Loved & Loved Again

I got out and raked a little today. I have to admit it felt good. As far as gardening goes I'd say raking is about the extent of my talent. It's a shame I'm not kidding :) It got me daydreaming about decorating my outdoor room. It's a good size circle area with 2 granite walkways leading up to it in the middle of a little grove of oak trees in the upper portion of our property. Other than 2 black iron rocking chairs it's a blank canvas. Because I am not a gardener, I decided to divide my yard up and make little "rooms", that might help me tackle it or look at it in a different way and I have enough area to make a few good size spots. My goal is to make if flow and fun to walk through, not difficult to care for - container gardening all without looking like a junk yard.

You know I love upcycled/recycled/re-purposed art and objects. A well loved item transformed to love all over again. If you have some things you've made for your yard I'd love to see them! One of the things I plan to make/re-purpose are birdhouses made out of plastic coffee cans. My hubby feeds them so we might as well give them a place to live too. I plan to paint them and hang them at different lengths in those aforementioned trees. I'm calling it my "Coffee Condo Project." So stay tuned, that's soon, I can't wait to show you the project. Save a can! Here are some things I fell in love with. You can click on the pictures to be taken to the blogs, websites, tutorials, etc... I found some great places today!

Ut Oh. I might be saving cans now. I'm already saving coffee cans and we won't speak of my jar cabinet. Picture this spray painted with shiny copper paint, black w/ glitter to twinkle at night, turquoise or that lushious lemon-lime color next to it! Wouldn't this be a great outdoor room divider, or privacy screen? This Dino almost makes me want to crawl under the house to retrieve a box of old toys because I know there are a couple of dinos down there. Almost. Another super fun piece I will be making! There is scrap wood pile leftover from my hubby's wonderful deck I will be diving into.

These next 3 I saw at BHG.com and fell in love them. I think the chair shelf would be great in my outdoor room I am gonna be working on this summer. *summer? doesn't feel like summer, not yet* Next time hubby is in the mood for a nice cigar I'm gonna ask him to get me some more boxes, I used all that I had in an altered art frenzy. I do have one untouched box that is my hidey hole for the tv remote & other assorted things. I've got lots of hidey holes. The other day I couldn't remember what I did with a sink stopper. Oh yeah, I put them in a big ceramic acorn next to sink. I hid the sink stoppers & strainers in there. I'd much rather look at the acorn. My largest hidey hole is an antique armoire that we gutted, added shelves to and it houses all of our stereo equipment. I am now keeping my eye out for stray silver in my thrifty travels. I have so much stuff to box up to take to donate, it's now on my Things To Do List. Wait donate and then bring home stuff..hum.. hubby probably won't notice the camping silverware missing for awhile. LOL

Stages

It's just a stage... that's what my Mom used to say. I'm sure I'm going through one of those right now because I've been in the yard for 2 days! and you know that's not like me. haha Today is really windy so I've only been out there for a few minutes to "plant" the mushrooms I made. I saw a video on how to make concrete leaves and she had done a mushroom as well. I thought the mushrooms in the yard were so cool but I don't have any concrete. What could I use to make me a mushroom? Then it came to me...easy, simple, cheap and maybe cute? maybe. I melted vinyl records! I have lots of those. (recycle/reuse) I only had brown, white, blue & copper spray paint so that's what I used. And as you can tell my yard is "woodsy"so the colors worked out well. The designs and possibilities are endless. I melted the records over stainless bowls at 250 degrees, shaped it, then painted them and stuck them on old sticks I found around the yard. I used hot glue to secure them better. They were really fun! I will probably make some more but actually paint them instead of spray painting them. If you make some of these I'm sure you will be able to come up with some really cool designs much better than mine.

Since it's really windy today I am going to finish up a painting that I started the other night which is like the Cotton Fields ACEOs. Those sold today on Etsy. The one I'm doing is on 6x6 canvas. I personally like these and think they would be pretty in my dressing area but I will be listing them. I was emailing with a buyer yesterday and she was surprised when I said I've had no art in my hallway for 15 years. She said she would have figured I would have art all over my home. I don't but since I'm in a cleaning stage - spring fever- I should rearrange and redecorate. I know I have things in some rooms that probably would look better in another. "Stage" my own house. Yeah!