Well folks, it's finally spring. Thank the Lord! I had the worst case of cabin fever and probably some mild depression. I wrote the most depressing downer blog post and decided NOPE! Not gonna post it. I don't want to write people into a bad mood, but even though I didn't post it, writing it helped get a lot of that nasty stuff out of my system.
I bet you are all pumped for nice weather! We are having some nice weather this weekend and I have worn myself out!!
Friday I came home and jumped into old clothes and went on a gardening rampage. I cleaned out the flower bed (which has more rocks than dirt each year) and murdered the area around my lilies and mums to give them some room to breathe. I planted some seed I snagged at the Home & Garden show then I cleaned up the porch a bit before my husband kindly reminded me that food is pretty important.
Saturday my secret plans were to find some dress clothes for work and maybe do some more gardening or go buy a new wallpaper border for our bathroom. Instead, one thing led to another and I ended up making lots of flower arrangements, cleaning up the sidewalk, working in the shed and yanking up the outdoor carpet from the side porch.
Here are some of the flower-related stuff I did and the front porch. Just ignore the crazy spray painted carpeting, hopefully it will be removed later this year.
These I did just to add some flowery goodness to the counters in the kitchen. Took my husband's potion jars and stuffed plastic wrap down in them and filled with water. The look much better in person.
I hung these frames in the spare room and have yet to do anything with them. I saw a Pin on Pinterest of tiny arrangements hung as 3D art so I went with it. The pictures are pretty awful and I will probably switch out the flowers, but they were what I had to work with when I randomly decided to do this. I will never get over how the color of the walls appear in photos. It really isn't that loud in real life I don't think. Though it is pretty bright.
The tins were my grandmothers and I wanted to use them. I have tried doing multiple arrangements in them, or storing gardening tools in them, but it never looked right. I always think of non-vases (watering cans, wagons, toilets...) being used as vases as being an old country lady thing, but this just seemed right.
I really like lanterns... I don't know why. I saw this at Michael's and had a coupon in hand. I had to buy it. I just stuffed some Spanish Moss in the bottom (protip: use that crap outside cause it is messy!), stacked a couple mini grapevine wreaths to act as a nest (I used these for a kids craft project & had extra), and stuck a few floral bits around the sides.And DONE!
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I have a lot of goals for the outside this summer and one of them includes this side porch. Since no one sees it really it's not going to be a show stopper, but it needs love. The outdoor carpet was gross and had moss like crazy so I hulked out and tore it all up in one piece. I should have gotten a picture of the before, but when you're in the moment you just go nuts.
From the back yard moving to the front.
From the front yard, the pipe on the left isn't staying there obviously...
The cracks and right side of the 2nd picture were completely covered in weeds, dirt, grime and moss. It's not perfect, but I think I did okay for a crazed lady with a snow shovel plowing them all down!
As you may notice the porch is pretty yellow from the adhesive. Most of it comes off with scraping, but the internet tells me I can grab a solvent for adhesive removal which I plan to do soon. If it still looks bad after, I found a tutorial on painting it which is about a two day project with no rain allowed. Ugh!
I'll take pictures as it progresses and once it looks more appealing I plan to load it up with flowers and such. I also want to do something along that retaining wall on the right, but I am still working on that one.
How do you dress up your porch for spring?
