What To Do With Those Plastic Eggs

 
Hi everyone! Thanks for all comments and support on my last post. It’s obviously a hot topic as I’ve gotten quite a few emails as well.

I thought I’d show you what I did with some of those inexpensive plastic Easter eggs.

I used some color coding labels that we had to make polka dot ones to hang off my branches in my foyer. This is the size of dots we happened to have but I’m sure the bigger ones would look cute as well. I put a dot of hot glue on the top and attached a bit of raffia to hang them from, but ribbon would be so much cuter.

This is the last hurrah for those branches! They have served me well don’t you think ~smile. I didn’t want to get rid of my paper flowers just yet, so I stuck them in the bottom of the pot. Makes for a very colorful display!

Now that it’s getting warmer, I’ll finally be able to paint this hall tree. Right now I’m leaning toward red.


The other thing I did with them was to decopauge them with some wrapping paper.

I’ve used tissue paper before but the thicker wrapping paper was much easier to work with. It’s messy – be prepared to have glue all over your hands! This was some houndstooth paper that I got from Hobby Lobby a while a go. I used my little crystal glasses from Goodwill as the egg cups.

Easter eggs can have a bit of sophistication to them. They don’t all have to be colorful and child-like.



These are ones I did last year with black toile tissue paper. I also did some with red toile tissue paper (one is in my china cabinet in my first Easter decorating post).

Below is my favorite toile bunny!

I enjoy adding some seasonal decorations to my regular stuff. I think it helps make each holiday a little more special. The best time to buy holiday decor is after the holiday! So next week I’ll be stopping in at Pier 1, Cost Plus etc to see what they’ve clearanced. It’ll be a great time to pick up nests which you can use all year round.


Thursday starts a new month and that means book giveaway time! I’ve picked out a really good vegetable gardening book for you guys. So see you all then!

The Busyness of Blogging

Hi everyone! Hope you are all having a lovely weekend! I had a really nice break and didn't get to half of the things on my to do list, but that's o.k. I'm finding that I want to slow down from the daily incessant busyness that used to drive me. Having a blog can lead to having a certain pressure to produce. You need to produce so that you have content to photograph and post about! It can be a good motivating thing and it can be a bad thing. It can motivate you to do projects you would have done anyway or it can drive you to do projects just for the sake of doing a project and having something to blog about.  I'm going to try to keep it in the good motivating category.  Besides I want to enjoy the process and I find that if I rush to finish something just to have something to post about it takes all the fun out of it for me.

I consider myself a high energy person but I really think that constant activity isn't good for the soul. I think a lot of people are addicted to busyness. It’s almost like it becomes a badge of honor or a status symbol. I once offered a neighbor of mine a stack of decorating magazines and her reply was  oh no, she was too busy to read those types of things. She also has told me that she’s too busy to plant flowers.  Maybe she is. I don’t know. I can’t imagine being too busy. I can understand not wanting to, having no interest in it. But we are all at different places in our lives so who knows?

Last week when I was taking a break from blogging,  I sat and watched my daughter play a video game  and didn’t even think about blogging! Normally I would have watched her and cheered her on for a while and then I'd start to think about blog topics and projects that I'd want to do or had to finish or had to photograph or a post I had to finish writing and what I was going to say etc. At some point my mind would wander to blogging. I don't want my mind to wander that way. I want to be there 100%, enjoy that moment 100% not 75%. Do you find that happens to you? Do you find yourself thinking about blogging when your mind should really be focused on something/someone else?
I don’t want to be like that. I want to really be in the moment, whatever that moment might be - even if it's something mundane like washing the dishes or sweeping the floor. To take joy in the simple everyday activities of my life as well as the bigger more spectacular things that happen.To slow down and really enjoy life- real life.

I know that when you read those posts about “how to have a successful blog" (what exactly does that mean anyway - success defined by who), it's recommended that you post on a consistent schedule and I’ve always tried to post at least  4 days a week. Kudos to those who do it everyday! There's so much work and time that goes into blogging - I don't know how they do it.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm just going to post now when I really feel like sharing something and when I’m naturally ready to do so. No more rushing to finish something to have it ready for “so and so’s linky party” etc. No posts just because I post 4 days a week and need to post something.

So there may be a post from me everyday or there may be one once a week, or maybe once a month or maybe two posts a day  - who knows LOL! From now on I'm just going to do it when I really feel like it.

