The Green Grass of Home

We have a yard and "areas".  A few yards really, and we refer to all the areas around here in various ways so we know just the spot we are talking about.

There is the back yard, the bottom back yard, the front side yard, the front yard, the yard on the side, the far yard, the down the driveway yard, the back shed, over by the basketball court area, the big field on the hill, the dry marsh, the woods, over by the chickens, the garden, and the back field.  I can use these terms and usually direct Brawn to a specific area for whatever the need is.  The kids I might have to draw a map and physically take them to where I'm talking about if it involves working.

Little Shed

In the backyard we have this little shed, not to be confused with the big shed in the back or the potting shed in the front side yard.  In the little shed we park the lawnmowers, bikes and sand toys over winter.  Next to it are a couple birdhouses on some old deck posts that are inhabited every year.  Everything is due for a painting, and I will probably just use something I already have.

I would love to turn my little shed into something like this.........

(source)

Or this one over at Thistlewood Farm that Kari calls her Art House....

I would love an art shed.

The hostas next to the back yard shed got off to an early growing season.  I hadn't even got rid of last years long dead parts before the hostas were huge.

Also in the back yard is a patio and pond area where the hostas thrive.  Some of them were scheduled to be removed before they got too big.  Hmmmm, I think we missed the timing on that.

A few years ago I was sitting on the patio looking around and I wondered what I could do to hide the big 'ol ugly air conditioning unit.  We had a pile of old deck posts, so Brawn whipped me up a form with two panels and I smashed some china and stained glass along with some mirror and made a big mosaic to hide it.

In the front side yard we have what used to be a play house.  Five years ago I turned it into a potting shed, but there is no longer anything that resembles potting or garden supplies inside.  Brawn has taken it over for work supplies.  I am serving an eviction notice to his supplies.  On my to-do list is turn it back into a playhouse for The Grands.

                     

 What you can't see hanging on the left side is a potting ledge where I inconveniently pot plants.  Most of my plants in pots are in the back yard, the potting shed is in the front side yard.  Also on the to-do list is make a potting bench that I can keep on the back deck.

This old tiki torch oil lamp is by the pool in the back yard just waiting to light up some fun summer nights.

In the front yard is this area between the two entries to the house.  The tree is a dwarf Japanese Maple and the long tall spikey things will soon be sporting beautiful stargazer lilies.  I bought 6 bulbs for .99¢ a few years ago and needed a place to plant them.  I stuck them in the ground here and this is where they stayed.  There used to be a beautiful birch tree in this spot but it got too big for the area.

 My front porch flowers were just planted and consist of ferns, marigolds and impatiens.  The pots were in need of paint.  They used to be pale yellow.  Gwen at The Bold Abode painted some pots which gave me the idea to paint mine.  First I tried pastel blue, not at all right for my porch, so the other color spray paint I had was green.  I wish the storm door could go, but we get some nasty weather in the winter.  Tomorrow I will take out the window and put in the screen.

I have a lot of other "yards" and "areas" to take pictures of.  Today I noticed some of my wild roses are blooming.  Seems early to see those and they look real healthy.  As of today our garden is planted.  There is always a never ending list of outside chores.  I have flowers on my table that need to be planted.  Tomorrow?

  

Show us your Garden party @ The Polohouse

Linking the Mosaic Air Conditioner Cover to:

Tuesday's Treasures @ MyUncommonSliceOfSuburbia
  Newbie Party @ DebbieDoos 

Wood Scrap Art

Wood Scrap Art and A Poured Concrete Top

Our family room got an update a couple of Christmases ago. 

The males, (ok, really it was me) wanted a new television because glare from all the windows makes watching the old one impossible during the day. 

Not that I watch much tv in daylight or nightlight, but when a special little boy wants to watch Power Rangers, I'm not telling him no.

                                 The Big 'Ol Dinosaur                                     

The big-dino was built to house the big-dino-tv, obsolete these days huh?  The cabinet above it stores more junk than you can shake a stick at. 

And I'm a short stick. 

I couldn't reach the top shelves in the cabinet to do more than pop in a cd, if I could find or reach the cd in the first place.

During

After Christmas the new tv sat on a toy box for a few months till I ordered a hanging bracket for the wall. 

I sort of liked that the toys were held captive and not on the floor. 

