Sneak Peak...The front of my house is gonna be a changin'!

I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow, but we've been working to get some things done around the house. The front of the house to be exact! I finally chose a color to paint the front door. NO, I'm not telling you what color! I chose a color for the shutters too and we've gotten a new awning. Everything about the front will be changing after we get back. That, my friends, is when we will complete our makeover on the front of the house! 

We will say goodbye to this look...

Mostly because my husband has been doing a lot of this...

While our cat is doing a lot of this...

What color door do you think I will choose? This one...

Or this one...

By the way, the above person is not me! I found the picture and the name of the yellow color while searching for door colors online.

So what color do you think I chose? I'm not giving you any hints. However, I bet I know what color most of you will choose....so please comment and let me know. I can't wait to hear what all of you think. Also, tell me what color your front door is and if you were nervous about painting it or not.

Stacy

Pinterest - DIY....Paperback Book Wreath!

This is such a great idea! I would dress it up with some red and use it on the inside of my front door at Christmas time! Cute, cheap, and easy!

I found it on Pinterest, but it originally came from here. Check it out...the blog it came from is great. She has lots of good ideas on how to get designer looks on the cheap!

Stacy

{Update} : The 36" Planter.

 Remember this? The 36" planter we did back on May 29th. Fast forward 2 months...

Amazing how full & lush it has become and the grasses play so nice in the wind.... The daisies could use a little oompf to get them flowering again... something to be learned for next year! 

Alyssa

A Project for Later..

Well, today I am going to share with you a fun little project... a little something for any celebration depending on the colors you choose. Here is the sneak peak.. before I run off to work for the day!

Terrarium gone BAD.

Whenever I start things they sound like a great idea. Now I won't lie, when I'm doing said projects (in the back of my mind) I'm always sort of wondering if they will really work. Remember this post? I was pretty excited about it! I spent about $40 getting everything together and I really thought it would work. Well no, not really...somehow I knew it wouldn't. Somehow I just KNEW!

Remember how cute this looked? I thought I was living the dream when I planted it!

So one day I came home and I spotted this. You see, my husband thinks this stuff is hilarious. Not just a little funny, HILARIOUS!  I'm pretty sure that as the days went on and my terrarium went from looking fab to drab, he saw the writing on the wall. I was still trying to ignore it.

The note is a little blurry, but Jason thought he was quite clever to put a note in pretending like it was my next blog entry. The funny thing is...he was correct...the day I found the note I looked on the blog and the next entry would have been #47. Just as the note says. Apparently the note had been in there a couple of days. Okay, I know, I'm not super observant! I have animals to take care of people! I'm not a terrarium tending sort of girl. Can you read the note? It says, "Blog entry #47: The new thing is growing mold in your terrarium. -Stacy" Nice. I did get the giggles though. 

So this is my terrarium! The sad thing is that I loved that fern. It really didn't deserve an end like this. It was too pretty. I'm sorry fern, I tried. Sort of. I mean I feel like I tried. For a week or two.

What I won't show you is that I stuck another plant in there and that died too. I will now be using my glass apothecary jar for dog treats or wine corks. I can't kill those.

We all fail!

Stacy

Backyard update - Mini Pick-Me-Up #2 almost complete

We are almost finished with our backyard project. So exciting, I know. We can hardly wait and we can almost feel the cypress mulch under our feet.

It's flat. It's flat! I can hardly believe it is flat!

Check it out from this perspective. Flat again. Amazing. Ok, I know you are not impressed.  If you could see it in real life you would be impressed.

Well, with this much flatness in our world we decided to have a little christening with the fire pit. (Eric added the first pass of black fabric on our main walkway.) My good friend Lisa came over earlier in the night.. The Laura and Bear stopped by a bit later. We had a few bottles of wine a fire and some laughs for a wonderful evening. 

The fantastic fire we got started from the first swish of the match.

Trouble & Hazel enjoying the new digs.

Peek. from behind 67 bags of Cypress Mulch. Yup. 67.

Later in the evening the fire was so hot we had some amazing blue flames.

 

 Finally some s'mores... Lisa made a run home for the fixin's and I think it is going to be a must around our house as well. 

