Treasure Box Wednesday: The Best Things in Life Are Free

This is my absolute favorite time of year. The world has gone bright with blooms, showcasing some of the treasures in life you just can't buy.

Well, okay, yes, sometimes you have to buy them to plant them. But not always! Like these little fellows in my neighbor's yard...


I don't know what they are (anyone know? Greg?), but I love how they've just nestled themselves in her grass and then run rampant. The reason she hasn't mowed the grass yet is because of an attachment to these free-roaming little purple and white lovelies...


And who can blame her? When nature puts on a display like this, forcing it into submission just seems wrong somehow.


And here are some more rogue flowers. Little violas that have infiltrated the neighborhood, and have embedded themselves wherever there's dirt and a drink of water-- even between the cracks in my driveway...


I just can't move myself to root them out. It's so cheery to come home to a driveway populated with little purple blossoms. :) As you're probably already getting the impression, I try to roll with nature's whims a bit; I like to think we're both happier that way.

The backyard has also given forth a pretty amazing display of mossy phlox. Here they are after some morning rain, dripping down my back wall onto the plaster seat. I wish they stayed this vibrant all summer long.


Also, the bleeding heart this year has gotten large, and is loaded with hearts. No Victorian garden is complete without one!



And lastly, here you can see the front yard, filled to bursting with more mossy phlox-- and the infamous mosaiced stepping stones.


Well, I hope you enjoyed this somewhat different Treasure Box Wednesday. I think it's nice to take a step back and appreciate all the natural beauty around us now and then. It's not all about the thrift store. (Though that's fun, too!)

Oh- for those who have children of your own, or who just remember being a kid, I thought you might enjoy a post this week on my humor blog entitled, "Stealth Mom and the Mayonnaise Infiltration of 82."

• If you've ever tried to make your kid eat something he or she didn't like-- or if you were that kid (pick me, pick me!)-- I believe you'll be able to identify. Click here to check it out.

• Also, if you didn't get a chance to see Sunday's post on the Cottage Living forum's spring swap, you might find something of interest by clicking here.
  

May there be an excellent day ahead of you!

Treasure Box Wednesday: The Best Things in Life Are Free

This is my absolute favorite time of year. The world has gone bright with blooms, showcasing some of the treasures in life you just can't buy.

Well, okay, yes, sometimes you have to buy them to plant them. But not always! Like these little fellows in my neighbor's yard...


I don't know what they are (anyone know? Greg?), but I love how they've just nestled themselves in her grass and then run rampant. The reason she hasn't mowed the grass yet is because of an attachment to these free-roaming little purple and white lovelies...


And who can blame her? When nature puts on a display like this, forcing it into submission just seems wrong somehow.


And here are some more rogue flowers. Little violas that have infiltrated the neighborhood, and have embedded themselves wherever there's dirt and a drink of water-- even between the cracks in my driveway...


I just can't move myself to root them out. It's so cheery to come home to a driveway populated with little purple blossoms. :) As you're probably already getting the impression, I try to roll with nature's whims a bit; I like to think we're both happier that way.

The backyard has also given forth a pretty amazing display of mossy phlox. Here they are after some morning rain, dripping down my back wall onto the plaster seat. I wish they stayed this vibrant all summer long.


Also, the bleeding heart this year has gotten large, and is loaded with hearts. No Victorian garden is complete without one!



And lastly, here you can see the front yard, filled to bursting with more mossy phlox-- and the infamous mosaiced stepping stones.


Well, I hope you enjoyed this somewhat different Treasure Box Wednesday. I think it's nice to take a step back and appreciate all the natural beauty around us now and then. It's not all about the thrift store. (Though that's fun, too!)

Oh- for those who have children of your own, or who just remember being a kid, I thought you might enjoy a post this week on my humor blog entitled, "Stealth Mom and the Mayonnaise Infiltration of 82."