When the old tv cabinet left, it also left an empty space above the new tv that I was going to have to put my thinking cap on to fill.  Light pours in this area till the sun leaves the sky - makes for a bright happy space (hard to take photos in).

Poured concrete top

Brawn decided to reuse the old wood from the tall cabinet to make a shorter one and do a poured concrete top with a rough edge for a rustic look. 

That's his style.  Rustic, not rough.

This was totally his baby - he didn't consult me, a rare occurrence and one that is usually not a good idea.

Rustic concrete edge

He stained the concrete with acid stain in some earthy colors and dabbed some on the edges.  The chiseled edge mimics one you might see on granite.

Shrunk down with the same wood

Everything here is reused from the original cabinet, except the new concrete top and the cabinet wire, but that's left over from a chicken coop.  Inside is a Wii, all the Wii games and controllers, stereo, and I forget what else.  If I ever make it purdy I'll show 'ya.

The original idea was to have the sides look like the ends of vintage wood crates with

interesting vintage product advertising, stained onto the wood.  

That was to be my job.  I haven't got that far, and between you and me, I don't know when I will.

Notice the cute pillow on that little chair?  Linda from It All Started With Paint sent it to me.  I was a lucky duck recipient of the Pass It On Project. 

I have been eying up lots of blogland ideas and decided in the interest of no cost, to use what I had to fill the area above.  I pinned an idea from Sweet Serendipity as inspiration.

I would love to say I raided Brawns well placed wood scrap bin, but really all I had to do was look on the floor under his saw and brush away sawdust to find scrap pieces I could use.  Our garage is famous for it's mess.

I set to work.  I used a combo of stencils, stickers, or made my own letters to paint everything.  The Grandpa & Grandma sign was a gift, and it seemed like a perfect fit.

I arranged and rearranged and finally got an order I liked.  We ran a piece of tape down the middle, with a line down the center of the tape, so it would all line back up once the first piece was nailed to the wall.  At about 10:00 at night because I was anxious.

I painted the wall with the paint can closest to me, which was still sitting out 

from a project a month ago.  It's the same color as on the outside of the front door here.  Dutch Boy, "Earth Matters".

The wall is empty no more and the leaves are green outside once again.

 

Linking the Scrapy Wood up to:

 Throwback Thursday @GlitterGlue&Paint

Saturday Night Special Reclaimed Wood @FunkyJunkInteriors

Beyond The Picket Fence, Under $100 Party

The Mother Lode @ I Gotta Create 

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy Me @ CraftyScrappyHappy

Pin'inspiration Thursday @ JanesAdventuresInDinner 

Inspired Creations @ Embracing Change 

Party Time @ 36th Avenue 

Open House Party @ No Minimalist Here 

Featured at:

Beyond the Picket Fence, Under $100 Party

Copy Cat Cloche

Mine

Nah nah nah nah nah .... copy catter, dirty ratter......

Cloche to copy from Okio B. Designs

 Technically this is not a magazine copy, it's a blogger copy.  I wanted to copy all the magazine cloches I found but most of them use amazing tall beautiful cloche's.

I have two small squatty cheese domes.  

As the last person in blogland to own a cloche, I was super excited when I came across not one, but two of these cheese thingy's at garage sales last week.  One was darn near free (fill a bag for a buck) the other was a buck.  So lets just say they were each .50¢ and I came home with a bag of junk that I don't know what to do with.

I got to work painting with what was left of my Annie Sloan Old Ochre sample pot and even had to add water at the end to eek out enough paint.  Sand to distress and wax, Ive got that drill down pretty good these days.

Done painting, now what?  

I was going to put one of them on a base and bought a little milk glass style vase to glue on.  But didn't get around to that.  Maybe after I finish this post.

 The glass dome on the left is really heavy.

Enter the magazine copy cat challenge at DebbieDoos my favorite link party because I can find something and copy it.  Don't need any special talent like thinking up something.  Easy.  Except this challenge took me longer than anything because I had to look at every single cloche photo I saw.  I wanted to do a chocolate cake copy since daughter #2 made chocolate cake yesterday.

I wanted to do this.......

Not this........

 So instead I did this........

Because I looked at photos so long I missed the party!

