Some flower garden rearranging

I tend to use perennials in my deck containers, so that I can plant them in the ground in the fall and get more bang for my buck at the garden center!  This is what the stump pot looked like a few months ago…

This stump usually has a big pot of plants on it all summer long.  But truthfully it’s a haul from the deck to water and my hose doesn’t quite reach.  So, my pug willing, I planted all around it with perennials that hopefully will make it a low care flower bed.

I get a lot of my plants at Lowes…I do not buy them full price, I wait for them to clearance them.  I found this peach day lily for $1.  It has already bloomed this year, but the regular price was $15.97, since it was a giant pot. 

This guy it my supervisor.  He tells me what looks good where…

Here he’s telling me to trim the willow tree that hangs down over the stump.  I declined, he walked away!

I planted the whole pot of flowers that was on top of the stump around the stump.  I just pulled it out of the pot and dug a hole and dropped it in the ground.  It has two purple fountain grass, a bunch of creeping jenny and some dianthus, so all that will be back next spring!  The purple fountain grass was $1 each for a medium pot, on clearance at Lowes and the creeping jenny was reduced too.  Patience is the key to great buys at Lowes in the plant category.

Since someone I know likes to dig in the dirt, (who shall of course remain anonymous) I put all sorts of rocks and seashells on top of the good digging areas.  If an archeologist ever excavates my little chunk of land they will have to assume this was an ocean.  I have tons of seashells all over the place!  And someone (who shall of course remain anonymous) carries smaller seashells around in his mouth and scatters them all over the yard.

Now back to some tips for plant hunting at Lowes…you need to go routinely to get the good plants.  I go during lunch several times a week during peak season.  There are two things to know…they keep a clearance rack in both the inside plant area, so it is there year round inside.  And they keep a rack, usually at the back of the garden plant area outside.  I believe neither one is watered after the plants are placed on those racks.  I have seen some pretty dry sad plants there, ones that have been wasted, guess it makes good business sense to not spend man hours on things that don’t bring much profit anymore.

I added a few of my cement garden balls to the stump to keep any pug sitting at bay.  You can go here to see how I made them.  So go check out Lowes and see if you can find any cheap plants to plant for the rest of the summer and for next spring too!

After a week or so the creeping jenny has started to take over the stump! 

I might be linking up at these great parties!

The guest bedroom is now open for business!

I have a guest bedroom now!  I got to make over my son’s bedroom since he moved into his own apartment. He is a sophomore now and lives close so I still get to see him.  The room was a bit of a disaster, I deep cleaned and shampooed the carpet and touched up the paint and spackled, and well you get the idea!

I’ve always loved the morning sun this room gets…

This little desk was mine as a child…built by my grandfather in 1965.  I think all five of us girls got one like this and the boys got a more business like desk.  The original stool is long gone but I found this little vanity stool at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $1.  I recovered it with some chevron fabric and it was ready to use. I am still looking for the perfect lamp here.

I moved a little bookcase into the corner of the room and added some bright colors in a beachy/ocean theme.

The ombre basket that I painted goes well here!

So does the dictionary page saying in a thrifted frame…

The walls in this room are grey, I didn’t care for it at first, but it goes great with the blue, yellow, cream and red that I used. I bought very little for this room makeover, much of it I had accumulated over time.

I did make the headboard for the bed.  And the quilt on the bottom of the bed.

And these two quilts which I tucked into a thrift store painted basket.

I love this coat rack; I made it from hardware store faucets and actually cost very little.

The little red glass lamp came out of my closet and the embroidery hoops were collected and I used scraps to put in them.  I made the dust ruffle from a thrifted fitted mattress pad and some muslin that was 70% off at JoAnns.

Mom got me the beach sign for my birthday and you can see how I made the wreath here.

You can see the little pine chest here…it is called a “shoe chest” in my family.  Again, my grandfather made it in 1965 and I think all of us had one at one time.  The square pouf I got at Target for $11 (Wal-Mart had them for $20 even)!  It was on clearance and recovering it is on my to do list.

I might be linking to these great parties!  Thanks for stopping by!

I made a headboard for $4.70!!

Yup, true story!  $4.70!  I got all my supplies at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, that’s a mere 10 cents a foot for the wood.  And did I mention I built it myself???  No, I am not proud, why do you ask?

I wanted it to look a tad shabby, not perfect.  And I love how it turned out!  I used a homemade chalk paint, using a mixture of two paint colors, both Valspar free samples from Lowes. I mixed 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of powdered grout, and then added it to 1 cup of paint.

I found the bed frame and the mattresses on FreeCycle and guess what-- it was free! I never thought I would get a used mattress from someone I didn’t know but let me tell you, when this owner told me she had shampooed the mattress and it had dried outside in the sun for two days, I decided it was a safe bet. The owner told me she got new bedroom furniture and she had decided to buy a new mattress set with the new furniture.  I did check it out really well, and covered it with a zip mattress protector.  Even the bed frame was in perfect shape.

It took me all afternoon to design the layout and cut the pieces and put it all together. 

I don’t usually do such big projects so I had to pull out the sawhorses.

I thought about leaving it like this but decided I wanted it all the same color.  Although I do like the white posts and top. I sealed it with Kilz as I was not sure what the spots on the wood were.  I didn’t want the stains to bleed through when I was done with it!

After the chalk paint, I used a sealing wax and it has a soft luster to it!

I am very very proud of this project and also how much money I spent on it!  Gotta love a great DIY project!

I will be linking to these great parties!

Epic Fail…Mosaic Bird Bath

I make things that don’t go well all the time.  Usually they are little projects, but this one is really a good one.  And I have been working on it for months!

This is a bird bath, all concrete, weighing approximately 4000 pounds. I bought it for $10 at an auction.

It was a standard garden variety (pun intended) concrete bird bath with chippy white paint and some old mosaic squares falling off the bowl.

I scraped off all those mosaic tiles and all the loose paint, then used two colors spray paint and randomly painted the inside of the bowl.

I added some flat marbles to the center and then just started doing circles around the center area in a pattern of sorts.  I was determined I would only use marbles I had on hand but ended up buying one package of shades of blue marbles.

And the bonus is that I used up a big Ziploc bag full of marbles.

I used E6000 to attach the marbles. 

E6000 is a really strong glue that will hold almost anything…

Here’s the nearly finished product…

I thought about grouting the bowl, but decided to try my hand at a resin to keep it waterproof and to help it survive the winter freezes.

It was going to be wonderful…but when the resin was poured on, it hardened almost immediately.  So, I was left with this…

I guess I should have skipped the resin…bummer!

The resin is no longer clear because the bubbles and ridges let water underneath…Anyone have any ideas on how to make this better?  I am thinking a chisel and hours of work or offering it free on Craigslist!

I may be linking to these great parties!