• If you've ever tried to make your kid eat something he or she didn't like-- or if you were that kid (pick me, pick me!)-- I believe you'll be able to identify. Click here to check it out.

• Also, if you didn't get a chance to see Sunday's post on the Cottage Living forum's spring swap, you might find something of interest by clicking here.
  

May there be an excellent day ahead of you!

The Grout Look: Or How Broken China Mosaics Nearly Broke ME

Ah, Pittsburgh-- Land of Slopey Yards. And I-- owner of one such Slopey Yard-- grew weary of straining my skinny, flabby girl-arms dragging a lawn mower up a bunch of concrete steps every two weeks just to mow my whopping 15-feet of grass.

I mean, talk about overkill! Might as well just take a chainsaw to a dandelion while I’m at it.

So one summer, I had the bright idea that I would use those same skinny, flabby girl-arms to dig up all the grass in my front yard and replace it with cedar chips, creeping phlox and stepping stones made of broken china. It’d be idyllic! So rejuvenated! So cottagey! And I’d never have to mow again!...

Um…

Did you know that fifteen feet of grass automatically expands to the size of Heinz Field when you attempt to dig it up by hand?

It does. And let me tell you, the Steelers don’t really like it when you’re out there interrupting training to take their turf away. (“Can you move the huddle a little to the left, Hines? I need to get that clump.”)

Anyway, digging up the yard was ONE project. (Much blistering, weeping and indelicately sliding down the hill ensued.)

And making the stepping stones was another.

And to be completely honest with you, I look back upon both projects with about the same amount of, er, love.

I DO like how the stepping stones turned out, I must say. But if you’ve been on this site much, you probably know me by now: I have no barometer whatsoever for what is “Enough” to try to tackle. It is my Achilles Heel. (Which was pretty sore at this point, by the way, what with indelicately sliding down the hill.)

So was ONE stepping stone good enough for me to attempt as a central feature?

Oh NO-- I needed to make THREE of them, having never mosaiced before! Because three is some Magic Decorating Number inside our brains. And the Brain did say, “The number of the count should be three, no more, no less.”

How can you argue with that?


“And since you’re already making three,” continued the Brain, “then why not make SIX, so your best friend’s mother can have a set for her own yard? What a nice Mother’s Day it would be for her, if you gave her three handmade broken china stepping stones! How happy she would be!”

Stupid, zealous Brain.

But wide-eyed and earnest, I went to work on the first stepping stone-- assembling china that had already suffered structural indignities at my hand. I went to Construction Junction, our local architectural salvage place, and got myself some colored tiles that coordinated with the china. I rummaged through my craft drawers and came up with some floral display marbles that matched the china, as well. Mosaic adhesive? Check! Tile grout? Check! Plain concrete stepping stones? Check, check, and check! Tile nippers? Got ‘em! All was good.

So let me tell you what the Grout People DON’T tell you on the back of the grout packaging.

Oh, they’ll tell you that you need a damp sponge to remove some excess grout. They’ll tell you that you need to work in small areas at a time. They’ll tell you to wear rubber gloves. All very good advice!...

They do NOT tell you that the mosaicing project-- which will eventually be very beautiful and you will be happy you made-- is extremely gloopy to work with. So gloopy you will worry it’s a disaster and maybe even HATE IT a little, while you’re working on it.

They do NOT tell you that you will need more damp paper towels than the Brawny Man can provide. EVER.

And they are entirely mum about suggesting that you should, perhaps, wear something that can properly support The Grout Look.

One single stepping stone, one foot across, and there was grout on my cheek, my sleeves, my jeans, and in a knee-high pile of wet, grouty paper towels. I finished the first stepping stone and looked balefully at the five undecorated cement discs still sitting in a stack beside me.
They taunted: “Look, we’re waiting. The Brain said SIX.”

Yeah, yeah, zip it.

I washed my face and went back to work, wondering why, if the Brain was so gung-ho on aesthetically-pleasing odd-numbers of objects, then let the Brain grow some darned fingers and help out a little.

Slowly but surely, I went to work on the other two stepping stones for my front yard. More broken china. More salvage tile. And me encased in enough grout to make a chalkware statue.
But finally-- FINALLY-- there were three completed! What a sense of accomplishment! I stood back, arms folded, and surveyed my work.

“Hi,” said the three blank stepping stones in the stack next to me. “Um, so exactly what are we doing for Mother’s Day again?”

Grumble.

I was half-way through my fourth stepping stone of the season when the Brawny Man phoned and told me about the de-forestation because of this project of mine. He said while he certainly appreciated all the business, the mosaicing really had to stop for a while. For the greater good.


So when Mother’s Day arrived, the Brain was forced to view ONE as the number of stepping stones for visual splendor. My friend’s mom WAS pretty delighted to have it, at least, which made me happy. And the ones in my yard have held up well.

But when friends tell me off-hand that they think they want to try mosaicing—and say it in that breezy, devil-may-care way, like it’s some innocent decoupage or something—I shake my head in wonder...

Ah, the innocents. Are they really up for the Grout Look?

---

Oh-- Before we go today-- I was “tagged” by two fine folks along the Internet highway to list Seven Weird Facts you all otherwise wouldn’t know about me (you know, without, say, a gumshoe on my trail)... So while I usually do just one blog article per week, this week is a little different. You can click here for the tag response. I don’t want to not fulfill my duty as part of the greater Web Community. :-)

The Grout Look: Or How Broken China Mosaics Nearly Broke ME

Ah, Pittsburgh-- Land of Slopey Yards. And I-- owner of one such Slopey Yard-- grew weary of straining my skinny, flabby girl-arms dragging a lawn mower up a bunch of concrete steps every two weeks just to mow my whopping 15-feet of grass.

I mean, talk about overkill! Might as well just take a chainsaw to a dandelion while I’m at it.

So one summer, I had the bright idea that I would use those same skinny, flabby girl-arms to dig up all the grass in my front yard and replace it with cedar chips, creeping phlox and stepping stones made of broken china. It’d be idyllic! So rejuvenated! So cottagey! And I’d never have to mow again!...

Um…

Did you know that fifteen feet of grass automatically expands to the size of Heinz Field when you attempt to dig it up by hand?

It does. And let me tell you, the Steelers don’t really like it when you’re out there interrupting training to take their turf away. (“Can you move the huddle a little to the left, Hines? I need to get that clump.”)

Anyway, digging up the yard was ONE project. (Much blistering, weeping and indelicately sliding down the hill ensued.)

And making the stepping stones was another.

And to be completely honest with you, I look back upon both projects with about the same amount of, er, love.

I DO like how the stepping stones turned out, I must say. But if you’ve been on this site much, you probably know me by now: I have no barometer whatsoever for what is “Enough” to try to tackle. It is my Achilles Heel. (Which was pretty sore at this point, by the way, what with indelicately sliding down the hill.)

So was ONE stepping stone good enough for me to attempt as a central feature?

Oh NO-- I needed to make THREE of them, having never mosaiced before! Because three is some Magic Decorating Number inside our brains. And the Brain did say, “The number of the count should be three, no more, no less.”

How can you argue with that?


“And since you’re already making three,” continued the Brain, “then why not make SIX, so your best friend’s mother can have a set for her own yard? What a nice Mother’s Day it would be for her, if you gave her three handmade broken china stepping stones! How happy she would be!”

Stupid, zealous Brain.

But wide-eyed and earnest, I went to work on the first stepping stone-- assembling china that had already suffered structural indignities at my hand. I went to Construction Junction, our local architectural salvage place, and got myself some colored tiles that coordinated with the china. I rummaged through my craft drawers and came up with some floral display marbles that matched the china, as well. Mosaic adhesive? Check! Tile grout? Check! Plain concrete stepping stones? Check, check, and check! Tile nippers? Got ‘em! All was good.