I really appreciate that there are so many of you who take time out of your day to stop by and visit with me. That’s something I don’t take for granted! I hope that you'll continue to do so even if I post sporadically.

Decorating for Easter

Hi everyone! I did a little Easter decorating this week and thought I’d share what I had done.  Everything I used I already had with the exception of the green mini bunny tureen on the first shelf and a couple of things I made.


I really love these Easter bottle brush trees. Aren’t they sweet!

I thought about making some like I did for Christmas but never got around to it - maybe next year.



I made that green polka dot plate with the bird by decoupaging a picture from a calendar on a glass plate and then decoupaging a green and white polka dot napkin on top of that. That's old school style crafting!


Remember bunnies on stick from last year? (They’re from Pier 1 and I don’t know if they have them again this year). Here they are again. I made the little containers they’re in.



This is the top of this china cabinet and below is the bottom.


People always want to see the whole cabinet. The bottom is where I store most of my dishes and there’s usually a chair in front of it  so the storage part is hidden. It's a great one of a kind piece that I got for Mother's Day many years ago.

I added a few more Easter touches in other parts of the house which I'll show you next week.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Taking A Break

Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you all know that I’m taking a little break. Right now I’m in FAFSA hell (college financial aid), I have to get my raised beds ready for planting plus I’m still working on my closet (just bought a little chandy for it) and I'm taking apart our pond and trying to design a new one, plus a million other things. I’m feeling tired and overwhelmed and need to step back on blogging for a bit until I get all these other things under control. Hopefully a week or so of hard work will do the trick. I'm looking forward to it!

Just wanted you to know so that no one would worry if I didn’t post in a while!  You can alway look through the archives while I'm gone.~smile

See you all in a week or so!

Outdoor Wednesday

 
Hi everyone! Today I’m joining Susan's Outdoor Wednesday. My garden is a little behind this year. I’m sure it’s do to the loooong winter we’ve had! But some things have bloomed and some are on the verge.


It’s funny how the bulbs in this bed have bloomed but the bulbs in  a bed in my front yard haven’t!



The one Mahonia that I have. It has fragrant yellow flowers in the spring and blueish berries in the fall which the birds love.


When the Forsythia starts to bloom, then I know for certain it’s spring!




This HUGE Pussywillow was just a stick when I planted it almost 10 years  ago! It's almost as tall as that Leyland Cypress.

 


This Camellia always has blooms in the winter and then again in spring.


I always like to have a few annuals in this pot to brighten  my backdoor. Red and yellow my favorite color combination!



Be sure to stop by A Southern Daydreamer to see the other participants for Outdoor Wednesday.
 

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my blooms today. Hopefully, there will be more next week!

Thrifty Treasures

 
Hi everyone! My friend Rhoda has started up her thrifting/yardsale linky party again. This is always a fun one, as people find the most amazing things. Be sure to check out all the other participants - Southern Hospitality Today's Thrifty Treasures.



I went to two thriftstores on my birthday and really found some wonderful things for my home. The glass bird with the nest in the lower right corner has a hole on the top. I guess I’m to fill it with something?

3 prints of different types of grasses. I’ll put these in my downstairs bathroom as that room has some botanical prints.



This beautiful red jar still has the Ross tags on it. I’m going to have to paint that top – gold doesn’t work for me.

I got these cute vintage trays at a different thriftstore. These would look so pretty hanging on a wall if you didn’t want to use them as trays.
 
I was so excited to find this bag of trim!! Look at all this.
 
There are 7 yards of the blue trim. I doubt I will ever use that purple cording though! 
 
8 yards of this beautiful lace trim!
 
My favorite find was this brand new glider at Goodwill! That’s actually what I told my husband I wanted for my birthday! We had been pricing them at several places.

It was $99 including the cushion (which is the same pattern I have in my screened porch)! The cushion alone costs about $40 at Home Depot and the glider is $149 there. They had quite a few new patio pieces that day at Goodwill. They had the matching lounge chair and bar height table and chairs for example. I don't know where they get their brand new merchandise from or why.



This is what I did with the decanter and 4 glasses I found. I added them to the decanters that I have on this bureau.



I recently took down my burlap heart wreath. So I made this coffee filter wreath the other day. I really like look of layering something on top of a mirror.

Thanks for stopping by to see my thriftstore finds. I’m really lucky that I have  excellent thriftstores as I don’t go to yardsales! 

Have a wonderful week!