Archive for March, 2010

posted by Danielle
31 Mar

add washing wool in hot water to my ever-growing hobbies…

It is true.

Ever since my slippers… and then when Feltique was given from Santa over the holidays….

I am obsessed with finding wool to wash.  Sometimes its wool yarn, but lately it’s 100% wool sweaters.

The possibilities are endless with all that felt.

One is this cutey flower brooch I just made as a lil Easter present…

The three layers on blue felt (former sweater) are sandwiched between a pin on the back and some wool roving I needle-felted into the center.

Mmm spring!

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posted by Brianne
30 Mar

Plan for the backyard

 Before we show you the progress we made on the back yard this weekend, we wanted to give you an idea of our transformational plans for the space. The last you saw, the Locust tree had been chopped but the stump remained. Since, the stump has been removed in turn for mulch, and we have a great big area of open space to play in. As an added bonus, there are some lilacs that provide the border to our yard with the eastern neighbors and they are just thriving in the sun. The backyard is much warmer and i think will be a better place to hang out once we  get this all done.

So, being an architect and all, here is a plan of what we hope the yard will look like someday:
Here is a description of what we are thinking:
 
1. Patio. We will lay a 12′ x 17′ concrete paver patio below the dining room window just adjacent to the back of the house. We are planning a 2′ border bed between the patio and the house to give a backdrop that isn’t just yellow vinyl siding. We did some research last weekend, and decided to go with 8″x16″ gray concrete pavers in a quarter turn pattern. Yes, its a budget approach. Yes, we are on a budget. There are about a million things that look nicer, but we’re hoping this will be clean, simple, with a little geometry.
 

Shown for pattern. Different scale and color

In the bed against the house, we have a couple perennials, including day lilies, irises, St. Elmo’s fire Lobelia, and some English Daisies. Some of these we bought at the NW Perennial Alliance sale, and some were very generously gifted by D’s mom, Lisa. (and flown back from NJ in the procress!). Then, around those we will plant some bulbs for summer blooms, specifically gladiolus, ranunculas, and a mix of crocosmias. Colors are mostly red, orange, and pink to complement our yellow house.

photocredit: www.easytogrowbulbs.com

photo credit: www.naturehills.com

Lobelia

Adjacent to the patio we will also have a rain barrel as a simple sustainable way to water some of the nearby plants. We won’t be watering the yard or anything with it, however, because it turn out a 55 gallon barrel doesn’t go nearly as far as you think! Eventually the patio area will get a fire pit or pizza oven, but thats too ambitious for this summer.
 
2. Raised beds. At the east edge of the yard (left as you’re looking to the back of the property), where the tree used to live, we will have a series of raised beds. 4 for now, but with room to grow. We have been building these out of our reclaimed cedar that we scored off craigslist for $80 total. We adapted a simple design from Sunset with varying shapes staggered, and they’re looking pretty good.
We intentionally are leaving space between the beds and the east fence so that we can access from both sides to weed, plant, prune, etc. Behind we will plant walkable groundcover of baby tears (don’t ask me why its named this) and stepping stones to make a nice pathway.

I left the photo credit right on there because i think it is HILARIOUS that there is a website dedicated to the plants of Disneyland. Baby Tears are from the New Orleans section, which seems fitting.

 
The front bed will be our dahlia garden. We bought, oh, about 15 varieties (yah, we got a little out of control at the nursery). This bed we built a little taller so it can double as a bench at the corner (thats  a seperate project). Second bed, logan berries in a shallow bed so we can pick easily from both sides. Third bed, veggies including lettuce, tomatoes, leeks, shallots, and who knows what else. Fourth bed, more veggies and some harvest items like zucchini, squash, pumpkin, etc.

photo credit: Brandon James

 
At the front of the raised beds, we plan to wrap the corner with three herbaceous peonies which should provide good pops of color before the dahlias bloom. One dark pink, one medium, one white.

photo credit: angelevallieres

 
3. Fence border. This is where we still have 2 fairly scraggly trees – 1 hawthorne and 1 hawthorne/cherry growing together. Also a simple chain link fence. So, we have some screening grasses (zebra grass), a large flowering perennial (kerria japonica gifted from my aunt barb) shade perennials (hostas, hellebore, ferns) and a wildflower garden planned. The wildflower garden will grow along the west side of our property to the location where our new compost bin is planned. An area that won’t get much attention but will still hopefully look nice.

This is the zebra grass we are looking at. It blooms pink in the winter which might make our backyard not a desolate wasteland. Unfortunately, most online nurseries wont ship tropical grasses to WA, so we have to find it locally.

photo credit: Auburn University

 

We will use this as a screening element

photo credit: www.theinspiredgarden_net

For now the back of the yard is going to stay as-is. We have a nice-ish cherry, some holly, and various native perennials holding down the fort back there. We have great privacy from the neighbors, and it adds a little shade, so we’re good with that. We’ll have the wood pile (stacked like Lincoln logs) along the fence back there to add a little visual interest.
 
While it might seem like we are leaving not much open space, have no fear. We have made sure to leave plenty of lawn for resale value. With an elementary school and church on our street, we are quite aware that we are appealing to young families and want to leave lots of grass to run and play. However, we just have a lot more land than we thought!
Stay tuned for preliminary progress photos.
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posted by Danielle
28 Mar

I’ve got something to say…

…So why not say it in the form of cookie?

Seriously everything is better with sugar and yummy.

B got me these (appropriately named Message in a Cookie)  from Williams Sonoma.  I love them!  {Rumor has it they are back ordered, sadly, but hopefully not  forever!}

I tried them out a few weeks ago for a birthday at work… because happy birthday is better personalized….

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posted by Danielle
24 Mar

Hilarious Wine Tags

Haha! I am guilty of the latter of these on SO many occasions. Its the designer in me.

via Cup of Jo who is hosting a giveaway to Papermash, the creator of these fun tags. Check it out! [by the way, i love love LOVE that mini-bunting on their homepage made from vintage seed packets!]

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posted by Danielle
22 Mar

IKEA Outdoors

The other night on the way to the airport, we made a quick detour into IKEA for a few things we have been needing: specific-sized picture frames, curtain rods, wall hooks, and, to take a gander through the new outdoor offerings for this summer’s patio.

These are just a few of the things we saw: we managed to restrain ourselves to a snippet of these. But, they have some nicely designed items that are sure to quickly and affordably liven up anyone’s outdoor space.

Solar Powered Table Lamps (these also come in pendant version if you have somewhere to hang from: i wish we did!)

Solar powered lantern chain (Did not buy, but turquoise: CUTE!)

Acacia and Poly Lounger

Fun festive gardening bags. Could also be used for gift giving, knitting baskets, etc.

Swoopy Plant Pot

Pretty sangria pitcher

What we did buy were some turquoise seat covers for our new patio chairs which should arrive soon, and some very cute striped patio glassware, but i can’t find these online.

Can’t wait to go back to raid their fabric-by-the-yard section for some new projects!

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