Flaunt Your Red!

Nancy at Southern Lady is having a Flaunt Your Red party and since I love red and have so many red items in my home I'm thrilled to participate! Above is a vintage sconce I have in my living room with some red crystals. I used to change out the crystals for different seasons but now I just keep them red.

I just found this red rooster plate and a bowl at Goodwill. I wish they had more than those two pieces!

These vintage red plaid tins are on top of one of my bookcases.

My favorite - red transferware!

I use lots of red material in my home, mostly toile but also some gingham. This is the top of a little curtain I made to hide what I store in this small buffet. The bottom of the curtain in black gingham which doesn't photograph well (it's all wavyish).

We're ending kind of backwards since this is my red front door and my favorite red rose.

Be sure to check out the other Flaunt Your Red participants! Thank you Nancy for hosting such a fun party!

Just a reminder - the winner of the $100 Home Depot Gift card will be chosen randomly Saturday morning. You have until Friday at Midnight PST to enter.

Project Procrastinators Party!

Melissa from The Inspired Room is having a linky party for all of us that have been putting off projects! We're supposed to declare our procrastination project and then (hopefully) work on it because in two weeks we're supposed to show the finished product. Yikes! Nothing like working under a deadline!

O.K. this is my project. Pretty drab looking right? I've been thinking about tackling this for two years now.

This is the little deck area that was left after we built the screened porch. We don't really use it. Well, hubby sits down when he's grilling but that's about it. However, I do see it out of my big kitchen window. So I've been wanting to do some thing special.

I want to extend the harlequin pattern of my kitchen floor out to the deck. I've been putting it off because a)I have no mathematical abilities and don't know how to figure out how to make a harlequin pattern on a floor and b)I have no mathematical abilities and really don't know how to figure out how to paint a harlequin pattern! Somehow angles and snapping string and things seems to be involved!

So my plan of action is to clean the deck with some deck cleaner and then paint it white (with deck paint) and then I'm going to take a leftover tile from the kitchen and just use it as a guide and take it from there. Everything but the grill will be painted and the planters will be planted with new herbs and flowers and hopefully I'll come up with some low cost ideas to pretty it up cause I don't want to spend alot of money.

So hope the weather cooperates for me and I can get this done in between planting things!

Check out The Inspired Room if you want to see all the other Procrastinators or maybe you want to join in the fun - it's not too late!

There's still time to enter the $100 Home Depot Gift Card Give-a-way. Friday is the deadline. See the post below and follow the instructions.

Win a $100 Home Depot Gift Card

Hi everyone! I've partnered with the Home Depot Garden Club to give away a $100 Home Depot Gift Card to one of my readers! Isn't that fabulous! I'm very excited to be able to do this and I'll tell how to enter in a minute but first I want to tell you about the Home Depot Garden Club.

It's a really wonderful resource that covers landscaping, gardening, lawn care, and outdoor living!

• It has a plant library where you can search either by the code on your HD plant tag or you can search by plant name.
• You can get answers to all your outdoor questions within 24 hours!
• They have valuable information about your region, gardening advice from pros and updates on local gardening events.
• They have great D.I.Y. projects
• Registered members receive coupons and discounts delivered via E-mail!



What You Need to Do to Enter

1.Visit the Home Depot Garden Club
2. You may register if you like but it's not necessary to enter. I'm a member.
3. Take a look at their D.I.Y projects which can be found under each main category. For example, if you put your cursor on Gardening you'll get a drop down menu and D.I.Y. will be an option.
4. Come back and tell me which D.I.Y project from ANY OF THEIR CATEGORIES you'd like to try doing yourself.

****EDITED: PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS - I'VE HAD TO DELETE SOME ENTRIES ALEADY!





You have until Friday midnight PST to enter and I will use the Random Number Generator to pick a winner Saturday Morning. Please be sure I have a way to contact you. You'll need to send me your address so that I can mail you the Gift Card.