Thanks for joining us at our inaugural fire in new backyard. This was last Wednesday. We have since added the mulch and have placed the furniture. Today we are moving all the plants later in the day and then I will post the final reveal tomorrow! Have a great Sunday.

Alyssa 

To go the next post for this project click here. 

Etsy find of the day!

I absolutely love bunting flags! I want a ton of them all over my house because I think they're really cute. They rate right up there with birds for me. The happiness factor is huge! Do you know what I'm talking about? You can use them for parties, leave them out as decoration all year, or take them out for whatever occasion you would like. I have thought about making them but the laziness factor kicks in for me. I love to sew, but I'm an instant gratification girl...sometimes this means the whole cutting thing bores me and leads me to forget about even starting a project. Then I found these! It's a bunting kit. Everything is in the kit and all you need to do is sew it! Yes, you can buy them completed, too, but that will cost you. These are $14.25 and you barely have to do any work! Love that!

These are all made out of vintage bed sheets. I think the reason why I like them is because I might have actually had some of these sheets on my bed as a kid. Wow, I feel old...they are now vintage. I am a child of the 70's what can I say! Anyway, I'm showing my age now.

If you don't sew yet, this could be a fun project to start with. I guarantee it will be easy and you can say you made it yourself. You did do the SEWING part of it afterall!

I hope you're starting to love Etsy like I do!

Stacy

Backyard update.. Major progress on Mini/Major Pick-Me-Up #2.

 Staining the side boards.. reclaimed wood.

 Digging the trench for the block retaining wall that will separate the living area from the yard.We did have to buy the block for this area unfortuantely. So, our lots of labor/ mostly free project is getting a little more expensive. We also will be building a little mini deck/stairs along the sidewalk by the house. Again, unexpected add expense.

 Leveling said trench.  Egads.. that was painful. 

 The finished product... now for some more grating and a planting and a throwing wood chips we will go. Almost finished! I still can't believe we will have a flat area in our yard after this.. what a lot of work. You will notice us out here everyday rain or shine enjoying this area upon completion. :)

Also, wait until you see my next post... 

Oh, I added some kitchen photos here. I cleaned the floor last night and decided that it was sort of presentable enough to photograph. Scroll down to find them. Keep in mind the make-due nature of my kitchen. Not a design wonder that is for sure.

Alyssa 

To go to the next post for this project click here.

Backyard update.. Mini/Major-Pick-Up #2.

You've missed my stories about my backyard hell, haven't you?  I know. I can tell. Well... work was done today. A lot of work... I can almost see it now...

 We added a new worker. George. The college student.

 Checking out the progress. Pew. Smells like manure. But yes, it is getting flat.

 That would be a 1' drop-off. We will be spending some money here to create a new mini deck. 

 A path. What? Solution to be determined.

 The crazy, bitchy neighbors perfect back yard. They totally hate us. :) That makes me smile. 

 We are so ghetto. It's awesome. Even my dad said we should clean up the driveway. 

Finally, this one comes to ask me for bread so she can go bird watching. Wow.

Yep. There you have it. The backyard update in a nutshell. 

Alyssa

To go to the next post for this project click here. 

The 36" Planter...

   Every year for the past couple Eric and I have been putting together the planter out in front of his office Architectural Alliance. This year we are a bit behind, but finally got it done last night. I lurv this one. It is by far the best one we have done.

