Porches

  My mother always told me (seriously) that a persons first impression of you always begins with your front porch.  If I knew she was coming by, I always made sure the front porch was clean and pretty. 

When I think about my dream house, I always visualize a gorgeous expansive porch with comfy furniture and pretty flowers.  A place where you’re drawn to sit awhile with a glass of iced tea.

 

Something like this porch.  So country cozy!  Love the red!

Or this porch.  What’s not to love here.  Again, so cozy.

Yummy……Love the pie safe too!

How gorgeous is this.  Those barn doors are amazing! 

No words needed……  All photos from my Enter Here board on Pinterest.

Unfortunately, as with most houses in my area, my front porch is tiny.  Seating consists of a bench just large enough to sit groceries and bags on while unlocking the front door.

But you gotta make the best of what you have.  Right?

After having the house freshly painted, I was inspired to kinda “spiff” things up.

I made a couple of colorful new pillows for my garden bench.

Which really made the color on my sign pop.  I moved the heart from inside to out.

Instead of new porch lights, I cleaned up and repainted the old ones. Duck Egg blue with charcoal accents. 

Which is the same color I painted my little urn.  I also repainted the lantern it sits in.

So all is clean and pretty on my tiny front porch.   My Mother would be proud.

Have a wonderful week!

Denise

Exterior Home and Garden Plan. Part 1

I guess it just never ends.  There is always something that needs to be done when you own your home.  Trends change, tastes change, and so does your home.  But in our case, we have had a drainage problem for years.  We didn’t realize how bad it really was until we were ready to repaint and had to replace a substantial amount of siding on the house.  So that is finished.  The house is painted.  And now it’s time to solve the drainage problem.  Hubby said “French drains” I said “dry creek bed”…..who do you think won?  Yep…..you got it!  ME!

My inspiration…Pinterest (of course)

My GARDEN board has over 350 pins of gorgeous garden ideas.  Among those I choose three for inspiration.

I thought this looked very nice.  Neat and clean and would help with drainage.  But I needed something more extensive.

Then I found these pictures.

This looks beautiful!  The entire garden is gorgeous.

This is another picture from the same property.  Who wouldn’t love this garden gate!  This is also part of the dry creek bed.  The last two pictures came from Finegardening.com if you are interested in reading the article.  It was very interesting and informative and has more before/during/after pictures.

Of course, I can’t afford a professional to design something this amazing.  But I AM lucky enough to have a LOT of Colorado river rock.  And decorative rock that we removed from my Mother’s house before we sold the property and……most importantly……a hubby with a STRONG back.

So…..we began by determining where our main drainage problem was and digging a shallow trench to lay out our creek bed.  After much debate, we decided not to use lining.  I’ll let your know later this year if that was a wise decision.  I sure hope so!

Next we edged the entire length of the creek bed with our larger rock on each side.  Then filled in with the smaller rock.  Sounds easy enough……until you start hauling all….of…..that…..heavy…..rock……  

It was a big project.  But worth it!

Here’s our end result!  This is looking to the right as you walk toward our front door.  

Here it is from the other direction.  We did have to move one one shrub but were able to replant it some place else. 

And here is the end of the creek bed .  Hopefully this will also help contain those day lilies that you see.  I love them, but they can be a bit invasive.

I LOVE the way that this project turned out!   Hopefully we can reestablish our lawn in front of this bed.  We lost a lot of our lawn here last summer due to the drought.

Tomorrow I am off to shop for ground cover for this flower bed.  The creek bed looks fantastic but we do need plantings to soften the look of the rock and give the area a more natural look.

Have a happy rest of the week!

Denise

Flowers For Spring

The weather here may be warm one day and cold the next,  (tonight it’s going to be getting cold again) but I’m definitely in the mood for Spring flowers.

I find myself drawn to images like these…..

Isn’t that wallpaper yummy?  I don’t know if it’s vintage, but it certainly looks like it.    And the pink bicycle….well enough said.

Vintage plates.  I may have to bring mine out of hiding and display them again.

And this bedroom!  Swoon worthy!  I love the gorgeous mix of florals.

All images from our Pinterest boards.

I’ve managed to work in a tiny bit of decorating here at home.

I moved my union jack pillow to the living room sofa.

And I made it a little mismatched companion to go on the sofa with it.  I’ve had that little doily piece that I used on top for years.  I finally found the perfect use for it!

The mantel received a little redo.  I always love my milk glass.   No matter what the season!

Now if I could just get a little gardening done…..

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Denise

Coming Soon!

