How to create a fun and colourful planter for your garden with a recycled tire.

Hey everyone! With summer in full swing, I thought I’d share a project that I actually created last summer, and still looks great this year. And with Canada’s big 150th birthday coming up this weekend, it’s also a great way to add some red and white patriotism to your yard!

In my usual habit of rescuing things from the side of the road… (read about my trash-to-treasure desk and tiered wood slice stand) ... there was a stack of used tires sitting on the curb in my neighbourhood for several days, and I finally had to go and grab one of them. I was looking for a way to add some temporary, low maintenance colour and life to a plain corner of our yard, and recycling the tire was going to be the way to do it.

5 Helpful Tips for Buying Succulents

Helpful tips for getting started with buying succulents or expanding your succulent gardening.

Hello sweet bloggy friends! Is it really already the beginning of October?  Because my outdoor garden is all but finished for the year #blackthumb, so now I can start to think more about gardening indoors.  If you follow me on instagram then you’ve seen me starting a few succulent gardens that will be coming inside soon.  If you're new to buying succulents, or are wishing you had a few more around, then read on...  I'll share my tips for getting the most bang for your buck in succulent gardening!

How To Love Your Suburban Backyard

Suburban backyards can be tough places to create, maintain, and enjoy through the summer season. Here are my tips on how to love your suburban backyard.

Hey there friends! Summer is upon us, ready or not. And if you’re nosy like me and love checking out other people’s spaces, you’re in luck today. I’m offering the very first tour in this blog’s history, a tour of my summer backyard. Plus you can hop through the links at the end of this post to see backyard/patio/balcony tours from a few of my Canadian blogging friends for a huge dose of inspiration.  If you're visiting here from one of the co-hosts on the tour, welcome!

Chalkboard Style Garden Container Makeover

These DIY chalkboard style garden containers add a minimal and slightly industrial look to your backyard kitchen or vegetable garden. Perfect for your urban or small space outdoor decor.

Hello friends! I hope you’ve been enjoying the beginning of summer weather wherever you are. I’ve been out in the yard a few times, puttering around and continuing to give it a new look. If you remember, a couple of years ago we had all the ash trees... All. The. Trees. ...  removed from one side of our yard due to the Emerald Ash Borer. I wrote about it in this post about DIY Birdseed Ornaments.

Birch Slice Garden Markers

Recently I needed a quick and inexpensive way to create customized garden markers for a photo shoot, and came up with these birch slice garden markers from supplies in my craft cupboard. They’re pretty cute. I think you’ll like them too!

Photo Finish 31: I Spy a Bee

Hey there everyone, how was your week?  I’m looking forward to this weekend.  We get to go awaaaay!  That’s pretty much almost always a treat right?  I hope you have some treats in store too.  But first…photo finish Friday is here.

Photo Finish 30: Sunflowers & Summer Skies

Happy Friday and Happy August!  It’s photo finish day today…and I hope you’ll indulge me two floral posts in a row.

Photo Finish 29: Ombré Painted Daisies

Hello, amazing blog reading friends!  It’s Friday again…I hope your week has been good to you.  Photo Finish is arriving slightly later today.  Not all of this week has been that kind to me.  But even under the weather, I was able to take my camera out in the early mornings for a wander through the garden.  You might have seen these already on instagram in the last while…hopefully you’re not bored by them yet.  I’m not.

Planting a Container Herb Garden with Kids

Hey there friends, what have you all been up to now that May is in the home stretch?  We're continuing to plough through home renovations, and we are bidding adieu to the play structure from our backyard, in hopes of having a longer ice rink in the backyard next winter.  I had a photo shoot for a beautiful newborn which you'll see a peek of on Photo Finish soon.  And Personally Junior and I planted a container herb garden.

Mid-May: High Notes & Low Notes

So it’s mid-May and here are few notes on the simultaneous highs and lows of life.  No craftiness, DIY or fancy stuff happening in the kitchen.  Life is full and the days are bittersweet.  So just a bit of a week recap with a few things happening in my little sphere.

Coneflower or Echinacea or Painted Daisy?

Happy Tuesday from this pretty corner of my garden.  These beauties have been blooming for just over a week now.  What do you call them?  Either of these names..coneflower and echinacea…seem quite ugly to me for these perfect, pretty flowers.  But when I googled it that's what I found.  

Summer Recipe: White Bean Salad with Thyme

A hot and hazy, mid-week “hello” to you all.  And a good day for a simple but substantial side dish recipe with white beans and thyme  to add to your weekday BBQ menu.

I found this recipe recently in Canadian Living magazine in their Quick and Easy recipes.  Right up my alley.  I was looking for ways to use the herbs that are flourishing in a big container at my back door.  Do you grow herbs in the summertime too?

DIY Herb Plant Thank-You Gifts

Hello to my wonderful readers!  It was hump day today, and perhaps you’re feeling it like I was.  Who else is counting down the days of school left?  And that also means it will soon be time to thank all the amazing people who have been instrumental in educating, caring for and transporting your children this school year.  And here is what all those people will be receiving from our household.  Do you like?

Siberian Irises in Bloom

Ah, what a few days of sunshine can do in the garden.  My Siberian irises began blooming yesterday!  Such a treat.  The blooms are exquisite are they not?  The perfect shade of purple crossed with blue.  A stunning contrast against the vivid green and simple lines of their leaves.  I look forward to the arrival of the first flowers every spring.

 

They have special sentimental value for me.  These were transplanted from my Oma’s garden after she passed away.  Oma and Opa had the most beautiful garden.  And they took great pride in it.  I still picture them sitting in front of their house in the shade of a tree on a Sunday afternoon, enjoying their garden and each other’s company.

This stand of irises lives in a lovely, mostly shady spot at the side of my house.  I needed to go out and around several times during the day just to take a look and enjoy them.  Then I had a better idea.  How about a little bouquet for my windowsill where I could enjoy them much more frequently?

Yup, good idea.

And don’t you love the pretty vase?  Here’s a true story.  I bought it from the glass factory in Corning which we visited on a road trip several years ago.  I bought it as a gift for someone.  But then I kept it.  *gasp*  Are you appalled?  Please tell me you’ve never done anything like that.

 

But it was worth it if only for the sake of a pretty composition like this on my kitchen windowsill.  And thank you Oma for growing these beautiful blooms which we can now still enjoy.

What Lies Beneath

Another pretty snowfall during the night.  And look what it is falling on at this time of year.  Trees already budding with the promise of spring.  An opportunity for some pretty photographs.  Before the sun comes up too high, changes the light, and melts the snow.

That’s what the sun will do.  Melt away the cold and the heaviness that covers and weighs down.  Nurture and feed the hope of new life beneath.

What a beautiful life lesson from nature.  Allow what is hopeful and good to be nurtured.  It will bloom in its time.

I see the snow already melting.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson