the children's garden...very thoughtful of them to include the little ones. Mine really liked it! It had kid-appropriate statues and sculptures (there are a TON of sculptures at this place), tunnels and secret pathways for the kids to explore.

I took some pics! Here is one thing I really liked that is at the welcome center--they have a table showing you what perennials (I think) are in bloom at the moment, complete with tags:

And a shot of my babies...Sweetie, especially, is looking like such a big girl! It was really hot that day. : )

And now, the plants...they had a great cactus garden near one of the sculpture museums.

Their hydrangeas were beautiful. I loved this shot of this bloom coming into its own.

This particular hydrangea was unbelievable. It was a teal color!

This succulent plant was really striking with its green and red colors.

I liked this elephant ear-type plant, with the underplanting of torenia. Beautiful.

I love this plant....globe amaranth (Latin name gomphrena). The shape is really unique and I love this strawberry red color.

We were amazed by the Spanish moss. How does it grow up there?

Here is another type of amaranth, but I don't know the name of this one.

I was loving the cannas they had. I wonder if they are a perennial bulb down there? In my area, you have to dig them up after a killing frost and replant the next spring.

I thought the leaves on this plant were spectacular!

This was a picture of one of my favorite sculptures/water feature. This place was exquisitely planned!

It was wonderful to walk around some beautiful gardens. A real gem down there! We had never been there and my husband has been visiting that area his whole life.

Being neighborly?

If you have read my blog in the last month or so, you know that I recently repainted my front door. Here is what it looked like before. Blech....brown.

And here is what it looks like now.

I have a bit of paint remorse about this. Turquoise is my favorite color--but I wouldn't choose that particular shade for my front door. I was hoping for a cobalt or sapphire blue. As you can see, the brick is orange-ish, so blue would be a great complementary color. Well, my paint choice turned out to be a bit too electric. There are times of the day that the color looks nice, but most of the day, it looks really bright.

I haven't had a chance to pick up any paint samples (since I want to do it right this time), much less a nice day to paint when I won't mind keeping my door open for a while for paint to dry. Add in two kids and a vacation and I haven't gotten there yet.

Well, much to my surprise, I received a cryptic note in my mailbox when we returned from our vacation...it reads as such:

"Dear Neighbor,

I was hoping to catch you outside to talk to you in person but have not had any luck. I am your neighbor at **** (the one with the original blue door). I painted my door that unique blue in hopes of differentiating our identical houses 3 doors apart. I have even been giving directions to my house by way of saying I am the only one with a bright blue door. Needless to say, once you painted yours the same color, I was disappointed to realize we look even more alike than ever. Obviously, in a community like this where the houses are so similar--it is hard to be somewhat 'original.' I know this may seem trivial however it has been on my mind. Now that I have brought this to your attention I am hoping that you might consider changing the color of your door so we can both stand out. Enjoy your holiday weekend and thanks for your consideration.

--Kara"

(Please note that I typed an exact copy, so I included all of her grammatical errors.)

Um, WOW?? I will agree that it is a similar paint color, but that was not my intention at all. I really resent the implication that I am copying her. I bought my paint in March or April....and then waited for a day that I had free to paint. (Plus, it rained virtually all of April and May) Well, about a week after I bought my paint, I noticed that their door had been painted as well.

I was not about to waste my perfectly good quart of paint until I saw how it looked on my door. I am considering a different paint, but now I really want to ask her to paint it for me if she is so bothered by my door!

Well, not really, but I'm feeling a bit tetchy about this. As my husband said, "Doesn't everyone have the right to paint their door whatever color they want?" : ) I guess I need to talk to her. Maybe I should take my kids with me so she can see that my painting time is limited...; )

Sigh.

Compost update

I've been working on my compost in the last several weeks. I had to run inside to get my camera the other day and snap a picture of it. It seems to be working! To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about doing the compost. What if I didn't have the right mix of browns and greens? What if it attraced animals? What if it started to smell?

