Fall into Christmas-- outdoor decor for the cheap and chic :)

I know, I know, people hate the mention of Christmas before Halloween (my other favourite time of year), but sometimes you need to plan in order to get the best deal and really max it out!    SO... that said, I have created a Christmas project I want to share -  tell me what you think :)

Its called a flower tower.  I saw this on Pinterest and immediately fell in love.  The colours are perfect for Fall and will appear Christmas-y when the time comes :D Even if my coleus isn't red!

BUT...60+ seedlings are a bit pricey, especially if you want the "grand mama/ mac daddy" version - and I do! So I set about 40+ cuttings from my own garden in water and waited until they rooted. (See, this stuff takes time.) I gathered some chicken wire, wire cutters, small zip/cable ties, soil, a length of PVC pipe, my drill and a clay pot.


I mostly followed their directions -- except I didn't have the type of wire they required and used chicken wire instead, which was in a roll in my basement. Needless to say the ultra sturdy chicken wire caused some problems (cutting this stuff is hard!) but I think I solved them... (band aids and gloves!) The original instructions are here. But basically you line the wire with landscape fabric, the kind that keeps the weeds out. Form the wire into a circle so it fits in the pot, cut to size, secure the circle with the ties and add soil. Water half way to pack the soil down. Fill to top. Insert pipe*. Then poke small holes through the wire and fabric and insert the plants. BINGO!, Bob's your uncle, and all that jazz - ok enough cliches, you get the point!

I made another small modification to the project because my tower is a big tower! I added a PVC pipe down the centre of the pot with about 20 holes drilled in random spots along the pipe. Ann's suggestion... better watering -- its still hot outside, can't let the babies dry out. 

Insert plants into the holes

I'm at the hurry up and wait stage, as its catching itself.  Soon I will shape it  into the pyramid shape, it will be lush and beautiful -- better than the  Pinterest one because I spent 0.00 $ on the plants. Nada/ zip/ nothing!!!  Come Christmas you'll wish you had been more forward thinking-- in September!  Note: coleus gets stronger colours if put in direct sun.. but wait until its fully caught before putting in direct sun- don't want to kill the babies! 

Looking a bit droopy at first!

Here it is a few days later looking much perkier!

 

As an aside, I'm going to demonstrate this project at Gorham's on October 5th, come and see how much better it looks after a little time!



Merry September!
TD








 

Cork obsession

A while back my daughter started collecting corks.  She collected thousands of them!  Sadly she revealed this obsession to the entire school when they asked for a small profile on each girl.  Most of the other girls rabbited on about American Girls or some other inane endeavour.  My proud daughter was into corks AND seemed to have an endless supply. The parents at the assembly appeared somewhat disapproving, oh well...

Like the good mother I am, I took those corks and decided to give them a high profile space in our home :) I had a small closet about 3' x 3', located just before the door to the patio -- just sitting empty.  I figured those precious corks would make good 'wall paper' for my new wet bar / wine closet.  I scored some free -- (Don't you just love that word?  Free!!) -- authentic wine cellar racking from a restaurant that was upgrading their cellars so I knew I could pull it off.


Here was the plan... I needed my skill saw, a hot glue gun, a hammer and some nails - pretty simple stuff!

A few sticking out to hold openers 'n stuff

See the shelves & fridge below

A friend popped by as I was working and helped me cut the racking to fit above the existing shelf in the closet and secure it with a few screws.  Next I began gluing corks to the walls using an alternating herringbone type pattern. I tried initially to match corks but I gave that matching thing up!  I glued thousands onto the walls - that took forever!!!!!!  If nothing else, I am a dedicated mother! I did it in stages, using the space as I went along gluing. I have to admit to needing to supplement her collection and went begging to my wine loving friends.

Brads up through centre of corks

ceiling view

I decided to use champagne corks to decorate the ceiling and to hold a few wine glasses.  I hammered brads into the centre of the champagne corks to secure the glass holders (brads = skinny nails about an inch+ long).  No point breaking the glasses. Then I added a mini fridge below the existing shelf to store beer, sodas, etc.

Lastly, (can I get an AMEN!) I added a few personal touches like an old school metal coca-cola bottle opener, ice buckets, coasters, stir sticks, some fabulously tacky paper drink umbrellas and of course, the wine :)

A good friend found this special cork (Burgess Cellars) and made this  shadow box for the door of my wet bar/ wine closet.  Perfect!  Who knew my family had cellar(s) ?!  Thirst, be gone!