  We hit up Sunnyside Gardens. One of the many, cute local gardens shops on the south side on Minneapolis. The only thing we knew was that we had some birch logs from our cabin to add to the mix. So, we wondered around for a bit, looking at this and that... and as I type I just realized I did not photograph the things that did not make it. Whoops. Sorry. Anyhow, back to my story. The planter they have out front is 36" wide and low. Which means we need some height. Last year we got this cool tropical palmy leaf plant. Which looked cool on the first day, but then was immediately shredded by the wind after that. So, this year we thought grass. Thin and wispy which the windy will like to blow around, but focusing on that word thin.. It will not shred. After seeing a lot of grass options we finally settled on one that has a little purple and green. It will get about 4" taller than it is and have some plumes. Fabulous.. color and texture! Next... which flowering item do we choose. We looked at some bright yellow daisy's. Cute. Hmm. Like the daisy. Not sure about the yellow, but we will see. Then we spotted this more traditional looking white daisy and thought.. Hmm.. with this white birch this might look good. Actually after reading the labels the white daisy is actually a Chrysanthemum. A Neptune P.P.A.F. Chrysanthemum to be exact. So, we piled those into the cart. We do a lot of guess work as to how many we need as the planter is 36" wide. This year we were only short 3. Pretty good, if we don't say so ourselves. Onto the next flowery type plant. First we grabbed this cute straw like purple ball with bright green leaves. It was considerably lower than the white daisy-like plant which we thought could be interesting. We had started to lay out the planter in fields. An area of grass in the back with a field of white on the right side of the planter. The grass being the tallest with the white a little shorter and the next item a little shorter yet, was looking to be an interesting composition. So, we grabbed a bunch of those and continued to wander and noodle. Then we saw this cool looking purple triangular leaf item called Charmed Wine Shamrock (Oxalis) ... Super cool.. We like it with the grass a lot better than the purple ball like plant. So, back went that plant and in comes the Shamrock plant. We wanted to add a little more green and after looking at and rejecting the traditional Sweet Potato Vine we settled on Colorblaze Alligator Tears. We liked to two colors of green in this particular plant. We tossed a bunch of those into the cart and went off pay.

Anyhow now after all those needless words get ready for the big reveal....

 Moving around the dirt after a winter of Spruce tips.

 The Sunnyside loot. 

 Laying out the planter. This is the most important part. I do this with all my planters to make sure it looks good before I plant.

 OK... We like.

Now to cut the birch.

 Eric with the chain saw... He scared a few co-workers who were diligently still at work at 7 pm..Poor guys.. :)

 The final look. The birch were hard to photograph from a true scale. They are larger than they look and a little more spread out. There are three if you can't tell at different heights. 

 As you can see we need one more of the alligator plant and we are going to get 2 more of the Shamrock as well to fill in. It was super windy also as you can tell. We had to work hard to keep all of our containers as well as the plants. 

 The much needed detail shot. Love the planter this year. Very Minnesota natural looking.

Hope you enjoyed our 36" in planter experience. 

Alyssa

Sneak Peak of a project for this week!

 Avery's messy room. Oh, how I miss the days of her babyhood when her room was as I wanted it. Clean and orderly.... not full of little bits of things that make her happy and me crazy! :)

Can you guess what I will be doing? 

This should be a wonderful little clean-up. 

Alyssa

The truly mini - Mini Pick-Me-Up #3. Sewing edition.

This weekend I decided to have a play date with Ricky. Just for me. no burp cloths, blankets, pillows, skirts for Avery.. Something just for me. A few weeks ago I purchased a kit to make the cutest fabric scarf from Sewtropolis. The pattern is from Anna Maria Horner and is called 'Figuring 8'. This scarf is worn in a figure 8 pattern around your neck.. I took a few photo's along the way and love, love, love my new scarf..

 Pinning the rights sides together... I did learn to pin one side at a time as the fabric shifts along the way while sewing. I had a little shifting and had to do some minor trimming but overall not so bad.

 For those of you who have not met Ricky yet, say 'Hello!' This is Ricky the Riccar. He is my mother's old sewing machine still a chugging away after about 30 years of hard labor.

 This was the fun part. I am being facetious for those of you who don't know me. Next you aline the bottom edges after you sew the 2 long sides together. This was nothing short of an amazing feat for me. The edges didn't want to line up properly and for some reason an half an inch one side did not match the half inch on the other.. argh. major fudging here. After sewing the velveteen (the gold fabric) together you next blind stitch the sateen fabric (the purplish one) together to give it a nice finished edge. Yes, it looks nicer than a top stitch but it was so painful, I couldn't bear to photograph it...

If you go to Anna Maria's site she does a great job of photographing the process.

 But alas, I finished and love the outcome... 

My newest scarf addition. Love it and can't wait for fall. Knowing Mother Nature in Minnesota that should be in about 2 weeks. ;) Ha. Ha. 

Have a great day folks! Thanks for stopping!

Alyssa