Grandma's Sewing Basket Planter

One of the treasures Julie gifted me with as she cleaned and moved was this wicker sewing basket that once belonged to her grandmother. As you can see, the lid is ripped and beyond repair, but I like the way it looks like a window curtain blowing in a warm breeze. Found a plastic tub the perfect size to fit into the basket portion and planted it with $1 annuals. It's now put to good use; I think grandma would approve.

Glorious 4th (and the 4 days that I have off!)

It felt super wonderful and oh so not like me to sleep in this morning. When I awoke at 9:00 I enjoyed Gideon's morning nuzzles and kisses, welcomed Harleigh in to snuggle and chat, and didn't feel one bit guilty that I'd "lost" a good 3 hours of morning productivity.

Once up I ran some errands, went thrifting, and met Harleigh for lunch. Afterwards I got fabric to make my ken curtains. Lavender gingham. Doesn't go with a thing in my kitchen or ken, but as of late I've been super inspired by decorating that goes out on a limb with colors and gives off a homey, English-countryside, thrown-together kind of feel. And if lavender gingham makes me feel happy, then that's what my kitchen curtains are gonna be made out of. Pix to come.

Here is a rusty orange watering can that I found this morning on my thrifting rounds. With flowers it makes a pretty statement in the soon-to-be-infused-with-color ken.

Old Chair Plant Stand

Until I can plant real ones . . .

. . . these silk flowers will have to do. The empty bike basket was just adding to the overall gray and gloom of the barren landscape. It might be borderline tacky to have silk flowers as part of my outdoor "garden," but it makes me think of around-the-corner Springtime and the celebration of Easter every time I pull into my driveway and see the blue bike leaning against the tree.

Katy Teapot Vase

Katy from work found this ceramic teapot in a thrift store and thought of me. She gave it to me this month to thank me for all I do at work around the holidays. A sweet gesture. One of my weekly treks to Kroger to visit their deeply discounted flower bins and the teapot makes for a great vase!

Glamorous

Courtney at work got me this perfume bottle for Christmas. She thought it suited me because it's glamorous. Courtney is one of those friends who inhabits that wonderful friendship place where we can be and do anything we want. We love each other's company and laugh, sing and dance our way through the workday. Can't ask for a better co-worker than that. Besides . . . she thinks I'm glamorous.

Here is the bottle, placed on a tin tray, a vintage ribbon tied at its throat, and showcasing a bright pink rose. Looking lovely. I like separating the stopper from the bottle so you can see the glass rod that gets dabbed glamorously on neck and wrists with the finest of fragrance. So elegant.

Warming up the cold outside with a bit of Christmas cheer!

My garden bike is now in full Christmas regalia. Everything is from the Dollar Store (I must sound like a broken record with all the stuff I get from there!). I stuck in a pick of greens. The candy cane ornaments are hot-glued to wooden skewers so that they can be pushed down into the dirt in the basket. The "gift" is a piece of floral foam wrapped in a white trash bag (and secured with T pins). Using floral foam allowed me to stick a wooden skewer into it, anchoring it, also, into the dirt.


And this basket on my back yard gate couldn't go undecorated!

The Unboundary Feast

The design firm where I work holds an annual Thanksgiving Feast the week before Thanksgiving. It has become one of the most beloved company events that we do. And I have the honor of organizing it every year (two things that I love: organizing and entertaining!). The shindig is pretty much a cookie cutter event, duplicating things we have done successfully over the past 7+ years that we've been having The Feast.

It's a pot luck meal, with employees covering all the standard Thanksgiving fare. And the company buys the ham and turkey. We have favorites that make their appearance year after year, and as new employees join our ranks, new dishes are introduced and added to the annual list of must-haves. In addition to the table as a place to congregate, we've also made a fake fireplace out of foamcore — complete with light-bulb-lit fireplace logs — surrounded by our big leather club chairs. I bring in granny square and colorful ripple afghans from home to throw over the chairs, adding a warm, homey feel to our office space.