Cheers!  what do you think?

TD

lady in waiting (warning no tools used on this beauty!)

Earlier this summer I was at a pop up show event and and spotted a wire framed woman's corset.  It was just like the ones dressmakers / tailors would have used except wire.  It was love at first sight -- I had to have it.

my wire lady :)

I had dreams of beautiful flowers trailing out of it  and designing the entire outfit with plant material.  My teeth were sweating at the prospect.  I walked by it and stared  a dozen times, praying no one else would buy it.  NO one did, not even me.  The shop closed down  :(

But because I believe that if you picture it and wish hard enough, it will eventually come true -- I got it!  The shop reopened and had a sale on items left over!  My lady was waiting there for me Yayyyyyy!

I seized her and dragged the life sized form to my carruck.  An older couple looked on curiously, perhaps my fervor was seeping out?!  They asked what I  was planning to do with "that wire thing".   Grrrrrr.  Some people - the kill joy types - have no vision.  I pictured roses trailing from  the hem, I could almost smell them I was sooo caught up,  only  to have those people momentarily enter my reverie with that sour, pinched face, eyebrows at the hairline look, as if they smelled something bad.

I composed my face, remembering my school girl manners "Good afternoon!" I  crowed proudly,  "I will have flowers and the like trailing from it, it will be a garden decoration"  I chirped.

"Oh... well, I suppose we hadn't though of that... we couldn't imagine what on earth you would want that for,"  they replied smugly.  Grrrr... Forget them, fast forward, I have it at home.

First I run to my unkempt Chinese fan palm tree and grab all the mesh that I can put my hands on.  I will need quite a bit to create the dress and to hold the soil inside.  Luckily there was loads of material for me to use.  I stuffed it inside, creating a brown dress.

miniature wandering Jew

Next stop the lower garden where I had planted some form of miniature wandering Jew, hoping that it would  make a good ground cover - it didn't.  But like most invasive type plants it had spread like crazy (something else to address later :s )  Anyway for now it was a delicate almost lacy, purple and green leaf.  Just right for the interim period it will take to get those roses to materialise.

I  poured soil in the inside using the mesh as a make shift planter and poked the plants into it along the bottom.  In the top I put two small pots filled with the wandering Jew plants.

Perfect, easy and very pretty.    I purchased a few trailing roses and set them aside.  These will take months to do what I want  them to do and besides,  it's August...   Now I just have to spritz regularly and enjoy-- hopefully next spring when the roses are trailing I will see that couple again.  I will carry a picture with me, just in case!  I bet they'll wish they had found her first.  I bet they won't have that pinched face look at all .. HA! all mine :)

Hang in there - it will be beautiful, you'll see :)

TD

Blue and blue, perfect teamwork!

Hello big world!  Recently I sat with a friend -the mosaic fiend, talking about a bench seat I wanted to make.  We scanned the oracle (Internet) for inspiration and came up with the idea for this next project.  A pallet type bench with mosaics. See here.

Mosaic and wood bench in blue hues :)

But instead of pallets I found some old bed slats from an ikea bed.  They were better because they were in a predetermined length and fully 'dressed' .  That's sanded and nice looking for you non tool types :).  In any case I set to work.  I used 8 slats from the bed and used a portion of a long piece of 2 x4 roof  lumber.  I had the roof wood because last hurricane my ceiling fell in and VOILA! I had a beautiful open beam ceiling.  The earth moves in mysterious ways... Fortunately I wasn't injured, just a bonus stack of wood and a new and beautiful view.  It makes staring at the ceiling or non ceiling a pleasure, but I digress...

For this project I needed my skill saw, drill, hammer, stain, grout, stained glass and a few brackets to stabilise the legs.







I took the slats and stacked them on top of each other so there was about an inch or so gap between them.  Three for the top two on the bottom allowing for 2 gaps in which to lay mosaics.   I decided how high I wanted the bench to be and cut 4 legs.  Next I stained the wood and labelled the bottom side with a 'B'



Once dry I assembled the top portion, stacked 3 and 2.  Then I screwed the sides to it.  I used two of the ikea slats for the sides as they were already the perfect size.  Next I cut the short end pieces from the slats and screwed them in.  Table top done!

I flipped that baby over and stuck a leg in each corner, I used 4 L brackets to keep them in place.  It was all together but it wobbled :(.   To further stabilise it I cut 2 more pieces from the roof wood, they were about 4.5 inches long.  Wide enough to keep the legs uniformly apart, that worked. Yeah!  Table complete... Two gaping holes waiting for some stained glass!