One entry per person. I'll delete any duplicates. You don't have to have a blog to enter. If you've never left a comment before, here's your chance and you might win!




I'm not getting anything for doing this giveaway (not even a GC for me). This blog is ad free so increased traffic doesn't add to my bottom line. I just thought this would be something that you all would benefit from. It's a great site and who couldn't use an extra $100 at Home Depot. Just think of all the flowers you could buy! Very important - you have to use the link above. If we have a really good turnout there's the possibility of having this giveaway again. So use the link above and explore the site! I think you'll be glad you did.

Outdoor Buffet Makeover

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I want to show you my outdoor buffet that I painted. I actually bought the paint for it last year but just got around to doing it this week.

You've seen it many times before usually with a lot of stuff on top of it. It's a great place to display stuff as there's a sky light right above it and the play of light on the surface is beautiful to see.

I've been wanting to paint it yellow ever since I moved it from my dining room to the screened porch.

I didn't have any replacement knobs so I just spray painted the ones that were on there. If I find some cute knobs I'll change them out.

I really love it this color with the blue plates. I used an exterior paint but that side is pretty protected from the weather so I don't think it was really necessary. The plates haven't even fallen off the wall with all these storms that had tornado warnings!

But wait that's not all! I'm going to try putting a mosaic on the top! I've never done it before but it's always been something I've wanted to do. I bought this mosaic off ebay over a year ago. I was going to do a birdbath and just never got around to it! I'm not sure if I'll use this one or if I'll try to find one with more blues in it. I have a ton of mosaic pieces. I started a project last year and got tired of it so I'll try to use what I have. I'm going to work on it as I have time. So it'll probably be done in about two weeks. But you know I'll be sure to post it (even if it turns out horrid)!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!

A Well Spent Day

I was thinking about this last night. I was thinking about what I had accomplished, I felt it wasn't the best day I've had. Why? I was feeling frustrated. I sometimes feel like there are not enough hours in the day to do everything. I'm sure at least some of you feel that way too!

As much as I love to garden I really don't want to spend my entire day doing chores in the garden. But that's what I did yesterday. Lifting rocks out of the pond because a stinkin chipmunk made holes in the liner (why it wanted to nest there is beyond me)!

So now we have to remake the entire pond! Also, I had to clear the area my husband rototilled for the oats. With a hoe. Lots of hard labor AND I was crazy enough to have exercised for 45 minutes before all of this!

I think it's good to think about things like what kind of life you want to have and how you want to use your days on earth to achieve that life. I personally think people don't spend enough time on introspection! We seem to be a very outwardly focused society. Sometimes I think people are even afraid to just be still or quiet.

I like to end my day knowing that my day has been well spent. That's not always easy to do. But I think it's something worth striving for. I think my well spent day is going to look different from your well spent day. Everyone is at a different stage in life with different challenges.

I've realized my well spent day is really a balanced day. I day where I make time to do a bit of this and that. There are enough hours in the day it's really all about how I use those hours! Making time to do what needs to be done with time to do things I want to do. Balance.

The days where I feel most satisfied are not the days where I don't do anything at all. It's like being on vacation, after a while all I want to do is go home! Because all play and no work gets too tiring just like all work and no play (at least to me). To me a well spent day is not necessarily a crazy frantically busy one either!

Also, surprisingly, it's not a day where I've done nothing but "fluffing" my nest. Or a day of shopping. It's definitely not one where I've spent hours on the Internet.

Usually a good day is one where I've a had nice mix of things that are in line with how I want to live my life. One that had a nice rhythm to it. I've done some cleaning, I've worked on some projects, I've cooked a nice meal for my family, I've spent time with family or friends. Maybe I've spent some time watching a movie, reading a book, or catching up on blogs. Maybe I've washed the kitchen floor even though I know tomorrow it'll look like it needs washing again or maybe I've weeded a bed knowing there will be a good chance there will again be weeds there in a few weeks! There's great satisfaction in doing your job whether that's in the home or out!