So let me tell you what the Grout People DON’T tell you on the back of the grout packaging.

Oh, they’ll tell you that you need a damp sponge to remove some excess grout. They’ll tell you that you need to work in small areas at a time. They’ll tell you to wear rubber gloves. All very good advice!...

They do NOT tell you that the mosaicing project-- which will eventually be very beautiful and you will be happy you made-- is extremely gloopy to work with. So gloopy you will worry it’s a disaster and maybe even HATE IT a little, while you’re working on it.

They do NOT tell you that you will need more damp paper towels than the Brawny Man can provide. EVER.

And they are entirely mum about suggesting that you should, perhaps, wear something that can properly support The Grout Look.

One single stepping stone, one foot across, and there was grout on my cheek, my sleeves, my jeans, and in a knee-high pile of wet, grouty paper towels. I finished the first stepping stone and looked balefully at the five undecorated cement discs still sitting in a stack beside me.
They taunted: “Look, we’re waiting. The Brain said SIX.”

Yeah, yeah, zip it.

I washed my face and went back to work, wondering why, if the Brain was so gung-ho on aesthetically-pleasing odd-numbers of objects, then let the Brain grow some darned fingers and help out a little.

Slowly but surely, I went to work on the other two stepping stones for my front yard. More broken china. More salvage tile. And me encased in enough grout to make a chalkware statue.
But finally-- FINALLY-- there were three completed! What a sense of accomplishment! I stood back, arms folded, and surveyed my work.

“Hi,” said the three blank stepping stones in the stack next to me. “Um, so exactly what are we doing for Mother’s Day again?”

Grumble.

I was half-way through my fourth stepping stone of the season when the Brawny Man phoned and told me about the de-forestation because of this project of mine. He said while he certainly appreciated all the business, the mosaicing really had to stop for a while. For the greater good.


So when Mother’s Day arrived, the Brain was forced to view ONE as the number of stepping stones for visual splendor. My friend’s mom WAS pretty delighted to have it, at least, which made me happy. And the ones in my yard have held up well.

But when friends tell me off-hand that they think they want to try mosaicing—and say it in that breezy, devil-may-care way, like it’s some innocent decoupage or something—I shake my head in wonder...

Ah, the innocents. Are they really up for the Grout Look?

---

Oh-- Before we go today-- I was “tagged” by two fine folks along the Internet highway to list Seven Weird Facts you all otherwise wouldn’t know about me (you know, without, say, a gumshoe on my trail)... So while I usually do just one blog article per week, this week is a little different. You can click here for the tag response. I don’t want to not fulfill my duty as part of the greater Web Community. :-)

When Good Crafts Go Bad

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again... Someone famous once said that. Probably director Terry Gilliam after “Don Quixote” fell apart.

But as anyone who crafts will tell you, there are the craft projects that turn out nicely, maybe even better than expected. And then there are... well... the sorts of projects I’ll be showing you today.

My hope is that others will benefit from my crafting and artistic mishaps, and avoid these particular errors themselves. And for those who don’t currently craft, or who have always wanted to try a particular craft and are afraid of the consequences, I hope you’ll see that there are folks like me out here crafting-- happy, forging ahead, undaunted-- who are COMPLETELY clueless sometimes. And so there’s nothing to fear and everything to learn by taking some time and giving it a shot.

Will there be mess? Yes, unquestionably! Ugliness? Like Medusa on a bad hair day! Poor planning? Like roadwork in spring! But we laugh it off and carry on. When it works, it’s all worth it. Every bit of it.

And here we go.

The Mad Mosaic Window
In the movie Spinal Tap, one character marvels that there’s “such a fine line between stupid and clever.” And this, I fear, trods on that line.

I was looking for an inexpensive way to make myself a stained glass style window to sit in my dining room picture window. So I bought an interesting and cheap old window at an architectural salvage place. Then I started gluing. This has bits of a broken table lamp in it. Flat marbles from a floral display. Stained glass. And a few extra lamp crystals I happened to have lying around.