This started a big debate!!  My friend is a strong willed woman (so am I!)  My friend advised carefully planning the pattern on a separate piece of paper.  She recommended that I draw a strip the size of the gaps and lay the glass in,  as if it were the table.  Harrumph... This wasn't the way I wanted to go, it was slowing up my free flowing creative vibe...


I gave in and did it her way - so not like me :) but realistically she does know a thing about mosaics and the vision in my head was a thing of beauty.  Good thing I listened to her because she gave me the most valuable piece of advice, something I never would have considered!!!

Once we had the pattern set it was time to grout and place the pieces.  I used un-sanded grout in a grey colour.

mixes with water

 White would have been too stark.  I mixed the grout,  a little at a time, according to the instructions ('cause it hardens!) and started placing the pieces.  It didn't fit exactly as it had on the paper but it was close enough... Fantastic! I loved it :) we did one side at a time.  Her advice... DO
NOT throw the grout down the drain, don't even was your hands in the sink.  Think major plumbing bills as that stuff hardens in the pipes ... can you imagine? Would have cost a mint!!!  That certainly never occurred to me, phew!  Pays to listen to advice and take a back seat sometimes :).  On that note, another friend popped in as we were grouting and suggested the following modification to the last glasssection.  He suggested that we add a strip of wood as a filler, so we didn't have to use as much grout.  Made sense, we did that in side 2 with no ill effects, just less drying time.


Once the 2 stained glass strips were in, I wiped them with a damp sponge to remove the excess grout from the glass.  I did his several times, even used a fine sanding block to make sure all the excess was off ...ah... A thing of beauty.  Blue and more blue, reminiscent of my cricket team colours - how timely!



Tool Diva

Ps check tooldiva out on Pinterest, follow my latest projects!

My ocean themed penny loo :)

Fortunately or unfortunately my home had all ensuite bathrooms.  Do you know what that meant???? It meant that my bathroom got used as the default bathroom for guests. All my daughters friends, my friends and miscellaneous 'guests' would cruise through my sanctuary to use the loo :( big time!   I had to be super diligent, cleaning every day--- ain't nobody got time for that!

Time to get creative...  I did have a hall closet filled with stuff...  The closet was an old school jobbie, with a heavy galvanised pipe running the length.  I guess just in case someone might want to hang meat there(?!!).   It had wood panelled walls and was quite narrow about 26 inches wide BUT it was almost 6 feet long. PERFECT for a little loo, powder room etc etc. yaaaaaaay, let the angels scream "Hallelujah! ... now get out of my room!!!!!"

First - ditch the junk! I mean who ever opened that door?     I have to confess, I found the perfect sink vanity for sale on line, something about a designer's mistake... I've since which seen their brothers in a local restaurant - lucky me.  Next the smallest adult toilet I could find and a curio shelf, some fish a few pennies and presto "penny loo!"

glass and wood vanity

Looked right but it needed to work... we definitely need professionals, can't wing that kind of plumbing, could be a disaster of epic and smelly proportions!

Nassau Grouper by local artist, glass xmas balls with shells & pennies

About the decor .. I couldn't decide between an ocean or a penny theme so I combined it.  What do you think? I love it...ok, so no hefties, I better keep eating salads!







toodiva :)

I'm blind to you!

Recently, I was in a potential clients office and she spoke about being blind to the chipped paint and the worn look of a her building because she was there everyday and she knew the intrinsic value of the place and all the good things that came out of it.  She likened it to not being able to see the weeds amongst the flowers growing in her garden.  I realised I was the same way with my 2 garden hoses.

This  extra long monstrosity was in my driveway looking like a tangled python about to attack.  Bikes perched nervously around it.   The vicious coils threatened to smash my flower pots every time I dragged the hose around the garden.

I made a sad attempt to mount a plastic hose organiser to the soft stone wall  near the tap but needless to say, one pull and it was back in its favourite spot - right in my driveway, the first thing you saw when you visited,  never mind the debris that always gathered there uggh!  Not what I would call curb appeal :(

I had to make this work and I didn't want to lay out any beans because technically I had a hose organiser, I just needed to make it work and make it attractive.

