Summering up the deck

I love summer!  I love to look out on the deck and see flowers and sea shells and lights after dark…

I painted my vintage metal glider again this year…last time I painted the glider was here.

I finally moved my umbrella outside…the living room looks a lot bigger now!

I planted a very few pots, will do more later after my finger heals up a bit (I had a cyst removed from my index finger).

I dug out my outdoor pillows…they look so great with the new glider color!

Nice place to sit and read the Sunday paper!

I drug out my sea shells…who says you can’t hear the ocean in Missouri?

I hung up my new paper lanterns (battery operated from Pier 1) which I bought with a gift card from a coworker for Nurses Week. 

Then I strung lights under the railing of my deck…I have no outside lights on that end of the house, so I strung three sets of 100 light strands around the deck (cost me 3 x .39—I bought these last year after Christmas).  Makes it cozy out there and also helps me see! 

All my pitiful house plants have been repotted. 

Hanging pots have been added.  I feel like I got quite a steal on these babies this year, I had some Add Sheet coupons (like Groupons) and hanging pots usually are $24 each and I got 4 of them for $56 each ($30 I had already paid when I got the coupons) and also got 5 four packs of bedding plants.

This one is black eyed Susan vine…

I couldn’t resist this old fashioned purple petunia.

The fourth hanging plant is under the umbrella…

I am linking to these great parties!

Tiered Serving Tray and Martha Stewart Metallic Glaze

I found this at Home Depot this past week, I like that it is in a small jar with a screw on lid…there were also lots of colors, along the same line there were special finishes like crackle and several others. 

I had a few projects in mind when I bought the glaze…

My mom gave me this metal tired tray for my birthday…I couldn’t decide what color to paint it…I am not a big fan of green but I really liked this springy green color (and the paint was on clearance too, that helped!).

The glaze worked great in the details of the handle and the edges of the trays. 

Here is the before picture!  Big difference, huh?

I also used the glaze on this coral frame.  I am working on a wall of letters in my room, I think I will use this frame there. 

I am linking to these great parties!

Tagxedo word clouds (or hearts or birds or pigs)

Jill from Creating My Way to Success wrote a post about Tagxedo…I had never heard of it before, so I headed on over and checked it out!

I just entered my blog url and the site did the rest!

There are about a zillion color combos and shape choices…

And you can changed the look with a different font…

You can also type in your own words…what a great party invitation idea!

I saw, I pinned, I made!

I saw this on Pinterest and just had to pin it!  I needed a little something for a gift, so I thought I would give the pattern a shot. 

The pattern is adapted from an 1893 circle motif pattern.  Very simple!  I did make some adjustments to the pattern of course…the middle one is exactly the same as the directions. 

On the littlest one I only did three rows, on the largest one I added a row to the pattern.

The yarn I used was Cream and Sugar cotton yarn….it is actually a pretty purple color. Not sure what was going on with the camera and/or lighting, but they are definitely not blue!

Another successful Pinterest project!!

I am linking to these great parties!

Can’t wait to get my hands in the dirt!

This weekend I got the deck water proofed…doesn’t sound like much but it’s very time consuming.  I was hoping it wouldn’t rain overnight, but the rain just started.  Hopefully the stuff will be OK.  I didn’t use a stain, just a water proofer, so maybe…

What I really want to do though is to dig in the dirt, to pot flowers and plant.  I had to make myself do the deck first…then I get to dig and pot!  I did settle for planting these moonflowers that I started a month or so ago.

I love late spring and early summer…

Looks like my hydrangea is going to bloom soon!  It got a bad frost bit earlier so I was worried about it being ok. 

The peonies are pretty this year…

Funny story about this iris…a friend gave it to me years ago for my water garden.  Last winter I took it out of the water garden, thinking that I wasn’t going to do the water garden this year.  So I was going to plant it in the ground somewhere…but never got around to doing that.

It was a mild winter, but this plant sat out of the water on the edge of the concrete drive for months.  It was in a plastic pot, but that’s all the protection it had.  I noticed a green shoot a few weeks ago, decided to keep the water garden this summer, and I fertilized it and stuck it back in the water.  Ta da!!  It is blooming happily away, and this year is the best it has ever looked.  Maybe I will expose it to the elements like this every winter!

I have two new clumps of daisies in the yard this year too!  I love me a good old fashioned daisy.

I hope you are having a great spring!

 

I pinned it and made it…

I pinned this ombre crochet basket last week and yesterday I whipped up a basket using that pattern…clearly didn’t use the ombre idea, but I wanted to make one with the yarn I had on hand. 

Of course I tweaked it a bit…I used 3 strands of yarn instead of the 4 that it called for.  I just happened to have 3 coordinating yarns that I wanted to use. 

I love the bottom of the basket…it has a row at the bottom that really makes the start of the side very clear.  Hard to explain, but it looks great and the basket sits perfectly on the bottom.  Perfect for holding yarn or fat quarters or seashells!

I am linking to these great parties!

Seashell Decorative Picks

This is such an easy project with a lot of possibilities.  I love seashells, so I have a stash of them…actually I have several stashes of them!

I picked out some shells that were pretty…

Disregard the pincushion here…not sure why it is on the coffee table, but hey I also have a deck umbrella open in my living room today, so anything could happen!

I used bamboo skewers as the base of the pick.  Just put the non sharp end into or against the seashell and hot glue it in place. 

And you are done!! 

The ends can be trimmed to the length you need. 

I love the way they look here in my ficus…

The starfish looks great on a pick.

If you decide you need the seashell for something else it can just be pulled off the glue and it is as good as new!

I stuck a few seashell picks in my wall vase that my sister Sarah made for my birthday package.  I love that vase…cute little jelly jar! 

She used a star (I think it looks like a starfish) knob at the bottom, so I thought the starfish pick looked great there.  The bouquet of wool ball flowers is really cute (Sarah made those also). 

I am linking to these great parties!