Well, I am having none of those problems! AND.....the inside of the pile is starting to look like real compost. I'll be darned.

See the darker brown stuff in the middle? That's the "black gold." I guess if you were nursing, also, you'd have black AND liquid gold. ; )

The most I've noticed are some flies, so I guess those are okay. I would guess there are some worms in there, since the pile rests right on the ground. Pictured is my little rake, which is not strong enough to turn the whole pile. So, I get the bigger metal rake...but I think I need to invest in a big fork to turn the pile.

I also have to remind myself to water it occasionally....who would think you'd have to water it? ; )

I think I need to create a new label for composting posts.....like "sexiest posts."

Metallica

You may remember--if you read my blog--that I recently had a rash of spray painting going on. I just can't get enough.

I spray painted an old frame of my grandmothers that has beautiful moulding, but was a little chipped and needed an update. My mom is great about this....when she passes a family item on, I ask her if she cares if I paint it. She always says she'd rather I paint it and display it, than to keep it as is and store it somewhere because it doesn't work in my house.

And, when I posted about this frame last time, one commenter wanted to see the pics that were in it (totally 70s). Here is an example....

Different frame, but in this style....of me and my sister. This particular portrait is my sis. Sorry, Leah....: )

Frame before painting:

Frame after painting:

So, I decided I was going to put some grey fabric in the frame. First, I had to repair the cardboard backing. It was torn, since my mom took some of the portraits out before she passed it on to me. I used some clear packing tape on the back.

Then, I spray painted it with my metallic paint so the cardboard color wouldn't show through the fabric.

Put in the frame, it looked like this. I was hoping the big tear was not going to be noticeable.

Here is the fabric I chose. I loved it as soon as I saw it! Itwas $9 for half a yard.

I put the fabric in, pulled it taut and then added the glazier's points around the edges.

Then, I cut off the excess fabric.

And the finished product?

I like the texture that the fabric adds. Plus, the colors of the frame and fabric pick up the grey color below the chair rail in this room. I'm not sure on the grey vase to the right....maybe a little too modern? It came from IKEA and I'm considering returning it. The urns on the left were spray painted also and have a bit of a textured flowery pattern to them.

Many changes still coming to this room!

Making the cut

In the last few years, as my hobby of gardening has grown, so has my affection for cut flowers. Each year, I seem to cut more of my plants to display inside our house and I seem to plant more things that I can cut!

I'm not too keen on buying cut flowers, although occasionally I will. There is a great vendor at the local farmers' market that sells beautiful cut flowers--and they sell organic bread and produce, too! The cut flowers don't seem to last too long for the money, though.....so, it does give me great pleasure to head outside with my snips and find something to fill a little jar or vase. I have two sets for cutting. The blue set has a little guard over the blade and a spot on the handle that you can use to strip leaves off the stems. That set hangs in my garage by the man-door. The smaller set stays in my drawer in the kitchen. They are handy for trimming stems for the days after you have put your flowers in water.

Here are some shots of some of my cut flowers from the last several weeks.

On this tray, I grouped some glass vases and filled with some Knockout roses, catmint and sage. Although I use my herbs for culinary purposes, I also really like to cut them. They provide some nice texture and also the smell is lovely!

I cut these allium bulbs and put them in small glass pitcher. They are on our bookshelves in the living room.

I have a trio of bud vases on my mantel. During the growing season, I put anything and everything in those. During the winter, I usually put some seed heads from ornamental grass. Here is a shot of oregano that has been cut and put in the little vases.

Here is a pic of the same vases with coneflower:

My favorite picture is this one:

I recently bought those little vases at IKEA....I like their modern look. The flowers are snapdragons. I have a few tall varieties planted that are perfect for cutting. Also, they are cold hardy, so last fall, my snaps bloomed all the way through October and threw down some seeds so I could have some free plants this year. ; )

Just a little bit of green and color around the house brightens it up so much.