Succulent Centerpiece

With my holiday decor packed away, it was time to come up with a new centerpiece for our dining table.  As you know, I generally use one end of the table for my painting, but am trying to be more intentional about not spreading out quite so much so that we can actually eat meals at the table instead of on the couch.  My table is small, however, so it calls for a small centerpiece as well and succulents fit that requirement.

My history with succulents has been less than successful. Most people believe them to be fool-proof, but I am evidence that it just isn't true.  They start off well, but in most cases, I am able to kill them fairly quickly despite my best attempts to keep them alive.  My friend, Pam gave me the cutest little pot of succulents that I placed in my kitchen window.  Within a couple of months all of them had died except one particularly hardy variety. I replaced the dead ones with fake ones from Dollar Tree and the lone survivor continues to live on with its single leaf.

Of course, I knew that my best bet would again be fake succulents. I browsed the aisles at Michael's last week, and found a great selection of plants in all different sizes. All plants were 40% off, so that made them even more affordable.  I bought a small wooden box as well.

I knew that my centerpiece needed to be raised up a little bit, but Valine is the one that gave me the idea of how to do it!  Corks! I have a small jar of corks that was my mom's so I picked out four that sort of matched and set to work.

Remembering a small roll of brass tape that I used for a project a few years ago, I added strips around the top and bottom of the box.

Then, I glued the corks to the bottom.

After they dried, I filled the sections with potting soil and planted the succulents.

I think I will go back and add some rocks around each one of the plants, and I love the size and the beginning of a new tablescape.

Day 22 - Get Creative!

In the middle of the week, I rarely have much time to "get creative", so I'm actually sharing a really simple creative project that I completed a while back, but have never taken the time to blog about.  On my spring trip to Round Top, I found an old beat-up mailbox that came home with me, with a specific project in mind.   A few weeks later, I planted a small vegetable garden and set to work on transforming the mailbox.  I can't seem to find a photo of the "before", but it was not a pretty thing!  In fact, I think that my junking buddies thought I was crazy for bringing it home with me.

My original plan was to mount it on a fence post.  However, while trying to figure out the logistics of where to put it, etc.,  I remembered that I had a small plant stand that I was about to get rid of.  The mailbox fit perfectly on it!

So what in the world is it exactly?  Voila'!

One of these days, I plan to add some sort of decorations to the side in the form of paintings or vinyl, but in the meantime, but for now, it looks pretty great just sitting beside my herb garden (my veggie garden is adjacent to it).

15/52 - Tiny

M4H Project 52 - Tiny

The rain stopped long enough today to welcome this TINY visitor to my garden.

Harvest

Fall FUN 2014 - Day 23 - HARVEST

This summer, I planted my first garden.  I can't tell you how fun it has been to plant things and watch the grow from seeds.  As the seeds broke through the ground, I was so excited.

When they grew a little more and developed leaves.  I took pictures.

As the peas needed staking, I worked to keep them wrapped around the twine.

And then came the first HARVEST.

Yes, I know it was small in comparison to some, but it just made my day.

This time of year, always reminds me of the trips to the cotton fields I took as a child, and when the girls were young.  Riding in a trailer full of freshly HARVESTED cotton was a memory I will never forget.  (I even remember losing a beautiful "diamond" ring---a gift from my brother from the gumball machine-- in one of those trailers full of cotton).  

What memories do you have of HARVEST?   Is there something in your area that is being HARVESTED right now?

Garden Fresh

September SNAPS 2014 - Day 6 - Garden Fresh

You may notice that I changed up the name of this prompt a little bit--hopefully to give you a little more freedom in what you capture.

For the first time this year, I planted my first vegetable garden.  I grew almost all of the plants from seed and naturally I had more success with some varieties than with others.  It was particularly exciting at the very beginning when the seeds were just beginning to sprout.  And that very first harvest--so fun!!  I love tomatoes and they are just so much better when they are home grown in your own garden!  GARDEN FRESH!

You don't have to have your own vegetable garden to capture this prompt, however.  The produce department of your grocery store might be the perfect inspiration for you.  Or perhaps you have a flower garden in your yard that brings your joy.  Or maybe a neighbor does!   Looking forward to seeing your GARDEN FRESH photos.

#SeptemberSNAPS2014

Garden Fresh

Well, the growing season of my little garden seems to be winding down now.  I still have plenty of tomatoes, but everything else has just about played out--not that there was much variety to begin with. I did however, recently pick our one home-grown zucchini!

Using a recipe I'd seen while at the beauty salon getting my hair cut, I made baked zucchini chips.