I went into my basement to get some inspiration and there I saw it.  Four inch PVC pipe cutoffs and a cap that looked a bit like a hat.  Mind you the cap didn't fit exactly but looked official on top of the pipe, a kinda 'Gentleman Hose' vision floated through my head.  I had visions of a moustached pole gentleman holding my perfectly organised hose...    yaaaay, I figured I was on to something....

First I grabbed the black spray paint- think tux, then I assembled my saw so I could cut the PVC pipe, a drill to mount the hose organiser thingy, PVC cement glue, and a hoe and spade to dig the hole in which to sink the pipe.  I also grabbed a piece of reinforcement rod -just in case- all I needed now was some concrete mixture to set the pipe in the hole...  Hardware store trip ... Rockite... that's a quick setting concrete like mixture, easy to use - a bit like cake mix.  Just add water, stir, and Bob's your hose man!

Drying my pipe :)

Can't you see it as a hat?

 Those bejeweled, well coiffed, uniformed ladies at the hardware store always glance sideways at me.  Is it the glazed look in my eye or is it the mis-matched  clothing and hair covered with paint splatter  that's trying to masquerade as grey patches, who knows?  I'm just glad I can't read minds!

I measured the height of the pipe for the space.  Marked where I wanted the organiser bit to go and then drilled the holes.  Next I sprayed pipe and cap with the paint then left them to dry in the sun while I dug the hole. It had to be bigger than the pipe and deep enough to provide support for the contraption.  When that was dry I mounted the hose organiser to the pipe.

Next, I poured the rockite (batter) in the hole and put the pipe in and let that set (1 hour). I toyed with how I was going to make it look like a tuxedo man, or even a crazy nutcracker (!) but since I have the art ability of a drunken flea, I soon gave up -- consoling myself, I could and would eventually make this work.  I just need to consult someone with some artistic ability...  For now, my hose was up off the ground and the bikes given a few more feet to park... good enough!   Wait...  look at the picture...seems my caruck needs washing :(

Td

Having everything you need :)

Sometimes, you get to looking around and start mentally complaining and comparing your situation to other peoples situation, to people who seems to have it all sorted! The truth is, that it is very likely that we already have everything we need.  I started with this thought as I eyed the fabby sail cloth/ shade I had rigged up over my patio.  It was done in a really bush league kind of a way and it quietly irritated me :(  My quick and dirty set up was tied from the fence posts; between the invasive but beautiful passion flowers; to the rafter feet, and looked at best-- temporary. I was able to momentarily console myself saying it was easy to take down in case of a storm /hurricane. Laziness is a disease! Wanting things to be different and doing something about it are two different animals...

My angst was likely fuelled by the fact that some friends of mine had purchased similar shades and had theirs up and it looked super.   Never mind that they invited me over for cocktails AND to gloat over how wonderful theirs looked!! I had to do better! And with my new mantra, I already had everything I needed to make it right.   So I walked around the house and noted some old  1.25 inch galvanised piping I had from dismantling part of an old chain link fence.  It was almost invisible as vines had grown over it hiding it from view and excusing me from having to put it away or discard it. ( yikes!)  I also had the bits for the top and the pipe was in very long pieces of 20 feet, long enough to use for my project.  Presto, acknowledge and be grateful for what you have and more appears! Yaaaaaaaayyyy!

So I got out my hack saw - for cutting metal, a tape measure, my hammer, rubber mallet and a spare piece of left over wood for cushioning the pipe and got to work.  I cut the pole into 10 foot lengths.  I took the spare piece of wood and covered the top of the pole and banged it into the ground so it lined up with the side of the pillar cap -- so maybe a foot or more was underground.

It wasn't quite sturdy enough, I knew I needed to fasten it more securely.  Mainly because those pipes would be lethal if they fell on someone or something in a windstorm - using the sail cloth as a "sail!" (think lovely wrought iron and glass table). I took advice on the best way to do this and, after a trip to the hardware store, came back with Lag bolts/ shields etc for fastening to concrete.  This part took strength, I usually YouTube how to do everything, but this time I figured I knew best.  Using body weight to force the drill into the concrete was tough but I managed. It looked professional but industrial, not quite the look I wanted but ok..

I wanted it to look better than professional so I took some manilla rope - left over from the ottoman project- and wrapped and glued it to the pole.  I had to undo the bolts to get the rope to go under the fastener strap, but the end result is just what I was looking for.  Last was tying the sail rope to the cap at the top, which conveniently had a little hole in it....  Voila! 




All done and looking perfect. Martha eat your heart out!