Here’s what I’ve been up to all week.  Sewing!  Again

Heather and I have a “plan.”  We’re putting our heads together to create a new line of coordinating home goods and girls clothing. 

This will include Heather’s hand painted furniture, canvases, and signs that she paints. 

And one-of-a-kind kids couture, head bands, and hair bows. 

These cute dresses with their twirly skirts are so much fun to make!  I need to find some sweet little girls to model for me! 

Here’s a view of the back.

Details

A cute little knot dress. 

Cute bird fabric and chevron bodice

A set with ruffled pants.

Right now, I’m sewing sizes 2 thru 5 or 6 only.  One-of-a-kind.  I guess that’s the artist in me.  I create and put together fabrics for one, then it’s on to the next. 

I haven’t sewn like this in years.  I’m having a blast!  I should have enough ready to sell by next weekend.

So what have YOU been up to?

Denise

Party Food Ideas

As I mentioned, my grandson’s 15th birthday is fast approaching.  When you ask what he want’s to do, you get the typical teenage response.  Either “nothin” or “I don’t care.”  Boy is he setting himself up for some possibly girly food.

All pictures and the recipes may be found on our Pinterest boards Yummy or Sweet Treats

For instance…….

This is a great idea.  Brownies stacked like a cake.  I guess I could leave off the flowers and butterflies.  Aren’t they cute though?

Beehive cupcakes

This guy is seriously cute.  Gnome cupcakes.  Looks like the poor guy lost a foot.

Cinnamon toast crunch cupcakes

Carrot garden cupcakes.  

This is TOTALLY boy!  Radish eyeballs!  How gross do those look!  I didn’t read the post these link to but you must freeze them and put them in drinks.  Too funny!

Aahhh……totally girly!  An owl cake.  I could never really make that, but it is gorgeous.

Owl cupcakes.  that looks doable.

Trix crispies.  I can’t stand trix, but these are sure colorful and pretty.

Maybe I should decorate the dining room with these DIY pastel colored ice cream cones.  HEHE… that would get him!

Now these lady bug appetizers are just darn cute! 

As are these rocket dogs. Gotta do this for the fourth!

Red velvet cake balls.  Just because I’ve been wanting to try making cake balls.

And………

Heather and I finally made the cookie cups with fresh fruit for a baby shower.  O…..M…..G…..!!  These are SO delicious.   She also made the old standby cream cheese and powdered sugar fruit dip.  Filled the bottom of each cup with that and then the fresh fruit.  We made the cups the night before and Heather filled them last thing at the shower so they wouldn’t get soggy.  They were a huge hit.  You can find my original post HERE. 

So what’s it gonna be?  Ten more days!

Denise

Vintage plus new equals pretty!

Sweet pretties and a tiny bit of a tutorial.

If you frequent garage sales or estate sales, you probably run across vintage linens often enough.  I love them all!  Pillow cases are usually one of my favorites.  Getting them at a reasonable price often means they are permanently stained. 

So…..alter them!

 

I simply cut off the stained case, toss it in my paint rag box,  and sew the pretty embroidered and crocheted cuffs to new fabric.  The pretty pink pillow case in the background was in perfect shape.  So I did just the opposite.  Cutting off the cuff and adding a pretty ruffle out of a Rachel Ashwell sheet that I already had.

Aren’t they pretty together?!

These cases were rockin’ that cute mod 70’s look so I cut off the cuff and added ruffles to them also.  The just seemed to be calling for rick-rack!

Bright and happy!

I really had to work around the stains on the second one here.  But there was just too much pretty crochet and embroidery to give up on this one.  I ended up just adding a sweet floral to compensate for the extra I had to cut into.

The second one appears longer but isn’t.  Just the way I have it folded.

All of these cases are standard size as this is mostly what you find in the older vintage styles.  For correct finished pattern length, I pulled out one of my own standard cases that I knew to be plenty long and used it.  Widths vary slightly as many of the vintage cases were handmade.

These are fun to sew and would match anything from white bedding to pastels or mix and match with larger bright prints.  I finish all of my cases with French Seams.  What is a French Seam?   Here’s a great tutorial HERE.  They are a little extra work, but finish off your piece so nicely!

All cases are freshly laundered and ironed and starched with lavender spray starch.  Which I LOVE by the way.  It smells so pretty!

If you live in the OKC area, you can find my pillow cases at the Main Street Market in Yukon.  If you don’t live in the area, I hope I’ve inspired you to recycle some of your pretty vintage cases that aren’t in the best of shape.

Denise