Linking to:

Summer Cloche Party with Marty @ AStrollThruLife

 

PillowPalooza Party

Isn't that just the coolest name for a link party?  Pillowpaaalooooozaaa.  It has to be cool to get me to attempt pillows.  If you've been around for a while you know I don't sew, but hey a couple months ago I told you I can't paint either and no one believes that anymore, not even me!  But really, I can't sew.  It involves math, and accurate measuring and if your me, seam ripping.  Burlap is very forgiving in two of those areas.

So Linda at ItAllStartedWithPaint along with Kari at ThistlewoodFarm are hosting this Pillowpalooza party.  I wanted to make some pillows to jazz up the joint before my son's grad party.  I fully expected I might be linking some pillow flops, but I LOVE my pillows. I Love them!  L.O.V.E. them I tell 'ya.  My mom might even be smiling down thinking there is hope for me and my sewing abilities yet.  Ummm probably not mom, were you watching when not once but twice I tripped over the cord and then tried to sew with the pillow already IN the burlap?

First thing I had to do was borrow a sewing machine.  This one worked like a charm even though it clearly isn't a new model.  I got out the directions to thread it, and it was like reading Greek to me, but it was sort of like riding a bike.... I got right on and went back to home-ec class 40 years ago.  I also prayed the already loaded bobbin held out.  It did.  The lady who sold the machine to my daughter in law had her name on the instructions.  Florence.  Florence also had her name on the foot pedal and machine. 

I had all those burlap sacks left from my breakfast nook valance making task, and I have seen all those amazing pillows you ladies make from burlap.   I was fairly confident I could sew a straight line.  I took some teal paisley pillows, (don't be jealous) and just cut the burlap bigger than them and stuck it inside, paisley and all.

You know you want this fabric, admit it

At the beginning of the week I glued them, but it wasn't working and that's when I borrowed the sewing machine.  I stitched all the way around them and just frayed the burlap when I was done for a fringe.  I was actually amazed at how I was able to get the pillow in nice and snug.  I thought they needed something so I went through some jars of buttons that I've had for 25 years.  I bought them in plastic bags at a garage sale from an old lady who saved them for years, so some could be I don't know how old!

Found the perfect buttons, and also a key so I sewed that on one too.  I cut the bottom of a coffee sack off to make a lumbar pillow.  Only had to sew the top as the other three sides were already stitched.  But I guess you're not suppose to stitch the whole thing shut otherwise how the hell do you get the stuffing in?  So I ripped a corner back out and stuffed a bunch of pillow fluff in that I took out of an old pillow.  Then I glued the buttons on with the wrong side showing (on purpose) because I liked the vintage writing on that side of the metal buttons.

These sacks are the softer burlap not like the ones I used on the valances.  I also sat outside on the porch to fray the edges so I didn't make a mess inside this time.  But I was in my jammies.  I looked up a couple times surrounded by coffee sacks thinking maybe Juan Valdez and his donkey would show up. 

Tonight I went grocery shopping and stopped at the farm store just to see if there were still some coffee sacks left.  I bought 8 more.  They cost a whole $1.28 each.

This one is my favorite.

 

Linking up to Pillowpalooza @ItAllStartedWithPaint 

Cow Girl UP Party @ CedarHillRanch

Restyled Sundays @StylishOnceAgain

Stinky Linky Thursday @HatingMartha 

Friday Free for All @ FiveDays5Ways 

Tuesday Link Party @ TalesOfATrophyWife 

Saturday Link & Greet @ CountryMommaCooks

My Kodak Moment Dresser

Yesterday I was in a funk.  An unmotivated, too much to do, foggy funk.

I had a to-do list, like scrub the toilets and floors, so I was avoiding it. 

A wise blogger reminded me that the last time I was in a funk I got creative with the Rock 'n Roll Dresser, so I decided to work on something that wasn't on any list.

Simple and white Before

Bliss Ranch Master Bath

That cute little brunette is me.  About 25 years ago.  

I lied.  Just in case you are skimming and not really reading, I said...... I LIED!   

I have to confess, I don't want anyone thinking that is me.  (Well really, yes I do).

So it's not me, but isn't she a cutie?  That's Holly from the blog Bella Nest.  

If you want to see some of the Bliss Ranch master bathroom, 

click on over to Bella Nest where I have a guest post today.

While you are there snoop around and see what Holly's got to offer.  

I guarantee she won't be putting a picture of me up saying it's her!