I sliced the zucchini into thin slices using my new Ulu knife from Alaska (which worked quite nicely I might add).

I then tossed the slices in olive oil and coated them in a panko/parmesan/basil mixture.

I spread them out on a cookie sheet and popped them into the oven.

Meanwhile, I sliced some of our tomatoes and grilled some chicken, adding some barbecue sauce for a little extra flavor.  It's always a little tricky grilling the chicken with the sauce on them because I want them to be juicy, but cooked and not burned.

This time it all turned out great though.  Everything was quite yummy and I'll definitely be trying the zucchini chips again.

A Little Painting

I've been thinking about a new blog header and also wanted to do something a little creative, so yesterday I pulled out my small set of watercolor paints and pencils and set to work.

I got so engrossed in my work that I almost completely forgot that I was supposed to be teaching an art class at noon.  I made it just in time, but as soon as we were finished, I cam home and did some more painting.  I've always said that "Someday I will take watercolor lessons" and Jana gave me this set as a Christmas present a couple of years ago.  I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, but it's fun.

Today, I attempted to set it as my blog header, but kept running into all kinds of problems----it seems that all would look good until I uploaded it to the blog.  Once there, all the colors changed drastically and the backgrounds were all gray.  Not. at. all. pretty!!    I found a suggestion that perhaps it was a setting in my Google+ account and sure enough, it fixed it!

While I was at it, I even practiced some fall and Christmas themed headers!

Never mind that there are loads of laundry and beds to be changed.  This is way more fun--kind of therapeutic, as well!

By the way, I made a trip to Target today.  I didn't really need anything, but hadn't been in a while and just wanted to browse.  Oh my---I want one of these!  (They made me thing of Valine's mama, too)  ;-)

A Field Of Sunflowers

Years 16 years ago, I bought a book for my girls that was written by a local photo journalist and told the story of a farmer who lived north of Shreveport.  Having grown up just a couple of miles from the fields depicted made it even more special.

While I've never been to the actual Sunflower Festival, I have been able to visit the fields the last couple of summers.  Ron, Valine and I had planned to drive up there last weekend, but other obligations interfered with that plan and it has rained every day since then.  But, since the rain stopped for a while yesterday evening, I suggested to Ron that we drive up there when he got off work.    Though the sun wasn't shining, the flowers were.

They were just beautiful.

In fact, I think they seemed fuller and prettier than ever before.

We especially liked the long rows of blossoms that were opposite the rows of corn.

We set the camera up on timer-mode

and even used the timer on the Camera+ app on my phone.  Wasn't quite ready for this one--but let's face it, we all know I lack coordination anyway!  lol!!

Just as we were cutting some flowers to take home (which is allowed as long as you take them from the backside so you don't ruin the view for other tourists), a man on a four-wheeler pulled up to see what we were doing.  We offered to move our car so he could get by, but, he insisted that we drive to the end of the "road" with him so that we could see the "best fields of them all, that no one ever even sees".  So we did.

And we weren't disappointed!

There, Gordon Boogaerts, the man who started it all, introduced himself to us and told us how he began the fields and why.  As we chatted, it was apparent why he does it----it makes him happy and he loves to share that with others.   I asked if I could take a picture of him and he said "Yes, but not here.  I want to do it up by the road."  He told us to drive down yet another row of flowers where there were flowers on both sides.  So we did.  As we drove, we laughed at the "sunflower thunder" as the huge blossoms hit our windows with thuds, just as he told us they would.

When we returned to the road, we didn't see Gordon at first.  But, we found him at the gate to his home.  I asked him to choose where he wanted his photo taken and after thinking about it for a minute, he told us to climb on his 4-wheeler with him and we took off across his property.  He showed us his favorite spot where you could see both the massive trees and the sunflowers in the distance.

He drove us all over his property, telling us about the sunflowers, agriculture and photography.

His fields have been photographed and painted by many--amateur and professional alike.  And Gordon himself, enjoys photography and asked to use my camera a time or two to take a couple of pictures.  Before taking his photo, I offered a disclaimer since my skills are far compared to the likes of his photography buddies--Neil Johnson and Fletcher Thorne-Thomson.  But he encouraged me to try anyway and to send him a couple to let him judge for himself.

Since he had a huge ink blob on his shirt from a leaking pen, I suggested he hold one of his dogs in front of him.

I think they both kind of liked it, don't you?

It ended up being the best kind of outing---spontaneous, beautiful and filled with all kinds of special surprises!

THE END