burlap and lavender…

hope your weekend was great.  ours was busy in the fun way.  recently, I picked up a few things for a {give away}. 

***there is a cute burlap, (paris printed), covered bottle with a cork stopper, ***a premier copy of the romantic prairie style magazine, ***a piece of burlap ribbon printed with french numbers-(1, 2, 3, 4), ***a burlap lavender hanging pouch.

simply leave a comment on this post, by midnight sunday, june 3rd and your name goes in:)

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and here’s a quick project:  I found a cute package of napkins at the springfield flea market.  I wanted to try to make the tile/napkin coasters that have been on my to-do list forever.  (and I actually need some coasters:)

here is my first coaster. (love it! I will never buy another coaster!)  I used travertine tiles from lowes—I think there were 8 for about $5 in the box. and each of my napkins made 4 coasters.

(napkins need to be separated before using.  most have 2 or 3 layers.  you only want the top printed layer for this project. just mod podge the tile, and lay the napkin down on the tile and smooth out carefully.  wrinkles add character:)

 

when it’s dry add polyurethane to the top and add felt or cork to the bottom. 

I found a you tube video on the how to’s, if I can find out how to add it here, I will.   here it is:

 thanks for stopping by!

liberty…

have a wonderful memorial day weekend, everyone! 

my small front porch is decorated in blues and reds, so, I thought I'd share some of it today.  in one corner, there is an angel.

    remember this green shutter?  its been in a bedroom, (that I’m ready to re-do), so it gets a new life on the porch.

if you flip the shutter over, you get this awesome chippy blue color!  I grouped it with my angel, one of my husband’s pedestals and my newest rose--a climbing blaze.

           here’s a shot of the applique I finally put on the pedestal. 

         

my stool, all rusty with a bit of gray blue paint, sits next to my front door, and has a mason jar of roses and catmint on top.

these’s a big flag with a tin star added to the blue field.  below the flag is just enough room for 2 metal bistro chairs.

the walkway has catmint hanging over it, which I love the overgrown look, and the mint smells wonderful.  the victorian plant hanger was a mom's day gift years ago.

I’m sharing with…

Kelly, Andrea, Linda, Karah, and Kari

and common ground, faded charm, feathered nest, funky junk, cottage garden party,simple and sweet fridays.

garden cloche…

hi everyone, I’ve got a lot to do today, but, I wanted to pop in to show you a quick garden accent.

  I had an old birdbath that I wasn’t using.  so, I brought it out into my front garden and added the rusty cloche.  love the look!

the birdbath is sitting in the roses, phlox and catmint.

my fairie roses are just gorgeous this year.

the fairie gets about 3’x 4’ and blooms from june to frost here.  the flowers come out in mini bouquets.  very easy to grow, and I don’t have any bug problems with them.

thanks for looking!  sharing with…

common ground, faded charm, feathered nest, funky junk, cottage garden party,simple and sweet fridays.

mudpies and clay pots…

I had some new clay pots and started searching for ways to distress or age them.

here are some of the ideas I found.

*strong fertilizer speeds up the white deposits, but takes a few weeks.

*slathering on yogurt or buttermilk takes at least a month.

*hydrated lime and water tones down the new clay color, -just spray it on.

*soak the clay in a tub of water in the sun till algae shows up.  not fast.

*or you can paint them like linda did here.

before

during

I’m so impatient, I simply chose to make mudpies—(think thick mud like when you were little) and I rubbed the pots down with the mud.  (gloves could be worn:)

this is what it looked like after it dried.  love the look, and it will only age more over time. 

see the difference? 

the slipcovers are from better homes and gardens several years ago.  and the chippy table was found at salvage sisters.

and I thought I’d share one of my favorite things to do--photo editing.  the pics below are of a bench in a corner of my yard.  the first pic is straight out of the camera—no editing.

