tour of my garden

I've decided to snap some photos of my garden for you.  Now, don't think that I'm an expert. I really feel like I'm just playing house in my garden. It's all trial and error where the worst thing is for me to not try. I have a raised garden bed that I built by myself and for myself last Spring. This Spring we painted it pink. Because we could. And I like pink. 

Josh tilled up a section of our yard for me to have more garden space. {There is never enough!} Unfortunately, our soil isn't that great because our home is new construction. So our soil is compacted clay with no nutrients. But, no worries! I add our kitchen waste/compost right into our garden to add more nutrients to the soil and hopefully by next year the soil will be better. OR maybe I'll just build more raised garden beds right where the tilled garden is. I'm so spontaneous that I'm never really sure until I'm actually planting or building. 

Ready for a load of pictures...?

Our Romaine lettuce grew SO well! 

Our Danver's Half Long carrots seemed to do alright but I think I will try a different brand next time I buy seeds. 

These pea seeds went into the raised garden bed right where we took out the lettuce. Also, I added the last of the Danver's Half Long carrot seeds in a row just to the right of these peas.

These are our green beans and tomatoes. This Spring TONS of cherry tomato plants grew from tomatoes left in the garden over winter. It was pretty amazing but I didn't thin them out. I should have though because they ended up being so leggy {tall and skinny}. With the leggy tomato plants to support and not wanting to spend extra money at the store, I found some tall sticks in the woods and staked the plants to them. And it works great!

One of our yummy green beans growing.

tomatoes waiting to ripen

the tilled garden with horrible soil

{see that ONE corn stalk that is 4 times smaller than it should be}

But the tomatoes from the tilled garden seem to be doing alright. {I have been putting the compost in the tomato section of the garden so far.}

One of the gorgeous lilies my Mother gave us when we moved into our house.

And I haven't mentioned one of the best parts about my garden... my helpers. I love how they eagerly water, pull weeds, dig, etc. 

These are Mammoth Russian Sunflowers. I've never grown them before. I'm hoping that they are the ones that are taller than me. 

This Spring I transplanted our thornless blackberries {another gift from my mother} from the area where our tilled garden currently is to here. Then I bought some metal stakes and chicken wire for the blackberries to grow up. This year we have a total of 11 blackberries growing. Yup. 11.

The blueberry bushes are producing very well. 

The herb garden with it's massive rosemary bush.

Pretty geraniums

We also have some butterfly bushes. 

How's your garden this year? Is it like mine and still trying to take shape and ever changing? 

Our Valentine's

This is the valentine that Todd took to school. We found it on Pinterest here.

And Kate's valentine from Pinterest here.

The night before Valentine's Day I stayed up late cutting out tons of construction paper hearts in which to decorate our home.

There were hearts going up and down the staircase.

And a color spectrum of hearts above our t.v. on the mantle.

Hearts showing our love for our family wall. And many others. I heart attacked the children doors with ones that said, "I love you!" "You're my superhero!" "You are my beautiful princesses!" and so on. There was a heart on most doors throughout the house, too. The children really enjoyed waking up to a heart wonderland. :)

Joy's tea towel

I have a sister-in-law who collects items that say Joy. It's difficult for her to find Joy things that are not Christmas-y, though. 

So, I decided to embroider a non-Christmas-y Joy tea towel. Enough -'s, yet???

Mollie, from Wild Olive, has such great patterns. I really like her style.

To make this particular design I combined elements from two totally different projects, but it works great and you would never know it if I hadn't just told you.

painted wallpaper

Because I can. And because there are so many other things that I need to be doing.

I found a stag template on this post. I printed it on card stock and used my x-acto knife to cut out the shape. After doing a few though, the wet paint warps the paper. 

So, in the morning, I'm off to find plastic to make my own stencil that won't warp. 

By the way, I'm doing this in my downstair's half bath. And I'm loving it. It's so much fun.

Large Dreamcatcher Tutorial

I wanted to make an extra large dream catcher and so I started out with the inside circle of a large embroidery hoop.

and some basic twine from any home improvement store.

Then wrap the embroidery hoop with twine, hot glueing along the way to keep the twine tight. 

Be forewarned, it takes quite awhile to get all the way around the hoop.

Also, try to make sure that you'll have enough twine of the same brand to wrap the whole way around the hoop or you might have to deal with different shades of the twine.

Like me:

Then take the twine and tie it at random intervals around the hoop and then keep going around in levels, continuing tying the twine until you get to the center. Tie your final knot and cut the twine.

I ended up with a nice star design.

I think the tiny star in the center is particularly fun.

Don't forget to loop your twine at whatever spot you want to have as the top of your dream catcher. I secured it by hot glueing the twine around the hoop, then making a loop, hot glueing that, and then hot glueing the twine around the hoop once more.

Then comes the fun part.

Embellishment. 

I added 3 lengths of twine on the bottom of the dreamcatcher. On the bottom of the twine, I added a couple of beads and then some large black feathers for character.

I added a few more feathers to the dream catcher and even hot glued a tiny dream catcher in the center that we picked up at the South Carolina State Fair two years ago.

Pretty much, add whatever suits your fancy.

Then hang it up on your wall and step back and admire your work! 

I just really like how it looks in the dude's room.

more painting

Recently I painted the hallway upstairs. It had a builder's flat white paint on it before. You know, the kind where it's touched once and then there's a nasty smudge on the wall.

Here is a good view of some of the doors that I painted black. I really like the black doors. Guess which one is the girl's room?

We painted the upstairs hallway and the stairwell the same color since the color flowed better that way. 

This is all of the art from my stairwell. It's quite a lot. Most are thrift store/flea market pieces not more than $8 each and generally cheaper than that. I, also, have other pieces that were either painted by my Grandpa, cross stitched by my Mom, embroidered by a friend, or something special. 

It was quite nerve wracking painting up SO high. I'm glad that I don't have to do it again. We purposefully picked a classic neutral but modern color so that we won't ever have to do it again.

It was so nice to put the art back up. I have the put up in a way that it wraps around and up the stairwell with you as you walk up it.

thrifted

I picked up this twin bedspread for 3 dollars at a rummage sale. It is satin and embroidered. The detail in the embroidery is amazing. 

This is perfect for Kate's bed. It's so pretty! She insists on sleeping on the "special pillows" most nights. 

This was such a fantastic find! The detail, the color, the texture. I'm so delighted to have it here and to be able to have Kate have such a delicate bedspread and for her to appreciate it in her own way.

starry sky

It took me a bit to post about these stars because I kept trying to figure out how to take a good picture of the ceiling. Then, I decided that there was no way to take a good picture of the ceiling. So, I just went with the best picture I could get.

You can't see it very well in this picture but the stars are a pretty shiny gold vinyl. My friend, Amy, cute them out for me. Thanks Amy!

The stars are randomly placed about the ceiling. I love how they look, but most importantly, the girls love them.