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April 12, 2016, posted by Gina – My love of flowers doesn’t stop at making arrangements but extends to the garden. When we moved to our new home 3 years ago there were only a few shrubs in the backyard.  We found a wonderful landscape architect who transformed our yard into a pretty oasis.

I think my love of gardening and flowers began with my great grandmother.  When I was a little girl, we would work in the yard together.  I can remember planting cannas, autumn sedum, tulips, boxwoods, nandinas and mint.  Even though this was nearly 50 years ago, it seems like yesterday.

Let’s go on a little tour of my newly planted garden and see how things are doing.

In this photo, you can see how the azaleas line the walkway:

The first bloom of many more to come in a grouping of more than 10 drift rose bushes:

This is sure to be a colorful site for much of the summer.

In the photo below are my chaste lilac, just beginning to sprout a few buds, knockout roses and light pink azaleas.  The colors in this area are so pretty once everything fully comes to life.  The purple blooms of the chaste lilacs combined with the hot pink roses are so pretty.

The agapanthus below is just beginning to make its way out of hibernation.  These have the most beautiful purple star shaped blooms that are gorgeous.

Ahh, the light pink azaleas.  While these blooms look so pretty, fertilizer is in store for them as they are very thin.  They were planted last year and a survived super hot, dry summer.

Here is the view of the path with all of the plants.  I love how the boxwoods line the beds.

This Japanese Yew’s green color combined with it’s unique texture make this such a pretty evergreen for my garden.

And finally, these hot pink azaleas were here when we purchased the house and are a bit more mature.  Is there anything that ushers in spring better than a row of beautiful azaleas?

Do you like gardening? Are spring bushes and plants starting to come to life where you are? We’d like to hear your comments and thoughts. To leave a comment, click on the title of this post and the comment form will appear at the bottom of the page.

April 10, 2016, posted by Gina – This past week, Son 1 moved into a new apartment and he called me to help him decorate.  I, of course, was thrilled to help him with this task.  He is still pretty young and has a roommate so I guess you would call this apartment a bachelor pad.  With this in mind, I was very cautious about the budget and began searching for items that were more utilitarian rather than high design.

I found a solid wood console table in great shape for $30.  I thought he would have been fine with as it was but he asked if I could paint it or “something”. This was his nice way of telling me he hated it. He is his mama’s son!!

So, I painted it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and lightly distressed it.  I sent him a photo and he was very happy with the outcome.  I don’t work for Annie Sloan but I’ve mentioned before that the chalk paint is easy to use, requires no priming, is quick drying in between coats and there’s a great selection of colors.  For this piece I used two coats and a layer of clear wax.  I used steel wool to rub in some distressed areas.  It was that easy!  My husband and I are helping him this weekend set up a few things in his new space and I plan on painting a couple of other pieces for him.

How do you like the result? Have you painted an older piece to give it new life? We’d like to hear your thoughts or about your own DYI projects. To leave us your comments click on the title of this post and the comment form will open at the bottom of the page.

So sorry…. it seems that the version we posted a few moments ago didn’t work on iPhones. We’ve attempted to fix the problem and it should be working now. Let’s give this another try and we hope this one works for everyone! In any case, clicking this link: Link to Quiz should do the trick failing all else.

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March 5, 2016, posted by Michelle

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