My favorite part of the whole thing is that I get to design the table decor. We rent long banquet tables. We have an abundance of these white chairs from Ikea. Our office space is spectacular (a converted train roundhouse) and its sheer size lends itself to doing a long family table. The tablecloths are painter drop cloths which we purchased, cut and sewed to size (same drop cloths I used to make my bedroom curtains). In the past I've done tablescapes using fall themes, but this year I was feeling a connection to home and family. I decided to put to use my own collection of vintage floral tins and go with flowers in all white. Courtney Garvin, one of our designers, has a green thumb, a natural talent for floral design, and access to a wholesale florist. She handles all floral arranging at every Feast. (And as you can see in the one picture, she has also, as of late, been hooked on the PBS series Windsor Castle, where the staff measures the space between table and chair so that everything lines up perfectly.) We usually get a turkey breast, but this year we went with a 20-pound turkey (and you can see we even made the leg frills!) . . . another nod to making the event feel more homey and family.

The tins evoke a sense of going to grandma's. There were lots of comments like "oh I like this one best," that made me think of going to my own Nana's, and my sister and I fighting over which juice glass we'd get or which washcloth was ours for bathtime. The colors of the tins work so beautifully with the white flowers. A very serene feel, perfect for a relaxing meal filled with an overabundance of good food, good company and good conversation. We are blessed.






[Photos courtesy of co-worker and photographer extraordinaire David Naugle]

Amaryllis

Look at this lovely amaryllis that Courtney's sister gave me for making the Princess Kitty costume! The light here in my office is perfect for growing bulbs like this. I can't wait for it to bloom.

Mandevilla at the Mailbox

I've tried several types of plants at the mailbox, always with the intent to add color and a cottagey feel to an otherwise bland post and box. It doesn't help that the sun beats down upon it (evidenced by my dud of a lawn, courtesy of this year's drought).

Here's the mandevilla I planted this afternoon. I think it should climb nicely, and the flowers sure are pretty.

Fall Images

This velvety mushroom appears to be a Phaeolus Schweinitzii. I googled images of it and this specimen in my backyard is hands-down the prettiest of anything I found online. Here is some info about it. I think in its setting next to an old stump and amidst a bed of pine needles, it must be a place where fairies come to take shelter from the rain. See the picture below of its use as a dye for yarns.

Scientific name: Phaeolus schweinitzii (Fr.) Pat.
Derivation of name: Phaeolus means "dark" or "obscure"; schweinitzii means it was named for L.D. von Schweinitz, American mycologist (1780-1834).
Common names: Dye polypore.
Occurrence on wood substrate: Parasitic and saprobic; solitary or in overlapping clusters or rosettes on buried roots and at the base of living conifers, sometimes on dead stumps; rarely reported on deciduous trees; June through November.
Dimensions: Individual caps 4-25 cm wide; clusters up to 60cm (or more); stalks (when present) 1-6 cm long and 1-4 cm thick, branched or unbranched, central or eccentric, sometimes rooting.
Upper surface: Densely matted or wooly, less so with age; ochre to orange or reddish-brown with yellow margin when young, rusty-brown to dark brown in age; somewhat zonate.
Pore surface: Greenish-yellow to yellow or orange when young, bruising brownish, yellowish-brown to dark reddish or rusty-brown in age; pores 0.5-3 per mm.
Edibility: Inedible.
Comments: The Dye polypore is used to prepare dyes for fabrics (Figure 7). This polypore encompasses twigs, needles, and grass as it develops. Check with Bessette or Roody to compare with similar Inonotus tomentosus which is smaller and thinner, does not have the greenish-yellow pore surface, and does not grow in overlapping rosettes. Phaeolus schweinitzii is a significant parasite, often killing the host tree as a result of the root and butt rot it causes.
And here is a gourd I bought at Ingles to bring into work, where everyone this year is obsessed with gourds! Even my sister up in Maryland is goin' gaga for gourds. Must be the year of the gourd. Here is some info about this type of gourd. Some find it rather repulsive; I, on the other hand, think its color is lovely, and I find that the peanut-like warts give it a personality of its own (in a freakish kinda way).



(Yarn image pulled from a webpage by Gary Emberger, Messiah College. The wool color sample was provided by Gail Blakely.)

