Mother Nature ....

I hate to admit it but this past winter I completely ignored my garden to the point that I didn't even go out to visit with my plants.  Mother Nature is a fickled friend as she teased me with red peppers before the first day of spring.  This from plants that I thought were dead.  I have since planted one tomatoe plant since I am the only one who eats tomatoes in my home.  The geranium pictured above is so full of blooms I am going to have to re-plant her into something larger or split her up into several pots.

My Meyer Lemon tree was also full of blooms before the first day of Spring, then we got hit with very windy days that blew away all the flower buds, and again Mother Nature has surprised me with two lemons on a bare tree.   Just saw them today.

Ground cover peeking out of their pots ready to be tended to. Mexican Heather.

My Herb caddy.  It contains my three most used herbs, Basil, Parsley and Cilantro.  The caddy allows me to bring the entire thing into the kitchen, cut off what I need and take it back outside.

Enjoy your week everyone and please let me know you visited.

Linking up to Tootsie Time's Fertilizer Friday, and My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday.

Simple Beauty

Have you ever seen a prettier Hibiscus - this one looks like it is three stories tall.

More Pillow LOVE

So this is the last of my three part series (LOL) on pillow making.  My first attempt was a pillow transfer which didn't turn out so great in my opinion but it was passable as a pillow.  If you missed it, you can see it HERE.  

My second attempt was a pillow transfer with cording added to the edges of the pillow.  I must say I might have mastered the transfer part and the cording wasn't too bad to sew on.  You can see the finished product HERE.

So by this time I say OK,  this isn't so hard, I want to try the burlap pillows.  So I start to stencil a flower on a piece of burlap and decide I am going to sew it to the front of the pillow, fray the edges of this inset, sort of to frame the flower and sew up the pillow, this time with a ruffle edging (OH how brave of me).  Well it all went pretty good until I had to sew the two pieces of the pillow with the ruffled trim sandwiched in between. HA it wasn't as easy as the cording of the second pillow. But oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained right?

Can hardly see the ruffle against the white bedding.

Much better background and you begin to see the fraying around the flower "frame".

Can't miss the fraying and the ruffle trim in this picture.

All three of my babies, added a jeweled bee to the Nest pillow.

What do you think ?

Linking up to Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special.

Also Linking up to Tatertos and Jello's Weekend Wrapup Party.

And the DIY Showoff.

And Cottage Instincts, Make if for Monday.

Highlighted in Cottage Instincts HERE

and Beneath My Heart HERE

Linking up to Best DIY of March at Beneath My Heart

Pillow LOVE

This is my second attempt at the infamous pillows all over blog land.

Script says "Te amo Lily" (I love you Lily).  Made this pillow for my daughter for Easter but don't tell her it's a surprise.

This one even has trim.

Not bad huh? Getting better as I go along.

Next - will try the burlap pillows.

Linking up to SHOW AND TELL FRIDAYS at My Romantic Home

Bunnies in miniature

It's time to put out the bunnies and mine are in miniature:

Isn't she so cute? ,  she's painting a chicken hatching from it's egg.

Another cutie.

This bunny angel has a halo.

And these bunnies are tucked away at home.

Hope you are all safely tucked at home waiting for Spring and Easter to officially arrive.

Linking up to SHOW AND TELL FRIDAY at My Romantic Home.

St. Patrick's Day

And a couple more IRISH BLESSINGS:


May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you. May St. Patrick guard you wherever you go, and guide you in whatever you do – and may his loving protection be a blessing to you always. HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY.......MAY YOUR LUCK BE GREEN!!!!

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...."Dance as though no one is watching you, Love as though you have never loved before, Sing as though no one can hear you, Live as though heaven is on earth"!!!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day !

My First BOUNTY of the season

OK bounty is an overstatement but one can't help but be amazed by nature.

Last year I planted several pepper plants in my Earth Boxes.  Earth Boxes mimic the profesional gardeners setup but on a smaller scale.  When you use Earth Boxes for vegetables you add a layer of  dolomite to the potting mixture (and for some reason my dog Emma LOVES this stuff) .  She tore off the plastic screen covering the potting mixture and proceeeded to dig out all the dolomite and ate it all.  She destroyed two Earth Box sets.  I ended up putting the Earth Boxes on top of a table to keep it out of her reach.

So after Emma destroyed the setup, the plants stopped producing and I left them alone for a year.  Imagine my surprise when I went out there this morning to clean them up and prepare them for this year.  This is what I find:

You can see in this picture how Emma tore up the pastic screen covering up the soil and dolomite.

3 more peppers.

And this is Emma, she's as bad as she is sweet.

And Maggie,

And Tony.

All  Rescue Dogs.

So, what are YOU planting this season?

Linking up to Jamie at Him, Me, and Our Three - A Celebration of Green

and Outdoor Wednesdays at A Southern Daydreamer.

Pillow Transfers

I learned how to use photo transfer paper recently so this is my first attempt. Not bad I think for my first project. Stay tuned, more to come.

Isn't she pretty?

Linking up to My Romatic Home, Show and Tell Friday. and Frugalicious Friday! and Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tater Tots & Jello

Edited to add: I was featured in Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party HERE.

Who knew ...

One word "macro". 

Amy at The Red Chair Blog visited one of my previous posts and saw that I had written that I might need a new camera because the pictures were comming out all blurry.  Amy told me to go to my camera booklet and see if my camera had a macro function.  What?  I just point and click.   I got lucky that I learned to download (or is it upload?)  the pictures.  Nevermind that it takes me forever to actually FIND the pictures I downloaded/uploaded (that's another story).

So Amy says, her camera has a "little flower" icon on it and that is the macro function she uses for closeups and this eliminates the blur.  MY camera had a lille flower icon too - whooo hooo !!!! (I couldn't find the owners manual) so I tested it with these pictures.

Nest with fresh garden greens.

Fresh roses from a climbing rose bush - can you say SPRING ?

So what do you think ? Aren't the pictures crisper?  Still don't have the hang of a camera but willing to try anything out just once.  Thanks Amy.