A day of balanced living. Sometimes I forget that. But today is a new day and a new chance to strive for a day well spent!

How about you? I'd love to hear what a well spent day looks like for you!

Come To The Habitat ReStore With Me!

You know I'm on a mission to re-do my hall bathroom on a budget and one of the things we need is a new sink, taps and vanity. So I'm checking sources beyond just Home Depot and Lowe's. I'm sure you've all heard of Habitat for Humanity. Did you know they run a store filled with donated items at a discount? We went last weekend to see if they had anything we could use and I brought my camera (like any good blogger would)!

This was nice but someone had it on hold - it's too small anyway.

I wish I had picked up a few of these. They really had a nice selection of molding, doors, windows that kind of thing. Not too much paint and I had read about other's getting great deals on paint at their Re-Stores.

$49 dollars for that light fixture. I would expect it to be cheaper here!

Pretty isn't it? I honestly didn't think the prices were all that good! I still wouldn't buy most of the things they had there.

They had lots of lampshades and designer sinks.

Check here ReStore US Directory to find one near you. You can also donate building material. So if you're remodeling instead of just junking your old cabinets etc. donate them.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I've seen on other blogs where people got beautiful chandeliers for really cheap and cabinets, wallpaper, paint etc. I thought the prices were quite high for most things and the selection wasn't all that great. But it's like a thriftstore. It's all in the timing. So I'll go again in a few weeks to see how the selection changes.

We had a horrible hail storm yesterday. The worse I've ever seen! So I'll be out in the garden all weekend cleaning up the mess! My poor beautiful lettuce has huge holes in it. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thanks as always for stopping by!

Thrift Store Style

Happy Earth Day everyone! I wanted to show you what I did with the things I got at the thrift store last week which you can see in this post Cheap Thrills. Actually when I look around my home, I see so many things that have been thrifted!

I showed in that post where I hung one of the black transferware plates. The other one I'm using in another project that I'll show on Friday.

The decanters. I bought them knowing I wanted to put them in the dining room for a while because the light hits that buffet at around 5:30 and it's just so pretty. I knew the glass would look lovely there with the sun shining through them at dinner time AND that they would be useful in other capacities when I want to change the look. Thank you for all your wonderful suggestions on how to re-use them!

Here are a few more pictures with more light. I monogrammed one of the decanters with a rub on letter.

As you can see, they're sitting on that little mirrored tray that cleaned up so beautifully!

That little crystal piece is a thrifted find which is filled with some pretty sparkly napkin rings that I got from Target a few years ago. Two Christmases ago - they were after Christmas clearance items. I've never used them as napkin rings!

This apothecary jar (Not from the thrift store) is filled with various sparkly Christmas garland and some sparkly candle rings.

The Rover plate. I hung it in my foyer which is where all our dog paintings and other dog plates are.The picture above it I found at the thrift store sometime last year.

The two pillows. The red toile one I put on my couch and I absolutely love it! I usually gravitate toward red toile on a light background but I really love this reversal of color. I wish I could find another one!

The black toile pillow I put in my kitchen window seat which I think has enough pillows now LOL!! The little green and toile pillow some of you may remember as a thrift store find that I added the toile & buttons to.

The pear. Well....the pear didn't work out quite like I had wanted it to. I had forgotten that this shelf is actually quite shallow so the pear is too big for it. It hangs over!

I took a little white daisy tureen from my black china cabinet and put it on the shelf instead. It's a thrift store item also! Do you like the new toile on the message boards? I took the monkey toile down and I like this one better - from a $5 roll of toile wallpaper.

Right now the pear is sitting on top of some books in a bookshelf until I can think of something else to do with it! All in all, everything else is where I wanted it to be.

I still have to get to some of you that emailed me gardening questions - so don't think I've forgotten you and I know somebody asked me about mixing toiles. I don't know what the "decorating rules" say about that but I'll do post in the future about what works for me.

Have a good week everyone and thanks for stopping by!