+

these pics has some applied to them.  they have videos showing how to use the actions here.  adobe photoshop elements 10 was used to apply the actions to these pics.  you can get so many different looks from one picture.

thanks for looking!

common ground, faded charm, feathered nest,funky junk, cottage garden party, simple and sweet fridays, home sweet home, shabbilicious friday,saturday showoff.

the garden hat…

today was gorgeous, so, I gathered some supplies, went to the deck, to make a garden hat.  all you need is a straw hat, lace, a few flowers, and ivy.

this lace was taken off of an old pillowcase. I glued the flowers and ivy to the lace.  and the lace was glued to the hat.  pretty, right?

here’s the hat not 20 seconds later…  see the little flower bud just laying in the crushed top!  I had put the hat down and gone into the house for my camera—20 seconds!

but, doesn’t bailey look sorry in her time out chair?  (I have no idea what’s stuck to her nose!)

I was able to find the flowers and lace scattered throughout the yard and put it back together:) the top of the hat has a crease in it that didn’t use to be there.

the leftover flowers, and ivy went into a cute pitcher.

I wanted the hat and flower vase for my old bistro set.   it’s very heavy—made of wood slats and metal frames.  it was a pretty light sage color, but being me, I painted it all white.

I won’t leave these outside—I have a spot in the house for them.  and just for fun, I did a collage of all of these.

thanks for stopping by!

sharing with…

common ground, faded charm, feathered nest,funky junk, cottage garden party, simple and sweet fridays, home sweet home, shabbilicious friday, saturday showoff.

happy mom’s day…

wishing everyone a wonderful day!

lacey potting table…

hope everyone is having a great weekend! today, I have a simple potting table my husband put together.  its 22” deep, 6’ long, and 39” high.

once the table was built, I placed it against the house to help hide some ugly utilities.  this chippy door was found at a antique store.  I sat it on the table to hide two boxes that hung high on the wall.  the roses are my first of the year!

here’s what it looked like when we moved in.  not sure why these are so high on the wall.

and here’s the table—see the lace?  it’s hiding…

this ugly thing:)

I will use this table A LOT for projects, painting, and potting.  love it!

there’s a stool to sit on—which I added a vinyl chandelier on the seat-cut from my silhouette. 

and the cutest cement bunnies—found at a garden center years ago.

thanks for looking:)

sharing with…

common ground, faded charm, feathered nest, knick of time, funky junk, cottage garden party,  shabbilicious friday, simple and sweet fridays, 
 home sweet home, and showoff your cottage monday

white licorice…

   this is a corner in my screened porch here I hung this chair shelf.  the plant—a white licorice plant sits in a painted peat pot.  it’s a favorite filler for my window boxes and planters.

I added the stamped clay tag to the front of the seat. here’s a tutorial to make you own clay tags.

  you can see the frosty white coloring of the plant, in the pic below.  it was the first year I had used it and I didn’t know a little goes a long way with this fast grower.  it nearly choked out my geraniums!

thanks for looking!

and I’ve had some emails about some of my blog elements, so here are the links:

***if you are interested in adding a email button to your sidebar,-- here’s the tutorial I used to do it and here is where I got my scrabble alphabet that I used for my button.

***here’s a tutorial to add your recent posts/thumbnails across the top of your blog.

***the triple frame on my header is free, just for “liking” florabella’s facebook page here.

***I just upgraded to adobe photoshop elements 10 and I’m going through all the new features.  I really like it—they added a lot of new options for your picture editing.

have a great weekend and thanks for looking!

pink garden cabinet…

when I started working on my screened porch, I knew I wanted a tall cabinet to hold pots, hand tool, twine, gloves, etc—and keep it pretty.

my husband built this for me.  to keep the price down, he uses the cedar fence boards whenever he can.  also, the shelves, tops and sides can be several small pine or cedar boards.  the smaller boards are so much cheaper.

the pink color is valspar’s pink whisper.

  

added the applique to the top.

then I loaded it up with my garden stuff.  the white tin holds the uglier stuff.  the roses in the mason jar are from my garden last year.

 

I found this sweet birdcage (it holds my twine) for $5.00 at salvage sisters.  I painted some peat pots and this one holds some dried roses.  some others hold wire, seed packets and floating candles.

  

a couple more, the lavender one I patterned after this cutie pin.

old tin pot holds gloves and clippers.

I  hung this pot with a bit a lace on it on a shutter.

this pink angel mini chandelier was found on ebay about 8 years ago.  lowes had chain sleeves on sale for .50 each last week!

if you are still reading—bless your heart!

thanks for looking, and I’m sharing with…

common ground, faded charm, feathered nest, knick of time, funky junk,  simple and sweet fridays and monday french party