And WOW does it look it! Especially in person.

The funny thing was, no matter how many hours I spent gluing on these darned pieces of glass, I still wasn’t filling up the space. It’s as if the more I would add to it, the more the clear space was expanding like the universe itself. And the lamp bits? No matter how small the lamp glass was, it still wouldn’t lay flat. So from the other side, you can totally see all the glue I had to add, just to get things to stick.

I do like the colors. And as you can see, the light does go nicely through it, highlighting the glass and the, er, crystalline globs of glue. So this window remains in my basement-- far, far from unsuspecting guests-- until I can either think of a way to correct it, or, well, until I’m a very old lady and have to move into assisted living.


The Pepto Bismol Globe Shade

I have my great-aunt’s pink Victorian oil lamp with yellow flowers. It came to me missing its globe shade. Seeking to restore my beloved relative’s antique possession, one day I had the bright idea that I would paint a globe shade to match it. So I found a clear glass shade, got myself some glass paint in the proper shade of pink, read the instructions, followed them precisely, and began to paint.

What I did not realize was that glass paint is not really meant to be brushed on to cover large surfaces. And if used in that manner, it will never be, say, EVEN. Or DRY. So the more paint I added, the more streaky, drippy flat and uneven the shade actually began to look. It was like someone spilled a bottle of Pepto and left it. To repair the situation, I thought I could even it out by spraying it with a clear frosted glass spray.

And then it began to crackle. So instead of the makings of a restored Victorian lamp, I had a globe shade with eczema.

This globe now sits in the basement where it can chat with the window about misplaced intentions.

Future Thrift Store Art
The rose. Artists and poets have been inspired by roses for centuries. And if roses actually looked the way I currently paint roses, I really do believe a lot less poetry would have been written on the whole.

I am close-ish. But I have yet to learn what I’m fully doing wrong. I tend to get lost, somehow, in petals and shadowing. And while the composition itself is usually not too bad, and they are in fact identifiable as roses, the execution always ends up looking either muddy or cartoony or both. This one below, this one with its black, brown and 70s red has a color scheme that reminds me of Johnny Cash at a Harley Davidson convention.

And the one here below...

... on the surface it doesn’t seem too bad. But somewhere along the way I was apparently a little bit negligent on stems. One... two... three... four flower heads. One... two... three... no, just three... stems? Well, one is... hiding. Sure, hiding. Or one stem goes to two flowers. Hard to say which, really. Perhaps it’s a bit of MC Escher’s influence.

Needless to say, I am unwilling to forgo my rose obsession just because of a few deformed flowers. So I figure eventually if I keep at it, something will click, and I’ll finally paint a rose worth displaying outside of (you guessed it) the basement. I think I’m getting there.

Then there was my art class “Moody Blue Pepper Among Monochrome Artichoke and Eggplant.” It symbolizes the isolation that individuals feel when tossed into an urban, hustle bustle society and...

Actually, I just wanted to try out my Pthalo Blue.

Anyway, those are just a few of my artistic and creative oopsies within the last year or so. I hope you either got a chuckle, got inspired to try something you might not have otherwise, or felt a little consolation on a past errant project of your own.

And next week? I will share with you the recipe for one very sweet Valentines treat. See you then!

When Good Crafts Go Bad

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again... Someone famous once said that. Probably director Terry Gilliam after “Don Quixote” fell apart.

But as anyone who crafts will tell you, there are the craft projects that turn out nicely, maybe even better than expected. And then there are... well... the sorts of projects I’ll be showing you today.

My hope is that others will benefit from my crafting and artistic mishaps, and avoid these particular errors themselves. And for those who don’t currently craft, or who have always wanted to try a particular craft and are afraid of the consequences, I hope you’ll see that there are folks like me out here crafting-- happy, forging ahead, undaunted-- who are COMPLETELY clueless sometimes. And so there’s nothing to fear and everything to learn by taking some time and giving it a shot.