The Bike Dressed for Fall

One of the great things about the old bike I painted and made a garden ornament is that I can dress it up for the seasons and holidays. I spent $4 at the Dollar Store and got this crow and three pumpkins. I skewered the pumpkins with wooden shish kabob sticks so that they would fit down into the dirt of the basket and stay anchored.

The Slow Goodbye to Summer

I am beginning to feel Fall in the air. Saying goodbye to summer is bitter sweet. Pumpkins, changing leaves, crisp evenings to sit outside stoking the chiminea fire, the upcoming holidays . . . wonderful arms to rush into after leaving summer behind. But we say goodbye to things we love . . . lightening bugs, flowers in the garden, seashells and white sand, patriotic holidays that bring us parades and festivals. Here are some pix at my kitchen windowsill, some flowers making their last appearance of the season.

Air Plants

Last Christmas a co-worker bought me a lovely hanging glass vase. I had been poking around blogland, having just started my own blog, and saw a post where someone had used an air plant in a similar glass vase. Well, try finding an air plant anywhere else but Florida. I've been searching since December of last year to no avail. So I turned to the internet and ordered a variety assortment of air plants from Black Jungle. The box arrived a couple of days ago and how pretty they are!

A few others at the office were gifted with the vase, so I thought by buying a variety pack, I could give everyone a plant for their own vases. I've hung mine at the kitchen window using fishing line.

First Bloomed Bulb of the Summer

This year I planted gladiola bulbs I got from the dollar store. They're doing well. This is one of the first to bloom and I put it in this wall vase that was a gift from my sister. The vase is a test tube mounted into a metal buckle (?) with a piece of vintage molding as the base. I covered the nail up with a piece of antique blue ribbon.

Bike Envy

On my last visit up to Baltimore to visit my sister, I was smitten with a rusty vintage bike she has in her garden. With a metal bike basket on the front spilling over with flowers, it was too adorable. I've seen old bikes used like this before, and looking at this one every day for a week from the screened in porch was just too much. I had to have one. I've been looking for one for probably two years now and to no avail.

But this past week when we cleaned out the garage, I decided that my old bike (in the yard sale pile now to go to Goodwill) would work just fine with a little work. It's not as rusty and vintage-y as hers, but with time, it's sure to get that nice garden patina. I cleaned it good and spray painted it blue. The handlebars were covered with black foam padding and that was easily cut off. Then I added on a basket. Lined the basket with plastic and filled it with a perennial and annuals. Then secured it to the tree with wire and a bent nail. I think it looks rather pretty. Here are the before and after pix.

Nana's Tole Watering Can

A treasured keepsake from my Nana . . . her watering can. First of all I love that it's tole. I also love the super skinny spout; it just makes watering all that much more feminine and gentle. And I love that I remember plants she had, what they were in, where they were in the house.

My Shasta Daisies . . . first of the Summer!

The Nest

. . . and then I came home from the car dealership, four hours later than I had planned, and with yard work out the whowho to accomplish. One year for my birthday my dad got me one of those limb cutters. It is, without a doubt, one of the most fun yard implements out there. I go crazy twice a year, cutting down branches. The thing extends to like 30 feet, and the satisfaction I get from clearing large patches of my yard for the sun to kiss is cleansing and empowering. In the 90 degree heat I was sweating like crazy and cutting like a mad woman! Got it done before the skies opened and we had a thunder- and lightening-filled rain storm afternoon.

Here is a nest I found, one of four actually. But this one was in a branch that had to come down. I love that the mama or papa bird built this nest using a bit of found string. Did it come from my yard or did he/she carry it for a ways before coming back to Chateau Gahan to birth the babies?

Wet Screens and Window Boxes

When I moved into my house I was delighted that I had a window over my sink. I look out onto my neighbor's driveway, mostly camouflaged by crepe myrtles and a few unidentified bushes. There's my beautiful Japanese cherry, which blooms in the Spring and creates the best picture out of my window EVER. But the best part of having a window over the sink is being able to have a window box. My parents bought me one for my birthday and I have loved it. My sink sprayer goes unused except to do what it does perfectly, and that's to water — right from my place at the sink, through the screen. A daily morning ritual that trumps that first cup of coffee. I especially like the light playing off of the water on the screen, filling in random squares, almost like playing Lite-Brite, counted cross stitch or paint-by-number with water.