Will there be mess? Yes, unquestionably! Ugliness? Like Medusa on a bad hair day! Poor planning? Like roadwork in spring! But we laugh it off and carry on. When it works, it’s all worth it. Every bit of it.

And here we go.

The Mad Mosaic Window
In the movie Spinal Tap, one character marvels that there’s “such a fine line between stupid and clever.” And this, I fear, trods on that line.

I was looking for an inexpensive way to make myself a stained glass style window to sit in my dining room picture window. So I bought an interesting and cheap old window at an architectural salvage place. Then I started gluing. This has bits of a broken table lamp in it. Flat marbles from a floral display. Stained glass. And a few extra lamp crystals I happened to have lying around.

And WOW does it look it! Especially in person.

The funny thing was, no matter how many hours I spent gluing on these darned pieces of glass, I still wasn’t filling up the space. It’s as if the more I would add to it, the more the clear space was expanding like the universe itself. And the lamp bits? No matter how small the lamp glass was, it still wouldn’t lay flat. So from the other side, you can totally see all the glue I had to add, just to get things to stick.

I do like the colors. And as you can see, the light does go nicely through it, highlighting the glass and the, er, crystalline globs of glue. So this window remains in my basement-- far, far from unsuspecting guests-- until I can either think of a way to correct it, or, well, until I’m a very old lady and have to move into assisted living.


The Pepto Bismol Globe Shade

I have my great-aunt’s pink Victorian oil lamp with yellow flowers. It came to me missing its globe shade. Seeking to restore my beloved relative’s antique possession, one day I had the bright idea that I would paint a globe shade to match it. So I found a clear glass shade, got myself some glass paint in the proper shade of pink, read the instructions, followed them precisely, and began to paint.

What I did not realize was that glass paint is not really meant to be brushed on to cover large surfaces. And if used in that manner, it will never be, say, EVEN. Or DRY. So the more paint I added, the more streaky, drippy flat and uneven the shade actually began to look. It was like someone spilled a bottle of Pepto and left it. To repair the situation, I thought I could even it out by spraying it with a clear frosted glass spray.

And then it began to crackle. So instead of the makings of a restored Victorian lamp, I had a globe shade with eczema.

This globe now sits in the basement where it can chat with the window about misplaced intentions.

Future Thrift Store Art
The rose. Artists and poets have been inspired by roses for centuries. And if roses actually looked the way I currently paint roses, I really do believe a lot less poetry would have been written on the whole.

I am close-ish. But I have yet to learn what I’m fully doing wrong. I tend to get lost, somehow, in petals and shadowing. And while the composition itself is usually not too bad, and they are in fact identifiable as roses, the execution always ends up looking either muddy or cartoony or both. This one below, this one with its black, brown and 70s red has a color scheme that reminds me of Johnny Cash at a Harley Davidson convention.

And the one here below...

... on the surface it doesn’t seem too bad. But somewhere along the way I was apparently a little bit negligent on stems. One... two... three... four flower heads. One... two... three... no, just three... stems? Well, one is... hiding. Sure, hiding. Or one stem goes to two flowers. Hard to say which, really. Perhaps it’s a bit of MC Escher’s influence.

Needless to say, I am unwilling to forgo my rose obsession just because of a few deformed flowers. So I figure eventually if I keep at it, something will click, and I’ll finally paint a rose worth displaying outside of (you guessed it) the basement. I think I’m getting there.

Then there was my art class “Moody Blue Pepper Among Monochrome Artichoke and Eggplant.” It symbolizes the isolation that individuals feel when tossed into an urban, hustle bustle society and...

Actually, I just wanted to try out my Pthalo Blue.

Anyway, those are just a few of my artistic and creative oopsies within the last year or so. I hope you either got a chuckle, got inspired to try something you might not have otherwise, or felt a little consolation on a past errant project of your own.

And next week? I will share with you the recipe for one very sweet Valentines treat. See you then!